text:
When translating papers from non-English to English, should the sources be translated to English as well?
When translating research papers from Arabic to English, should I translate the Arabic sources (book titles, etc.) to English, or should I leave them in Arabic?

I will argue that, for maximum usefulness to your readers, you should do both.
In other words, put both the original and the translation in the entry, e.g. either:

English citation (original: Arabic citation)

or

Arabic citation (translation: English citation)

I don't see either of these are being particularly dominant over the other.  Both, however, allow one to both trace the original and know what it is without speaking Arabic.
Note that I would believe this answer should apply to any translation between languages.  It is most critical, however, when the writing systems are incompatible, e.g., Arabic, Roman-character languages, South Asian languages, Chinese, etc.

Another practice that I have seen, when one has incompatible writing scripts, is to include not just a translation of the citation, but also a transliteration using a standard method. This can be helpful for individuals who cannot read the native script, especially when the cited items have no established translation.

In contrast, when translating from English to another language, would English references be translated as well? The fact that English is the global language makes the translation seems unnecessary to me.

@Ooker English may be widely spread, but it is by no means universal. I see no reason to be less helpful to an Arabic reader of a translation from English to Arabic than one would be to an English reader of a translation from Arabic to English.

I agree that, but wouldn't it save a lot of time for the translator if they don't have to translate the reference? The readers who really need to check the references are required to know English anyway, and there is a widespread presumption that any researcher should barely know English. I'm trying to maximize the effort for both sides


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How to cite marginalia in a second-hand book?
So this is an interesting thing I've come across.  I recently purchased a modern book for my research and whoever had the book before me had some pretty great things written in the margins.
As a medievalist, citing marginalia is par the course, but this strikes me as a bit different for two reasons:

Normally, we cite the library where the book came in our works cited so that others can reference it.  In this case, it's in my personal library.
I don't know who actually wrote the marginalia, but the likelihood that they could be actively publishing now makes me less inclined to want to "steal" (scare quotes because obviously I'm intending to cite it) their ideas before they get a chance to, something that's definitely not the case with books written several hundred years ago.

What approach should I use to using the marginalia both in terms of integrating its ideas into my work (as if it were another paper, though obviously not peer-reviewed) and in terms of citing it (I'm using MLA 7, but may need to switch to MLA 8 depending on when I finish this particular work)?

What a delightful conundrum!

I am a bit surprised about questions like this (and there are many). Is MLA really so restricting as to make such things a serious problem? In mathematics, where reference formatting is mostly up to the authors and the editors, I would have no trouble referencing it in a way that would convey the information to human readers appropriately (e.g., "[Anon98+] Anonymous, Marginalia on the pages of J.-L. Loday's "Cyclic Homology", 2nd edition, Springer 1998"). Machine parseability is trickier, but not much of an issue (machines wouldn't find such references very useful anyway).

Can you not try to find out who owned the book before you to see if they know who wrote the margin notes?  (I'm also a bit perplexed why you think someone doing active research on this book would've sold it.)

@Kimball Eh, I fully admit to having purchased and used a book or two in my graduate school career, and selling it after the course, but not before scanning it for future use.  The book is less than a decade old. The book came from a used bookseller on Amazon, not sure there's any chance of finding the old owner unless as I keep reading I come across a name.

Not really a comment but this sounds pretty romantic/cool! This question has inspired to write more margin notes in my book and hopefully someday someone will want to cite them!

@darijgrinberg how to cite is really the secondary question (if that's all it was, I'd just use the format for an incunable and cite "Article Author Personal Library" and wait for the journal to complain if they didn't like it), the primary one is how to go about using it (or not) given that I have it.

You can't unlearn what you have learnt from it, so the best option is just to give it credit as precisely as you can and get on with it :) If a referee or editor objects to the citation, it's thein fault and not yours if it doesn't appear in the final version.

This conundrum reminded me of "Harry Potter and the Half blood Prince" :)

If the margin notes are short (or, the relevant aspects of them are), consider making a footnote or appendix entry containing them so that readers can see what you read!

As far as I can see, you have 3 options: not using the material, using it without citing it and using it with citation. As you have no idea whether anyone is ever going to publish the ideas in those margins, not publishing seems overly cautious. Especially since you want to use the ideas there but seem to have no other source to credit.
Using without citing it seems like a very bad idea. Even disregarding the risk of the original author of those margins coming forward, passing someone else's ideas as your own is unethical.
That leaves citing the margins as is. You could explain the unusual circumstances in the publication you intent to use it in. If you have a personal webpage, you could publish photo's of the margins and also refer to those. Also you could simply offer anyone interested in those margins to contact you.

The APA, MLA, and Chicago formats suggest that you cite the title of a work when the author is unknown. That doesn't work here for obvious reasons, so I think you'll have to do something creative such as making a note in the citation itself. In-line citations will also be tricky to do unambiguously, but I think I'd go with something like (Marginalia, 2017) or (Anonymous, 2017) in addition to explaining the unusual circumstances in the text as dimpol suggests.

source: Stack Exchange

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Notating one rough semester GPA-wise
My first semester of college was extremely rough GPA wise. I am an otherwise almost straight 4.0 student (up to -0.02), but my first semester of college I got a 3.46 because of both adjusting to a new  environment and an extraordinary amount of personal/familial issues that came up simultaneously (it really was an inordinate amount - I even got 4.0 during Covid-19).
Would it be wise to notate this separately on my CV/grad school application? If so, how would I do so? I don't see how to do it without making it look like an excuse and it would be taking up valuable space (although more of a problem on the CV than on the application).
To clarify, I understand that for most applicants, this would be ok. However, I am trying to get into extremely competitive programs (ex. CS@Stanford/Google), hence the concern.

I think you can probably safely ignore your first semester grades if you've done much better later. At most a single phrase, somewhere, about quickly learning and recovering from early mistakes is enough. Your latest work is also more advanced and is what most reviewers will look at in most applications.
If you don't mention it at all, but are later asked, just something like the phrase above is enough. I stumbled. I got up. I learned to do better.
Not big deal and certainly not a career killer.

