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Is it okay to grade some students harder because of their perceived potential?
If a college professor has a clear rubric for their expectations for an essay, is it unethical -- or even illegal -- to grade certain students harder than others?
A few students I know are in a college English course. They are producing better essays than other students, but have recently been making C's instead of A's because, as the teacher says, they are "held to a higher standard" than other students.
Is there some action that can be taken to remedy this issue? They aren't out for blood, just the grade they have worked for.
Edit: Thank you all so much for the replies! For clarity: we are residing in the U.S. and the professor himself sent an email explaining that their writing is exceptional and as such he will hold them to a higher standard than their peers.

I am not a lawyer, so I cannot answer if it's "legal" in the strict sense. As to whether it's a good practice, the recent film "Whiplash" by Damien Chazelle offers an interesting point of view for that matter (where good students are punished on purpose).

"grading has to be fair" - I am not sure if everyone agrees (even after factoring out that "fairness" can mean many different things to different people).

You don't mention why the professor has higher expectations for some students than for others, but if this is in the US, I would wonder about consistency with Title VI (which protects against discrimination by race, color, or national origin) or Title IX (which protects against discrimination by sex).

They are producing better essays than other students - In whose opinion?  Their own?

These higher standards piss me off. So basically if you are too smart you can't get the grades required to get into graduate school. Teachers literally pretend grades don't matter when in fact the only reason they got to become professors is because they had almost perfect grades.

Get it in writing -- ask questions via email that will elicit a useful paper trail.  Take this to the department.  (Even without a paper trail, take it to the department.)

Since we are speaking about an English course in the US: I would understand if native English speakers were "held to higher standards" than students who speak it only as a second language.

It is legitimate if, in a single course, there are two "classes" of students taking the course for different forms of credit (such as a course with undergrads taking the course for undergrad credit and grad students taking the course for grad credit, or majors taking a course with students majoring in something else), it is legit for the prof to deliberately and transparently hold the different "classes" of students to different standards.  This should be made clear to students registering for the course and should be made clear on the first day and on the course syllabus.
The best and most legitimate way to make this distinction is, even if the course is taught together with the same prof, is for the different "classes" of students to register for, what appear to be different courses with different course numbers in the school catalog or schedule.  So seniors would be registering for ECON 458 and grad students would be registering for ECON 558.  The "two" courses happen to be about the same topic, meet in the same room at the same times, are are taught by the same prof.  But that prof can assign assignments to the students expecting grad-school credit that is not assigned to the undergrads.  And that prof can apply a stricter measure of performance to the grad students.
Other than that, the same standards should be applied to every student throughout the course.

I would only add that this makes sense if and only if the courses have different numbers. Otherwise, someone could just go into a course, get an A because they were in an unrelated major, then change majors to the one that would have been harder. We do that for our second year courses (two separate courses for majors and non majors) and there's no confusion down the line / gaming the system.

i sorta agree with you, but to a lessor degree.  it makes the best sense to have the courses listed in the catalog or course schedule as different numbers, but sometimes the best thing doesn't happen.  at least when i was in grad school, there were some senior electives in my major that were eligible to take for credit toward my MS.  they didn't have different numbers, but my status was different than the undergrads and the prof knew that.  we grad students had a different "burden".

Potential discrimination issues aside (that is, assuming the professor truly has everyone's best interests in mind and merely wishes to motivate particular students), have you considered that the professor may not rely strictly on individual assignment grades when determining a final grade?
That is, a professor could grade high-performing students strictly to keep them focused and engaged, but adjust their final grade to reflect their performance versus peers. One could argue whether that approach is good pedagogy, but I doubt it is unethical: different students have different needs.
I think there is a lot that is unknown about these circumstances from your question. I would advise students that are concerned about their grading relative to their peers to address the professor directly and politely: with curiosity rather than accusation, and assuming best intentions from the start. There should be no need to escalate the issue unless there are clear indications of bias based on protected categories or other impropriety.

I do this to a slight extent. My top 2 performers on any assignment determine the curve. I have occasionally graded these two people a bit harder than I would normally to increase the size of the curve for other students. If, at the end of the semester, I see that these students were harmed by that practice (i.e. didn't get A), I would adjust them upward and reconsider the practice in the future. But this has never happened.

Does the professor have the right to require students to improve during the class? If so, yes, he has the right to grade the student more strictly. If, however, he is a hired educator and evaluator with a responsibility to accurately report the student's level of ability, then no, he does not have the right.
When deciding your answer to the above, it may help to consider the opposite scenario. One student is not skilled at writing, due to lack of ability or quality education. However, he works hard, is sincere about asking for feedback and responding to it. At the end of the term, his writing is still of below-average quality. Is it ethical for the professor to give, as the saying goes, an "A for effort"?
The answer is not simple, and it cuts to the core of "what is a grade?" I sympathize with the idea that a grade is the professor's way of giving feedback. However, grades used as a determining factor in career prospects, and for this reason I believe a professor has a moral obligation to grade objectively.

You didn't ask this, but it's possible that such behavior could violate your school's grading policy, regardless of the ethical and legal concerns. The central problem is that grades absolutely do matter to students, and they have a reasonable expectation to understand how they will be graded.
For example, the first google result that came up for me states:
Instructors are obligated to evaluate each student's work fairly and without bias and to assign grades based on valid academic criteria. (my emphasis)
https://clas.uiowa.edu/faculty/teaching-policies-resources-grading-system-and-distribution
To be frank, there's a lot of fuzzy and subjective reasoning that goes into grading, and it sounds like this professor's subject might incorporate more of this than usual. Actually finding an administrator who was willing to do anything beyond having a talk with your professor (i.e. formal sanctions) is going to be nearly impossible. Typically the notion of "bias" in grading policies refers to grading some students easier or harder because of discriminatory characteristics like race, gender, or sexual orientation.
Also, your professor's grading might be based on perfectly objective and fair criteria that is not the overall quality of the student's work. For example, a workshop class whose purpose is to refine student's writing style or skill is going to focus heavily on the revision process. The point here might not be to produce masterful essays, but to critically examine and improve your own work. A great essay with minimal evidence of revision is not going to score well in that kind of situation.

Questions about law are off topic here, so I will interpret this question in terms of the culture of academia.  In academic culture, this is the sort of decision that is left to the individual professor's discretion.  The professor feels that some students have different needs from other students, the professor can adjust their grading to meet those needs.  This would fall under the principle of academic freedom.
Is this professor's grading approach ethical?  Is it effective?  I don't think we can judge these questions without knowing what is happening in great detail.  That's one of the reasons why professors have academic freedom.
To answer the later parts of your question, if students are unhappy about the professor's grading policies, they should politely and thoughtfully share their concerns with the professor.  They should also listen carefully to the professor's reasons for his policy.  Students should also read the syllabus and see what it says; the syllabus is often considered a binding contract.

This would fall under the principle of academic freedom. I disagree. If I'm understanding correctly, the professor has effectively said "student A's work is better than student B's, but I'll give student B a better grade than student A because my expectations of her are higher". I'm sorry but I don't think this is fair, ethical, or falls under academic freedom, any more than deciding a student's grade based on a coin toss falls under academic freedom. A grade is a formal assessment of performance. ...

... Your notion that different students have "different needs" in the context of a grade assessment is baffling at best.

I disagree.  Academic freedom means academics are free to be wrong.  That would include grading by coin toss.  "Fair and ethical" are not normally restrictions on academic freedom.  See, for example, holocaust deniers who have kept their faculty positions.

"baffling at best" Students vary more than you think.

@AnonymousPhysicist Perhaps you are right that academcis are free to use coin flips to determine grades; however the administration will change the grade and the academic will have his contract removed or be pressured into quitting.

@AnonymousPhysicist Ah yes; the issue of handwriting is one such thing. Someone with sloppy handwriting will almost never be expelled from the university. Moreover bright students might make leaps (especially in mathematics where some people work many times faster than others) that the professor doesn't usually permit.

I don't agree with your interpretation of academic freedom. If you read for example the Wikipedia article you'll see that its meaning is much more restricted than what you take it for and has nothing to do with grading.

@silvado Universities generally don't consult Wikipedia when making decisions about what does or does not fall under the rubric of "academic freedom".  At my university, grading standards are definitely considered an academic freedom issue.

@JeffE I'd say grading standards in general yes, selectively choosing which students to apply them to not...

Using the specific individuals performance as reference standard for that individual is a good idea to encourage improvement, but it is a really bad idea in this case as the grades are important later on. After all, there won't be an asterisk on the diploma explaining the C is actually an A. So the students should be measured by the same criteria as the other students. Measuring students with different yardsticks is bad practice. It punishes good students in the job market and makes it appear as if the professor is afraid of a ceiling effect.
If the professor still wants to encourage improvement, there are a couple of better options. E.g.,

Give the A and explain in writing below the grade that the students aced the course, but it's due to the level of the course and they are capable of much more. Then explain how they can improve.
Offer a letter of recommendation if the students excel beyond what is usually needed for an A.
Increase the distance between a C and a B, and even more between an B and an A for all students. It will still allow mediocre students to get their C's and D's, but getting B's and A's will be much more difficult — for all students. This had to be done for all future courses, otherwise your grades are influenced by which kinds of students take the course.
Offer an advanced course.

