text:
How do US Math PhD admissions committees view students who come from Industry?
Context
I am a few years out of undergrad and have been working in a finance job since I graduated. As an undergraduate I identified going into a math PhD as a very likely plan for myself early on. I was very successful on paper, and I think if I had stayed fully committed to that path I would have had a very typical and rather strong application (at least as far as your typical undergrad knows how to self evaluate, which I could be easily convinced is very poorly). But I lacked confidence in the softer skills that I believe to be required for graduate school, such as making connections and choosing the right advisor. I also did not believe the research I had done realistically approximated typical PhD research, even though I loved it and thought it went well. I ended up choosing to look for an internship instead of a second REU, was accepted into an unexpectedly prestigious place which lead to a full time job offer that I took.
I have gained some social confidence since then, and am seriously considering returning for a PhD in math. I believe the opportunity to spend several years fully focused on a subject I love will not be something I would be likely to regret.
I suspect that the answer to this question might be different for pure versus applied math. My personal topic interests lean toward applied, but I'd be curious to hear the answer for both.
My Working Understanding:

For math specifically, it is somewhat uncommon for someone to have industry experience prior to starting a PhD. This is less true in other fields.
Many professors may look poorly on the potential of those who choose to go to industry first, because it demonstrates a lack of commitment to the field.
Admissions committees will worry that a student who has been away from math has forgotten too much and will be behind. (The GRE subject test is a way to try to mitigate this, though many schools do not accept it anymore and it has major flaws.)
Experience in industry is of limited interest to admissions committees in most cases.

Why I Want to Check My Understanding:

It will help inform how I discuss this experience in my application materials.

It allows me to more accurately self evaluate my application strength, useful for managing expectations and picking schools.

While I have found answers to this that discuss the question more generally for Stem PhDs, I have heard it is less common for math and would expect the answer could be different.

Input on this would help others in my situation, or undergrads who are considering trying industry before trying a PhD.

If your undergraduate degree is in math then I think the question of industry experience is irrelevant other than at the margins. In finance it might be a small plus if you were applying math in the job.
Most US doctoral admissions is based only on the undergraduate education and the selection is done by committees that evaluate your likelihood of success. Most early doctoral students in math in the US take quite a lot of coursework to prepare them for comprehensive/qualifying exams. If you haven't forgotten everything you learned you start at about the same place as everyone else.
One normally chooses a dissertation advisor later, after they have coursework and maybe comps behind them. You and the potential advisor will be in a much better place to evaluate one another at that point than at admission time.
One issue I see, however, is whether you can still get the important positive letters of recommendation from your previous professors who will attest to your likelihood of success. In that, it is easier to apply directly from the undergraduate program when people remember you.
This would be different other places, where individual professors select, and probably fund doctoral students; Germany IIRC.
Gaining confidence in yourself is a good thing, however. You might mention that somewhere, perhaps in your request to professors for letters.
And, if the finance was heavily mathematical and the program you want to enter is applied math, especially with a finance-adjacent option, it would be a plus. But in general, other things will count far more.


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What is the best way to deal with a school program that is rife with academic dishonesty?
Several years ago, I was employed at a Federal lab. It was a good job but had a lot of nonsense from certain employees.
The lab offered a graduate program through a major university. I was interested and actually enrolled in a class. However, my interests quickly changed. It changed because in the class I was enrolled in, a fellow employee showed up with a notebook that contained all of the assignments, and even old tests issued by the professor. Oddly, his name was not on any of the assignments but someone else's name was who once worked there but left. As well, I asked him where he got the binder and he told another employee (not the one listed on the tests/assignments) gave it to him. I was so turned off, I dropped the class: I had no interests in getting a degree like that. As well, I asked around and I found out that this was not an isolated incident.
I was wondering, if someone on here could tell me, if that university's credentialing is at risk because of cheating in that program?
I was advised that once that if a university didn't take cheating allegations seriously then its credentials could be in jeopardy.

Sharing past assignments or exams is not necessarily cheating, unless the professor explicitly forbade it.  In my experience, professors usually consider that it is perfectly fine for students to look at past assignments or exams as a way to study, and they design their classes accordingly (e.g. by not reusing exam questions from one year to the next).

@NateEldredge, that is, at least, the core of an answer.

@Buffy: Well, maybe OP could clarify whether they have some specific reason to believe that this behavior was actually forbidden, or if that's just an assumption, or if they personally consider it dishonest whether it's against the rules or not.

What you describe could be an issue if the Professor always gives the same assignments and solutions, but if that is the case, the Prof is NOT doing his job properly. But if the assignments and exams are prepared properly, what you describe should not be an issue, looking at those matrials would be no different than looking at some examples in the textbook.

Further to what Nate Eldredge wrote, I suspect that every fraternity and sorority house in the United States has fat binders full of old material.  At least one program at the university from which I retired posts old quizzes and exams on the program's "resources" web page.

You have one example. So "rife with ..." is an overstatement. The example may be valid or not as others here have mentioned. To assume it is valid, you have to also assume that this is a violation, but ignored in some way.

I suggest deleting the example from the question as it is distracting from what you are asking.

Here is an example of what happens to the university.  Mostly they just loose reputation.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_North_Carolina_academic-athletic_scandal

I had no interests in getting a degree like that.

A degree like what? From your description as of the current edit, you have no evidence that cheating is going on. Not all instructors have a problem with students using old exam and assignment material from previous years. Some will even regard it as beneficial and actively allow their old materials to be reused. Whether cheating occurred or not is highly context dependent - context that you have not provided in the question.
Your question about how to deal with rife cheating is simply premature. My suggestion is, first find out whether cheating is actually occurring and what is the extent of it. Then share your findings and we will be able to discuss what kinds of consequences the program is at risk of suffering and what if anything can be done.

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Can I use my own paper for own thesis?
I published a paper on a statistical topic after my bachelors.
Currently I am doing my masters thesis and I would like to cite/use my own paper in it.
However, I did not inform my supervisor before that I already had a publication in a similar field of my thesis when I started, because I did not expect it to be directly relevant then. However, now I would like to use this paper.
Is it OK to cite my own paper in my thesis? Will the supervisor be OK with it, despite I did not inform him about my previous work when starting the thesis with him?
Thanks.

Will the supervisor be OK with it? Ask him.

