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Subtle (and not-so-subtle) humor in scientific literature
Tonight I was scrolling through my RSS aggregator (which includes subscriptions for several journals I follow) and the abstract for All Your Base: a fast and accurate probabilistic approach to base calling caught my attention. The article's title, as well as the name of the software it describes, includes a subtle reference to the popular internet meme All Your Base Are Belong to Us. This gave me a good laugh, and an excuse to watch that ridiculously silly video again.
But on a more serious note, this is not the first time I have seen the use of subtle (or not-so-subtle) humor in the title of a scientific journal article, conference abstract, or poster presentation. Sometimes the humor is even injected into the body of the publication itself. But in general, we as scientists are expected to write in such a way that our findings are easily communicated and easily reproducible. The focus is on clarity, objectivity, and reproducibility.
There are of course no formal rules about the use of humor in scientific literature, but are there any de facto rules? Do these de facto rules depend on the field (computer science vs genetics) or the publisher (Oxford Univ. Press vs BioMed Central) or the journal's impact factor (Nature vs Frontiers in Genetics)? Does humor even have a place in scientific literature, or would we be better off without it?

See this related question on the theoretical computer science SE site.  (Warning: lots of inside baseball.)

The PhD challenge would be an example of not-so-subtle humor in scientific literature, I guess.

Related: question on humorous author pictures.

Tonight I was scrolling through my RSS aggregator -- ah, the question was asked 10 years ago (before platforms killed RSS).

The link to phdchallenge.org (mentioned in a comment above) is broken, but a snapshot is saved on the Wayback Machine.

@henning RSS isn't as ubiquitous as it used to be, but far from dead. Certainly academic journals seem to support it well, but maybe that varies between fields?

@Anyon yes, most journals still support it, although you have to dig. And some unfortunately did drop support.

I see humorous titles in scientific articles now and again, like the "Wizard of Odds" joke in a recent commentary in Epidemiology. One should however be somewhat cautious. The general use of "marketing gimmicks" like questions in the title have been suggested to increase downloads but not actual citations - which flawed or not flawed form the basis for how both the paper and you as the author are evaluated.
Consider this finding:

The results of the current study indicate that in two prestigious scientific journals in psychology the use of exceptionally amusing titles (2 standard deviations above the average rated amusement) was associated with a substantiate ‘penalty’ of around 33% of the total number of citations. The present results were found in both of the examined journals and cannot be attributed to potential moderating effects of the title length and pleasantness, the number of authors, the year of publica- tion, and the article type (regular article vs comment).

While that might not be perfectly generalizable, I think it's pretty easy to say that being overly clever is hazardous.

The finding you link is a bit inconclusive — in particular it doesn’t strongly imply that humorous titles harm the paper in any way.  For instance, it could be caused entirely by selection bias — a joking title doesn’t affect how much a paper is cited, but does boost its chances of publication in these prestigious journals, so the papers in those journals with humorous titles are, on average, not as strong as the rest.

The NCBI ROFL blog is a good source of intentional and unintentional humour in the scientific literature.
In general I think we can get a little too po-faced about the "importance" of the scientific literature, and a little humour now and then (used wisely) can help to make a point. It is an easy thing to misjudge, however, and I think it is true that no humour at all is vastly preferable to bad humour.

The blog was renamed to "Seriously, Science?", and is paywalled.  The article titles I saw seem to be serious articles on topics that the blog editors think are funny (flatulence in astronauts, bee stings on sensitive body parts, etc).

The brief answer is that, yes, humor has its place, but

it should never be used at the expense of the integrity of the results;
even when used, it is often only used sparsely; and
the author typically is somewhat known in the field. (You rarely find a very young professor publishing something like that.)

I wrote a paper with a colleague where we used a fictitious motivating example with Dr Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker from Muppet Labs (the machine learning part of the example was very real).  We used this fictitious setting because we didn't want to name and shame a real person (likely to be an early career researcher) that had fallen into the pitfall we wanted to discuss (it is a fairly common pitfall).  It never got published in a journal because the reviewers thought this use of humour was inappropriate.  Personally I thought it made the point clearly and in a more memorable way and avoided unnecessary singling out of particular individuals, so I rather disagreed with the reviewers on this one.  Humour (or at least not being completely serious) can help communicate serious ideas, which is the purpose of writing papers.
Of course we could have just presented the results of the motivating example, but that would have been very dull and unlikely to be memorable for the students, practitioners and early career researchers who need to know about the pitfall so they don't fall into it themselves.

I would be careful with humour in publications mostly because the reviewers might not appreciate it, especially if it's something they might not understand because their native language is not English. Having a paper rejected because a reviewer didn't appreciate your attempt at humour is not something I'd be very keen on.


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Should I explain why I took grad classes at the same place I did my undergrad in my Statement of Purpose for graduate school applications?
I graduated last spring with my BS and intended to go to graduate school. I accepted an offer from (Big State School). However, during the summer before I could go, one of my parents became terminally ill; so I ended up declining the offer (well after the acceptance deadline) to move back in with my parents and help them out. At the same time, I also arranged it with my undergraduate institution to continue towards my masters there (since I had already acquired a bit of graduate credit) with the intention of transferring to complete my PhD elsewhere.
I am considering mentioning in my statement of purpose the reason why I graduated as an undergrad, have a semester gap, and then started taking graduate classes again at my old institution (I've heard going to grad school at the same place you did your undergrad looks bad?). But I'm also not sure if it's relevant to applications or even the sort of thing that belongs in a statement of purpose.
Would it be in poor form to do this, or should I leave such things out of application materials?
(Reposted from Math SE.)

Yes, you should mention your situation in your statement, briefly and unapologetically.  Omitting any explanation might raise a red flag with admissions committees, and most people will be sympathetic to your family situation.
You might also get back in touch with (Big State School) to see if they would be willing to reactivate your earlier admission.  It's a long shot, but it couldn't hurt.

I agree with @JeffE's answer, but would reiterate that you should mention the situation briefly.  You may want to consider a short addendum to your statement of purpose so as to keep the statement of purpose completely on topic.  As to your concern about "going to grad school at the same place you did your undergrad look[ing] bad," your situation will cover that, but it is not uncommon for students to get their master's at their undergraduate school and their PhD elsewhere.  That said, some of the best scientists I've known have received their PhDs at their undergraduate institutions, and ultimately it is your publishing record that will make or break future employment opportunities.

In many fields, it is now considered less acceptable to do all of one's education at the same school. If the student's discipline is one of them, this should be taken into account.

Better than just mentioning it in passing in your application would be to reflect on the illness and how that life experience has helped prepare you for graduate school/research.

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What's the tangible benefit of titles like FBCS, CEng, FRSE, FIET, FREng in the UK?
I am an associate professor in computer science. I see a lot of academics with titles like FBCS, CEng, FRSE, FIET, FREng. I was wondering, what's the tangible benefit of these titles? I know that memberships of things like ACM and IEEE give access to online libraries and discounted registration rates. But it is unclear to me what benefits these titles bring.

How are titles relate to discounts? ACM gives discounts to students but it isn't based on titles? Some things you list are honorifics. I'm guessing that FBCS is Fellow of the British Computer Society. That likely assumes membership.

If you are a senior ACM member, you get discounted registration rates at ACM sponsored conferences. Most of the titles I list above require submitting an application and paying an annual fee.

Are you asking about Qualifications; Degrees; Titles, or about Memberships?
CEng is a Qualification; FBCS is a Membership (possibly honorary, ie free) ....

@MohamedKhamis Is that true? All ACM sponsored events I know of have a standard member rate, and the only discount is for student members. It would be strange to imagine to give a special rebate to senior members or fellows, since these also do not tend to be the people who need a discounted rate.