There is another factor that you should think about.
There are people who sort of breezed through their education, getting good grades without apparent effort. They have a nice record, but may never have learned how to deal with a challenge. They might just collapse when the going gets really hard. And they might not have learned very deeply, finding exams to be no big obstacle and so didn't really internalize the education or reach any deep insight.
There are other sorts of people who learned early on that learning was hard work and rose to the challenge. They may, in fact, be better situated for new and bigger challenges since they know what it really takes to succeed in difficult situations. I was like this. I did relatively poorly early on in my (primary and secondary) education but eventually learned what it took to succeed and was self-driving from then on, accepting any challenge.

Would this also apply for top level schools/companies (ex. CS@Stanford/Google)?

I would think yes. Competition is stronger, but very old issues have little importance unless it represents a pattern.

I got a 3.46

In general, a 3.46 is reasonably good. Given your otherwise excellent performance, it is not necessary to make excuses or explain. In fact, I recommend not doing so, for two reasons:

Grades are only one part of your application. You are clearly a "check" in that box, so there is nothing to gain by dwelling on it. In fact, this is likely to come across unsympathetically ("I'm a millionaire, but listen to my explanation about why I'm not a billionaire....")
The explanations/excuses you would offer (transition, personal conflict) are not particularly compelling, and are largely aligned with what the reviewers would have assumed in the absence of any such explanation.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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Second Masters (Art therapy and then educational psychology)
Im doing a masters in Art therapy. Im not sure how the job scenario would be for it moving forward. However, is it ok to do a second masters in educational psychology?

Does this answer your question? Is it possible to apply for a second masters degree in a different field of study? (different department)

It is certainly ok to get any degree for which you are qualified. I don't know why you might question that. Whether there is a better path to your life/career goals no one can say. To me, who knows little of either field, they would seem to complement each other for some kinds of professionals, actually. But you can also get a doctorate in clinical psychology, I know. You might look at that.
But what it takes is to apply to some programs and get accepted. Write a good Statement of Purpose for any proposed degree, explaining why you want the second degree, no matter what it is.
I suspect you can have a career in either field as a private practitioner, though you may need a license from some government to do so.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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Embedded hyperlinks in a thesis or research paper
I am writing a master's thesis in engineering. It is quite literature-heavy, and I'm using Zotero with BibTeX to manage my references. For the most part, I use Zotero's browser extension to create Zotero entries, but when necessary (e.g. for PDFs that were only published on a university server), I also create some from scratch. Sometimes, I want to cite websites of software tools without a publication. I could gather as much information as possible from those websites, but since these references are really only made in passing, I find that giving the reader a URL suffices. Also, my sources list is quite long already, so I try to avoid going out of my way to add extra references just for the sake of mentioning a single name. So, a URL it is.
What is and what ought be the best practice to include such a naked URL into a master's thesis, or even a research paper? There are essentially three possible ways to do this:

Footnote with the link (e.g. using \url{ } from hyperref): ugly, but visible to people who print the work on physical paper -- and lose the digital version, so that the only way to visit the URL is copying it letter by letter manually. Edit: for non-homepages, I am using archive.org to prevent link rot, which is academically good, but the URLs are ridiculously unaesthetic.
Embedded hyperlink in the text (with an unobtrusive colour to indicate the text is clickable). Looks neat, but not accessible in print. This is what I'm currently doing.
Have a list of raw URLs as a subsection of my sources list, and use some LaTeX magic to annotate and jump to the correct link from the text.

Worth mentioning: our department has 1. no standard citation style and 2. stopped requiring physical thesis prints since 2020, hence why 1. I have the freedom to choose the citation style and 2. I am embracing hyperlinks currently. My thesis is in NLP, so my own style most closely resembles that of the ACL (see this paper as an example), but this is not a hard constraint.
I am asking for an ought as well because of this freedom. If the standard is (1), but there are better arguments for (2), then I prefer (2).

Note: I am not asking how to cite a website. As explained above, I've made up my mind on this: I want to only cite a URL, not have a whole BibTeX entry for it. The question is how/where to do the citation.

Why not just make a footnote with an active URL ...?

Are the URLs themselves particularly long or ugly? If not, why do you find the url solution so ugly?

@Anyon Yes, some of the URLs are definitely long (e.g. for software published at a subdomain of a subdomain of a university website nested 5 directories deep in a professor's personal website). Any URL is arguably ugly in any font, partly because it is not natural language, partly because it stands out as meaningless not-supposed-to-be-read content. They stand out especially when in a footnote, since the footnote shortens the text on a page and attracts attention. I am also using archive.org to ensure my links don't rot when this is important, and those URLs are awfully long.

@Mew Use the original url as the link text, but hyperlink the archive.org version. Also add the date of when you accessed/saved the page. You might even link both the original page and the archive.org version - most readers will be interested in visiting the current page as well.

@AzorAhai-him- it's mentioned that they're citations, and if the citation style puts them at the end, the footnote is then separated from the rest of the citation

@ChrisH I don't follow.

@AzorAhai-him- you suggested using a footnote. Having never seen footnotes in the reference section I assumed you meant the footnote would go in the main body. But with most referencing styles the citation details (author list, title, etc.) only appear in the bibliography with at most the lead author's name in the body. So your suggestion of a footnote seems to separate the link from the title by many pages. Footnotes are also very much a print thing as screen viewing doesn't tend to work page by page - so you've now got reference information in 3 places (body text, footnote, bibliography)

@ChrisH Read the post again, that's not what they want to do.

@AzorAhai-him-  OK, your comment makes sense if you accept this concept of a not-quite-citation. I don't, and dismissed it immediately. Then there's all the material about citation styles implying the use of a proper citation. If this was my student I'd just tell them to make it a proper reference, whether in a thesis or a paper (one I'm currently working on is for a journal that strongly discourages footnotes anyway)

@Chri I’m in a field that annoyingly overuses footnotes so this was a familiar concept to me.

@AzorAhai-him- Then why are you suggesting I use a footnote with an active URL :P ... In any case, it seems to me that you have a clear opinion, so I'd recommend posting it as an answer to let others vote on it with the rest of the answers already given.