@EnthusiasticStudent Your comment "Ask him." is really useless because that is why I posted the question. Also, my case is more specific than the answer you cited.

@emcor his answer is the best anyone can give. The only person who can answer those questions for you is your supervisor.

@emcor Your supervisor is the only one who can give you precise advise; at least nobody here knows you and your publications and your special conditions. Because he is familiar with you, has read your papers and publications, will read your thesis report, and more important he knows the regulation of the university you are studying in. That is why I posted that comment. Talk to your advisor and you will see that was the most useful answer you have received.

Is your supervisor supposed to approve every citation you include in your thesis? I've never heard of such a practice before.

Practiced in moderation, self-citation is natural, healthy, and ethical.
There are typical two reasons why excessive self-citation can become problematic:

It often indicates a person who is unaware of the related work being done by the rest of the community.
Self-citation can be abused to falsely inflate one's perceived importance and citation metrics.

A healthy line of research, however, will often produce a non-trivial fraction of self-citation in each paper because your old work is related to your new work.  In fact, it would be unethical to not self-cite when citation is appropriate.
A simple guiding principle for approaching the question is this: if somebody else besides you had written the paper, would you want to cite it?  If the answer is yes, then you should cite the paper.  There isn't even any particular reason you need to mention it to your supervisor, though it would probably be fun and enjoyable for you to mention in passing, "Hey, and it turns out this other paper I wrote was actually useful enough to cite!"
Now as to whether you can include your other paper as part of your thesis, this is a very different question.  The first question is: why would you want to do so, if a citation will suffice?  If you've done a Masters' Thesis worth of work excluding this other paper, there is no reason to need to include it.  If you haven't, then that is when you need to have a discussion with your supervisor, because the answer will depend on the policies and practices of your particular department.

A citation in a thesis does not count in bibliometrics, so you cannot possibly inflate your CV with it; and not many people read it, so you are not giving it a lot of publicity. Furthermore, someone is going to grade it, and having published a paper in your Bachelor is quite impressive.

Actually, what exactly gets counted depends on whose bibliometrics: given the number of different competing databases, the variation in what "counts" from field to field, and the ongoing debates on bibliometrics in the internet age, there is no single clear gold standard at this point.  Regardless, my answer was intended to address the general issue self-citation, from which the answer to the specific dilemma comes clear.  And yes, undergrads who publish are awesome.

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No response to formal Chair application. Is this normal?
I have applied to a Chair position, in response to a public advertisement from a US University (not one of the top ones, of course). This included investing some good time, sending several documents, and a formal application (the first, and probably last one).
In 2 years, I never heard 1 word in response (apart the application reception acknowledgment). I was wondering if this kind of rudeness is the standard in the USA, and it is to be normally expected.

Job openings typically have several hundred applicants, and it is typical not to contact unsuccessful applicants, unless you've previously invited them to interview or something like that. I'm not sure whether or not I agree that it's rude, but in any case it is the norm.

Well I doubt they have "several hundred applicants". In fact I keep receiving alerts about that job, which after years still appears not to be filled. My personal opinion is that it's some device for tax evasion by formally allocating some funds for non existent positions. Also it's strange to me that a "Chair" it's not even in tenure track (in my first contact with the vice provost (in charge of the search) he assured it was (or else, being already tenured, I would not even apply, of course), now, in the new advertisement, they deny it). Well, it does not take a genius to get the situation.

This is the typical situation normal but all fouled up (SNAFU) of job searches in the United States. Often you are lucky to get a two line e-mail or a postcard at the negative conclusion of a search.
In the case of Chair searches, though, the fouled-up nature is usually much worse. I'm assuming this is Chair-as-in-Head-of-a-Department rather than a Named-Chair-as-in-Benefactor-Sponsored senior position.
Usually universities search for external Chairs when there are problems with the existing senior faculty that make it impossible for a Chair to arise from within the department. This means that search will be similarly confused, with possible internal conflicts in the department as well as external interventions from the Provost's office.
Because of these competing interests, external Chair searches can take even longer than the usual search.
I would write to the Search Chair and ask what the status of the search is.
Postscript: The OP has clarified that this is a search for a named chair. These tend to go smoothly as the institution already has the money vested by the benefactor, who usually wants to see the position filled quickly (and is likely to give again if pleased by the results) and often puts enough parameters on the position (theoretical field, area of study) that political factions within the department can't mess it up too much. So whatever is going on in the OP's situation seems strange and rather unique.

Thank you RoboKaren. Well my suspect is that was one of the many fake endowed chairs. Probably, for tax evasion (It would have no meaning that such an humanity benefactor professor has companies at Cayman islands otherwise). I have seen the advertisement repeated during these 2 years. So 2 + 2 =...  :-)

I haven't heard of fake endowed chairs at an accredited American university. If the place is located in the Cayman Islands, then I would of course be suspicious. Some people have enough info in their CVs to be able to have their identities easily stolen. I hope yours did not have your social security number, birth date, place of birth, or other private info.

No No. It was legitimate. I exchanged emails with the vice provost (in charge of the search), before sending the application (which of course had all my data), to make sure about my suitability for the position (I am already tenured in my current position). Cayman islands were mentioned just because the endower (a professor in that department) has (among others) business over there.

One of the senior faculty in the department is rich enough to endow a named-Chair in his own department? That's a new one for me -- but then again, faculty in my branch of the social sciences are paid rather poorly.

Well he is actually a millionaire. The "right hand" of a well known billionaire, who is also over there  :-) Yes about salary here too are low and there is no incentive. I am at about mere a 70K eur per year (tenured).

Nice (to be that rich), but it's also likely he's going to be very interventionist in the search process. I would assume that no news is  bad news in this case.

Well sure. Probably, they already have their own "friends" and business to be taken care of, too. I understand that.

Don't they usually already know who they're hiring for named chairs, and the job advertisement is just a legal formality?

No. Most reputable universities try to run these searches honestly.

Most famously, Yale returned $20 million to Lee Bass as they wouldn't agree to the stipulations he put on the bequest to  screen the finalists. http://www.yaleherald.com/archive/xix/3.24.95/news/bass.html

Well, I guess that's why Yale is Yale :-) Unfortunately some (less important) universities are run practically by one or a few individuals, mostly for their own good, profit and (made-up) autoreferential "prestige".