If the grades are readjusted for final course grade, it may make sense.
Suppose there is a subset of students who are turning in solid A essays by the overall class standard. One way of giving them feedback on which essays are better or worse would be to spread out their grades over a wider range.
If that is what is happening, it might be better to take the time to write a note saying what is good about a given essay and what could be improved.

Response, inspired by a comment of @Insulin69:
Indeed. As long as the interface seen outside are only the grades, there is no way for the student to demonstrate their prowess by the quality of their work.
Such a grading system is highly counterproductive and pseudo-pedagogical. It is ok to make higher grades difficult to reach: but, if so, it should be applied across the board aiming at a consistent standard across the class and - ideally - across cohorts of different years of the same class.


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Same person as supervisor/co-promotor and professor/promotor
I've just started a PhD. Currently I only have one person who is supervising me (the professor). So he is now both my supervisor and my promotor.
Now other (ex) PhD students are telling me that these roles should be filled by different people, to prevent mix of interests. But I don't have sufficient insight on what they are referring to.
Should I be worried? Should I talk to my department head to change the situation?
edit, let me clarify:

With "promotor" I mean the main project supervisor, being a professor. He has the final responsibility.
With "supervisor" I mean the daily supervisor, sometimes also called co-promotor. To my understanding this is often somebody else, for instance an associate professor or assistant professor.

Could you explain what a promoter is? I have never heard of that in this context.

To the OP, by promotor do you mean  a full professor of a Dutch, Flanders, or German university who formally promotes a PhD candidate to doctor, and is (formally) the principal supervisor during the doctoral research. as the Promoter Wiki page says?

@scaaahu Yes. Sorry, I thought these were common terms. Are they clear now?

Considering German institution/university where I am doing my Ph.D. now, you are the person who is responsible for finding a second supervisor to your thesis.

Regulations for Doctoral Degree Studies in Germany says (computer science field):

§ 3 and § 4 § 3 II (Primary Supervisors):
“Professors and lecturers who have completed their post-doctoral qualifications, are members of the faculty, or were included in the acceptance of the dissertation, can be primary supervisors.”
§ 4 II (Secondary Supervisors):
“Secondary supervisors assume a supervisory and consultative function. Professors and university lecturers with post-doctoral qualifications can serve as secondary supervisors. The Doctoral Committee can authorize additional scholars and scientists to serve as secondary dissertation supervisors upon case-by-case assessment and the issuance of a resolution to that effect. They need not belong to the faculty.”

Interesting! So in Germany your "promotor" can also be a post-doc? I thought it always had to be a professor.. But back to my question: when I discussed the issue with my professor, he suggested that I did not need a secondary supervisor. Is he overestimating himself?

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Name writer by surname when citing
Normally when writing technical reports, I just cite an article something like this:

In the case of binary classifications, the softmax activation function
  is not efficient [1].

But if something is so crucial for a large part of the entire report, it feels like I should mention the surname of the author who contributed greatly in the area I'm writing about. So, should I do this? If so, how do I write that an entire section is based on a book (actually a PhD thesis) written by some person?
Would it be correct to write like this:

Based on X [1], this section describes...,

where X is the surname of the author.
Or does it need to be written more clearly, like this:

Based on the PhD thesis by X [1], ...

"X proved that In the case of binary classifications, the softmax activation function is not efficient [1]."

@JeffE yes, that is perhaps a better way of writing the sentence that I used as an example of how I normally cite articles. I edited my question, so hopefully it's easier to understand what I'm asking now.

You can mention the name, and then reference the thesis.
I would write something like...

Anderson [1] describes blah blah

Or something like that. But you don't have to mention the name so much as the concept or evidence, for example...

Incentive salience explains a system of hedonic processing which draws  attention to rewarding stimuli based upon...etc [1]

*Incentive salience is theory developed by Robinson and Berridge, and is crucial to understanding hedonic processing. But I don't personally always refer to authors surnames in text. Appropriate citation to the references is more important. The writing style is up to you, but if you which to refer to a specific section you can add the page to the main text i.e.

Chapter 4 of Morpheus's thesis found the Matrix to be all around us [1,
  p.15].

I wouldn't personally write like this, but it is acceptable for an undergraduate project, and as a comment on my answer mentioned, some people prefer reading the reference name.
Please see the linked pdf for some rules regarding referencing in the IEEE style. I also found this answer on the writers stack regarding IEEE referencing of thesis material, which could be of some use.
Robinson, T. E., & Berridge, K. C. (2008). The incentive sensitization theory of addiction: some current issues. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 363(1507), 3137–3146. http://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2008.0093

As a reader I always appreciate some hint in the text who might have written a given work. So: "As shown by A&B[1]..." is preferred to "As shown in [1]...", which gives me very little information without having to turn to the reference section. This can get tedious.

I agree, which is why I prefer the Harvard system. However if you are inclined to take a look at Nature Neuroscience, which uses IEEE, you will find that it isn't common practice to refer to a researchers surname. Really, I suppose it comes down to the subject and the writing style of the author in this case, as its not for publication.

@JeffE I'm not disputing that. I'm saying in when IEEE is used in journals the names are commonly in the references section rather than the main body. My apologies for the confusion.

Sorry, let me try again: Yes, you should mention the name in the text. The entire point of citations is to give credit to people.  (The bibliography is there to help readers find their work.)

@JeffE: "The entire point of citations is to give credit to people." - disagree. The point of citations is to connect statements in the document to bibliography items. Giving credit to people is, if anything, a positive side-effect.

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How to handle a seriously unresponsive journal?
I have submitted a paper to a journal that says the time to first decision is generally X months, and that there are strict deadlines for reviewers to complete their review. After X months were up, I used the journal's internal submission system (Editorial Manager) to send a direct message to the editorial office, with no response. Two weeks passed.
This journal is by no means a top field journal, but it's a solid "good" journal. It's not terrible or predatory or anything like that. It's from the big 4 publishers.
Next, I searched the journal website and found an email address of a staff member to contact about the submissions and peer review process. This staff member appears to be a full-time employee of the publisher, rather than an academic. I emailed the staff member, and also got no response. This person's email address first.surname@publisher.com is also the contact email under the "Contact Us" tab in Editorial Manager. One additional month passed.
I asked this question Is it acceptable to directly email the Editor-in-Chief if the editorial staff are not responding? on this forum. I then emailed the Editor in Chief at his institutional email, which was not listed on the website. That was about 10 days ago and he has not responded. All my emails have been polite, asking for an update on the status of the manuscript, etc.
This has never happened that the journal/editorial staff have simply not responded to communication, especially twice. What should be my next step? Aside from the initial confirmation email (after submitting the manuscript), I have never heard from the journal at all. (Aside: when I press reply to that initial confirmation email, it would go to the same first.surname@publisher.com staff member as mentioned previously.) For example, I have received no email that a particular editor or associate editor was handling my manuscript. Thus, I can see the list of editors on the website, but don't know any of them personally, and don't know which of them is handling my manuscript.
I can contact other staff members listed on the journal website (who deal with different matters such as author proofs after the paper is accepted) or I can try to contact the publisher directly. However, the publisher's website does state that for any request pertaining to a specific journal, consult the journal's website for whom to contact. So, what's my next step?

Have you checked your spam mailbox?

Yes, I check my spam every day. Also emails from this publisher always come through.

At what time are we now? X plus a month? They may mean that X is something like the average time, and from how I know such indications, taking one or even two or three moths longer is quite normal. Maybe some more patience could be a good next step.

Is your experience with this journal worse than your experience with other ones? (assuming that you have had previous experience)

I have no prior experience with this journal. @Yemon
We are now X plus 2 months approximately. I don't mind things taking a bit longer, but they should give me the courtesy of a response.

Thanks, but that wasn't what I asked. What I meant was: is your experience with this journal worse than with other journals which you have previously submitted to?

Yes, this experience of simply not hearing back multiple times is something I have never experienced.

Your experience reminds of my own which lead to the following question which seems to be relevant: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/120854/when-to-retract-a-submission-due-to-excessive-length-of-peer-review-process

Given the track record of the journal so far, I'd say you're better off sending the original journal a message saying that you're withdrawing your submission, and starting over at another journal. You don't need to wait for an acknowledgement of your withdrawal (which might never come) from the first journal (answers to this question say you should wait for confirmation, albeit in a very different scenario; I'd say waiting a week or so to be extra-courteous would be reasonable, but longer is unnecessary).
It sucks but that will probably serve you better than trying to fix the broken system at the current journal.
This answer says

Withdrawal because you think the review process is too slow might be OK after very many months without any communication or signs of progress ...

but if you are two months past the journal's average time to first decision, without the courtesy of a response (even "sorry, we're being slow") from anyone associated with the journal, it seems justified.
(Checking your junk/spam folder as @Allure suggests is probably a good first step though.)