@mew It was a question to you. You have a couple of criteria, and i am not sure why you did not include just making the footnote active.

@AzorAhai-him- Oh, I thought you had already seen my response to Anyon above. In short: the URLs are too long and ugly.

Your option (1) says "put the URLs in footnotes, but then don't make it clickable." I don't understand why not just make those footnotes clickable.

@AzorAhai-him- Uh, that isn't a direct quote, is it? Option (1) says to use \url{ } from hyperref, which is clickable... The first two options come down to "readable on paper and clickable" versus "hidden on paper and clickable".

I would put real links in an appendix, with refs that jump there in the online version but are simply text in the hard copy. That's [xxx] or [n] in the body and [\url{...}] in the appendix. That does not call for much LaTeX magic. Ask at tex SE for help if you need it.
Be sure to annotate links with a "last visited" date.
The ability to jump back to the text after viewing a reference in the appendix would be nice. That does call for a little magic.
I find footnotes distracting. Avoid them unless your discipline embraces them.

@Mew: I also recommend saving the pages at the Internet Archive by using the "Save Page Now" feature here. You probably don't need to mention this in your thesis aside (if you which) making a comment about it in the introduction, but having the pages available many years from now might be of use (possibly historical). If nothing else, you'll lessen the effect of Murphy's Law, which in your case will be that for some reason 20+ years from now you'll want to look at one of those pages and it will no longer be available.

@DaveLRenfro Ah yes, I forgot to mention that I am already using archive.org for non-homepages indeed. Speaking of ugly URLs...

Ultimately, this question can only be answered by your future reader(s), which presumably will be your parents and the supervising professor (and maybe a committee), with an off-chance of others if you wrote a high impact thesis. I would not worry about your parents, but I would worry about your supervisor and your MS committee. This will also depend on whether they like to use an electronic copy or a printed one. (I prefer a printed one because it is easier to annotate.)
Citations in academic texts are about honesty (attributing other's results to them) and traceability. In the printed world, it was customary to cite editions and pages in editions so that a reader could follow up on the citation. This way, I (the reader) can look-up your (the author) resource and check whether you used it correctly, not so much to police you but to assure myself that you applied the resource correctly or represented the cited author's position correctly.
Electronic resources introduced an element of uncertainty as resources could vanish or move overnight or even be changed. The academic community dealt with this problem by using analogy. So, we used these "retrieved on a certain date" and we might now be starting to use
the internet-archive to give more permanence to these resources.
Any citation-style that deals with these additional problems of electronic resources is fine in my opinion and would be judged by aesthetic criteria. But my opinion does not matter all that much to you.

One option you could consider is using endnotes instead of footnotes. This would avoid shortening the text on the page and diverting reader attention, while preserving the URLs for readers of printouts. It is essentially the same idea as using an appendix for the URLs, but more granular.

Please don't. Endnotes are always a pain on the reader.

@curiousdannii I'm curious: can you elaborate?

@Mew Having to flip pages to read endnotes is super annoying. I've never heard anyone speak favourably of them.

@curiousdannii Are you speaking from the POV of someone reading on physical paper? If yes, then I'm assuming you also wouldn't favour embedded hyperlinks nor endnotes with backreferences. If no, backrefs could alleviate the problem. I do have to concede that I detest IEEE citations; not sure what I think about them when used solely for URLs.

@curiousdannii Given that you haven't expressed a similar dislike of flipping through the pages to get to an appendix for the URLs or option 3 in the OP, I have to wonder: are you primarily worried about the moving of other, non-URL would-be footnotes? If so, you can of course use footnotes and endnotes in the same document. You can also use a customized numbering of the endnotes to, e.g. URL1, URL2, etc., to signal clearly to the reader what type of information they would be flipping to.

How to present links
My personal favourite technique for displaying hyperlinks is to use hyperref with options:
\hypersetup{%
colorlinks=false,% hyperlinks will be black
linkbordercolor=red,% hyperlink borders will be red
pdfborderstyle={/S/U/W 1}% border style will be underline of width 1pt
}

This produces a single coloured underline which is not visible in print. This avoids the typical ugly boxes. I recommend using different colours for links within the document and links to websites. Use a monospaced font for URLs!
Where to put links
I cannot see a compelling reason not to treat these URLs as you would any other reference. This is the simple and conventional approach. You say your reference list is already long---so a few  more entries wouldn't make much difference. There are other techniques available to deal with a long reference list such as having a separate list for each section, using author-date referencing to reduce the need for the reader to visit the reference list, or otherwise splitting references into several lists.
Additionally, if you use the reference list rather than an inline URL, you would have the space to include two URLs---one being the official URL and the other being the archive.org URL. I find it odd to only provide the archive.org URL if the website is still active.

I use almost the opposite options - lose the ugly border/underline, and (optionally) set the link text colour to dark blue (blue being traditional for links, but dark so it prints clearly B&W).  Where possible, I use the DOI link rather than the URL.

"I find it odd to only provide the archive.org URL if the website is still active." I concur with this and have been thinking the same thing. If I'm critiquing what's currently being said on a website, then arguably the case is stronger if the reader can verify it for themselves that it is still an issue to this day. "using author-date referencing to reduce the need for the reader to visit the reference list" I am already doing that, cfr. the ACL style. The problem for URLs is that there often is no clear author nor year of publishing, and even if so, that's not what (author, year) is for.

@Mew Unfortunately I don't believe it is possible to have a 100 % consistent approach because, as you point out, some websites have the author and year and some do not. The best you can do is pick a style and follow it. I believe the usual solution for author-date is author=name of website and year=year of access. If you reference specific pages on a website you can add the title of the page to the reference e.g. (How Stuff Works, 2023, "How does a carburettor work?") You can define a macro that does this for biblatex, for example.


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Postdoc salary in France
I am currently considering a postdoc position in France which would be funded by an ERC grant. Since it is the hosting institution to determine the salary I was wondering whether there are some fixed rules for a postdoc salary and, if so, where I can find them.
If not, how would the salary be determined? Is it an entirely negotiable amount? Is there a minimum salary that should be paid?


text:
Does a private university need to get re-accredited if it moves to a different state?
In the U.S. there is no centralized agency that oversees accreditation of higher education institutions and the power and responsibility of accreditation are decentralized and distributed to various regional agencies. I know there are agencies on the national level but I think they are mostly specialized. So if an accredited college/university (liberal arts or offering similarly general education/degrees) moves from one region to a different region does it need to start from scratch with the process and get re-accredited by the agency in charge of the new region?