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Can personal projects that required reading other's research make up for lack of my own?
I graduated from my undergrad program last December.  My grades and GRE scores are good but my school is relatively unknown.  I don't really have research in the sense that I haven't published anything, and I don't believe anything I've done to be particularly novel.  The school I went to was a teaching college, there wasn't a strong emphasis on research.
That said, I have been known (as my recommendation-writing professors will surely vouch) to do projects wherein I pick a topic, read a bunch about it, and then implement what I've read about.  At present, I'm writing a ray-tracing renderer, and I plan to implement a lot of advanced features by the time I actually apply to grad school, such as photon mapping and an BVH data structure.  I also plan to implement a few more shiny bells and whistles based on techniques I've read from different SIGGRAPH papers, but I don't believe I will be doing anything that no one else has done before, especially in the 4 months left until my application is submitted.
For what it's worth, however, this project is 100% my own.  I never took a graphics class while in college.  I work 40 or more hours a week a software developer, and I do most of my work by waking up at 5:30AM and working until I start work at 9.  I do most of my research (into papers and topics) when I get home, and during the work day when I have a few minutes.
My question is, how valuable is the information I just listed?  Does the attitude demonstrated above make up for the fact that I don't really have terribly original research?  What about the fact that my professors probably aren't that well known?
This applies mostly to the top tier of schools.  I will be applying to several non-elite schools as well, but it is with the top schools that I am most worried about my lack of research.  Do I have even a small chance to get into a top school, or am I simply noncompetitive as a candidate?
-- As for work experience, I have 8 months of experience as an intern at a fairly high profile research institute, but the truth is the work they had me do while there really wasn't research.  My current job is developing mobile applications and websites.  I find it very underwhelming, and I imagine graduate schools will as well.

Certainly better than nothing and admissions will recognize that. Also it means you've been READING the literature too, which is also a plus (not as major as research and publishing, but a plus). For top schools I may be worried with just typical good gpa/gre, though "top" is vague. I interpreted it as top10. Also, MS or PhD? Should be focusing on what the profs are researching instead of blindly applying to "top" schools.

At the moment, I'm leaning towards PhD since I think I want to head in the direction of research.  I have also been looking at professors, which is limiting me somewhat in terms of which schools I'm looking at.  As for "good grades and gre", I graduated with a 3.9/4 and I got a 166 in quantitative on a GRE practice exam, though that was without studying, so I expect to do better when I actually study for and take the real one.

How valuable is the information I just listed?

Very, since it shows that you are capable of reading and understanding the literature, and capable of implementing what you read (the true test of understanding).

Does the attitude demonstrated above make up for the fact that I don't really have terribly original research?

I doubt that any faculty, anywhere, expects undergrad students to have published research. I think the attitude you describe is very valuable for grad school.

What about the fact that my professors probably aren't that well known?

Well, having a famous professor vouch for you certainly counts for a lot. But not having that network at an undergraduate level shouldn't preclude you from getting into a good graduate course, especially if you have some nicely implemented projects up your sleeve.

I am coming from a very similar background (high performing student in an average CS program, with no formal lab experience). As far as your chances at a top program, this question was recently discussed. I don't think anyone can say for sure except the committee members, but it's definitely possible.
I was accepted with a few independent research projects, none of which had any real "results". What I did (YMMV) was review the literature and come up with incremental modifications or advancements, or in one case an experiment for which the outcome was pretty obvious but which had never actually been performed.
In my interviews, the emphasis was not even the details of these projects, but how I could relate the skills I had gained to the topics my potential advisers were interested in. As Dylan mentioned, even top programs don't require that incoming students are already accomplished researchers (what would be the point of attending?) but that you show initiative and capacity for research.
My advice then, would be to use the 4 (+- 1) months you have until you submit to  spin your implementations into independent research projects. Try to push just past the limits of the research you reviewed. If possible, you should document these projects by submitting technical reports somewhere (e.g. your undergrad dept. might be able to assign a technical report number and host the document).
But even if you can't do that, try to clarify in your own mind how the experience of independent study might have prepared you for research, so that you can communicate that effectively. Good luck!
Oh I almost forgot, everything I have ever read about non-research work experience indicates it's basically unimportant... however, if you happen to apply to non-CS programs that need programmers and you have work history showing your ability to build non-trivial programs it could be a significant advantage. This might backfire if your adviser wants you more as a programmer than a researcher, but nevertheless it could help you get in.


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What sort of professional boundary should I set with other students when I am a grader for a class I will be taking?
Next semester, I am going to take a course in which I have some background knowledge. Given the relevance of the course in my research, the lack of available students with sufficient knowledge in the course (it is one that is rarely taught at this school, and most of my supervisor's students either graduated last semester, or have just started with him this semester), and my general need to find some courses to TA for, the professor (my supervisor) had offered me the grader position for the course. The professor would be grading my own assignment, and I would then be marking other people's assignments based on those. It appears this situation has occured and been asked about before on this stack exchange, but not from the point of view of the TA.
I initially expressed my discomfort with this situation, but, upon being told (by my professor) that this had been done before, decided to accept, to maintain a good relationship with my supervisor.
I however have a number of issues which, as the beginning of next semester, are bothering me more and more:
I know a number of the other students in the class, and we often used to organise study groups and work on the assignments together. Would it be ethical of me to still participate in these study groups ? On one hand, I will not have access to the solutions until we submit our assignment, on the other, I will definitely be able to see if someone makes an obvious mistake in their proof that I, as a TA, would deduct points on.
I was initially thinking that the best course of action for me would be to cut off all relations related to the class (that is, remain friends with the students I know, but not bring up the class with them), but at the same time, I would thus be depriving them of help that I would have given to them as TA had I not been in such a situation. I'm finding it extremely difficult to set the line between "We are fellow students together and helping each other out" and "I am your TA and you are a student, and the help I am providing here is so you can properly learn the class".
Updates in responses to questions:

I have asked the professor for clarification; he says this is not the first time he has done this
I could certainly ask for "blind" grading
I am taking the course as a student, but have some background in the course

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat. OP provided some responses-to-questions in the comments; these have been edited into the post.