I'm going to be pedantic here: These are not titles but postnominals. Titles always precede a name (like Dr. for example).
They are used to indicate professional qualifications in the same way that using B.Sc and M.Sc are used as  a postnominal to indicate qualification of a Bachelor's or Master's degree, which you are familiar with. A degree of professional experience is required to gain these professional qualifications which will occur beyond an academic qualification.
What are the benefits? Use of these titles indicates several things:

They indicate the subject area one specialises in
They indicate that someone has practiced in that area for a period of time beyond a university degree
They indicate your level of experience is recognised by your professional peers

Now for some detail:
CEng: A Chartered Engineer; awarded by the Engineering Council
FBCS: Fellow of the British Computer Society; shows engineering in computing in some form. Fellow is a senior level. MBCS would be a lower level.
FRSE: Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh; Recognised as a senior Scientist in Scotland.
FIET: Fellow of the IET (formerly IEE) which shows some form of electronic engineering is recognised at a higher level.
and so on.
There are also Professional titles that are used as pre-nominals. Eur Ing is one and is used in the German style (even in the UK) so you can be:
Eur Ing Prof Person
(I have both pre-nominal titles and post-nominal letters)

+1 It's worth noting that not all postnomials are equal in terms of their significance. Some (e.g. FRS - Fellow of the Royal Society) are highly-prized and awarded for high distinction. Others are available to anyone with a relevant degree and a willingness to pay an annual fee.

@avid And some postnomials are just 'BS'.

A small note - the IET since its rebranding as the Institute of Engineering Technology covers all engineering disciplines, not just electrical. I know many fellows within the IET with no electrical background at all.

Just to add to the above post. FHEA is often seen (Fellow of the Advance HE - formerly Higher Education Academy) is essentially a teaching qualification and is often required for UK academics now. Chartership (CEng) with the relevant bodies IStructE (Institution of Structural Engineers), ICE (Institution of Civil Engineers), etc is a factor for the accreditation of engineering degree programs (a minimum number of staff members must hold chartership).

Following on to the excellent answer by Brian Tompsett above, I'd like to highlight that there are a rather large number of learned societies that one can join or may be relevant to an academic discipline, and that the relative importance of these varies hugely on a sector-by-sector basis.
For example, being a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, a fellow of the Institute of Physics, or -- better yet! -- the Royal Society is a significant national or international honour: most university astronomy / physics departments would not have 100% of their academic staff with such a qualification, for example (and FRS in particular is very highly prized). Displaying these postnomials in a formal setting conveys some degree of objective evaluation of the quality of one's work -- for FRS in particular it is a significant demonstration of excellence (who wouldn't want to be in a club with ~280 Nobel laureates and many of the great scientific names in history?). There are also some practical benefits to membership: beyond journal access (which is a significant boon to those in industry or for those whose universities do not subscribe to the journal of interest), continuing professional development, and frequently a professional e-mail address, most learned bodies have a tax break on their membership fees (you can add them to your personal allowance, provided they are on an approved list), free or discounted training courses, a variety of "perks" (such as free or discounted insurance) and a (usually surprisingly good) society magazine.
One "big" reason a lot of academics join these organisations is because it often makes you eligible to apply for grant funding from them. Some may join because they have benefited from grant funding and wish to contribute something back (somewhat unusually, I personally was given £4k by the IOP as an undergraduate student as part of a bursary scheme). Frequently an academic conference will be organised with a rate that is "discounted" for members and significantly increased in price for those who are not members. This encourages those with an interest in the field to pay the (usually quite small) subscription fees (and also provides a pathway to have them reimbursed by their employers, although this is complicated from a tax point of view)
In contrast, in medicine, fellowship of the relevant Royal College of a medical speciality -- for example the Royal College of Anaesthetists -- is far more common, comparatively speaking, because it is a highly practical and valued qualification: essentially (high-level) doctors who are anaesthetists trained in the UK will hold the "final FRCA" because "they [are] required to pass this examination during ST3-5 (6 months through ST5 [i.e. approximately 3-5 years after starting training in anaesthetics]), otherwise training may be delayed or stopped". This is a professional exam and essentially confers a license to practice: candidates are only allowed to take the (notoriously difficult) exam six times and failing it then would end their career (in anaesthetics) -- quite a different outcome to failing to get "brownie points" for an already extant academic career. This is in addition to the more "general" set of other exams and qualifications that doctors are required to obtain -- at the very least, membership of the royal college of physicians or surgeons (as befits their training) which itself can be "upgraded" to fellowship but only for "distinguished consultants" and others whom the royal college considers to be worthy of the accolade -- typically academics in medicine, SAS doctors, or those who have been recommended by their peers. As well as being legally mandated, a lot of the time membership of these bodies confers with it some degree of indemnity insurance, but the specifics of this vary (and get quite complicated). The other perks listed above are present, but usually to a lesser degree.  I should also say that arrangements in Scotland are similar but distinct entirely because of historical reasons (arguably all of the above exists entirely because of historical reasons! It's a glorified apprenticeship scheme!)
As a consequence of this requirement, academics in medicine tend to accumulate a lot of professional body memberships and with them postnomials: the (legally required) first degree in medicine (e.g. BmBCh), a later (legally required) MRCP / FRCP or similar, specialist training qualifications (FRCA), an optional PhD, DPhil or MD, and quite often then membership of other related learned bodies if relevant to their research or practice interests (e.g. our hypothetical anaesthetist interested in Intensive Care Medicine might well also become...a Fellow of the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine -- or perhaps may apply to join the Difficult Airway Society -- or any one of a number of different options).
I am an academic and a member of two UK substantial professional bodies, one that you would have to be in my field to have ever heard of, and one international one. The benefits I get are indemnity insurance, a professional email address, a vague sense of recognition from my peers, and I have been invited to provide advice to the (UK) government on areas I am professionally competent in through them. I also have the ability to walk into one of a number of beautiful buildings in central London and have a free cup of coffee, should the desire overwhelm me to do so.
I guess, therefore, in summary:

Postnominal titles like FRS, FRSE, FREng, FRSC, FInstP, etc, convey prestige and an (allegedly) objective evaluation of one's work in certain fields -- that is arguably their primary purpose

Relatedly to the above point, membership of learned societies or professional bodies allows networking, peer recognition, and formal opportunities to advise government bodies

Membership provides access to journals, continuing education, professional email addresses, training courses, insurance discounts, and sometimes even shopping discounts (the IOP give me a discount on the apple store!)

There are tax incentives for membership in the UK (it often works out cheap, or cost-neutral)

Academics often join to become eligible for grant funding from these bodies or to obtain a discount on attending a society-organised conference

In medicine in particular, fellowships like FRCA are effectively  required to practice certain specialisms; MRCP at the minimum is required to practice as a doctor.

Membership may come with indemnity insurance and other practical benefits for those in a particular area, again relevant for (academic) medicine.

It provides access to facilities and (often quite prestigious)  buildings for academic conferences or social gatherings -- often at cost-price. I've organised conferences through the IOP and they literally charge delegates what the food costs, not even accounting for staff time. No commercial organisation does that. I was in the royal society last Thursday at an event organising by the UK government and invited to give my opinion on things. The food was excellent and I am sure that they got my name by searching through a list by research interest.

These are all benefits -- some of them much more tangible than others.

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Famous professor refuses to cite my paper that was published before him in the same area
I wrote a paper that had a similar idea to a paper that a famous professor wrote. I put my paper in arXiv. He put his paper on arXiv after me. I asked him to cite my paper, but he outright refused to do that, even though it was obviously the same idea.
His paper got accepted at a prominent conference, and he is yet to submit a camera-ready copy. My paper was half-baked experiments, not polished and was rejected by the conference, but it had a similar idea and was on arXiv. Shouldn't he cite a paper "he knows of" on the exact same idea? What should I do?

Is he your professor ? Or you two don't know each other personally ?

No, he is not my professor and is at another university. But I know him a little.

"My paper ... was rejected by conference" for what reason ?