If you really want to publish in this journal, try giving them a phone call. You could call either the editor-in-chief or the publisher. If you go with the editor-in-chief and (s)he doesn't answer the phone, you could call the department receptionist.
Otherwise you could give up and withdraw the manuscript. In this case I would just write that if you don't receive a response within [time] then you are withdrawing, and follow through if you still don't receive a response.

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How to deal with students asking very incremental questions?
I'm a TA/grader for an online course in introductory programming. We have students ask us questions related to homework/labs/etc. on Piazza where we can have quick back-and-forth with questions and answers.
However, some students ask questions that are either require very basic logic, or are one of the first parts of the course. Also, some students ask for what we think of their code after every little change.
I (at least) try to ask them back questions that will lead them logically and to think critically about the material, and to come up with a solution themselves. However, this leads to not much success.
My question is how to best respond to students who ask us these questions.

You refer to a "quick back-and-forth" in your question. A danger with being too responsive is that it becomes easier for a student to ask the TA than it would be to reason it out on his own, look up material from earlier lectures or from the Internet, etc. It also encourages students to "check in" with the TA more often, e.g. about tiny changes to their code.
Perhaps limiting your responsiveness could help. For example, announce that you will visit Piazza at 4 PM every weekday and answer all the questions that have accrued since your last visit. Don't answer questions multiple times per day.
That way, students won't expect immediate "coaching" from the TA, and might be more motivated to work through small problems themselves.

Or just throttle back the reply rate for those who seem to be over-reliant on your advice.

@DavidRicherby Expecting students to infer that you won't respond immediately (to some of them) seems less effective than applying a policy across the board and explicitly telling them about it. Also, rate-limiting some students and not others seems like it could go badly - students won't understand what's going on and will just get frustrated and angry.

I reccomend an explicit policy that no (non-administrative) question on Piazza will be answered by the course staff in less than 4 hours, or between (say) 9pm and 9am. Of course, other students can answer, and staff can flag those students answers as good, before then.

My answer is a bit tangential, but should help somewhat.
Archive your Q&A:
I face similar problems, but on an annual, seasonal base. Every semester I find myself answering the same fundamental questions. Then I thought I should probably spend my time on more valuable activities, so for different courses I set up a WordPress or wiki site to compile a list of Q&A. Whenever there is a question e-mail to me, I posted the question (in a de-identified format) and my answer. Students can comment on the blog or directly edit the wiki if they have anything to add.
Now, six years down and the sites are going well... I can't be happier that I made the decision. The initial investment was high, but it started to pay off pretty much instantly.
Provide a questioning protocol in the syllabus: In my syllabus I also included a section called "What to do if I have a question?" In the section I put information about how to search different resources, how to test the codes step by step, how to find a popular discussion board and what are some I would suggest, what other reference books one can use for more/less advanced readers
I specifically explain how to properly ask a question in e-mail. For instance, I specify that in the e-mail they should describe what they are trying to achieve, software that they use, data set that they use, problem (with relevant error message and screenshot.) I also specify what are not the right ways to ask question, which includes:

"Please take a look and see if I am on the right track." -- We do not check your homework without you specifying a question. The grade will tell you if you were on the right track. And the suggested answer scheme will guide you to improve your work

Consider giving some very explicit hints, and ask the student to identify what went wrong: This one hits me hard, because I felt giving the steps to them make them learn less. However, there have been some students who were really lost. And in those case, I would consider calming them down by providing an anchor point, which is the steps to the right answer. I then follow up with them by asking "Now, you have the suggested steps guiding you to the answer, compared to your original scheme, can you identify what might have gone wrong?"
Be very sure that you did give enough examples and self-assessment opportunities: When developing questions, I will make sure to start with some that are very similar to the examples I show in class or notes. Sometimes, we may want to try to tweak the questions right from the get go by introducing what we think are "simple logic." That, to me, is not the correct approach. If the task is how to deal with XYZ, then show them how in the class, and then test them the exact same skill sets in the beginning of the assignment. From there and on, you can start introducing slight variations, so that now it's about XY'Z... just a bit of a twist, bit by bit.
For us who have sorted all topics nice and tidy in our brain, we can immediately tell the unimportant from the important (think a super nice walk-in closet on a lifesyle magazine.) For the students, their pieces are like a pile of things in a dorm room. For that reason, I wouldn't worry too much if they ask seemingly very simple questions... because when you don't have all the pieces laid out structurally, some simple stuff can look huge.

If some of the questions are very basic, they could probably be answered by fellow students.
I often encourage students to answer questions posed by other students on the discussion board. It's nice to log on and see a question already answered, even before I've read it. One professor I know even awarded some extra credit to students who answered questions, with excellent results.
Also, you could also provide some feedback that helps define the ground rules as you go along. For example, early on in the term, at the end of an answer, you could append something like this:

I didn't mind answering this question, since it's still early in the course. However, as the course progresses, I'm expecting this forum to be used for more substantial questions, rather than simple checks. Students shouldn't need to ask for help here for such basic issues; this isn't supposed to be the first place you go every time you encounter a small snag. Make sure you've put in a good effort into solving your problem first.

Maybe not every student will get the message, but such feedback may steer most students toward the desired behavior.

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Student asks TA if his result (figure) is correct
I'm TAing a class that uses Piazza (an online student forum), in addition to the traditional office hours. A student made a (private) post, where he uploaded a MATLAB figure and asked whether it is correct. The figure is what the first question of the homework assignment asks for.
Am I supposed to tell him whether his answer is correct/wrong? Especially over an online forum?
I don't think so, because that would be giving out the solution. How do I reply without sounding "mean"? Do I tell him to come to office hours instead?
(It's my first time TAing ever...)

Related: I wrote a MSO post arguing against allowing questions like this on Stack Overflow because the OP is basically asking us to test their code for them. It's ultimately the student's responsibility to proofread their work.

Welcome to the most standard "trick" students use to get answers out of professors/TAs.
My answer is as a professor, but I think the basic principle works for TAs as well. What I usually do is turn the question back to them. Something like:

S: Is this answer correct?
Me: Well, what do you think?

Now things can go in different ways:

case 1: S says "well I'm not sure". In which case you can say, "well how might you go about verifying that your answer is correct?". This might then lead to a discussion of how to check answers without you having to commit to commenting on their particular answer.

case 2: S says "Well I think it's correct". Then you can say "Ok then. I understand that you think it's correct" and leave it at that.
They might persist and say "can you tell me if you think it's correct". At which point you can say "No, but how would you go about checking its correctness?", taking you back to case 1 and the "methodology" of checking.

The underlying pedagogical point is this: you don't want students checking answer correctness with you ahead of time because

a) learning to check your own answers is an important part of learning. It allows you to diagnose problems and identify the correct path to an answer.

b) it's unfair to those who don't ask, and it's a waste of your time

c) using this Socratic approach allows you to assess how they are approaching the problem, and allows you to guide them in their approach, rather than spoonfeeding a prescribed answer. Everyone approaches problems differently.

P.S. Students often also ask for hints. The material I teach is usually mathematical, so they're asking for hints for a proof. There you have some more leeway, but the trick is to draw them out into explaining their thought process, and then trying to gently nudge them without revealing the answer. It takes some practice and a lot of Socratic dialogue.

There are some good points here, but I'm not sure I wholly agree with this stance. A student wants feedback early, with a chance to rework the question if it's wrong. How is that bad? How does that hinder learning? As for fairness, it's only unfair if you give one student feedback but not others. If learning is the underlying objective (as it should be), then an early solicitation for feedback provides an opportunity for the student to learn the material better, and to get credit for any extra effort put into the work. I'd characterize this as a conscientious study habit, not a "trick".

I think my calling it a "trick" maybe imputes more bad motives to the student than they deserve. But nevertheless, I don't think that telling a student whether an answer is right or wrong PRIOR to grading helps learning. Students do need to learn how to "debug" their answers (whether it's a proof, or a piece of code), and this dialogue teaches them how to do that.

As a footnote, in my experience, it's been my better students who ask for feedback before the due dates, and it has always seemed like it's been in a spirit of wanting to have time to fix things. Perhaps if I taught more 100- or 200-level courses where a different student demographic was asking for help, I'd have seen more of this "trickiness" you're talking about. In any case, I think we agree that it's best when the professor's answer isn't a Boolean response.

I know you mean this well, but the only thing I would learn from answers like this is to never ask you anything again. If the goal is to teach students to check their answer, then just answer: "I can't tell you the solution but you can check the correctness yourself using methods e.g., X Y or Z." Especially since you are against time-wasting, this would save everybody a lot of time, since we avoid the exchange of 3 "Socratic" messages. It's also more valuable for people who will read the answer. There is a reason why on SE "Well, what do you think?"  answer is usually not appreciated

You can make an explicit policy or a little FAQ page saying that you won't answer if the results are correct, students will find out after you grade it.
The more general problem is that the student's question is just not a good question, it's not specific enough and there is not enough information about what the student's concerns are. So you can include in your FAQ that you are going to answer good questions, with examples of good and bad questions. If the student sends you a bad question anyway, don't just sent them a link to https://stackoverflow.com/help/how-to-ask but also be specific with your feedback.
E.g.,

Dear student, it's not easy to answer your question, since it's not
clear what are your specific concerns. Please specify why do you think
your answer might not be correct, and what did you try so far. See
also the link in the syllabus on how to ask good questions.