Actually, I think the best course of action would be for you to decline this offer. You have different personal relationships with different people in the class and it will be difficult to put aside all of your unconscious feelings and grade in a completely unbiased manner. It also opens the possibility of your friends putting pressure on you, which you can resist, but which could become uncomfortable.
An exception would be for grading that is purely objective, not requiring any analysis or judgement of the quality of the answers, such as mechanically recording the answers in multiple choice questions.
However, if blind grading could be arranged so that you grade paper not knowing who wrote them, then my reservations would probably disappear.
Blind grading would leave you free to interact normally with study groups and would lessen or remove any pressure that could be applied against you.
At a minimum bring up such concerns with the professor and point out the uncomfortable position it puts you in.

Perhaps there is a possibility that you help out the prof by grading a different class and suggesting you grade this one in a future offering.

The notion of "blind grading", especially with regard to close friends, is difficult due to recognizing handwriting, I think.

@paulgarrett. True enough. Unless the answers are typed.

@Buffy even typed, in some cases. After 3-4 years, we started recognizing people's coding style for instance. Nothing is ever really blind (like when you review papers in a narrow field, it's blind, but everybody knows the authors and sometimes the reviewers)...

@FábioDias, yes, a hard problem. I think declining is still the best choice.

Of course, if it's mechanical grading, then it wouldn't be necessary to have someone with knowledge of the course and anyone could do it, not just the OP.

When I had to grade my friends, I would grade their work last, so that I could see how I graded the same mistakes before.  (How many minor errors did I find?  Where they big enough to count as a -1 or a -2? etc).

@Buffy maybe. Or maybe the OP needs the money. Or the professor would take offense. I agree that in general that might be a good idea, but we are nearing an ecological fallacy  :)

@nomen that's why I don't grade the errors in the paper/work directly, but rather catalog them first, check that they are consistent and that the marks are coherent, then derive the paper/work mark from the set of errors. If you do it in one pass, you might get softer/harder along the way and get inconsistent.

I disagree with the blind grading bit. I have somewhat unique handwriting. A friend that I rarely bumped into randomly asked me how I was enjoying X class - it was blind grading but he had identified me because my hand writing was that well known among those who had seen it. It was a case of purely binary “is it correct” grading, and they were just a grader not taking that class at that time. I still would keep that in mind though as a similar situation could occur.

@TheGreatDuck, yes of course. It has to be truly blind, not just something that purports to be blind but isn't. And it is impossible in some cases, as you note.

@Buffy we did use anonymous IDs. You have to understand that my hand writing was so well known that me leaving something on a random whiteboard because I forgot to erase a small piece when I was done was enough for people to curiously ask me later what that was for - I am a severely extreme edge case.

Just to go against the grain, if you decide to take it:

Be methodical and very objective. Every action you take should be documented and based on provable facts.

I taught friends for more than a few courses. I usually do a pass cataloging errors, then I assign a mark for each error, which leads to the grades. That way, when someone questions the markings (Brazilian national sport at universities btw), you can literally point at the rules and how the grade was constructed. A friend that was letting me crash in his couch for the duration failed one of my courses and we are still friends...
For the day to day stuff, since you don't have access to anything confidential, just be a better than average student that helps people, whenever you feel like doing it, but at least during your TA hours. Be careful with the ethical lines (like if your professor mentions something that is not public knowledge), but don't overthink it.

I assure you that this is a sport not only in Brazil. Some things are fairly universal :)

At least in CS in my experience it's completely impossible to come up with an objective, consistent and complete way to "catalogue errors". This might work somewhere where there's just a single way to arrive at a solution and you just have to look up where someone went off the rails. I also can't imagine how this would work for say History essays.

@Voo well, I did it in CS (and intro to statistics). The idea there was checkpoints.Then I would categorize how they deviated between each checkpoint. Break those ways into 3-4 "badness" classes, take 25% of the marks for each. The main idea is you don't associate the error with the person. You associate the mark with the error, then map it back.

@Voo I had some later courses where the professor had written up a set of API tests for our assignments and ran them against your program and each test that failed was a mark off the score. Of course, that meant that if your program didn't follow the specification, you got a zero mark, but then that's the real world, too.

I have some experience with this kind of situation. Two or three times in my career as a professor a student was in a situation similar to yours: too much knowledge to take the course but for various good reasons needed to. I arranged for them to (help me) prepare solutions to hand out and sometimes grade papers.
Everyone in the class and in the department knew about this arrangement. It never seemed to cause any problem. My general attitude toward homework may have helped ease any potential friction - the purpose of the assignments was to encourage learning, not to assess. So they were commented on extensively, marked just [excellent|done|please see me for help] and did not count heavily toward the final grade.
Your situation may vary.

+1 for the general course philosophy that helps sidestep the problem.

Which country is that? You have a university system that is not broken.

@CaptainEmacs UMass Boston. I think that at many places there's enough professorial independence in the classroom to allow for this style.

I would politely decline the appointment.  I would be uncomfortable with the conflict of interest and, though certainly flattered, uncomfortable with the ethics of and my qualifications to grade a class I was still taking.

I have been a TA and grader for a course that had my friends (and, in fact, my girlfriend) in it. (I wasn't also taking the course at the time, but that doesn't seem like the main issue here.) Each grader had a "conflicts list", and nobody graded work by anybody on their list. (Being mere acquaintances wasn't a conflict, but being close friends or romantic partners was.)
I think being the only grader for this class would be untenable in your position, but if the professor grades not only your work, but also your friends' work, then it doesn't seem quite as fraught.

I think it is fine if you accept your professor’s offer to be a TA, though I would let them know your discomfort about the situation. I think the best course of action would be to hold normal office hours as a TA so that you are not depriving your fellow students of help while also maintaining professional boundaries. And as others have suggested, blind grading seems to be the most fair way of assessing classwork.

I was a TA/grader for courses that had friends in it. I graded impartially. If they got the question wrong, they were marked down appropriately.

I know a number of the other students in the class, and we often used to organise study groups and work on the assignments together. Would it be ethical of me to still participate in these study groups ?

Why wouldn't it be?  As you point out, you won't have the answer key in front of you.

I will definitely be able to see if someone makes an obvious mistake in their proof that I, as a TA, would deduct points on.

I don't understand how your position as TA affects this. If you weren't the grader, you would point out the mistake and help your friends fill in the gaps in their knowledge. Because that is the point of a study group. You're also taking for granted that you will know all the answers. (And if you're the TA, don't you do "office hours" to give students help anyway?)
Honestly, if I needed the job, I would take it but it's a little funny of your prof to have offered it in the first place.