When the movie Juno came out, I had just finished writing a novel that was 80% the same idea. But it was really bad.

It’s not at all clear to me from your description in what shape your paper is/was. Your description mentions severe issues in both content and presentation, yet also says the idea was "obviously the same idea". Does the description of the idea suffer from the same issues as the rest of the paper, or is it actually polished and fully baked? In short, would someone new to the topic also see it as obvious that the papers are on the same idea?

No, for all we know it could be that they were working on the topic before your preprint appeared in the arxiv. You are supposed to cite work which contributed to your success and thoughts, not work which happens at the same time and is not published in a proper form (nope, putting it on arxiv is not publishing).

You believe the prof "has a duty to cite that we were the first one to come up with that idea," and he doesn't agree. That's why publishers today will not accept unsolicited manuscripts that can later prove they were the first one to come up with that idea. And you wouldn't be happy if the prof cited a "similar but half-baked idea".

What is your win scenario here? Tonnes of attention for your poorly prepared arxiv paper?

The actual timeline here matter, I think. How much time passed between your paper appearing on the arXiv and when the professor's paper appeared? If it was just a few days or weeks, that's quite different from when it is a a year or more.

"My paper was half baked experiments". If you cannot afford lab material, you at least can afford pencil & paper. Do correctl all the preparation and introduction work to the experiment, then you may even end up working in the lab of the professor.
Sorry, but time is a scarse resource, there is no time for poorly written arxiv paper, I am quite sure the professor never knew you had the same idea. Please realize that many people have the same ideas, but only the ones really proving it right (or wrong) are the one that contribute to science (and therefore deserve the time to be read).

"No, he is not my professor and is at another university. But I know him a little. "
Does he know you? Does he know what you are doing? Who are you doing your half-baked experiment with? and where?

@Sascha you are supposed to cite all the relevant literature, even if you did not know it at the time (see for instance the difference in the abstract between v1 and v4 of this paper by Tao https://arxiv.org/abs/1908.03795v4) Obviously, that's harder when another paper appears pretty much at the same time as yours. But in my field, it is constumary to acknowledge it in a note at the end of the paper "While we were finishing this work, [] appeared which has some overlap with section blabla"

@Adam: Preprints are not literature. There are many Ideas which are floating around and without knowing if the idea or the implementation was the complex part, it is not possible to judge if the reference is required.

@sascha Look at ANY Universities' academic ethics guidelines. They have opposite view to what you are suggesting. Why do the Universities have double standards - saying one thing to students/researchers and in practice following another?

@jontyrhodes: how about you cite an example for your statement. Should be easy to find if i can look at "ANY" Universities. For sure it is not Harvard. I cite the first sentence of https://usingsources.fas.harvard.edu/sites/projects.iq.harvard.edu/files/sources/files/mla.pdf". Citations provide information to help your audience locate the sources you consulted when writing a paper or preparing a presentation.".  Cant see any that they mention other people working on the same topic.

It sometimes (if not frequently) happens that scientific ideas are developed independently from each other. This appears to be the case. Your "famous professor" made a paper of a quality ready to be published and you had "half-baked experiments" and a paper not ready to be published. Since it takes a lot of work to do experiments and write a publication quality paper, it seems that if indeed the idea was the same, that then the "famous professor" had it first. The "famous professor" if pressed might even be pointing to grant submissions containing this idea. Also, not everyone follows arXiv regularly, though that is sub-discipline dependent.
Whether the "famous professor" has a duty to cite you in the related work section depends on a variety of factors. First, is the value of the "famous professor's" work in the idea or in the scientific evaluation? Some ideas are not all that novel, such as using flash memory instead of disks for certain data structures, and the scientific value of research in these ideas is in the details and implementations. Second, is there actually something to cite? Is your arXiv paper in reasonable shape or is it going to still change a lot. From what you tell us it is not clear whether refusing to mention your arXiv paper in the related work section is against academic standards or not.
You seem to feel disrespected. You need to go to someone at your institution whose academic judgment you can trust and have them look at the situation first and see whether an independent observer would agree with you.
But ultimately, there is not a lot to gain from any action. At best, you were working in parallel and while the "famous professor" waited with an arXiv paper until the paper was ready, you rushed a submission. So, you can claim to have had an interesting idea in parallel but were beaten in the race for publication. Unfortunate for you, but not something you can complain about. Not being cited hurts one's ego, but there are no sanctions against that from which one could profit. What would you gain if by some magic you could force the "famous professor" to cite you?

Is it not academic ethics that they are suppose to cite a paper on similar idea that they have been informed about and has been put on arxiv before? If it was put on arxiv later or they did not knew about situation, it would be altogether different scenerio. However, is it not a violation of academic ethics? To your other question, yes, in this case, the idea was indeed novel. The paper was not in good shape but the idea was clearly and explicitly presented well in the introduction. So he has a duty to cite that we were the first one to come up with that idea. Is it not?

Also, I do not want to go to an individual to ask it, as nobody knows practically much on the issue. I think Harvard Academic ethics guidelines and other univs also are clear on this - that the guy who publishes his idea first (in any medium, whether the idea is half baked does not matter), should be cited.

In principle, yes, in practice, it is more complicated. What counts as a publication? Arxiv counts in some disciplines, but not in all. Also, when your article got rejected, then there may be sufficient problems that your article does not count even if arxiv is acceptable.

@jontyrhodes Some people are also (rightly or wrongly) worried that other researchers who hear informally about an area they're working on will quickly rush out a "half-baked" study to try and steal credit for the idea ahead of a more complete study. Whether the obligation to cite remains in that case is much less clear. I'm not saying that this is what you're doing, but depending on the novelty of the idea and how widely known it is in the field, this may be what the professor thinks is happening.

Marteen, FYI, academic ethics guidelines say that you are not suppose to cite publications only, rather, other sources such as blogs or unpublished papers who have had similar ideas before you.

@jontyrhodes My understanding is that the obligation to cite only comes when you are aware of the work and it had some influence. It sounds very possible that this professor worked independently so sees no reason to weave your work into the narrative (though it would be a nice gesture on their part). Reviewers often bring papers to the attention of an author and strongly suggest that they be mentioned, but that's usually to fill in deficiencies in how this paper fits in among the known literature. I'm really sorry to hear you were scooped, and I hope you can salvage something!

@jontyrhodes Could you link to some academic ethics guidelines that say you have to cite works that you're unaware of when you wrote a paper? (Usually not citing in this case is merely sloppy scholarship rather than acting unethically.)

Like I said, they have not submitted camera ready copy of final paper. I have informed them of my paper. So they are aware of this paper.

@jontyrhodes, but has your "paper" had any influence on theirs?

@jontyrhodes also, if the paper is half-baked as you mentioned, nobody will want to cite it.

Two things: (1) ideas are worth nothing by themselves, and (2) Godzilla sits wherever he wants.
(1) When we say that academics trade in ideas, that ideas are the currency of academics, and that everything starts with an idea, etc. we are using idioms and not talking about how things really work. It's not the idea that matters, and it's not a game of calling dibs on ideas and then living off the residuals. What matters is to be the first one with an idea that is tested, exposed, formalized, explained, and sent in final form to a peer-reviewed journal. A lot of unsuccessful academics go around telling everybody about their ideas, writing them in blogs and otherwise trying to have some record that they were the first one with the idea. This with the misconception that the "only" thing left to do is to formalize, "write up", "button up", test, etc. the idea. Well, the testing and buttoning up is what matters, not an afterthought.
(2) One of the benefits of being a famous professor is that you get to publish stuff that others can't. I'm not talking about bad science, although that happens too, but about papers lacking an exhaustive literature review, ideas that others have presented before in better form, and just plain papers that are more like "takes" (in the parlance of our times) than actual research results. It's unfair, maddening, and not how things would work in a meritocracy. But academia is a human enterprise, and we humans like to canonize saints, and well, it is what it is.
Back to your particular case, it seems that the famous professor actually beat you to the punch by writing it up in publishable form before you did. And he has no ethical or otherwise obligation to cede to you what is actually his. But even if your idea was not as half-baked as you say it was, and that the journal should have accepted your manuscript pending revisions, people would probably still cite the famous professor and not you as the originator of the idea.
The episode is not without its share of good news for you: if the idea was indeed a big jump (A -> C) and not merely a follow-up (A.1 -> A.2), it's an indication that both you and the famous professor are thinking along the same lines. It's a good sign of your abilities, so next time, polish your idea and send it off for peer-review.