You don't only want students to learn how to write good questions but also how to write useful answers, here you should mainly teach by example. These students might be your peers one day, and you will be asking them a question in order to solve your academic problem. I am sure you wouldn't want them to answer "Well, what do you think?"


text:
Is it normal to have no publications after 2.5 years in a PhD program?
Background: I started my Ph.D two and half years ago in engineering/computer science field. I was pushed by my supervisor into a direction which he thought would be good (He switched directions and he knows nothing about the field, just because there were better prospects for getting grants). I never felt connected to the field and he never received any grants to study it.
I switched a year ago to a subject that I feel passionate about and started reading lots of literature. I have done some work and submitted (rejected at first, resubmitted and waiting).
So now I have completed 2.5 years in the program and no publications at all. I even find it very hard to find new novel ideas in my field as it is been actively researched for 10 years and it seems to me as if almost everything is already done but that is a different issue.
I am afraid I won't get enough publications in time before the Ph.D time limit expires.
Question:
Is it normal to be 2.5 years into Ph.D and have no publications?

What did your supervisor say? Does your department have an explicit minimum number of publications that must have been accepted before a PhD can be awarded? What have your peers and predecessors done by this stage?

Are you in the US, or in any other PhD program with a lot of coursework involved in the first years?

My supervisor never mentioned anything. He had some students graduate with one conference paper yet for the past few years he is asking for unreasonable number of publications. He has some students publish over 15 conferences and 5 journals in five years time!
No coursework is required in my program which makes me even feel bad.

I would like to add this rather relevant PhD "memoir" of first year from a researcher who did not have first author papers in year-5, then managed to get a number of them published in 1 year to get his PhD back on track: pgbovine.net/PhD-memoir-year5.htm

One word.
Yes !
It is absolutely normal. I am a doctoral student in, what is arguably a top 5 CS department/top 5 HCI program in the USA.
Although, I had a handful of publications before I started my doctoral program, my first "real" paper (in a top flight venue) with my adviser was published more than 2.5 years after I joined the program. I had published a couple of workshop papers/posters in those years with other graduate students but the acceptance rates for them, even in highly ranked conferences, are pretty high so that doesn't really account for much. These had nothing to do with my dissertation but were just some side projects that we did.
Most of my colleagues and friends/acquaintances in similar programs in similar universities were in similar situations in that time. It takes time to read literature, come up with a compelling and important research question, design a study/prototype/system/algorithm, write the paper and most importantly, get it published.
Do not be disheartened. The quality of papers matter, not the quantity when it comes to being evaluated by search committees.

This answer is misleading. You start off by stating how its completely normal to not have papers for 2.5 years, and then go on to say that you did publish some workshop papers before. That those were not top venues is not the question - the OP asked about not having publshed at all.

I do not think that my answer is misleading. I published workshop papers with other graduate students, not my adviser. Those had nothing to do with my dissertation. I will clarify my answer accordingly to reflect this.

... but the OP still asked about having, and I'm quoting, no publications at all.

Why does it matter who your coauthors were? Why does is matter if the publications had anything to do with your thesis?

I was in the exact same situation (also CS) and I would say that it is both normal and cause for concern. So there's no reason to take it personally, or to start worrying about your abilities, this happens to many people, but it is a situation that needs to be resolved. From now on, your number one priority should be to get a paper, put everything else on hold. Don't worry about getting enough papers, worry about getting one.
You have something under submission, so the odds are you'll get it accepted somewhere pretty soon. However, if you don't, I would recommend trying to find someone with experience who can coach you hands-on. Find someone who can read your draft in detail and tell you what needs to be done. 2.5 years with no publications is usually a sign that the supervisor is not paying very close attention, and it may be good to find someone who can pay close attention to you, at least for a bit. Getting a paper past reviewers is a strange, dark art, and it really helps to get some intense supervision for your first attempt.
edit after comment: Two further tips to help your situation:

Idea generation is a skill and you can work on getting better at it.
[1 2 3]. If you're not generating ideas, tackle that problem head-on. Don't think of yourself as a non-creative person, and don't blame your subject: there are always exciting directions if you look hard enough.
Try to write a collaborative paper, ask a postdoc or a fellow PhD in your group to do some brainstorming, and to find an idea that you can work on together. That way, the work becomes less lonely, and you have at least one other person who cares about it. It might be a little scary to initiate something like this, but if the alternative is working by yourself for the next 2.5 years, you may consider stepping out of your comfort zone a little bit.

I am in my 3.5+ year now, one year after I asked the question and I have one IEEE conference paper. I still feel bad about it. I still can go for 2.5 years in the program, but this is too much pressure. I rarely see my supervisor and she does not care at all. She does not even know what I am doing. I have fallen victim to depression because of the whole situation. I hope this year would be better!

@TheByzantine I know how miserable and lonely this job can be if you're the only person who cares about your research. Hang in there, it does get better. I've added some tips to the answer.

My impression is that "in the olden days", it was normal that the PhD thesis was the first publishable research one produced. But as academia became more and more competitive, many advisers became aware of the fact that for their students to be considered "doing well", they should publish before the end of their PhD. Some people publish preliminary results of their PhD research, only to quote them later in their thesis.
I would say that at a broad range of universities, advisers are looking to help graduate students publish as soon as possible. (But most advisers also know that giving a publication "for free" doesn't help develop the research attitude of the student.)
Still, I've seen in various places the practice of letting a student carry out some easy calculation, which becomes part of a more advanced paper, which the student may not actually fully understand. But still the student is listed as co-author. This is supposed to prepare the student for "research" and it may be considered part of the "learning experience" to present this paper at seminars or conferences.
In this way some Master's students have a (usually joint) publication with their adviser (and possibly other students). In particular, this means that, by year 2.5 of their PhD they have at least 1 or 2 papers.
This practice seems to be common enough for interviewers to not even ask about joint publications of graduate students (maybe unless they are in top journals). (I've been interviewed for funding and my interviewer asked me "So, I saw on your CV that you have a singly-authored paper..." ignoring my B-grade journal joint publication.)
In that way "The System" knows about smart advisers. Now, advisers are trying to help students prepare singly-authored papers (or "first-authored" papers, depending on the field). The motivational barrier is now much higher, of course, since the adviser won't be listed as co-author. One pay-off for the adviser would be to increase his citation count by having the paper cite the adviser's papers.
(My personal impression is that "paper count" is a very poor measure of an application, but I also think it often still serves as a "rough first approximation" to the research ability of a student.)
To sum up, I think by now it is rather uncommon for a graduate student to have no publication by 2.5 years PhD. Many Postdoc positions in my field (Mathematics) are not filled with Postdocs, but rather PostPostPostdocs. Having no publications, or even just one publication resulting from your PhD work, I'm guessing it might prove rather difficult to find a job in academia.

Most of your remarks are valid for computer science, with the exception of the "single author" part. In general, my impression is that it doesn't make any difference. First author X middle author does, but not single X multi. And, in CS, it is pretty common for undergrads to have conference papers as first authors and I know several masters' students that have a couple of journal papers as first authors. Of course, those guys are the top of the top, they are not the rule, but not that rare either...

@FábioDias Thanks for the feedback. I don't come from a field that has first author–second author distinctions, so I guess that "singly-authored" in my post might correspond to "first-authored" in CS and other fields with this distinction.

@FábioDias Whether first author versus middle author matters in CS depends on how theoretical a part of CS one is in. In purely theoretical CS, authors are ordered alphabetically.

Yes, it's definitely normal.
It can take time to find the topic that's close to your heart. Once you find a topic that motivates you, the publications will flow.

I wouldn't say it is normal, I would say it is not that big of a problem, but certainly not desirable.
It would be good for you to push harder and try to publish good articles now. And it seems you are already on this path.
I finished my phd with only one conference paper, and that was far from ideal and it did get in the way, a little...

Update, it did get in the way, a lot actually. Ended up hoping subfields, never publishing enough to be seriously on the run for NA, got out of academia in 2019...

I would say it can be normal to have no publications until you're done with your PhD, and then your dissertation counts as your publication.  There's nothing wrong with having no publications beforehand.  These are often obsessions for university Deans and perhaps Admin, but they are not directly connected with the pursuit of knowledge or a Doctor of Philosophy.
In other words one can pursue knowledge without publishing anything. Further, a lessor degree does not say that you are ready to publish and contribute your own work to the corpus of the Establishment -- that SHOULD be saved until after you are rewarded the degree.  The degree then acts as a badge you've earned as a member of the community.
Save publications for your career.  Better to focus on making your PhD count for something, so that when you do get the award, you have something real to contribute to centuries of knowledge accumulation in Academe.
[Edit:  for those arguing that it's accepted practice to dilute the publishing industry to meet your program's requirements, why don't you solicit your University to start the Journal for "Paper's Required towards my PhD".]