Yup.  I was going to say this exactly.  I always graded my friends last, so that I could see how I graded other people for the same mistakes.

Also, good point about the study group.  You're a student until you have the stack of homework assignments in front of you.

Apart from the ethics, let it be known that, you may not teach (or grade) a course which you do not have appropriate documented knowledge of. If you must take the course yourself, you obviously have not. This clearly indicates that your knowledge in the field has not been documented, yet. If you already have an appropriate higher degree and taking the course is simply for the paperwork, this practice may pass. But as a normal student, grading direct peers is actually forbidden by accreditation policies. They say "teaching personel must have appropriate qualifications". At least in Germany (this question has no country tag).

That is in theory. I have seen this exact same thing being done in Germany. Of course, the student assistant did not sign any grade sheets, but then again, not even the TAs/PhD students can sign grade sheets...

You say:

I know a number of the other students in the class, and we often used to organise study groups and work on the assignments together. Would it be ethical of me to still participate in these study groups?

And

was initially thinking that the best course of action for me would be to cut off all relations related to the class (that is, remain friends with the students I know, but not bring up the class with them)

I think you should not take this position for two reasons:
1) It almost unavoidably creates "the appearance of a conflict of interest", which is as bad as an actual conflict of interest.
2) It puts you outside of your own community. This is unhealthy for your own social/academic well-being. As a student it's not good to get cut off from your peer group. You draw support from them, discuss tricky assignments with them, commiserate with them on setbacks. These are important things for anyone, students no exception. But to fulfill this position in a fair way cuts you off from uncomplicated interaction with your class.
Basically, taking this job puts you in a very bad position.

Here is another possible solution, depending on your situation: you can TA without officially taking the course, and enroll in something like a reading course instead.
As an undergrad, I needed to learn complex analysis, and I wanted to take the graduate course as I was also trying to get a Master's a the same time.  There was no graduate course that semester, but the professor teaching the undergraduate course (which I hadn't taken) proposed the following:

I would officially sign up for the graduate course with him, which we did as a reading course.  (I believe I was officially enrolled in the graduate complex analysis course, so that is what showed up on my transcript.)
I would attend and TA for his undergrad class (grading + office hours---in fact, I ended up giving a couple of lectures when he was traveling).

I think this worked out well with no conflict of interest as I was not a student in the class, and everyone just thought of me as the TA, but I got the benefit of the lectures and doing the undergrad homework before grading it.  In fact grading the students' homework and answering their questions helped me learn the material better.
FYI, I don't recall having any issues with grading the undergrad problems.  I did separate exercises for my reading course, but I'm sure if I had trouble with any of the problems I was supposed to grade I could have consulted with the professor---as should be the case for any course you TA.

If you are uncomfortable, don't do it.  It's one thing if you WANT to do it and it has been done before.  But if you don't want to, just...don't.  Let your prof do a little more work.  Don't do something like this just to butter him up.  You even have the perfect excuse.

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


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What happens if a student takes pictures of a test and sends it to classmates that have not already taken it?
My friend had to take their test separately, because of a certain disability, before everyone else had to take the same test. They were supervised by a staff member and when the staff member left the room they decided to take pictures of the exam and proceeded to send it to a few classmates that were going to take the test in the next few days. The professors became aware that the test was compromised (leaked) and made a new test in 45 min that covered harder material. The professors sent out an email saying they were tracking down the student(s) involved. Should my friend come clean or transfer before the professors are able to suspend or expel them?
Any advice will be helpful - thank you

Expulsion is a possible outcome. So are letters in the permanent record/transcript. So is a stern talking-to.

How did the professors become aware of the leak?

At some universities, you are considered culpable if you become aware of cheating and don't report it yourself. You might check whether your university has such a rule.

Your friend engaged in outright cheating. In nearly all universities, what they did is a major violation of the codes of conduct that students are rightly expected to abide by. This isn't a "grey area" situation, your friend knowingly did something that was very wrong and I cannot imagine that the university authorities will see much cause to show leniency in this case. Further, as there were likely only a limited number of student who took the test early, your friend is likely to be caught. The professors probably already suspect who it is and are gathering evidence. I doubt your friend will have time to go through the whole process of transferring before they are found out. Further, if one of the few students who took the test early suddenly applied to transfer, it would look quite suspicious.
In this situation, there really isn't much that your friend can do. The ethical thing to do would be to admit what they did and accept the consequences, with the faint hope that coming clean will lead to some degree of leniency. That said, if self preservation is the only concern, they can sure attempt to transfer before they are caught.
As for you, as a budding academic, choose your colleagues and friends wisely. People's bad actions can rub off on you and they can bring you down with them. Someone willing to do this is a poor friend to have indeed.

Having thought about this, the one possible mitigating circumstance here is if your friend's disability in some way makes them more susceptible to certain types of influence. In other words, your friend has the sort of disability that would allow other bad actors (the people who received the photos) to "put them up to it". There are very few disabilities like this (we're talking brain injury here or something on that par), but if that is part of the issue, your friend should make that known.

There’s also a variety of learning disorders or mental disabilities that might affect their behaviour that way.

Your friend knowingly violated code of conduct. A large number of your classmates know exactly who was the source of the leak. It is only a matter of time before professors  know who did it and collect sufficient evidence. Then the case will be sent to an academic misconduct panel and they will decide what penalty to assign.
Harsh penalty is quite likely. First, as  GrotesqueSI mentioned, this is not a grey area — all students know that this is outright cheating. But second factor is that your friend was provided with a special opportunity  to take their exam in a way which takes their condition in account. Managing special accommodations for students during the peak times is difficult and requires extra commitment from academic staff. However, universities want to help all students to realise their full academic potential and staff are usually happy to go an extra mile to help this happening. Your friend responded to this help by cheating, which meant that professors have to put even more effort in a very short time to prepare a new exam. This seems to me like a significant factor which shows that the student does not respect staff time or the special support already provided to them.
I think that your friend has to accept that they did a bad thing, they have to own their mistake, come clean and accept the consequence. And never repeat this mistake.

Also that the friend did not in fact deserve the special accommodation.

@WolfgangBangerth Students with disabilities are like other students: some are lazy, some are hardworking, some are cheaters. But accommodations aren't "deserved" by good behavior, they're allocated as a way of leveling the playing field. Punish the student for cheating, but don't regard the accommodation as something that needs to be earned.