Your comments "When we say that academics trade in ideas, ...., formalized, explained, and sent in final form to a peer-reviewed journal." may be right, but, when University academic honesty people guide students and researchers, if you ask them, they will completely disagree with this. According to them, even ideas are supposed to be cited, even if they were not formally tested and you simply read them on blog. I am wondering why in practice this does NOT happen when university ethics guidelines clearly and explicitly state that.

I think I also agree with you esp on first point, but, why do the Universities and Departments do NOT explicitly make it clear to students. Even these "famous professors" themselves advocate to students that they should cite any source even if it is blog. Why Universities and Profs so aggressively argue that even Unsubstantiated Ideas MUST be cited, and then in practice, the rules are completely opposite. Why not make the reality clear to everyone, and why not state it explicitly? I would like to see your take on this issue.

You have a good point in that there's a double standard, and that's part of what I wrote in my answer, that famous professors can get away with this sort of thing. But there's also a difference between reading someone's idea on a blog and not citing it and two people coming up with the same idea independently, one writing it up nicely and getting it accepted at a conference, and the other doing a quick half-baked post that just happens to arrive first. It's also hard to make a judgement without reading the papers, to see if the idea is a major step, or just some obvious follow-up.

@jontyrhodes if you have such strong ideas about what answer you should receive, why not self-answer and see how the votes turn out?

I have read some Physical Review articles written by a famous professor that definitely would not have been published if they were written by someone non-famous, let alone in Physical Review.

@jontyrhodes: My guess is the quick answer is that professors are worried about plagiarism in class assignments, and would prefer to err on the side of excessive citation. In published papers, citing blog posts is seen as lessening the prestige and the average quality of the citations, and therefore is avoided unless more strictly necessary. In other words, there is a gray area in academic ethics, and so within that gray area researchers would prefer to err on the side of less citations while classwork would rather err on the side of more citations.

@jontyrhodes yes, you have to cite any source, even if it's a blog article. However, you don't have to cite every blog article touching on the subject. Just cite the ones that you use in your work.

There are several good points to consider in the other answers and comments so far (and there's a bit of overlap between what I write below and what others have already said), but my overall stance on the situation is a bit different.
0. On ideas.
Other answers and comments have discussed how much value there is in an idea alone. I think it might be worthwhile to mention more explicitly that there are various different things described by the word "idea". For instance,

an idea to investigate a certain question;

an idea regarding which methods one can be used to answer a given question;

more concrete ideas on how to implement a certain step or to solve a certain subproblem;

in mathematics and related theoretical fields there are also situations (which might be a bit unique compared to more experimental fields) where an "idea" can be a deep insight regarding a certain construction or argument that can be used to prove a theorem or to solve an open question. In some cases it can happen that once you see the idea, this does indeed essentially solve the problem, with the technical details remaining a "formality" that you know will work out anyway. However, this situation is far from universal in math and moreover, it requires quite some experience and intuition to see whether this is the case when one just see the idea.

I agree with others that in many situations much of the effort is not in having an idea, but in developing and testing all the details (or doing all the experiments in experimental fields). Even in very theoretical fields like math this is often true, in particular when one is not talking about very concrete proof ideas or arguments but rather about ideas on "which questions to ask" or "which object to define and study" or "which theory to develop".
1. What behaviour by the famous professor would be most appropriate academically?
As others have said, it is impossible to give a definite assessment without knowing all the relevant details - in particular how vague or concrete your idea is worded in your arXiv preprint or how innovative or novel your idea really is compared to what can already be found in the literature.
However, despite what I said in point 0., I tend to come to a different conclusion than some of the others answers and comments:
Even if the idea alone does not represent the majority of the effort or insight and even if the rest of your paper was rather half-baked (and possibly even if the idea itself was not as well developed by you as it could or should have been), I'm inclined to say that the most appropriate course of action would still be to cite your preprint (not matter whether the other paper might have been in a more final state and might be published earlier).
The main reasons are:

It is in the interest of the reader to find sufficient context in a paper. Another paper or preprint which uses a similar idea seems to be relevant context (unless the idea is very much common place in the field). For this reason, I would personally even tend to add a citation during a revision of my paper if a relevant preprint was uploaded only after my own paper was uploaded to arXiv and submitted to a journal.

The other point of citations is, of course, about credit and priority. Admittedly, I don't really follow the arguments in some of the comments that one wouldn't need to give credit to your idea if the idea alone establishes only a small part of the novelty or insight in the famous professor's paper.
When I write a paper which, in any way, uses an insight or idea that is not already common in my field, and which has been brought up by someone else before me, I will certainly cite it (even if I came up with the idea myself before knowing about the same idea of the other person). I don't see any reason why this should only apply to ideas or insights which have a major impact on my own paper or constitute a significant part of the scientific effort that went into developing the paper.
If I have a perfectly valid proof of my main theorem and I find out the proof of my auxiliary Lemma 7.3(ii) can be simplified a bit by using a concept recently introduced in a preprint by a colleague, I'm going to cite them. If somebody else defined the same notion as I did but earlier, and their presentation is messier than mine and their results are much simpler and not deep at all, I'm going to cite them. If somebody proved a very special case of my theorem with a more complicated and less insightful proof I'm going to cite them.
All of this also applies if I learn of the earlier work only after I have already completed my preprint. To be completely honest, not citing the other person in any of those cases would seem rather conceited and, frankly, a bit pigheaded to me. And it would be in contradiction to the goal to contribute to the advancement of the scientific community I'm working in.

2. Why might the famous professor refuse to cite you?
That's of course impossible to answer without much more information. All we can do is speculate. Here are a couple a various potential reasons. Let me say very clearly that I am making not claim whatsoever that some or any of those potential reasons apply in your specific situation. I'm just trying to offer you a broad perspective on what could have happened.

The famous professor might have genuinely considered your message and finds, on purely academic grounds, that your contribution in the preprint doesn't warrant citation. For instance, they might disagree with your assessment that the idea is exactly the same and rather believe that it so distant from their idea that a citation doesn't make sense and would rather confuse their readers. Or they might find that your idea is worded so vaguely and generically that the idea itself doesn't really count as a scientific contribution on its own. Or they might consider your (and their idea) so common place that all the contribution is really in the details with the idea itself being widely used in all sorts of similar contexts.
Please note that I'm not saying whether or not such an assessment would be correct. I have no way of knowing this. Please also note that even if an author claims that an idea is "exactly the same", this does not necessarily mean that everybody else comes to the same conclusion. Similarity (or identity) of ideas or the question what precisely is an insight and what is, on the other hand, trivial, depend very much an personal opinions.

The famous professor might be disorganized and thus have forgotten to respond to your request. (If however the professor replied to you and explicitly said that they are not going to cite you, this explanation is ruled out, of course.)

It might be that the famous professor really just doesn't give a damn about whether or not to cite you and doesn't want to take the effort to include the citation. Yes, sure, it's not that much effort at all - but just as other human beings, professors (famous or not) don't always act rationally.

Maybe the famous professor is a conceited and pigheaded jerk and thus doesn't want to share any credit with you. Yes, there are famous professors who are conceited and pigheaded - just as there are famous professors who are very well-meaning, modest, and extremely generous with giving credit.