Although that's normal in many (most?) fields, I'm not sure it's true in CS.

they are not connected with the pursuit of knowledge - communicating your research to other scientists, and getting feedback from other scientists by having your work peer reviewed and presenting it at a conference (in CS), is certainly part of the pursuit of knowledge

In th areas of CS I'm active in (bioinformatics, some functional programming) it is definitely normal to have publications. The 'obsession' sentence is /really/ wrong -- staple theses are becoming more and more the norm.

If you're a PhD student, your career has already started.

@JeffE: No.  Then call yourself a "researcher", not a student, dude.

@MarkJ I think that the formal term, at least in my university, is Graduate Researcher

@MarkJ PhD students are researchers. Dude.

In engineering, optical sciences, and some physics subfields you must publish to finish a Ph.D., my advisor wants 3 peer reviewed publications in high impact journals, but has been known to accept only 2.

It's not necessarily normal - for example, in my field, it would be extremely unusual to have nothing published prior to graduating, would definitely hamper that career you're suggesting people save stuff for, and if you don't even have papers prepped for publication, will stop you from graduating. At my alma mater, at least one paper had to have been submitted.

@daaxix: It is absurd to insist that you publish in order to finish a PhD, which essentially makes the degree about jumping through hoops rather than the ideals of what Academe is.  Only a weak university would insist on such because they aren't apparently willing to stand behind who they reward the letters if the first place and they figure is someone ELSE check them out (a peer review panel of a journey), then they won't feel so much out on the limb.

I know several universities that won't let you defend your phd until have more than a fixed (small) number of publications....

You can tell those universities that they're dumbing down the value of a PhD.

Or they are helping their students to actually get somewhere, without having grants denied because of the lack of publications. Since you won't get into a postdoc and want to publish after the end of the phd, from where is the money coming from? In computer science, stuff does not work that way... And yes, I'll go against a policy that I agree with and I found in at least 5 universities in 3 countries because random internet dude said so...

Really? Crude language? Unnecessary @TheDoctor.

[Re-edit from prior comment] Well, Mr. Dias, you're not only making useless work for the PhD candidate requiring publications IN ADDITION to their dissertation which counts as a publication. You're now also diluting the publishing industry which is getting papers merely because they're requirements towards some neophyte's PhD. Why don't you start a journal called "Papers for Requirements of my PhD". @tonysdg: "crude" language removed for the sake of the children.

@Fomite:  I feel your concern about career, but quite honestly a PhD is irrelevant to career.  Save that for Master's degree which SHOULD be about merely mastering a trade or craft.  In any case, the careers you're likely talking about are for shills and probably aren't worth a PhD's time.  What you are seeing is the fact that most Corporations don't have a clue how to assess a post-Bachelor's education.  To limit their search by a crude metric of "publications" says that Academia has let Corporations get more power than themselves.

@TheDoctor That statement is just absurdly false. It may be irrelevant, but it isn't necessarily.

By many professors, I have been told that the difference between a M.Sc. and a Ph.D. is much more than the difference between a Ph.D. and an Assoc. Prof.
The very next step of a Ph.D. graduate is supervising researches. For that, he/she has to know how to conduct quality research. To give that precious title, I think it is a university's very very much natural right to require a SCI publication.
I think that insulting people by sarcasm or calling them dumbass is not necessary.

Please refer to the Be Nice policy. Users of this site are required to refrain from name-calling.

Just to clarify a detail, the vast majority of universities accept as thesis a collection of papers: you write an introduction chapter, slap your articles there, a conclusion chapter and done. So no "in addition", the work overhead is minimal. That's how CS works, which is the OP field and mine.


text:
What are dissertation hours in the scope of degree requirements for PhD?
At my school for a PhD I am required to complete a minimum of 72 credit hours of study(around 4 years of study). Of this ~42 are to be course work and ~30 is to be dissertation.
So I know what a dissertation is but not in the context of "30 dissertation hours." For students and professors what has been your experience and what is actually done each semester while you are taking the dissertation hours. Do you go to class or is it a one on one basis with a selected professor or maybe just your adviser. Is there no class/group time, and I just do research into the area I have proposed for my dissertation?
Will be asking my adviser and graduate school dean about this but was also interested in the dynamic that other schools have in this area.

72 hours in what time period?  72 hours every week seems excessive (even though it wouldn't be unusual for some weeks of a PhD).  But 72 hours in any commonly used time period greater than a week seems too little.  Puzzling!

I think he means 72 course hours, where a typical semester-long course at a US university is rated at 3 hours. A full load for a typical graduate student would be 9 to 12 course hours per semester.

As @BillBarth said, "official" dissertation hours are just filler. It might be misleading to think of them as a representation of how much work you should be doing.

In my PhD program, I was required to register for various research and dissertation related courses to fill the required 9 credit hours to be a full-time student. Those course ranged from 3 to 5 credit hours depending on what I needed. Those courses never met, and I did not receive a letter grade for them. They seemed to have two purposes: 1. existing to fill my schedule after my actual coursework was done (so that I was listed as being enrolled as a full-time student and so that they had something to charge me for), and 2. giving my advisor credit with the department for supervising a research or dissertation student. The mostly seem to be a bureaucratic slight of hand.
Edited to add: I was also paid 20 hours per week to work as a Graduate Research Assistant, but I basically worked about 40-50 hours per week on going to class (until I was done with my required hours) and working on my research. Towards the end, when I was writing my dissertation, it was more. The hours I was officially paid and the credit hours I took, never really aligned with much, except that a 3-credit hour actual course (like "Functional Analysis") met for 3 hours every week.

If you take 9 credit hours of course work per semester, then you will need 5 semesters for the course work only.
But from the first semester, try to choose a topic for you dissertation and then find the professor (doing research on that topic) and ask him to be your advisor. Then along with the course work, spend some time to get literature and requirements about your topic. But you must keep in touch with the topic and the advisor.
By the time you finish your course work, you may have enough data and know how to carry on full time research. 30 is just a number which has nothing to do with how many hours you really work. What you really need to do is to have results acceptable by your advisor, one or two publications and a good presentation.

Most unis that I have looked at or been to require you to have an adviser selected and willing to take you before they will admit you.

@NDEthos Initially, find out or ask someone about a professor who is working in the field of your interest. Choose him as your advisor. In many schools, you can request the chairman of the department to change your advisor later on.


text:
Doing a postdoc with your advisor's collaborators
I will be applying for postdocs soon (in the US and Europe). I think I have a profile that is competitive, and I want to do a postdoc at a top place where my advisor did his postdoc (and continues to collaborate with his postdoc advisors). It has sort of been a childhood dream of mine to go to this place, and hence I am set on going there if I can get in.
My advisor thinks that it is a bad idea for me to try and go there, because it doesn't "look good" if I go to the same place where my advisor did his postdoc. He thinks that in order to get a tenured position some years down the line, I need to "separate" myself from my PhD advisor and his collaborators, and do something different on my own. He recommends that I in fact do a postdoc at other schools that are not highly ranked, but which have good people working in my field. I suppose his assumption is that getting a tenured position has little to do with the prestige of the school where you do a postdoc.
I was hoping to get opinions on this here. Does it really look that bad if I work with my advisor's collaborators?

I see three issues.
First, your advisor is correct that working with a wider set of collaborators is good for you. Good for your mental and career development. The advisor seems to express this in opposite terms, though: keeping insulated is bad for you. I think that later representation is less true than the other, but agree that it has some effect.
The second issue is that you have to be productive as an early career individual (academic or not). This works the other way. Keeping contact with those with similar interests and ideas can be a way to produce a lot of interesting things. You already have a strong base.
The third issue, of course, is how strongly your advisor will support you if you decide to go with this group rather than take their advice to "spread your wings". You can predict that better than anyone here, of course. Generally, however, it is a bad idea to go against an advisor with strong views.
So, arguments on both sides.
Note however, that your own productivity will weigh heavier than the "prestige" of any institution you are associated with. Spending a couple of years at, say, MIT is a big deal, but only if you make good use of your time there.
Following your own dream has to count for something, of course.


text:
Sending your potential advisors your preprint that you have not posted on arXiv
I have written up a preprint that I have not posted on arXiv yet, as I keep modifying it. It is advisable to send that preprint to my potential postdoctoral advisors before I have posted it on arXiv, so that they may have a better idea of my research? One may imagine this to be a high-trust environment, in which these advisors will not steal my work.

If it's not on arxiv, is it a preprint? Isn't that just a manuscript?

Yes, there should be no problem with this. People in general are honest as well as helpful. Presumably you are applying to people with a solid reputation and you have already explored that.
Don't send out a scattershot appeal, however, using such a pre-pre-print or not.
I would only send such things in a second email after you already gain some positive feedback from the first one in which you state that you have a work in progress that you can share with them confidentially. You can mention that it is soon to be posted.
In general, don't flood a potential supervisor with information in a first mail unless you are applying for an advertised position that gives some indication of what is required.


text:
What are some good things to make explicit between a student and their supervisor when beginning a PhD?
This question is motivated by the fact that my last research internship was unsatisfactory in my relation with my supervisor. Partly because of me, I may have tried to be too much autonomous, rarely coming to him or sharing what I was doing or reading and never asking feedback. We didn't produce much and by the end he shared with me his disappointment, which strangely was a bit surprising to me, I was blind to the situation and our lack of exchange.
Now, I'm about to start my PhD with a totally new supervisor, and I'd like to learn from this mistake. I'm deeply convinced that the experience will be much more fulfilling for both sides if we maintain stimulating exchanges.
I was thinking about having from the beginning a long discussion about his expectation from me on short, mid and long term, his availability and the way he would like to supervise and push me.
Is this irrelevant or too much? Have you already had similar discussions? Have you tried something else?