Equal access is a right, not a privilege, regardless of whether anyone needs to go an "extra mile."

@ElizabethHenning You are right, of course. However, it is important to note that universities provide accommodation to level the field, to make the "game" fair for all students. In my University, students have to actively opt-in to accept the accommodation, and hence actively accept the concept of fair play which the accommodation is based upon. This is a more conscious step than simply ticking the code of conduct along with a pack of entrance documents.

@ElizabethHenning -- the nuance of what I wanted to say did not come through in my one sentence attempt. I agree that it's a right, nor a privilege that needs to be earned. What I meant to say is that they no forfeited that right by abusing it.

@DmitrySavostyanov “all students know that this is outright cheating.“ Not all students. There are cultures where this sort of thing is regarded differently, and that might be further compounded by disability (e.g. an intellectual disability might impair their ability to determine norms).

@nick012000 I don't know what "cultures" and "regarded differently" mean to you, exactly. In my experience, students from abroad are usually much more responsible for learning the rules of the new country and their university. Information about academic conduct and especially about exam regulations is repeated to students many times, from the course handbook on the first day to the exam room on the day of exam. Students are made aware of the rules. How they "regard" them is another question.

@DmitrySavostyanov Let me put it this way, then: what we in the West would regard as cheating is ubiquitous in certain countries, and students from those countries often don’t see anything wrong with doing so.

@nick012000 This seems to me like an attempt to shift focus from personal responsibilities and traits to properties of vaguely-defined groups, countries and "cultures". It's also remarkable how in your description "West" tends to hold the morale high ground, while the un-named "certain countries" are full of cheaters who can't even recognise it. I am sorry but I don't share this picture of the world. From my personal experience, personal characteristics are more important than group identities.

What happens if a student takes pictures of a test and sends it to classmates that have not already taken it?

This matter should be covered by the code of conduct of the institution, in terms of procedures, consequences, and factors that determine the level of punishment (including potential factors that ameliorate the gravity of the issue).
For instance, regulations of the London School of Economics states:

8.3 Cheating
The School takes exam offences extremely seriously and will investigate all allegations. If an allegation against you is substantiated, it may lead to your expulsion. You should read the Regulations on Assessment Offences to ensure you avoid behaviour which could lead to an allegation of cheating. This document draws your attention to some of the ways in which you could potentially be thought to be cheating. However, this is by no means comprehensive.

The University of London states:

If we receive a report claiming that you have committed an offence, your results for the year will automatically be withheld whilst your case is investigated.
Students who are found to be guilty of breaking the rules may receive a penalty, ranging from a warning, through to cancellation of a module, an entire year’s work or, in very serious cases, termination of registration.

You should read your institution's regulations but if they are well designed, you would expect enough flexibility for them to do what they think appropriate, including expulsion.
PS: Into the more practical question of your friend, what I would definitively try to do is to mitigate potential spreading of the issue into social media. The reputational damages but also the trolling can seriously damage a person's life, which imo is never justified.

I have to disagree with the other answers. In all universities where I studied and worked (only in Europe) there was never a rule that students were not allowed to distribute exam questions after a test. Indeed, I find it somewhat strange that a professor gives the same test twice or leaves the student alone (if the exams are in short distance of each other).
Some details are missing from the question. If there is a rule that this is not allowed or the professors mentioned that they should not share the exam questions, what they did is clearly wrong and they should come forward.
In absence of such a rule (for me, it is not at all clear that "every student knows this" as it is said in another answer), your friend is in my opinion ethically in the right. However, a professor might often do nasty things/threaten the student even if they have no basis to do so. In this case, I would talk to my student union/maybe even a lawyer and discuss the case with them if it is wise or not to come forward. (This may also depend on specific details such as how many students were taking this test earlier.)
Edit: Some people have misunderstood my point so I try to make it clearer: If the student was told that the second exam will have the same questions as the first, my second paragraph applies: Then, they would have implicitely been told not to speak about the exam. In this case, what they did was clearly wrong, period. Then they should come forward and accept the appropriate consequences.
On the other hand, if the student was not aware of the exam questions being equal, my third paragraph applies: The student should consult a student union or lawyer. In this case, they did nothing wrong -- how could they possibly figure out the professors lazyness?

In the universities you worked at, are students allowed to use smartphones during the exam? Are they allowed to communicate with other students during the exam?

@DmitrySavostyanov: of course not. But instructors also do not leave the room during the exam. Since the instructor in question did, I assumed this was after the exam. (I always give the question sheet to my students after the exam and post it on the Internet.)

This isn't a legitimate interpretation of the event. If the exam was over, then the proctor would have taken the exam, and it wouldn't be available to take a smartphone picture. (Also, the OP's phrase "staff member" indicates this was not the professor, but other staff at the accessibility/disability office.)

@DanielRCollins: I don't see this from the question. As I sad, I usually let the students have the exam sheet after exam. However, using a smartphone during the exam is a different crime (which should be punished of course) as the one the question and answers are about. The crime in question, as I read it, is not the smartphone use, but the leaking of the questions.

Intent is very important in the whole picture. Using smartphone to check on a family member or dependent in bad health is one thing; using smartphone to leak the exam is completely different. Only a lawyer can miss a difference here.

@DmitrySavostyanov: I don't see a difference between leaking questions via a smartphone and just rembering the questions. I always did the latter and never had the feeling I cheated. Indeed, I expect my students to pass on the questions. I assumed the friend used the smartphone after the exam because the idea that the question paper lies around after the exam makes more sense to me then the proctor leaving the room during the exam. This should be clarified by OP.

@user117834 In my University, students with disabilities often take exam 1-on-1 with a proctor, and the proctor technically may have to leave them alone with the test for a few minutes if they urgently need to visit a bathroom for example. Regardless, as OP clearly stated, the student knew that he/she is taking the same test other students are going to take in a few days. Clearly, by offering to take this test earlier, the University put a lot of trust in the student. (In my University, this could be allowed only if the student is due for a surgery.) This trust was sort of betrayed.

@MorganRodgers: I don't see why. If a prof does not say otherwise, I would always assume they change the exam. If the professor says "I will give the same exam" or equivalentely "don't talk about the exam" then it is wrong of course.