Do you have examples in mind of institutions that have moved to different states? I guess I can think of some that have campuses in many states or operate only remotely, maybe that's what you have in mind?

I doubt it happens often enough to have a standard process. It isn't like the requirements and audits are all that different, but there would be discussion with the applicable accreditation body in the new region to figure out how to address the next cycle.

Do you mean "move, closing the original campus" or "open a branch in another state"?

Actually, accreditation isn't required in the US.

@BryanKrause It's a hypothetical question. A friend used to be with Olin College in Massachusetts and they told me there had been talks about moving to a different state during Olin's formative years, but not so much these days. Other institutions I had in mind include Minerva and Western Governors University, both online schools. I'm just curious what would happen if say they decided to pick up sticks and move their headquarters.

@Buffy Move, as in relocation.

Seems likely it's up to the accreditor, and I don't see how they'd have a policy to cover something that doesn't have an example of happening.

@Buffy: It's "not required" in the sense that a university is legally allowed to operate without having any accreditation.  However, it is required if, among other things, you want your students to be eligible for federal student aid, and very few institutions would find it economically viable to do without that.  So for the vast majority of institutions, it's a de facto requirement.

I am not sure of all the details, but it appears that since a controversial regulatory change that went into effect in 2020, "regional accreditors" are no longer legally restricted to operate within a fixed geographical region.   See 84 FR 58834.  See also an analysis from Inside Higher Ed  (maybe paywalled).  In effect, as I understand it, each agency is now allowed to declare for itself what region it wishes to cover, and they are not forbidden from overlapping.
It seems this change effectively erased the legal distinction between regional and national accreditors, lumping them together in a new category of "institutional accreditors" though I think people still know which is which.
As a result:

It is now possible for a university to switch between "regional" accreditors without moving.  It appears, for instance, that the University of Arizona is currently in the process of doing just that, leaving HLC for WSCUC.  Formerly WSCUC only covered California, Hawaii, and the US territories in the Pacific, but in 2020 it  unilaterally dropped its geographical restrictions.
So procedures evidently do exist for an institution to switch accreditors, and your hypothetical Interstate U could presumably follow them.

On the other hand, it would also be possible for Interstate U's current accreditor to expand their territory to cover the new campus location, in which case I assume Interstate U could move without switching at all.

I don't know how this would have been handled prior to 2020.  I'm not aware of it ever having come up.


text:
Can authors see changes in NeurIPS reviewer scores after the rebuttal period ends? (openreview platform)
Reviewers can change their score during the rebuttal phase and these changes are visible to the authors, other reviewers, ACs SACs, and PCs.
I know that the reviewers can also change their scores after the rebuttal period ends. My question is, are any score changes after the rebuttal period visible to the authors before the final decision notification?
MY questions is specifically about NeurIPS and the openreview platform.


text:
Continuing Vet School when moving to Germany
I want to move permanently from Romania to Germany and continue my studies along the way. I just finished my third year at the Veterinary School. My question is can I continue it here or do I need to start from 0 again.
Thanks in advance!

From Romania, sorry I forgot to mention.

Does this answer your question? Can I continue studying in Germany/sweden after a few semesters elsewhere?

I would presume it is up to your target vet school in Germany if they would accept transfers, and how many of your credits they might take.


text:
Why do American universities typically have Scholarships for bachelors but not for masters?
I've heard from many people that America offers full ride scholarships for bachelors students, with enough money that they don't have to put any money from their side. However, such a possibility does not exist for masters.
Why is this?

If doing a research-based Masters in the sciences, teaching/research assistantships are often available to cover some/all of the costs. This is the most common form of Masters 'scholarship' in North America from my experience. Obviously isn't a completely 'free ride' - but ideally also provides useful teaching/research experience. Most undergraduate students don't get full ride scholarships.

The majority of undergraduate financial aid does not cover all costs, and likely does not even cover all tuition much less books and living expenses. The premise of the question is incorrect.

The US has a different culture regarding master's programs than a lot of the rest of the world. Master's are largely treated as terminal degrees (if not obtained on the way to a PhD), often for working professionals for career advancement. As such, universities don't consider terminal master's students as a real part of the university and don't really go out of their way to accommodate them. I'm not sure how the US ended up that way relative to many other countries.

Many universities in the US are funded by the States. New York State has a substantial number of such places, both research and teaching universities as well as some designated colleges. Their mission is, in (large) part, the general education of the state's citizens, with the idea that it will lead to economic growth.
The US also has a very economically diversified population, from the incredibly poor to the incredibly rich.
To match these two things, state universities, at least, often provide funding for individuals, though it is now less (compared to need) than in the past. As noted in comments, this "funding" is really just providing the education (tuition) at low cost, possibly zero, leaving living and some educational expenses to individuals. Books, for example, are typically very expensive.  Residential colleges may not fund room and board.
And "full ride", whatever that means, is probably restricted to residents of the state with rare exceptions. (See personal note below)
And, my impression is that states, in general, are getting "stingier" about funding education in general. The federal government doesn't provide much funding other than grants for research, leaving the general education to the states. And there is a large difference between states as to willingness to provide funding.
Private colleges and universities also provide scholarships to undergraduates, in the form of low or zero tuition cost, so as to try to attract the best students, which, long term, increases the reputation of the institution.
However, at graduate levels, the education is seen (rightly or wrongly) as more of an individual responsibility. If you want it, you gotta pay for it. This is probably the explanation you want for the master's level. The doctoral level is a bit different, since doctoral students, especially TAs also contribute to the (important) undergraduate mission as well as freeing research faculty to be more productive. So funding is there at that level.
Masters students, however, having less to contribute and more to gain are sort of "on their own". But, it is also true that you don't need a masters to join a doctoral program, so, compared to some other places, there are fewer "masters only" students than might be otherwise expected. Many (most?) of those are destined for jobs outside academia, which can be higher paying, seeming to lessen the cost burden long term. Modern trends seem to question that assessment, however, with too many students having unsustainable debt on graduation from both bachelors and masters programs.
And, field is also an issue. STEM fields are currently better funded and with better job projects than things like, for example Philosophy and History (etc.) that are (IMO) indispensable to an educated populace, but now comparatively poorly funded. There are even proposals in at least one state to do away with such programs focusing too much (IMO, again) on the purely economic value of an education.
Caveat: This may be an "old guy" view. I earned my doctorate just over half a century ago. Long ago, at a good private college I got a great education at zero cost with a grant for tuition (partly state funded) as well as a campus job that, together, paid all my bills after the first year. I doubt that would be possible today. That was truly "full ride", though I contributed my labor.
Note: There are 75 public colleges and universities in New York enrolling 603,292 students.