Having a discussion about the PhD project specifically and expectations in general is always a good idea. If there is a clear project lined up it will be useful to discuss the details, possible directions, publications etc. In some cases (systems/programs/traditions) it is useful (in fact mandatory) to write a research plan or to write a review of the field as part of reading up on it. It is necessary that both you and the advisor has the same view of what should be achieved to the extent the specific program allows.
Apart from the science it is useful to discuss expectations so that you can agree on how work should proceed. Should you meet regularly? if so how often? How much feedback should you expect? Well the questions are many but having such a discussion is useful, particularly if you can also note what you agree upon on a piece of paper. In my country, one actually signs an individual study plan that is followed up annually showing progress in terms of course work and research. having such a plan is actually constructive in that it makes it possible to see if you are on track and also identify if and when your plan needs revisions and goals may deviate from the originally proposed. But, of course, all this is something which to some extent is dictated by the traditions in the specific program.
So do take the opportunity to have a good talk about the future collaboration. You will probably sense if the discussion is received well by the advisor and adapt accordingly.

To echo some of the other comments here, I strongly recommend touching on topics beyond just science - your supervisor is going to be a very important figure in your life for several years if all goes according to plan, so in addition to things like the details of the project you're working on, I'd make sure to touch on the following:

Any "lab policies" they have, written or unwritten. For example, some folks really prefer if their people work with a particular programming language, operating system, etc. Some people could care less if you work remotely as long as they see you now and again, and some people want geographic proximity, and seeing your face in the office.
Working preferences. Are they a night owl, or a 9-to-5 type? Will they read drafts the weekend before a conference deadline, or do you need to get them weeks in advance? Do they want progress reports, or will they be happy/prefer with a finished product simply manifesting itself after weeks of silence?
Authorship policies - how much do they want you writing your own papers, taking ownership of your projects, etc.
How stable is your funding?
Teaching expectations, if there are any. Are there courses they think you should take?

Slightly later on, once you've clarified your own goals, I'd also suggest a talk with your supervisor about where you'd like to end up when you're done. Teaching? Research? Industry?

How often will you meet and what is expected on each side at these meetings?
How long should you work on a problem before asking for help?
What are the formal milestones along the way?
Do you agree on working hours and location? Does your advisor expect you to be in the office 9-5, or working from home 9-5 (or 8-6?)? Do they expect that you’ll put in 20 hours a week or 80? Or do they leave all that up to you as long as the work gets done?
When can you take time off, and is there a particular time of year when you should take it?
How will authorship be determined? Should your advisor be a co-author on every paper?
Can you agree on a turn-around time by which your advisor can commit to giving you feedback on your drafts?
Will you be expected to dedicate all your time to your primary project, or should you also explore other ideas on your own?
What is your advisor’s approach to outside collaborations? Can you initiate collaborations or share your data and code with other researchers on request, or should you keep it within your advisor’s group?
How will your performance be judged? For example, should you aim to have one paper published each year, or are other things more important?
What is your group’s data management policy? What records are you expected to keep and how does the group make sure that there is always a clear and auditable record of your data, lab work, code and paper drafts?
What are your career goals and how can your advisor help you get there?
Who else can you go to if there is a problem?


text:
How to reply to reviewers who ask for more work by responding that the paper is complete as it stands?
I have a paper under review at a journal. Reviewers have very positive feedback, but have brought up a few of the limitations of the method (which I had described and suggested as future work) and requested these be addressed in a revision. What is a good way to politely yet firmly respond to such requests? I do not think such additional work is necessary for publication, as the paper already has a lot of contributions, in my opinion. And, even from a readability and focus perspective, this paper is already substantially longer and has more "going on" than the typical paper in this journal, which made it difficult to write. Of course, these are my subjective opinions, and it's hard to offer objective reasons for whether or not "future work" belongs in "present work".
Edit: Related questions and answers focus on how to negotiate the amount of work in revisions with the editor, especially for authors with limited resources to do such additional work. In this question,  I'm focusing on whether (and if so, how) to argue that doing more work will not make the paper better, because it already covers a lot of ground.

Positive this has been asked here multiple times. First similar but not identical question I found: https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/53909/63475 Someone else may find some that are closer.

This question is similar to: How to respond a reviewer's reply when he is asking about much more to be discussed?. If you believe it’s different, please edit the question, make it clear how it’s different and/or how the answers on that question are not helpful for your problem.

@Anyon I've edited the question to explain its difference in focus from related questions.

To be clear, you're sufficiently firm on this that you'd rather have the paper rejected than add any of the requested material?

@NateEldredge -- basically. For example, one of the requested additions requires a substantially different set of skills, so while I could do it in principle, someone from that different subfield could do a better job -- and it's substantial enough to get published on its own, in my opinion.

I'd completely agree with @avid's answer. Introductions that only explore the broad area in which the research was done, without defining a narrow purpose to the research, invite the reviewer to request work on the area of the broad field that is more interesting to them. Normally the problem is that the reviewer can't see that the paper has met its aims because the aims aren't clearly specified or are too broad. Clearly laying out the research question the paper seeks to answer at the outset, will help to show that it has delivered on that aim and that additional work would be beyond the scope of the current paper.
If a research question is clearly specified at the outset, it is easy to politely respond with "Great idea, but beyond the scope of this paper in answering the research question - {repeat question stated in introduction}"
For your immediate challenge, an appropriate response would be to edit the introduction and make the purpose and research question of the paper clear, and then state that you have made that change and that while you agree with their brilliant idea, it is beyond the scope of this paper as you have now clarified.

When dealing with reviews, it's always a good idea to stop and think about why the reviewer has made a particular request. As medics might say, "focus on treating the disease, not the symptoms". Sometimes, reviewers' comments and questions reveal that your manuscript is not currently conveying the same picture of your work as you have in your head. Often, the solution lies in rewriting other parts of your paper in order to set the reader on a path where those questions never arise.
For example, a reviewer who asks for detailed comparisons with other methods may be approaching your work as a practical tool that is ready for immediate use, whereas you intend it to be more of a conceptual contribution with implementation details still to be worked out. This mismatch in expectations probably means that you need to look again at your introduction and discussion sections, and be more explicit in defining what the work is - and isn't - meant to achieve.
So, to answer your question directly: rather than responding to the editor with a point-blank refusal, think about whether there is an underlying point that should be addressed: it's much better to be able to point to some meaningful change you've made to the manuscript.

Disagree - no revision: We thank the reviewer for the suggestion to incorporate surveying of Guadeloupe raccoon habitats to augment our present study.  While we agree that this would be a useful object of study, and would make an interesting extension to our existing work, it is beyond the scope of our present study and we prefer to leave this as future work.  We are satisfied that our coverage of Eastern raccoons is a valuable object of study in its own right and so we do not propose to make the suggested extension in the present paper.  The suggested extension is something that we will consider as future research.

This, along with a sentence or two in the discussion to mollify the reviewer, acknowleging work yet to be done that might be important or interesting, is often enough.

You've made me want to know more about Guadeloupe raccoon habitats.

@camden_kid: Objective achieved.  ;)

At the end of the day, the reviewers think that the paper would be better with the additions, and you think that it wouldn't. If you really don't want to do the additional work, then the editor will have to resolve the impasse you find yourself in, and I think that the questions linked to in the comments are the right starting point for how to negotiate this with the editor.

The author hasn't gone so far as to say the paper wouldn't be better if the work were done -- merely that the paper is a complete work in and of itself.


text:
Getting a post-doc after 5 years in industry -- recommendation letters
I finished my PhD five years ago in computer science, and left academia for industry. I had a decent but not spectacular publication record when I defended, but my research subfield has basically died out since then. I've worked in more of an applied research / data science / research engineer role, in which I've been a co-author on a handful of second-tier papers.
I'm now interested in doing a post-doc, either so I can pursue a career in academia or get a more research-focused job in industry at a better company. To that end, I recently did my own independent research project in my free time, which was recently accepted in a first-tier venue. I've also narrowed down on this as being the subfield I want to work on.
But I'm quite lost as to how to get a post-doc, partly stemming from a bad PhD experience. Even though I went to a top-10 CS program in the US, I was only one of two students to successfully finish their PhD under my advisor. My advisor not only did not get tenure, but he is now unemployed, so a recommendation from him wouldn't be very prestigious. Furthermore, for a variety of reasons I doubt my advisor would write me a positive rec letter. (He frequently criticized his other PhD students to me; he sometimes told me to quit; and as I was writing my dissertation was questioning whether I had enough material to qualify. At the time, this led to imposter syndrome; since then, I've regained confidence in my own research abilities.) Also, my advisor also didn't let PhD students do research internships and collaborations, so I have no one else to recommend me from my time as a PhD student.
How should I go about obtaining rec letters, and more generally, how do I build a network that will allow me to restart a research / academic career?