@MorganRodgers: Maybe it is well know in some countries (like the US maybe?) that people are not allowed to speak about exams. I have never ever heard of such a rule in Europe. I also don't see where in the question it is said that they take the same exam. If this was known, of course it is wrong. But if there is no evidence otherwise, I would not assume that any collegue gives the same exam twice.

@DmitrySavostyanov: My answer assumes that it was not known that the other students would have the same questions. Where did you find this in the question?

@user117834 If it wasn't a problem, they wouldn't have done it specifically when the proctor left the room. They clearly knew what they were doing was wrong, your defenses make no sense.

@BryanKrause: Please consider there is also an altenative reading of the question (some details are missing). I don't see from the question that they where specifically doing it when the proctor left the room, this could just be a coincidence. For what it's worth, even in systems (like mine) where taking a photo after the exam would be totally fine, I would not recommend to do this in front of the proctor (since there are some proctors who would take this against you even if it is encouraged by the university rules).

At our university, it is forbidden to take photographs of exams. Even if you go to a consultation-hour later and request the exam, you are not allowed to take photos of it, and even have to sign a paper that you will not do this. So there are actually some legal reasons for that. But afaik it is not forbidden to send someone the questions, if you recalled it from memory. There are plenty of old exams in the internet, where students have remembered the questions. However, this situation is special, as the student was granted a special opportunity and likely exploited it.


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Should I review for a journal charging authors?
One of the main journals in my field has recently switched to 100% open access, and charges an article processing charge (APC) of about 2500 ($/€/£). For some researchers this is automatically covered by some agreement between their institute and the publisher, but for many others it is not. Over my career, I have worked with this journal both as reviewer and author (published most papers there), but am now pushed out as author by this change.
IMHO, the APC is not justified, in particular as reviewers get zero appreciation/compensation for their work, which arguably is the only important part of the article processing. The journal has just asked me for a review, but I am poised to turn down any further reviewing for this journal (until the situation has changed).
Is this a reasonable / justified decision or just stupid?
What is the situation in your field of research?
Note that reviewers could be appreciated by giving them vouchers that can be used in lieu of (part of) an APC.
Added in edit I also like to point out that by charging APC the journal enters a conflict of interest between profit (accepting bad/borderline papers) and keeping the science clean (rejecting such papers), which in the medium/long term will inevitably result in a further reduction of the average quality of papers published, similar to the decline of standards of university degrees in the UK since the introduction of student fees.

I'm going to roll back the most recent edit, which substantially changes the question after multiple answers had already been written. But the new edit is a good edit, you may post a new question if you like, in which it is clear from the beginning that this particular journal's overcharging is the key issue.

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@cag51  I made the edit, because that the original question was not really what I meant to ask. So shall I instead ask a new question?

Yes, better to do that.

Someone has to pay the costs of publication. In open access it isn't going to be subscribers. For lots of reasons it isn't going to be the government. So, unless there is an advertising model (yuch) there aren't a lot of possibilities other than authors.
(Professional society memberships often provide a partial subsidy for publication, of course.)
Note, however, that many authors, anticipating this, will get an item in grant funding for publication costs so that it isn't out of pocket for them. And, many such grants are, in fact, government funded. In principle, universities could pay publication costs, but they have other obligations for (often limited) funds.
Also, an author gets to choose where to submit. They aren't held at gunpoint to work with a particular publisher. And some publishers can, in some cases forgive some fees, though the money still needs to come from somewhere. And it is expensive, even for a non-print journal, to make an essentially-perpetual promise to keep things available. Things that aren't adequately funded tend to disappear.
So, yes, if you want to continue to see quality articles appear, I suggest that you at least think about improving the quality of such things. If only cruft is published we are all worse off. Think of reviewing as a service to authors, in this case authors who will pay a fee to make the work available to others. It seems like not a hard decision to me, actually.
Long term, perhaps, other possibilities exist for funding, but lunch still ain't free.

Theoretically, there is an advantage to authors in open access in that it makes the work more widely available to other (funds-limited) academics.

The charged APC is not cost of publishing. It is the cost of publishing plus an exorbitant profit margin. Academic publishing remains one of the most insanely profitable businesses.

@TimRias, that is a common view. Do you have information/data to back it up? Publishers also spend effort on things that don't get published. People review articles not to support a business model, but to support academic progress. And, journal subscriptions are also high, but paying gives you only access to a limited set of articles.

@Buffy I've talked with people running diamond open access journals. Their estimate was that the actual cost per article is in the £100-300 range.

@Arno, I'll guess that only is the immediate cost, not the infrastructure cost and the cost of that perpetual (more or less) guarantee. Hopefully even clerical staff get a living wage. Not to mention the IT folks that keep the system running. If they publish 500 articles per year, I guarantee that they don't run the enterprise on £150,000 per year.

@Buffy That includes infrastructure and salary for staff (but not editors). However, some responsibilities are outsourced to the arXiv.

@Arno, do the math. It doesn't work out.

I don't want to review for journals that use unpaid reviewers. All journals are making money either publishing open-source or behind the paywall. So, giving free service for journals to make money is not worthy. Yes, if all reviewers thinks same way, there will be few paper published. However, if all reviewers are paid for the job they do, everyone will benefit--reviewers are willing to provide better service and become happier for the job they are doing. If unpaid, I only review papers if I am extremely interested, want to add new journals in my resume, or received request from known editor.

@Dr.Banjadebaje, do you get paid to review? I never have been. The service is to the author more than to the journal.

@Buffy, I have seen some new journals taking this approach. But this is rare. So, my approach is mostly to stick to my last sentence for review job.

This answer is just wrong. The actual cost of paper processing is far less than 2500 $/€/£. In my field there is actually now also a completely free completely open-access journal. This clearly demonstrates that APC are near 100% profit.

@Buffy The service is to the author more than to the journal That's not so clear. A good journal cannot do w/o review, so the review is essential for the journal. It is in fact in this time and age the only reason for a journal to exists, since the review provides the quality control that a paper published just on the arXiv lacks. There is no other reason any more to publish in a journal: distribution of an article does not require a journal.

Some of your arguments are misguided: I am not opposing reviewing at all. What I don't like is being exploited by publishers who make large profits by charging authors for a service they get for free. And my main point is that the review is the most important service the journal provides. W/o that the journals would be dead.