Some people and governments believe that education is a human right, and provide a free education paid for by the government accordingly.
In the US, there is national free public education up to age 18/"grade 12".
When a university provides "full ride" scholarship funding, they are often doing so because they see their mission as extending the right to availability of education to the post-secondary level. Because there is not really government funding for this mission in the US, it is necessary for schools to charge most students tuition, but they can also give reduced or even completely free tuition to students who are seen as most in need or most deserving (or, often a combination). An alternative "selfish" reason is that schools are in competition with each other for reputation, and attracting some of the very best students through financial incentives may raise the reputation of the school. I'll add that here I am answering what the typical reason would be for offering a bachelor's degree scholarship; it should not be mistaken that these offers are themselves typical: almost every student in the US pays tuition, though they may take loans to pay later.
For the most part, a masters degree in the US is a terminal degree that allows someone to earn a higher salary than they would otherwise, so there's more of an expectation that masters students will treat it like an investment in their own earnings, and pay out of those future earnings.

sorry accidental downvote - can you make an edit so I can remove it?


text:
What to do if I don't secure a PhD position (UK)?
I'm applying for PhD programs in CS/statistics next year in the UK, and am worried I might not secure a place (I'm at a weird position where I have weak grades, but a strong research proposal and good research experience but it's all individual and in preprint form), so I'd like to have some safety options.
I've thought of a few backup options, and was hoping for some advice on evaluating (1) whether these are really "backups", i.e. whether they're easier to get into than decent PhD programs and (2) what impact they would have on a future academic career, e.g. on applying again next year.

Safety schools -- Are there any "safety schools" when it comes to PhDs (and if so, what is a decent safety school in the UK for a 2:1 or low 1st)? In particular, are lower-ranked schools (especially those with good departments/research groups in the areas I'm interested in) are easier to get in, and do grades matter more or less when applying to scuh schools?

Other countries -- Are there any countries (preferably Europe) in which grades matter notably less in PhD admissions?

Industry -- In particular (1) do grades matter more or less than academia in industry, especially industry "research labs" (2) will a year in industry or a gap year disadvantage me when applying next year for a PhD? For example, how might one get recommendation letters applying for a PhD after a year in industry? I would imagine trying to do some kind of research project under an academic during my year in industry, but typically PhD programs ask for 2-3 reference letters, so is it appropriate to ask my undergraduate professors for a reference letter again after a year in industry?

Masters -- Is doing another Masters at all a good idea? In particular, do grades matter more or less than for a PhD? I imagine my research experience and proposal will matter less when applying for a Masters.

Research assistant positions/anything else -- Are there any non-PhD research/teaching/any other positions in the UK? "Research assistant" positions are quite common in my home country for those without PhDs -- does the concept of joining and working for a research lab without a PhD exist in the UK?

A bit of a broad question, I apologise for that, but I think the sub-questions are related enough for practical purposes that I would hope it's OK to include them in one.

Please focus you question more, otherwise it will be probably closed due to being to broad.

A low 1st is not a bad grade.

I feel that your approach to your future is too much predicated on the notion that it may be determined by mechanistic fulfilment of objective (almost “box-ticking”) criteria. You ask how to get recommendations, whether it is appropriate to ask people, do grades matter, almost as if you think there are standard approaches to life’s journey. There are not. I can only suggest that you communicate openly with those who are relevant to your aspirations,  that you make clear where your enthusiasms and competence lie, and that you seek personal adaptability to changing circumstances rather than seeking rules for handling them.


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What are the pros and cons to writing the same paper in two languages?
I am a bilingual student and soon starting on thesis. I will be writing it in English although my native language is French and I am considering writing it in both languages so that the people closer to me can also read it. This is obviously more work but I am wondering if there would be any other advantages/disadvantages to writing papers in two languages. For example, would this increase the chance of publication? Would this make tracking citations more difficult?
I already saw another question regarding if it's better to write in X language first but I am not specifically wondering about the order in which it should be done.

You should not and generally will not be allowed to publish the same paper in both languages.  (However, a thesis does not count as a publication for this purpose, so you could write the thesis in one language and publish in a journal in the other.  If you are a field where ArXiv or some similar repository exists, you could also put both on (with a note that they are the same paper).)

How many people are there that could understand your thesis if it were written in French, but not if it were written in English? I am asking because for my thesis (and most theses in my field) I am pretty confident that there isn’t a single person in the world matching this criterion.

Related: Writing papers in language X and translating to English vs. writing papers in English to begin with?

This seems like a giant waste of effort. Personally, I spend a great amount of time to get the phrasing just right, so I don't even want to think about doing that twice.

Seconding @Wrzlprmft, if you want non experts to understand it, make a light version. Example in Astrophysics.

Responding to update of the question, the accepted answer of the other question points out the pros and cons.

@Wrzlprmft that's going to be highly field dependent.  In the literature world, if you write it in any language other than the language of the work itself (presuming it's a language still spoken/used), then there's a chance writing in English/[insert native language] might limit the audience, but for comp lit researchers, it can be beneficial to have it in English/[other language] as well.