Just for clarification, when you wrote 'recently accepted in a first-tier venue' do you mean you have a paper accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed academic journal? Or an invitation to speak at a conference? Or something else?

What sort of career are you hoping for? Primarily research, or teaching, or what, exactly. I'm assuming this is for the US, also. Are you happy to stay in Seattle?

@quarague, a peer-reviewed journal.

It is a huge accomplishment that you managed to publish a paper in your free time. If possible, could you talk more about that part? Were you single authored? Also, I feel that you could collaborate with others and find recommenders at the same time.

@Buffy -- my preferences are: research and teaching > research > teaching > the industry work I've been doing. Yes, I'm in the US, and I have a fair bit of geographic flexibility.

@JustTryToGraduate -- thanks! Yes, I was the sole author.

I would argue that you do not need to (nor should you) take a postdoc role - you have already demonstrated your ability to perform independent work. So, what you seem to be wanting to do, is apply for professor positions. Now, that may require a few more papers to be competitive...

@JonCuster -- interesting! So you think that rec letters matter more for postdoc applications than for faculty applications? The sense I gathered is that I will need rec letters to get a decent postdoc.

First, other than the fact that you can't get a decent letter from your advisor, I'd ignore the fact of the bad experience in the doctoral program. It is irrelevant now and to any employer.
Second, you need letters that can predict your success in whatever position you are looking for, a post-doc in this case. That means people with some relevant experience in that as well as knowledge of you and your work. Perhaps you have some professors other than your advisor who can vouch for you. Perhaps some of your co-workers fit the bill, but that isn't generally the case.
But third, a postdoc and going through the normal application process might not be your best path to academia. You have at least two good universities in your area (UW and SeattleU). Consider making a visit to them and speaking with department chairs about what might be your options. Adjunct teaching probably isn't what you want, unless you can develop a special relationship. But you might be able to convince someone that you have skills that would be useful to them.
I know a few people who are employed by industry in research positions who do adjunct teaching of upper level courses aligned with their interests. They use the positions to integrate themselves into the faculty, going to meetings and such. This gives them the opportunity for obtaining letters if it were to be the case that they wanted to change jobs (which they don't actually, as they are well paid and have good positions). There is a bit less opportunity for research due to IP restrictions on what they can do outside their regular jobs, but they can participate in some ways.
Something like that might be part of a long term plan to move into academia, whereas the standard path might be somewhat closed off, at least in the short term.
Another possibility, depending on your flexibility, is to attend some CS conferences and use the time there to meet people and discuss ideas. I once built a large circle of collaboration this way. The people you meet can speak for you after you work with them for a while.

Besides your current contacts, ask your former department head to write a letter for you. They can help explain the difficult situation you're in (and were in).

Just email someone you are interested in working for, link your paper, and explain your situation. Then offer to give 3 recommendations with coworkers and bosses that explain that you're a good guy to work with.
Also maybe don't focus too much on blaming your advisor for your situation.


text:
Is there a way to save a webpage page with Mendeley Webimporter?
We can save references from the page, but it will be great to save the entire page. As it may happen to the page is not accessible anymore later.

would printing the page to a pdf (CTRL+P) and saving that pdf work for you? I found this more convenient then saving actual HTML Code (CTRL+S), as the latter would produce multiple files and javascript executions might lead to a different view now or later.

Yeah, that is definitely an option I have been considering. It is just a two/three steps process. I was thinking there should be a way to do that automatically with Mendeley. Thinking about it now, we can actually save directly the pdf in a folder that is synchronized with Mendeley. However not sure if Mendeley can then correctly extract the references from the pdf.

When you click on the Mendeley plug-in icon in the browser while you are on the webpage you want to save, it gives you the option to save the webpage too

This example is from Google Chrome with Mendeley Web Importer.

I am using the same Chrome extension, but this will only save the reference to the page, not the page content.


text:
How to follow an article citations when you are not the author?
Thanks to Google Scholar, you can follow citations of an article you are the author.
Is there any way to that for an article you are not the author?

Search for the paper on google scholar in the "Search" field.
In the search results, it will say "Cited by" below each hit, and if you click you can see the citations.
Moreover, once you see the list of citations, there is an option "Create alert" on the left which allows to create an alert alerting you when the paper is cited.

Whlie user151413's response is correct regarding Google Scholar, one could add some other possibilities (as your question seemed open-ended), such as the following:
Altmetric / Dimensions
Find the relevant Altmetric page of the publication and click on "Alert me about new mentions", which includes scholarly citations as tracked through Dimensions. See this screenshot:

Semantic Scholar
Find the relevant publication and click on "Alert", as in this screnshot:

Microsoft Academic
Go to the relevant publication and click on "Follow"; this is, as far as I know, not an e-mail alert, but it allows you to track the newest developments regarding that publication through your profile menu. The "Follow"-button looks like this:

Web of Science
Open the details page about the given publication and click on "Create a citation alert" on the right-hand side:

OpenCitations API
If you want an automated process via an API, use https://opencitations.net/index/api/v1/citations/{DOI} (here is an example).


text:
Hyperlink to bibliography reference
In Microsoft Word and Mendeley, is it possible to jump to the complete reference in the bibliography section of a document using a hyperlink?
For example, using "Ctrl+Left Click" on figures or table cross-references will take to the corresponding table.

The Manual Way
Microsoft Word supports hyperlinks within documents. For instance, in the version of Word I have (Office Professional 2016), when I attempt to add a hyperlink (1), the menu gives me the option of hyperlinking a "Place in This Document."

If you use styles to designate text Headers in Word, you will see those listed under "Headings" and can use those as links. Alternatively, you can set Bookmarks in Word (2), and then use hyperlinks to point to those bookmarks.
So you would need to set bookmarks for each reference and then put hyperlinks at each in-text mention. It's time consuming, but it works, and these links are even preserved if you're eventually saving to PDF.
(1) You can add a hyperlink by selecting text or a point in the document and (a) right-clicking and selecting Hyperlink; (b) navigating from the top menu - Insert -> Hyperlink; (c) using "Add a Hyperlink" from the search function; (d) pressing Ctrl + K.
(2) You can add a bookmark by selecting text or a point in the document and (a) navigating from the top menu - Insert -> Bookmark, (b) searching for "Insert a Bookmark" from the search function, (c) pressing Ctrl + Shift + F5.
The Macros Way
If you want the functionality to be friendly with Mendeley, you may need a third-party solution like mabentwickeltsich's Mendeley Macros on GitHub, which works for APA and IEEE. For this and other third-party tools, you would want to read the user documentation and make sure you understand what it's doing. That said, they do automate the process.

Microsoft Word supports linking within documents: Such functionality can be embedded. However, Word can be used in terrible ways, such functionality might not be embedded.


text:
Personal chapter comments to supervisor
Is it a good idea to keep my comments in the chapter draft to be sent to my supervisor?
Sometimes when writing, I comment on the text, like personal notes.
I am feeling that it may sound like incomplete work. But there mostly notes for possible future investigations.

I guess you could  ask the supervisor.

Is your supervisor writing the draft?

@AzorAhai-him- No, I am writing the draft.

You should absolutely leave in substantive comments like:

"Is this a good way to phrase this?"
"Need to expand on description"
"New section - please review"

Early drafts are often ridden with comments and track changes, so I would suggest you leave comments that aren't relevant to reviewing the text out so that they don't clutter your supervisor's review of your draft.

This is really helpful.

@BND You might be able to put comments under different authors and hide or delete the ones from the "random thoughts" author before sending it along.

I suggest that you keep a notebook of anything that occurs to you as a possible research question as you go along. Make it a formal notebook with different ideas on different pages. Leave space so that you can add to ideas when they occur to you.
Also, review your notebook(s) periodically and perhaps summarize ideas.
You never know when you will hit a block in your current line of research and need a mental break. Paging through the notebooks can be fun and get you going again.
And mine those notebooks in the future for research ideas.
It is also useful to carry index cards with you at all times so that you can jot down ideas for later entry in the notebook. I find paper is best for all of this, but younger people probably prefer electronic means. But paper lasts. Will you still have that iPhone in 50 years?
So, this would include more than just your communications with your supervisor, but, yes, those too.

Thank you for your reply. what about making two versions. My own and the one sent to the supervisor. The "compare" functionality in Word can latter be used to merge latter developed ideas.

Absolutely. The notebooks are for your own use.


text:
Question for review
What are the type of question you can ask someone when you send you manuscript to for review. The person may not necessarily be in your field.

Sorry, your question is not clear. Are you the paper author or the reviewer in this situation?

@astronat I am the paper author. The reviewer is not necessarily one of a journal.