One more potential explanation, which you might not like very much:
Please be assured that it is not my intention to offend you - but from the wording of your question and various of your comments, one can get the impression that you might sometimes appear a bit confrontational and, also, entitled. Communicating in such a way makes it much less likely that you achieve what you would like to achieve, in particular if you are asking someone else for a certain action. Please let me point out to important issues related to this:
a) What I said above is not directly related to whether or not you are right. If others find that you appear confrontational or entitled, this will likely not lead to the outcome that you desire, even if you are, from a neutral point of view, completely right with your request. Thus, in most cases it is a good idea to remain polite and modest in your language, even if you have very strong feelings about something.
b) As an illustration: I'm also a bit under the impression that they way you worded your question and your responses in a number of comments contributed to the - from my point of view - somewhat one-sided perspectives that you received. On Academia StackExchange there are a variety of questions on citation and the attribution of academic credit, and some of the responses to those questions tend to rather lean on the "one should be very generous with giving credit" side. However, when people get the impression that you might not be asking in completely good faith (even if you actually are and this is just a communicational issue), it is likely that they will be somewhat biased to argue against your position.

3. What course of action is best for you?
Here are a few general suggestions, based on what I said above and on what others have said:

When you are under the impression that your publicly available work is relevant to the work of other people but those people did not cite it, I think it is, generally speaking, ok to inform those people of your work.
However, the way how you do this is extremely important. I strongly suggest to write such a message in an extremely polite way. But also be concise whenever possible. For instance, do not spend lengthy paragraphs on philosophical thoughts that might appear defensive or passive-aggressive: don't write something along the lines of "You do, of course, have no obligation at all to cite my work and can completely decide on your own whether you consider my contributions sufficiently relevant to be cited in your important work". Leave out any such philosophical thoughts and stick very much to the contents you are referring to.
Under any circumstances, make sure not to sound confrontational or entitled in such a message. Do not request the other party to cite your work and do not imply that you expect them to cite it, even if you strongly believe that they are somehow obliged to do so. Keep it all within the frame of "this seems to be related to your work, so I send it to you in case that this might be interesting for you". Being more concrete will likely be received more positively (unless you overdo it and appear to be nitpicky). For instance, saying "the approach that you use to do XYZ on pages 16-18 seems close in spirit to the approach that I used on pages 21-24 to do ABC" is likely to be more helpful than just saying that "our papers seems to use related ideas.
Please note that none of this is guaranteed to lead to a positive reaction. But if you choose to write such a message, the more clear and modest your message is, the more likely a positive reaction becomes.

Even then, don't do this too often and even less so to the same people. Even if you're right each time - if you find that a certain group of people will just continuously ignore your related work in each new article, then you'll quickly reach a point where it's the wisest course of action to just let it go.

Similarly, if somebody comes to a different conclusion than you and chooses not to cite your work despite you having showed it to them - I strongly advise against trying to force it in some. After all, you usually don't have much leverage and the only thing you'll achieve is to get people upset. If you find this unfair and frustrating, you have my sympathies - a lot of things in academia actually are unfair and frustrating. But as for all things that you'd like to see changed but are hard or almost impossible for you to change, it is wise to ask yourself if this is really the hill you want to die on.

One more thing: I've experienced situations where, say, a colleague A was angry about a colleague B not citing them on various occasions, even though a citation might have been warranted. Then A decided, in turn, not to cite related work of B anymore, even of the mentioning of the related work of B would have likely been beneficial to A's readers.
Please let me advise against any such retaliation practices. Admittedly, it is a very human instinct to do this, but in the setting we are discussing here it simply won't do you any good (on the other hand, it might or might not hurt you, either). Reacting to unprofessional behaviour by behaving unprofessionally yourself is unlikely to make you feel better in the long run and it is certainly not a winning strategy (although one can easily find examples of successful people who fight their share of vendettas - for me, the most reasonable perspective on this is that those people are successful despite their vendettas, not because of them).

I am guessing you are new to academia, so let me tell you that there can be a really, really big difference between ''having an idea which turns out to be correct'' and ''doing all the work and polishing it to show that it all works out''.
I would go to whoever your academic supervisor is, explain the situation and show them both papers and ask for an honest opinion.

To take a very stark bibliometric, long-term view, there is only one difference between a scenario where the professor accepts your priority and one where he doesn't (with no consideration of it being the "right thing to do").
If he accepts your priority, your arXiv preprint gets one citation.
If he doesn't accept your priority, your arXiv preprint doesn't.
That's it.
Unless you've both discovered something as earth-shaking as CRISPR genome editing, "priority" plays little role in determining how far and wide one paper spreads compared to another. Unfairly, papers get cited based on who wrote them, whether reviewers force new papers to cite them, and so on. Those factors you can't control.
Fairly, papers also get cited more if they are clear; if they are persuasive; if they are robust about their strong results (and gentle about the weaker ones); if they outline imaginative implications and future avenues of research; if they are easily replicated and extended. Those factors matter far more than whether or not their arXiv preprint was cited zero or one times.
Therefore, what you should do is prioritize writing your preprint up into a good, solid paper. Let your work's quality speak and win citations for itself, and do your networking to let future potential citers and collaborators know what you've done!

Yes, this idealistic/optimistic attitude is (in my opinion) the only mentally-healthy way to approach the whole publish-or-perish world of "research" academe. In particular, it is surely unhealthy to be thinking every day of other people working in your field as enemies, even if they are unconscious or deficient scholars, etc. "Don't let a$$holes turn you into one as well" is, I think, a healthy attitude. :)

I would invite the professor to sit on my committee (if you are a phd student) or be my co-author in my upcoming peer reviewed paper derived from the preprint.
To me it doesnt matter whose paper is published first, and expanding your network to incorporate such professor is tremendously beneficial to your career.

Do you have a personal problem with this professor?
I mean you are not asking to put your name in the paper as contributed to the idea, you are talking about citing your work which should be normal and added value to the paper if it gathers all previous related work about the topic; ie, it won't deminish his work
.
-I once got a reviewer comment (who rejected my paper) saying "there is a relevant work missing" without even telling what is the related reference.
-It's also normal nowadays to put blog posts, twitter threads, Bitcointalk.org links in the references; and you're talking about an arXiv accepted paper (they do review papers)
-I can't judge how relevant your work to the professor's paper, but I think the reviewers committee of the publishing conference/journal can if you send them the details (your paper and what you think is the relevance)
-You see what I mean, it is not a fight; if the reviewers believe the authors missed an important relevant reference (think as a paper reader, will you gain added value if you read your paper? even a detailed explanation of a brief point?) they can simply ask the authors to add the reference while preparing the final camera ready version.
-and I don't agree that ideas don't worth anything if not executed, sometimes people buy and sell ideas. Not in research anyway, there are many theoritical papers out there.
.
Final Comment:
This is my opinion but I've seen it twice (not mentioning a very relevant, and executed in code by the way, previous work; I remember tweeting both sides in one tweet). I will not mention the exact papers here because maybe the postgraduate student didn't tell the supervisor professor who thought this the student idea as part of his research.

"an arXiv accepted paper (they do review papers)" Reviewed by whom ?

Well, accurately "moderated" by volunteers https://info.arxiv.org/help/moderation/index.html; Although arXiv is not peer reviewed, a collection of moderators for each area review the submissions; they may recategorize any that are deemed off-topic, or reject submissions that are not scientific papers, or sometimes for undisclosed reasons.(from Wikipedia, but I originally read about it in twitter from people thanking professors for their volunteered effort)

@Trunk I'm not suggesting to approach  for publication, the deadline has already past since a decision has been made on the professor's paper, I'm suggesting to inform the reviewers so they can be the judge of whether to add his arXiv as a reference or not (unless there's a missing important detail, they should be in favor of adding it if it provides added value to the paper)


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Lack of research opportunities in Israel
I am currently researching where I would like to do my PhD. I have always been drawn to Israel (this has nothing to do with religion or politics or anything similar but rather with warm weather and hummus) so I also included it in a list of potential destinations. However, I am very surprised that I virtually never come across

advertisements for PhD positions in Israel
Israeli institutes being involved in research projects or international programs
someone who has studied/worked at an Israeli university
...