@guifa: That’s exactly why I am asking the question I was asking in my comment. We need to know that number as the answer strongly depends on it. I did not want to generalise my experience use it as contrasting example.

so that the people closer to me can also read it

is one of the best reasons I can think of for doing two versions.
Occasionally I write two versions of a letter, in my role as a bilingual volunteer advocate for a child with special needs.  I've noticed that after writing the letter in language A, and then writing it in language B, I am then able to go back to language A and make some improvements that I am sure would not have occurred to me through the normal single-language editing process.
I would just caution you, if it starts to be more trouble than it's worth, to keep both versions chugging along strongly, don't get frustrated with yourself if you decide not to keep going with the French version.

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


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How to professionally handle sexist remarks by a student?
Suppose that you noticed a student saying a sexist remark to you, and the student is completely unaware of it. In the spirit of fighting sexism, I feel that I should maybe say something. But on the other hand, as a person on the higher end of the power spectrum, I feel that I would be bullying the student if I were calling him out on his sexist remarks (which he is probably not aware of).
If I witness a student engaging in a sexist behavior, should I call him/her out? How can I do this without making the student feel intimidated? What would be the professional way to deal with such a situation?
My question is:
If a student commits a clear sexist behavior in front of you, will you call him/her out? If so, how will you approach it so that you don't appear patronizing/bullying?
(I made a major edit, because many answers addressed my "background" story rather than my actual question. I do not see any satisfactory answer that fully addresses my question.)

Meta discussion about this question.

There is a great resource online, the Ada Initiative's Ally Skills Workshop materials, that have a lot of thoughtful analysis about a host of situations; some of them are probably similar enough to yours that there's insight to be gained.

Another Meta discussion about this question: http://meta.academia.stackexchange.com/questions/3600/what-to-do-about-posts-that-dont-answer-the-rewritten-question.

This is similar to the person of color getting stopped by the police. Is it just a random stop, or is it racism? Very hard to tell without statistics on large sample sizes, or direct evidence of racism. Would the student have made the same accusations if you were male? Possibly, but very hard to tell without direct evidence of sexism.
The student could be complaining just because he got a bad grade. The backing off after you told him the syllabus was from another professor could be because that professor was male. But it could also be because that professor was as you said, very senior. Or because you showed him that indeed more people used that same syllabus.
My advice in general would be to fight sexism when you have clear evidence that gender played a role. In other cases: address accusations like this on their merits or lack thereof. If people find that their accusations towards women are unfounded, that also combats sexist views.
Hopefully this post helped a bit.
Regarding your edit and how to deal with explicit sexism: I would call them out on it. However exactly how to deal with it and whether appearing as a bully is a concern is difficult to say without an explicit case. Is falls in the general case of students making inappropriate/unacceptable comments or actions. Maybe a guideline could be: is it severe enough to contact other people in the university? If not, you might admonish it more lightly if concerns about being a bully are top of your mind. If it is severe enough to contact the administration or the person at your institution to contact out of line students, let it be their decision. You can never be accused of being a bully if the punishment came for an independent third party. Especially if you presented the case to that third party plain and factually, with the question being: what should we do now?
Again it is hard to talk in general about these things. That is why I focused on the more specific case, because I could be more specific about it.

"Address accusations like this on their merits or lack thereof. If people find that their accusations towards women are unfounded, that also combats sexist views."  Yes, yes, YES.  And the inverse is true as well: If their accusations are valid and you ignore them you are encouraging negative views.  If "you're sexist/racist/whatever!" is your only argument, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy as you become unable even to recognize valid complaints, and so will assume the increasing number of people complaining are all sexist/racist/whatever.

You may be interested in proposing an answer or voting on an existing answer on this meta post, which discusses what to do with answers that address the previous version of the question.

****READ THE EDITS WHERE THE OP CLEARLY STATES ORIGINALLY THAT THERE WAS NO CLEAR SEXISM TAKING PLACE.****

Actually if what you said is true and it is the whole truth (we are not missing info), if you call the student out you are the one committing the sexist offense.
And if I were a male student that talked to you about your teaching methods, syllabus, whatever, and you told me that I was sexist or even hinted at it I would be including your boss and maybe their boss into the conversation very very soon.
I asked a similar question on here a while back - My professor gave me a bad grade and wouldn't discuss it further, I think some prejudice may be involved. How should a student proceed?
This turned out so-so for me and very bad for the professor (she was let go after that semester - not sure if I was cause or the last straw or possibly I had no bearing).
The fact is you are relegating this to an issue of male vs female and taking an antagonistic approach with a student.  You tried the student in the court of your head and he was found guilty of sexism - that is why you wrote this question.  95%+ would not find this person guilty with the information that you gave.  Now if you act on this you are not only a person who falsely accuses someone (defamation if you talk about this with others), but you are also a person with very low awareness, you are a person that is a high risk to your institution, and you have given this whiny student a free pass through your course (deserved).

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat. (Also see meta question.)

To answer your actual question, yes.  Those in positions of authority (such as college professors) should absolutely fight sexism.
However, a professor should not conclude that a student is making "sexist remarks" when a student complains that the syllabus did not place enough emphasis on homework, then backs off on hearing that another professor who is male does it the same way.
As dimpol noted, "fight sexism when you have clear evidence that gender played a role".   Otherwise, it reinforces the stereotype that women are incapable of accepting criticism.  "Crying wolf" in situations where there is no evidence of sexism, may also be validating the beliefs of those who deny that sexism exists.

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat. (Also see meta question.)

You may be interested in proposing an answer or voting on an existing answer on this meta post, which discusses what to do with answers that address the previous version of the question.