Almost all review requests I receive do not contain specific questions, but rather something generic along the lines of: "We have recently received a manuscript with the title '[...]'. Given your expertise in this area we feel you could offer timely and insightful comments on this work. We would be grateful for your willingness to help. If you accept, we would greatly appreciate a 30-day turn around." (For another e-mail template, see this page under the header 'Referee Request'.)
If you wish to formulate more specific questions, you could get inspiration from peer review guidelines. For instance, paraphrasing this checklist from PLOS, one could ask:

Identify the research question and key claims. Are they clear?
Does the introduction provide a plausible context? Does it cite the relevant literature?
Do the figures and tables represent what the study is about?
Are the results supported by the data?
Do the conclusions make sense?
Are the methods appropriate and reproducible?

Or, F1000 offers these questions for research articles:

Is the work clearly and accurately presented and does it cite the current literature?
Is the study design appropriate and does the work have academic merit?
Are sufficient details of methods and analysis provided to allow replication by others?
If applicable, is the statistical analysis and its interpretation appropriate?
Are all the source data underlying the results available to ensure full reproducibility?
Are the conclusions drawn adequately supported by the results?

One could generate similar questions using this guide from Wiley (cf. the heading "How to Structure Your Report").
There are also multiple peer review templates around for teachers who use student peer reviews in their classes. Just google for "peer review templates for students" or so, and you will find plenty of them.


text:
Any tips for getting a PhD position?
I would like to pursue a PhD in CS (in Europe). I have ended my master's degree like two years ago (also in Europe) and I have 4 publications in the area. Actually I am working in the industry so I have left the academic world. The question that I have is how to address a potential supervisor (which in most cases I have not known in person):

Should I sent him/her my CV straightforward and ask for possible open research topics in which he/she needs PhD students?
Should I ask him/her some assignment or task to prove that I have the enough background to fit into his research group?

I am actually very worried about how to manage this situation, it is not so easy in this time to get PhD positions in some countries.
Any advice?

Which country are we talking about?

See: How does the admissions process work for PhD programs in country X?

While answer to your question needs more detail, but in general the answer looks like this:
Starting PhD is different at different universities. At many universities, faculty members receive applications from the PhD applicants and evaluate individually. However, at other universities mostly in the US, the application is evaluated by a committee.
In the first case, certainly, the best way to start is to initiate a communication with potential PhD supervisors by sending an email -as you said- along with your CV, academic history, SoP, and research proposal (proposal is not needed in US, but should not be a problem if you send). However, I think it may not really work if you ask them for assignment (maybe it works in some universities that I don't know).
One thing I noticed when I was searching for my PhD is that many supervisors write some notes on their pages and provide instructions for potential students to follow. If you simply don't follow them you won't be able to get position from them. Try to read their pages as carefully as you can.
I admit that there is tension in getting a PhD position. But it is all right and should be okay. Some guidelines may help you figure it our.
In general, to successfully secure a PhD position, you need certain qualifications and certificates listed as following:

Bachelor degree in relevant course with high GPA/CGPA (this is must)
Master degree in relevant course with high GPA/CPGA (This is not really a MUST-have requirement, since many universities offer PhD without having Master).
English Proficiency certificate (for English speaking countries) if you English is not your native language.
2/3 reference letters in your favor (no wonder).
GRE for US-based universities.
Money to pay tuition fee (supervisors consider this as well. If you need financial assistance you should be really good compare to others).

That's all REQUIREMENTS. But, they are not sufficient to convince a potential academician to offer you a position, especially paid positions which are very competitive. If you want to enhance your chance, I think in CS you need the following qualifications:

Good quality publication(s) in good publishing venues (top ranked conference and journals)
Research experience (It may be true that Master by research graduates have better chance here).
Working experience in relevant areas
Teaching experience
Professional certificates from well-known organizations like Microsoft, and Oracle.
Volunteer jobs in the society (I heard a lot about it)
Academic or professional Awards like best student, best thesis, and best paper award.
GRE and SAT certificates
Intellectual properties (patents)

But, I think the most important thing is the first impression that you make using your first email, CV, SoP, statement of research and so on. If they look professional and neat, it attracts potential supervisor's attention and will evaluate your application optimistically.
Don't give up. You have to find the RIGHT supervisor, at the RIGHT university, at the RIGHT time, using the RIGHT channel. Keep trying and you will succeed.

thanks. Remind me if anything important missing I can edit the answer to accommodate.

this response is not quite true for Europe PhD.

European phd programs typically DO require a master degree. (The question was about getting into a European phd program).

You are right Danny, but OP did his master already and it is not a problem for him.

As an example for what @SSimon said, for applying for a German PhD position, do not include a research proposal but only state what are you want to work in and how you demonstrate that you already have good knowledge about this area (normally with a thesis and/or publications). Most positions are either in third-party funded projects, or the holder is supposed to support applications for such projects which needs expertise in areas that the PhD advisor is pushing forward. The chance to hit this with a research proposal is pretty much 0. Hence, they are not actually wanted. ...

...the exception is in structured PhD programs, which are rare. For an advertised open PhD position in Germany ("academic employee"), write a usual application that highlights in the cover letter (a) why you think that the research area of the advisor is a good one for you (and address the concretization in the announcement if it has any), (b) what courses related to the topic you went to during your Master's, (c) if applicable how your industry experience prepares you for research, and (d) that you can show first work in an area adjacent to the Advisor's. Include transcripts with grades.

GPA/CGPA, GRE are normally irrelevant in Germany. Reference letters are normally not needed or expected as the German system does not have them traditionally. Also, publications do not need to be top ranked. Just avoid spamferences and predatory journals. There are no tuition fees. Normally, the only advertised positions are those that come with funding.

Look for a supervisor!
If you already have published papers, you may have an idea of the specific problems you want to work on. So you may know which are the big names out there in the field, and who authored publications that you liked.
Jot down a list of names, read about their work, then ask them for a meeting to present yours and to ask for opportunities. They will be able to indicate the way forward better than anyone else.
Also, you will know if you have found someone you want to work with for the next 3/4 years, or if you would rather continue what you are doing.


text:
When can a professor refuse to sign off on a committee-approved thesis?
(Breakdown of a larger issue - full story here)
I did a masters research project as part of a grant project my professor received. Her project was to redo a standard, widely design using a new technology as a feasibility comparison, to see if the technology should be adapted as an accepted (possibly standard) design. My thesis project was to redesign key part of the original design in order to provide her with design parameters; we then iterated over each design twice more to finalize on common parameters.
It took a couple months to get clear criteria from the sponsor, and we finished a couple months behind schedule, but ultimately our work was a success. Our work was combined in a single dual report to serve as both my thesis and her official report.
Following my successful defense, with no changes from my committee, she bluntly refused to sign off on my graduation paperwork until she had official acceptance of the report from the entity funding the grant. She admitted this was an entirely separate issue but "wanted something to hold over my head in case they ask for changes". This delayed my graduation significantly, which has had serious consequences for my professional career. As far as I can tell, the was done solely for her benefit to secure full grant payment (to her) and not as any part of the school's needs or my graduation requirements.

If all the requirements of a prescribed study program are met, are there any situations when it would be appropriate for a professor to deliberately delay a student's graduation?

I'm a little confused about whether your advisor was on the committee.  Places I've been the advisor was on the committee so there wouldn't be separate steps of "the committee approving" and "the advisor approving."  The committee approving would include the advisor and be the last step.  Many places have an "outside member" on the committee as a check on any shenanigans during the approval process, was that the case here?

Yes, my professor was part of the committee, which included the department head (who wasn't interested in my complaints). Since all 3 member of the committee had to sign off on the paperwork, my professor withheld her signature as leverage. My professor had only been at the college a short time and had degrees from a more prestigious university, so I think the dept head was a little intimidated to disagree with her. My professor actually left the university that same semester to pursue better-paying research - neither the administration nor the students were sorry to see her go.

Here is some further reading for the next stage of this kerfuffle (or view my original question, linked at the top of the question).

From a mere common sense perspective, this is, clearly, grossly unethical.  However, professors at most institutions are given a huge amount of latitude in making decisions of this kind.  That latitude is intended as deference to the professor as the one closest to the situation and a recognized scholar in the field, etc, etc.  It's not intended to extend to capricious or unethical behavior, but I'm sure your case is, sadly, neither the only one nor the most egregious.
As the professor has already departed academia (and good riddance!), there's not much to be done about that particular individual.  In a few years, though, you will likely be getting contacted by your alma mater frequently as they are very interested in what you would like to contribute, etc.
There might be some opportunity here to ask to speak to someone who will be interested to know why you are unable to donate.  Until they have clear policies in place that prevent the kind of abuse you were subjected to, you can't see your way clear to making contributions to an institution that, through their own negligence, damaged your career while it was in at its most vulnerable point.  Obviously there's no guarantee you will get through to someone who will listen, but it's worth a shot--if they do, it might prevent someone else from going through what you went through.
To anyone else going through this, get everything in writing.  "Why are you withholding your signature?"  Get a paper trail, or it's your word against the infinitely more powerful professor's as to what is going on.

Thanks for the feedback on this. The professor actually moved to another university rather than leaving academia; I've wondered if I shouldn't approach their new university and have a talk with the department there, but am concerned it may be considered slander without proof. I did request an explanation in writing several times but was refused. That should have been a huge red flag that the professor knew this was not a defensible position, and I should have escalated things much faster and harder.