Also, a few years ago, I contacted multiple Israeli universities about the possibility of conducting my thesis there and got very limited response.
When I compare this to countries with somewhat similar "level of development", such as Canada, Austria, Belgium, Germany, Italy, etc., it feels completely different. From all these countries I get a feeling that they expect and encourage foreign students/researchers to come and that they work to attract them (both at a national level and at a level of individual universities)
Question: Are there any reasons for Israel seemingly not being (a) involved much in international research collaborations and (b) interested in foreign students/researchers?
My field is geoinformatics and remote sensing.

I think you are mistaken entirely. Israel is small, so the output may be less than more populous places. But there are excellent universities there.

Does Israel advertise PhD positions? US universities don't really, so I wouldn't take that as discouragement

I think that the Technion should have English programmes and in my experience (in Mathematics) even if a course is officially announced in Hebrew it might be in English if there is demand for it. Googling a bit I found the following page: https://cee.technion.ac.il/research-graduate-studies/research-and-graduate-studies/mapping-and-geo-information/

As far as I understood, in Israel they do not necessarily advertise PhD places. You should look up the groups that do geoinformatics and contact the PI about opportunities. E.g. the Hebrew Universities geoinformatics group https://neev.huji.ac.il/

Are there any reasons for Israel seemingly not being (a) involved much in international research collaborations and (b) interested in foreign students/researchers?

Your assumption (a) is completely incorrect — it’s hard for me to think of a statement that’s further than the truth.
Assumption (b) is correct in the context of foreign students, and this has a simple explanation. It’s mostly a language issue: PhD programs in Israel are offered in Hebrew, and it’s extremely rare for foreign students looking for a place to do their PhD to be willing to invest several years to learn the language at the level they’d need to know it to be successful in doing a PhD. The ones who would entertain that possibility are small enough in numbers, and highly motivated enough, that there’s no need for graduate programs to do special outreach targeted at them. Any postings for PhD programs or positions will be in Hebrew, and if you are not a Hebrew speaker you will not be able to find and read them.
There are a few exceptions to this. The Weizmann Institute of Science has English as its official language and does attract a reasonable number of foreign students. Tel Aviv University has an English speaking medical school program and, I vaguely recall, a business master’s program. There might be other isolated programs for which the language barrier wouldn’t be an issue.

I see. I didn't think of this because in Europe its quite the standard that PhD programs are in English. And because Israeli people always speak perfect English so I thought surely their universities will be in English, too.

@JanPisl you might want to revisit your assumptions about Europe as well...

Indeed, the idea that "everyone does everything in English" is slightly strange to me (a native Amer English speaker). This was certainly not the case just a few decades ago, to begin with, and it is not at all reliably so today, in many fields. The sort of "scientific language colonialism" that pretends that "everyone writes in English now" is really not a useful/safe/warranted pretense.

All I can say is that the past few months, I have been researching PhD opportunities across Europe, including Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Spain, UK, France, Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands. I research people that do what I want to do and then look up their institution and contact them. From the countries above, only in France I had a problem with (only) speaking English. Of course, I only contacted a small fraction of all universities and more likely those that do use English.

I don't understand why you talk about "scientific language colonialism" when, in my opinion, its just a matter of using a language that allows people from different countries to collaborate easily and, more generally, to interact with each other. And why would you say it's "not useful". In my experience of studying and doing research in Europe, it was exactly that - useful. I respect your opinion and I am sure you have good reasons to have it. But I don't get where it comes from

@JanPisl It is amazing that English should remain lingua franca  (pun intended) in the EU when, once the UK has left, no EU country will have English as its designated language (the Irish has designated Gaelic as their language).  See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_of_Brexit_on_the_European_Union#Languages

@JanPisl well, you do have a point that Israel has a different attitude than the typical Western European country about the issue of foreign students. There are many reasons for this, and I didn’t mean to suggest Israel and those other countries are completely similar on this matter. Basically, if you visit Israel you will discover it’s quite a unique place with a lot of surprising aspects to it that aren’t quite like anywhere else you know, which is why these sorts of extrapolations you’re making don’t always apply. Anyway, good luck, I hope you find the opportunities you’re looking for.

@JanPisl This is presumably subject and location dependent, but in my experience you'd be in for a rude shock if you expect to do a ph.D. program in France without speaking French (in Germany it's different, although I would still recommend to learn German).

I feel I should mention Technion as another notable example of an English-speaking Israeli university. Although I haven't done due research to fully reconfirm that, but I do vividly remember that we used some of their study materials when I was in college and they were written fully in English.

@ZeroTheHero English wasn't chosen as the de facto shared language due to the UK.

@undercatapplaudsMonica the Technion is not an “English speaking university”.

@DanRomik I've double checked and you are correct, although the university does position itself as an English-friendly university. Quoting this page, "By default, classes at the Technion are conducted in Hebrew. Therefore basic knowledge of Hebrew is recommended. However, all Technion departments have committed to teaching graduate courses in English, under some conditions, following a request by an international student per a specific course."

I am doing my PhD at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in English. As far as I heard, they actually do want to encourage researchers to come. I am not sure of geoinformatics, though...

Israel has about the same population as Austria, and in my experience the research opportunities in both countries are about equal.  They both have high levels of international engagement for their size.
The other countries have more population that Israel.  Some of them have a lot more.  Those countries have more opportunities, if you do not adjust for population.

thanks. i have taken into account population. specifically in Austria, I have found a number of opportunities, such as PhD calls, international programs in which Austrian universities participated, PhD programs that combined research with industry placements, etc. Similar in Finland that has less people and Belgium that has a little bit more. None of this in Israel. But perhaps it's a question of language as the other answer suggested or I just didn't look in the right places

Or perhaps it is specific to your discipline.  The Israeli government has unique funding priorities.

yes definitely that can be the case. that's why i mentioned my discipline in the question. "The Israeli government has unique funding priorities" could be exactly the explanation

The assumption that Israeli universities have few international research cooperations contradicts my experience with Israeli universities. I also have the impression that the number of international students is not particularly low compared to European universities (again just anecdotal evidence).
In addition to the points mentioned in other answers, I think that one reason for few announcements of positions could be that (at least) some Israeli universities typically fund the PhD students (and even the PostDocs) via scholarships.
As an engineering related example, you can find a lot of information on the website of the Technion's gradute school: https://graduate.technion.ac.il/en/prospective-students/graduate_degree_studies_at_technion
It also looks like in practice many of these programmes are actually taught in English and in my experience most people in Israel have a rather good level of English.


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Multiple proposals assigned to the same study section in NIH
I would like to know everybody's ideas about having multiple NIH proposals being reviewed in one study section/scientific review group (group of peer reviewers that evaluate proposals on a particular topic) at the same time.
These days I believe many people are writing multiple proposals during the same submission cycle, and it is hard to always gear them toward different study sections given the focus of the lab. I often hear people saying that having multiple proposals in the same study section is bad, but is it true? Can someone share their experiences?


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Does publication of results trigger the GPLv3 license?
I have modified scientific open-source code licensed with the GPLv3 license. If I run some simulations on my PC with this modified code and later on I want to publish a paper with the results of my simulations, would this be considered "conveying" according to the GNUv3 definition (and therefore triggering the obligation to share the code under the same license)?
I am all for open source and sharing the work but as I will be having this discussion with my PhD advisor I want to know for certain which are our obligations or not.

No, the output of a GPL-covered program is not covered by the same license as the source code, apart from very special cases.

Reference 1: In what cases is the output of a GPL program covered by the GPL too?
Reference 2: Is the output of an open source program licensed the same?