What would be the professional way to deal with such a situation

The professional way to deal with a first offence is almost always a private conversation.
In the private conversation:
1) Assume good will. Even if this isn't possible, try really hard to act like it. It goes a really long way to helping someone change personal behavior for the better.
2) Try to start and end the conversation with something positive. Aim for something relevant, but unrelated is better than nothing. This helps reduce defensiveness, shows that you can see value in the person, and makes your feedback easier to accept. If you really can't do this, it is better to skip it than to do it without sincerity. But trying is well worth your effort.
3) Teach how to have these difficult conversations. Be a good example of how to give difficult feedback. If you can teach this skill, you will be remembered as one of the best professors ever.
4) Focus on helping the student become a better person and live a more fulfilled life. This isn't about stopping a 5-year-old from eating too many cookies. This is about influencing internal motivations. Do this for the sake of the student, not because it is your pet peeve.
5) Be prepared to be wrong. You probably misinterpreted the statement in at least some small way. Have an open mind. Consider that the student may come from a background very different from your own. Be ready to learn something.
If the problem persists, and you have good reason to believe that the bad behavior is spreading to other people, then it may be time for public criticism. But at this point, you may have lost your chance to positively influence this person. Making a student stay quiet in class is a lot easier than changing hearts and minds.
Of course, you should ask advice from a person whom you trust. Find someone with whom you can share the specifics of the situation, and ask for advice.

"If I witness a student engaging in a sexist behavior, should I call him/her out?"
My two cents:  Short answer is no.  Redirect the conversation to something that is related to the course itself.
If the behavior continues, contact the students advisor/counselor, or whichever department is assigned to handle these situations involving misbehavior or violations of student conduct at your institution.

I think there's a way to address this sort of thing, while taking your concerns into account.  The root of it is remembering that you're in the role of teacher, and they student.
First, avoid accusations, even veiled ones such as "you know, women get this a lot."  Why?  Because accusations will likely put them on the defensive and cause them to shut out what you're trying to teach.  It also needlessly prescribes a motivation to the student, when you don't actually know why they said this.  In your case, maybe they're a terribly nervous test taker and chose a bad way to bring it up with you.
Second, approach it by asking questions.  Instead of defending your use of certain elements of the syllabus, ask him why he believes your syllabus needs to be like other syllabi, or why that way is better.  Who knows, maybe he'll even have decent input.  But if not, it provides an opportunity for him to think about what he's doing without any accusation from you.  You don't need to defend your syllabus to students, but engaging with their input is an entirely different matter.

You may be interested in proposing an answer or voting on an existing answer on this meta post, which discusses what to do with answers that address the previous version of the question.

Many of these answers focus on your particular context, which you've since edited out, so I'm going to take a swing at answering it in the more general sense you've asked for.

If I witness a student engaging in a sexist behavior, should I call him/her out? How can I do this without making the student feel intimidated? What would be the professional way to deal with such a situation.

Yes.
Of course, that "Yes" has nuance. There are cases that are blatant enough that they probably justify halting class to address something - especially if the sexist behavior was targeted at the women in the room. For less blatant cases, I believe it may still be useful to reach out to the student, because there's two possible scenarios:

They actually are being sexist. Being told that's not appropriate and it needs to stop is important.
They're not intending to be sexist, and aren't realizing they're being read that way.

For most cases, I would give the student the benefit of the doubt and assume the second, and couch things mostly in terms of professional conduct. That "Ms." or "Miss" isn't the appropriate title for a female professor. That there are more constructive ways to approach the criticism of a class, etc.
As an example, at one point in my youth, I was overly casual with a female professor - I was doing it because I knew her well at that point, but it was in a professional context and this conspicuously happens to female professors a lot. So I called out her name, "Amanda", to ask a question, and she swiftly, but not unkindly replied "Dr. Peters" to correct me. I apologized and the world kept turning.

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

It looks like this question has been through some edits, so to be clear, I am answering this version of the question, and for the purposes of the answer I will presume for the sake of argument that the perception of the OP of a sexist remark is a reasonable perception:

Suppose that you noticed a student saying a sexist remark to you, and
  the student is completely unaware of it. In the spirit of fighting
  sexism, I feel that I should maybe say something. But on the other
  hand, as a person on the higher end of the power spectrum, I feel that
  I would be bullying the student if I were calling him out on his
  sexist remarks (which he is probably not aware of). If I witness a
  student engaging in a sexist behavior, should I call him/her out? How
  can I do this without making the student feel intimidated? What would
  be the professional way to deal with such a situation? My question is:
  If a student commits a clear sexist behavior in front of you, will you
  call him/her out? If so, how will you approach it so that you don't
  appear patronizing/bullying? (I made a major edit, because many
  answers addressed my "background" story rather than my actual
  question. I do not see any satisfactory answer that fully addresses my
  question.)

This is one of the things I absolutely hate about “call-out culture”.  There is a whole world of possible teaching that can occur in the massive gulf between “calling him out” and “doing nothing”.  Many of the students we teach in university are barely out of adolescence, particularly if they are in the early years of their undergraduate degree.  You are the mature adult in the room, so it is probably not a great idea to use that authority and power to belittle this young man, or “call him out” during class in a manner that belittles him.  However, your instinct to do something is correct; we all want to teach young people to do better.  It would be perfectly appropriate to pull this young man aside after class and politely give him your views on his remark, and invite him to have a think about whether that is an appropriate remark.  Don't treat this as fighting sexism (fist in the air); treat it as teaching an immature young man and helping him to grow up.  My experience is that young men --many only a few years out of adolescence-- are hungry for knowledge, including knowledge on appropriate professional standards of behaviour from older adults.
I have encountered a similar experience to this in my own teaching.  In one of my tutorial classes on mathematics, I observed that two male students were drawing pornographic pictures and showing them to a female student they were friends with, and chuckling about it.  Although the three of them were friends, she appeared to be uncomfortable with it, and was not a participant in the joke.  During class I told the boys to settle down and get back to their work, in a way that stopped the behaviour but did not intimidate or belittle them.  (My favourite line in these cases is: “Come on now; you’re not at the pub”.)  Then after class I asked to speak to them and had a more serious chat with them in private.  This was a stern but sympathetic conversation, trying to give guidance to young men that were not mature enough to see that their behaviour was making someone uncomfortable.  Based on their mortified responses, and their concern for their female friend, I expect that they probably learned the lesson, and I did not see any behaviour like this from them again.  To me, this gives the best outcome – raise the matter as a teaching opportunity, but save any stern remarks for a private chat.