I'm in agreement with the answer of Federico Poloni and the answer of Anonymous M, but point out that you need to either keep the modified code to yourself or have the license extended to it.
While it is fine, theoretically, to keep the code to yourself, it might make any external verification of your results difficult and possibly call them in to question.
For results, in these times, that depend on particular computer code, it is frowned upon to keep that code confidential. How serious that "frowning" can be depends on the importance and significance of the results. So people are "encouraged" to publish code.
Your choice, of course, but be aware of the possible future effect.
There is a subtlety here, of course. The real question isn't whether your results trigger GPL, but whether the GPL license requires that you actually publish any and all modifications of GPL code, or can a person/entity make a modification and not publish it at all. If they do publish it is clearly GPLd, and a possible interpretation is that it is even if not published, but that would be moot. After all, you wouldn't be "licensing" the code to others if it is held close.

This is why many people say "don't use GPL" for academic code, and probably most people using GPL on their work don't realize most of the implications or subscribe to the heavy-handed approach of GPL.

@BryanKrause: It depends which "most people" you're talking about. Some of them take the (IMHO) extreme position that it is unethical to provide binaries or source code under any license prohibiting the modification of said binaries or code. Such restrictions are common in industry, and they were the motivation for creating the GPL in the first place. Other people take the (IMHO) more moderate position that the GPL is about reciprocity - "If I give you all this code for $0, the least you can do is share your improvements under the same terms."

Comments have been moved to chat; please do not continue the discussion here. Before posting a comment below this one, please review the purposes of comments. Comments that do not request clarification or suggest improvements usually belong as an answer, on [meta], or in [chat]. Comments continuing discussion may be removed.


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What can happen if I do not disclose a conduct violation from grad school when applying to a new grad school?
I just received a conduct violation at my current grad school for a failed drug test when trying to attain a new internship. I had been taking CBD gummies that caused me to fail. I now have been withdrawn and can't be reinstated till this time next year. I would have to start mid-year with a whole new group of people because this is the "earliest" they can place me at a site in order to complete the necessary hours for graduation. Along with this, they would disclose this drug test failure to every potential internship site and I could be turned away. As well as also disclosing the drug test failure when I apply for licensure to the board who could potentially reject me.
If I were to apply to other schools and just start over would I have to disclose that I went to this school at all? Can I potentially just put this all in the past and start over somewhere else so this doesn't hang over my head for my entire career? Could I potentially face even bigger problems if another program finds out I didn't disclose my entire academic record?

What field, generally speaking? Medicine?

Mental Health Counseling/ Art Therapy

What country? .

You get drug tested in grad school? What country is this? It seems out of this world to me that a school would have any business in your personal life, e.g. what drugs you take on your own time.

@Chris_abc The drug testing was for an internship, not the university itself.

@Chris_abc It is common in medical/life sciences when the student is under the umbrella of the university hospital. It flows down from state and federal regulations regarding medical workers and access to controlled substances. These students are also subject to background checks, mandatory vaccinations, communicable disease screens, wearing a uniform and badges, etc. as one would expect from a hospital worker.

To some extend the answer is obvious: using drugs and lying (by omission) with the purpose of hiding it is two offenses. Two offenses is more serious than one offense.
Think about scandals: the original "crime" is often not so bad, but it is the act of hiding it that makes a scandal a scandal.


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Is it possible to be admitted to a PhD program with a course based Masters Degree?
I did an undergraduate degree in one engineering discipline (electrical), and a course based masters in the same discipline of engineering (electrical) and another course based masters in another discipline of engineering (civil).
The undergraduate GPA is very poor, but the masters GPAs were better: 3.7 in the one in a different field than the undergrad (civil) and 3.3 in the same field as undergrad (electrical).  I have done more than 20 graduate courses as a non degree student with a GPA of 3.8 in civil and electrical engineering.
I want to apply for PhD as opposed to Masters with thesis in the same discipline as my undergraduate degree and one of my masters degrees (both electrical).   I do not have particularly strong recommendations apart from doing well in course work, and no research papers or research experience. I would like to do research in academia or an industrial research lab.
Can I get into a PhD with a very poor undergraduate record and no thesis based masters degree - or should I do a thesis masters degree first ?  How can I show potential for research ?

You will probably find some useful advice here: https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/38237/75368

PhD programs in the US don't typically expect a previous masters degree of any sort (it might be a lot more common in some fields than others, though; engineering would be one of them where it seems more common, though I am basing that mostly on seeing engineering CVs rather than having much familiarity with grad school in engineering). Having done a master's program could shore up a poor undergraduate record, of course, and give you a second crack at doing research in an academic setting. However, it seems you've gotten a couple masters degrees without taking advantage of that part: having a second crack at research.
Therefore, if I were looking at your application, the first thing I'd notice is that you basically haven't shown any past interest in academic research. I'd be wondering: why does this person now want to apply for a PhD program to become trained in doing research, given that they have not yet done anything that shows they are interested in doing research, or whether they have aptitude towards research or even like doing research?
I think all of that makes you a weaker candidate than even someone with poorer grades that does have some research experience.
I think it's very difficult to answer the question "how can I show potential for research?" when so far your career says on paper "I am not interested in research". Certainly getting some sort of paid junior academic research position would be a good step, but I'm not sure whether those positions are common in your field or whether your resume will be suited to getting you that spot. There may be research positions in industry that are a better fit for what you've done so far on paper, but again, these may not be common.
I don't want to discourage you too much, but I'd strongly suggest asking yourself some questions as well: what is your goal in getting a PhD and why are you deciding now that this is a path you want? What are you going to do with your PhD that you wouldn't do without it? Is the PhD truly necessary or is there another path for you to reach your goals?

Thank you, all valid points.  I think just maturity, drive and discipline I did not have before  and also learning by doing multiple research based projects in my course work, volunteer research experience after one of my course based masters and industry experience that were research based, which then became something I was very interested in pursuing.  All topics I plan to discuss in my statement of purpose.  Basically, just tell the truth which I am not sure is enough.

@user4434 Are there people from those experiences that can write you letters of recommendation? You wrote in your question that you have "no research experience" but it sounds like that's not quite true and you will want to highlight what you have done, at least. I'd highly recommend this Q&A to you as well: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/38237/how-does-the-admissions-process-work-for-ph-d-programs-in-the-us-particularly

Well these experiences were informal and self driven.  In course work, I took it upon myself to do research based projects and that was entirely self driven.  I also volunteered to do research and assist another graduate student in their research work and it led to an informal mentoring relationship.   It is my understanding only academic can give references, so I am not sure I can ask this graduate student for a reference, since they are only a PhD student.  I am not sure PhD students can give an academic reference - isnt that correct ?  Thanks for the link I read that extensively.

@user4434 And you only interacted with the PhD student, not their mentor at all or their mentor doesn't know your contributions? There's no rule that only professors can write recs, but yes I'd highly recommend it anyways. If you have 3 recs it would certainly be fine to have 2 from professors and 1 from an industry reference where you did research, though they may need some information on what a grad school rec should look like vs an industry one.

Sorry, I was not clear.  But the PhD student was at the same school I did my course based masters at - they were doing a thesis based masters at the time and then progressed to now doing a PhD.   Were were not in industry but at the school completing our respective degree programs when this volunteer research experience and mentor relationship occurred.

@user4434 Your prior comment mentioned industry research of some sort.

Let us continue this discussion in chat.

Your best bet would be to try and talk to professors (either from your undergraduate or MS programs) regarding how you can get involved in research and gain the experience necessary to join a PhD program.
Ideally, a thesis-based masters would be the best type of MS to pursue if you are interested in pursuing a PhD.  Since you already have two MS degrees, this may make things harder and more complicated for you to pursue a formal MS with thesis.  In addition to contacting professors from your previous institutions, to start, you should begin reading papers in your field(s) of interest and also try to contact any prospective advisors at any institutions you may want to attend for future degrees.
I also wouldn't rule out trying to start as an independent researcher, although the way to do this can be very ambiguous.  Although I graduated undergrad with some research experience (due to starting research late), the experience I have isn't exactly impressive, and I didn't have too much direction or understanding of ML-related fields of interest such as Natural Language Processing.  I happened to look up a lab's posting for post-bacs, and although it's just a side project (unpaid volunteer) in addition to my full-time consulting job at the moment, it's very good experience that has opened up my eyes in my potential field of interest.

Yes. I did and several of the people in my cohort did too. We went to a professional MS and continued to PhD directly after graduation. The important is about contacting the professor, and if you have a good conversation and share similar research interests with them, you will be able to get into a PhD program.
Also, don't get disappointed when you get no answer back from the professor. I sent around 20 emails and got only 2 responses. And one of which did not need students this year.

What country are you in ?   What faculty and department ?  I have a professor that is interested in me and if I dont get into PhD then drop you to Masters with thesis anyways.   So you are saying that if they are looking for people and you have a good conversation then you can get in - is that correct ?

I am from Cambodia and I am going to PhD in Geology and Environmental Studies this fall. Yes. Unlike undergrad, the people that have the final say in whether you're admitted are your potential advisors and/or the committee of the professors from the department.


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PhD from Third Tier School
I am interested in doing a PhD from a third tier school in Electrical Engineering Ranked about in the 60's in North America.
I have degrees (Bachelors, Masters) from a Top 20 North American School.
Is this advisable or even worth it ?
The supervisor is not very well known in the industry in this field but is somewhat known in academia in this field.
In my field, companies will only hire from Top 20 schools.
I would like to stay in academia after graduating after being in industry for a few years.
So is this going backwards then ?
Thank you.

Do the graduates of that program (and more specifically, students of that supervisor) go on to get jobs you would want?

Yes, but not at the top companies as they will only hire from Top 20 schools.

You said you want to stay in academia - why do companies of any type matter? (though I think you are very wrong about any company having a "top 20" requirement...) I reiterate my comment: do graduates go on to get jobs you would want?

I am under the assumption top companies will provide research funding to top schools, as they would only hire top graduates from certain universities.  Not all companies of course, but the top tier ones - yes, you can get the kind of jobs I want, but maybe not at the top 5 companies.

Why rely on assumptions? What are alumni from the program doing?

Top 60 according to who? I bet there are 60 schools that say they are in the top 20. What type of ranking has 60 as third tier?

I think you are mistaken about rankings. The total output of the "top 20" schools is so small that all those companies would close with no one left to hire and salaries would be in the millions. It is a tiny number of doctoral graduates you are talking about.

Rankings are according to websites that do Rankings.  For example one of them is: https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/university-subject-rankings/2019/engineering-electrical-electronic

The ranking of the school isn't what makes your career. I've known people from CMU that I wouldn't hire. I know of people from Harvard and Yale that I'd never consider for any responsible position.

The group at the PhD school is small and is mostly a place where people get Masters Degrees then get PhDs at top 20 schools.

@sheeple For the people that do get PhDs there, where do they go afterwards?

The PhD graduates have either gone on to work in industry but not in the top companies or in academia at lower tier schools.  The research group is not very well known in either sphere - so I am wondering if it is worth it and how it will be viewed in either industry or academia.

Well, I would never call a R1 university a third tier, and also, there are some research groups, and specially lab/institutes, in the 100s range that put forth a lot of research and are well know in their field. Looking for a best in EE university will not give you the same results as a best in identification of nonlinear systems subject to data rate constrains, PhD are incomparable by ranks alone.

@jDAQ, this PhD school is not a R1 university.

@sheeple There are way more than 60 R1 universities in the US. I'd have a hard time believing a #60s school is not an R1.

@BryanKrause - that's #60 according to this ranking.

@sheeple Then that #60 doesn't seem very meaningful (and kind of what StrongBad was getting at earlier about rankings). Wikipedia has a list at least of US R1 schools, I don't know if that designation is considered outside the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_research_universities_in_the_United_States - yours is outside this list?

Yes it is outside this list.

you should re-evaluate what metrics you are looking at, how you understand rankings, and where you information comes from. I would pose a counter to your point, how many companies can you name that refuse to hire someone with a PhD from Princeton, Cornell, Columbia, or University of Michigan, because they are not "top 20 schools".

according to the rankings i posted in previous comments above - those are top 20 schools in north america in electrical engineering.

I am interested in doing a PhD from a third tier school in Electrical Engineering Ranked about in the 60's in North America.
In my field, companies will only hire from Top 20 schools.
I would like to stay in academia after graduating after being in industry for a few years.

Assuming all of the above are true, then clearly this is a bad idea, because if you go to this school then you won't be in the top 20 and won't get hired and have no chance of "being in industry for a few years".

A sound application of modus ponens, indeed.  Although it is reasonable here to question the OP's hypotheses...

True, it might be flawed logic, but I am just going by the evidence.


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PhD Supervisor not answering any emails
I am an accepted PhD student with funding and thesis based supervised by a professor.
For 2 weeks my supervisor has not answered emails I have sent and I have sent the same one 3 times in the last 2 weeks.
My questions and concerns are time sensitive and require their input, advice and approval this week - in a few days - as there are hard university deadlines.
No communication has been established and no indication about the lack of response ever since my acceptance.
What should I do ?  We are online so I cant really call or drop by the office.
I have even copied the department administrative staff as they suggested to speed up his response.  That also did not work.

Is it possible that your supervisor has been unable to communicate (due to being on vacation, traveling, or being ill for example)?  Does your supervisor have an administrative assistant that you could contact?

He is not ill, no one is sick in his family and he is not on vacation.  He is just not answering his emails.  I will end up talking to the people enforcing the deadlines and work it out with them.  Then will just tell me they need his input and maybe they can force his hand.  Ugh.  Why is this, this way ?

How do you know that he or any of his family members is not ill if you cannot communicate with him? That seems like a bold statement to me. You seem to assume malice. Instead just calm down. Don't make any assumptions. Calmly talk to the people enforcing the deadline, and state just the facts: you emailed, he did not anser, you don't know why.

Probably the office requiring the administrative work can contact the supervisor. It might be university dependent, but s/he will be the supervisor. I guess that most of the work required from you is based on a reasonable subdivision of tasks. But as it seems impossible right now, perhaps they should work with the supervisor and you in parallel. Carbon copy might be the way.


text:
Asked Professor for Reference - No response for 3 weeks now
I have asked a professor for a reference for a graduate study application by email and havent heard back in 3 weeks and the deadline is in a few days.
Does this mean no ?  I just got no response at all.
Should I follow up - he is a slow email reader in my past experience with him.  I can't call him since he is working from home.
What is the protocol/etiquette here ?  Should I follow up again by email ?
Sent email from email address they have answered me from before.

Can you find a question with this search that gives you an answer?: https://academia.stackexchange.com/search?q=%5Brecommendation-letter%5D+no+response We get variants on this question very very often.

If you only have a few days left then it probably is effectively "no" if your professor is super busy. If you don't hear back on something important like this, you should forward the email again after about a week, politely asking for an acknowledgement.
If you are lucky enough to study somewhere where your professor has an administrator, you should contact the administrator rather than email the second time.
It is also possible that your professor has instructions on their Webpage about how to ask for letters of reference; I've seen that occasionally. If so, they may not think they need to reply to emails that ignore those instructions. But most people know that not everyone will read every Webpage.
You could forwarding the email again with "urgent" in the title, but if you do, write a short note at the beginning apologising for not having checked on them earlier and saying you realise this is probably too short of notice now if they missed your previous email, but you just wanted to double check.
Be sure you have sent them everything they would need to know for their letter, e.g. complete details of how they know you, where you are applying, how to submit the letter, etc.