If you accuse someone of being sexist, under circumstances where most people don't see actual sexism, people might think you are the one being sexist. If you do so repeatedly, you will damage your reputation.
Let's simplify and say there are only 3 kinds of sexism (which is not entirely true):

Unclear sexism, where degrading remarks could or could not be due to the gender of a person. Calling this out as sexism is raising an accusation without proof, which is generally considered bad form.
Sexist jokes. You can certainly call them out on the inappropriate behavior, but I suggest strongly against any form of punishment unless this happens repeatedly.
Blatant sexism. Call them out on it and consider social punishment (e.g. asking for an apology, or demand they leave the room).

You want to react to sexism, which is good, but keep in mind that overreacting will neither serve you nor the fight against sexism - something you can easily observe in many of the answers to your question. Keep in mind "the boy who cried wolf".

Ask for clarification
"Student X, what did you mean by saying Y?" 20 something men can be dense. In their head, they may not intend the remark to be sexist, but they have no context from which to know. Asking them to re-phrase the same thing gives you a better idea as to whether the sexism was purposeful. If the re-phrased remark is harmless, then simply telling the student "That was a much better way to phrase that," gets the point across.
Another strategy is to say, "Student X, it sounded like you said (sexist comment here) is that what you meant?" This is usually enough to get the student back pedaling fast. It's important not to be aggressive with this sentence, you don't want to verbally cue the back pedaling, you do want them to double down if the sexist remark is indeed what they meant, so you can tell them it's inappropriate for reasons X Y or Z.
Gleaning from previous answers, in your specific case you could ask the student "Student X, why did you decide to drop the issue once you saw the other syllabus?" They (probably) won't straight up tell you "because he's a man" but if that was the reasoning, the response will trigger your lie detector.

If something is clearly sexist, yes, everyone has a duty to engage this particular scourge of our psyches.  It isn't going to go away on its own.
Of course it need not be confrontational nor be done in front of a group of peers but also not just one on one if there is an unbalanced power situation.  If so, I would include a witness or record the conversation (if legal).
I would approach it as an unconscious bias the individual is unaware of.  For example, "just to let you know, your (comments or actions) could be mistaken for (sexism)."  Let them know that many people have unconscious biases that can come out without their intending it that way.
If there is a question about if it is sexist, the better way to start the conversation is to ask why they acted or spoke the way they did.  This can help determine intent and then the conversation can proceed appropriately.

I downvoted this because a single isolated incident where a person questions the teaching methods a professor who happens to be female and backs off after one of their claims is demonstrated to be false is hardly sufficient evidence to conclude the individual has any kind of bias, much less a subtle unconscious one. We don't even know if there's a similar incident with a male professor to compare to. It's possible they do, but as noted in comments and answers. we don't really have strong enough evidence to level that claim here.

@jpmc26, Thanks for giving a reason for the downvote.  The OP asked for a general case - not this specific one, "So I am not necessarily soliciting an answer specific to my situation, but in a more general setting."  So in my mind, even an isolated incident is worthy of a comment "If something is clearly sexist..."  I accept you may disagree with that.  To your second comment, if someone makes a sexist remark and it can be taken a different way, I think it is appropriate to clarify the situation.  I don't think that implies any sort of sexism on my part.  "Did you mean to demean women..."

Put another way, as evidenced by this question being asked, any criticism, even one that has no clear tie to gender, can be taken as sexist. If there's a clear pattern of treating people differently based on gender, you may have a point, but I think leaping to responses like "could be mistaken for sexism" or "Did you mean to demean women" without a clear justification just sets an impossible standard. We should be cautious about accusing people of sexism or racism or anything of that ilk, especially given that our society has an extremely adverse reaction to anything even close.

"if something is clearly sexist."  Well, what is clearly sexist to one person, may not be clearly sexist to another.

@NZKshatriya, that's exactly the point.  If you didn't realize what you were saying was demeaning wouldn't you want to know?

I would not confront the student directly.
In the U.S., bias incidents should be reported to your university's Title IX coordinator.  If you have any doubts as to whether the incident is clear enough to report, you can talk it over with the Title IX coordinator first.
Your university probably has some online documents about building a culture of respect, and a campus code of conduct.  Looking these over might help you clarify the issues.

@BenCrowell - You're absolutely right, I forgot to think about whether OP is in the U.S. I will edit my answer. Note, though, after reading your comment, I looked at the question again, and I think in this case, chances are this is in the U.S. because of the Thanksgiving break ending today and the context "mulling over it over the holiday." // For your other point -- take a look at http://knowyourix.org/title-ix/title-ix-the-basics/

@BenCrowell Please see the edit I made, and thanks again for catching my unfair initial country assumption. // Note, the link states that Title IX protects students and faculty from gender-based discrimination.  Please note also that I recommended OP not confront the student directly, but rather address any concerns about possible gender bias with the university's Title IX coordinator. If you disagree with one or both recommendations, I would be glad to read your reasons. and an alternative answer.

@user10408 - Would appreciate specific feedback about my answer.  Is there anything at all helpful for you in my answer?  Which part(s) of your question did I neglect to address?  Thank you.

+1 (at least in the U.S.). When in doubt, do what academics do...consult the expert.

The role of a professor, as well as other professional in fact, is not to fight social wars that they deem are justified. Therefore, I disagree that it is your goal to fight "sexism", "racism", "(post-) colonialism", "orientalism" or whatever "ism" you fancy to fight for that matter.
The goal of a professor is to do research, extend human knowledge and convey knowledge to students. If you find a remark personally offensive I would indeed think how to react. Since you have claimed explicitly that it is not meant to be an offense by the student, then I conclude that you are not really offended (though sub-consciously you may be).
Therefore, I would suggest not to do anything as it is not the role of a professional to "educate" people to behave according to the desired social ideology that the state, or society, or intellectual circles hold to be "the correct one".
That said, if you find that the student has broken an explicit law, or an explicit regulations set by your university, then you should report him or her to the relevant person or police.

If it was the first unintentionally [sexist, racist, whateverist] comment, leave it alone.
If it happened second time, comment it as "Hmm, funny", or any other sarcastic praise.
If it happens again ask the commentator to watch their tongue immediately. You can explain it after the course.
If it happens again, ask them to leave and discuss it with your faculty oficials.
If the comment is mocking you, do not waste time waiting and ask them to think first and speak later. It is not a bully; it is self-defence.