Were you asking a question here or fishing for the answer you wanted? You don't need to review. Not a problem. But you aren't acting as a professional if you withhold services that are essential to publishing.

Certainly there are completely free completely open access journals. Those are typically run as a labor of love by a small cadre of extremely dedicated people with major support from their universities (e.g., for IT support). What happens when the core people retire, or move to a different university who will not support this journal?

@Buffy Arno's estimate of up to 300 pounds per article is believable, see https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/52007/how-much-does-it-cost-the-publisher-to-publish-an-academic-article. But it means you don't do a lot of things that publishers arguably should do like conduct plagiarism checks, and there is no way every published article pays the APC, hence you realistically need to charge more than 300 pounds per article unless you grant no waivers (in turn excluding authors from developing countries).

@Buffy here is A source explaining the profit margins of academic publishing industry and the business setup
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PriwCi6SzLo this is just one spuece

@HalilSen that's a Youtube video by someone with no experience in publishing. If you believe that, here's another Youtube video by someone who thinks the Moon landings are faked. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zm7LfuDCu8

More reputable source: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jun/27/profitable-business-scientific-publishing-bad-for-science Elsevier has 40% profit margins. Unfortunately open access is not discussed but it is hard to believe that these companies would be willing to significantly decrease such margins

To summarize Bryan Krause's point:
If you think a journal is worth submitting to and paying the fees to publish in, then you should also think that it is worth reviewing for. You should review 2-3 papers per every paper you submit.
If you don't think a journal is worth submitting to nor paying the fees for, then you are not obligated to submit nor review for them. The logic cuts both ways. Asking others to review for you in a journal you believe to be of value while not doing reviews yourself would be potentially selfish. I, personally, review for the major professional societies I am a member of, Nature PG, AAAS (Science) journals pretty much exclusively for that reason.
You also have the ability to get on the volunteer publishing board/committee (which is different than the editorial board) of professional societies that run journals or run for or support a candidate for an officer position that believes fees are too high in order to lower them. I know people on those boards and officers of professional societies, and those volunteer professional societies can't lower fees and still provide the services they provide. The overwhelming cost is labor administering the review process, labor for IT maintenance for submission systems. Even the "executives" are volunteers. You are welcome to try to volunteer and lower costs, that's the beauty of volunteer professional societies - clever people can find a better way!

This answer is logic, but the problem here is that the journal changed their model from being license funded to being APC funded. I guess in both cases the fees were/are quite steep, but in the license-funded model the authors don't realize that.
So, as an author, I would like to publish there, but I am not able to owing to the APC (my institution/funding agency are not willing to pay that).

@Walter I think if a journal changes policies and becomes somewhere you are no longer submitting to because of those policies, you can certainly decide that you would no longer review for them, either. The point I was alluding to, which sh314 turned into an answer that I agree with, is that these parts of the peer review system (submitting and reviewing) are intertwined, and if you choose not to review but still submit then you're putting the burden on other people rather than targeting the journal's policy.

I don't want to review for journals that use unpaid reviewers. All journals are making money either publishing open-source or behind the paywall. So, giving free service for journals to make money is not worthy. Yes, if all reviewers thinks same way, there will be few paper published. If all reviewers refuse to do free job, publishers will allocate some money to pay reviewers. It's better for them to save their business by paying few hundred dollars to reviewers.
If all reviewers are paid for the job they do, everyone will benefit--reviewers are willing to provide better service and become happier for the job they are doing. If unpaid, I only review papers if I am extremely interested, want to add new journals in my resume, or received request from known editor.

You aren't required to review, of course. But this seems selfish.

@Buffy Not selfish really. Who is profiting from this? Business houses and publishers for reviewers "being generous". It's business and let's make it a business--there is nothing selfish about it and there is no need to be generous about it too.

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Journals need money, and have to charge someone. Charging authors is better than charging readers, not only because this makes the results of research universally accessible (and reusable), but also because this makes the costs more apparent. This pushes researchers to ask the very sensible question of whether the prices are justified. Of course we should also ask this for subscription journals.
If you remove profits, lobbyists, inefficiencies, etc, the incompressible cost in a scalable, professional electronic journal seems to be about 500$/article. (Example: SciPost.) It is up to you to decide which journals in your field are reasonably priced.
If a journal seems overpriced or otherwise unethical, declining to review is a very sensible attitude. Finding good reviewers is usually a big headache for journals. Choosing to review only for 'good' journals helps them a lot in the competition against 'bad' journals.


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Balanced number of sections in paper?

Longer monographs should have an odd number of chapters [the
  Internet,1700-xxxx].

Does this rule also apply for papers? I've got a paper with four chapters and I'm wondering if I should make it five. I could split up the outlook & conclusion part, but that would result in two really short sections.
What does the style police suggest?

Where did this rule come from?  I've never heard of such a thing, and I can't think of any good reason why anyone would care about having an odd number of chapters.  I found a few web pages that refer to this rule, and the ones I found all seem to lead back to http://www0.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/c.clack/phd.html.  As best I can tell, that page is just one person's peculiar opinion.  (The web page claims he "has a reference to back this up", which suggests the opinion is controversial, but it doesn't actually give the reference.)

I agree: I've never heard of this rule, and it sounds utterly bizarre.  Numerology?

I don't think that any style guide or policy (besides maybe some journal about aesthetics in writing) will force you to an odd or even number of sections or chapters. A scientific text should get the number of chapters it needs and not a number that fits aesthetic principles–basically you write it to tell the scientific community about your findings and not to please them.
If you manage to write a scientific paper in Haiku form, this will be nice but it may also make some referee think you don't take your research serious enough. More or less the same holds for odd or even chapters. If you force the text to fit a certain number of chapters by dividing a chapter into two pieces, the reviewers might also consider that bad style.

There's something of a story that "having an odd number of chapters in your thesis" will make it more likely to get past the committee, or something like that. For example, in this personal website about theses, the author states that "Chapter headings - use 7 or 9! An odd number of (total) chapters gives a balanced appearance to the work (CC has a reference to back this up)."
I confess that I heard this as well when I was writing. I didn't end up structuring my thesis as a result of that advice but I heard it too. In the end, there's a 50% chance that your paper will have an odd number of chapters after you structure it. :)
Since I cannot find any other substantive evidence (other than the UCL link above) about the number of chapters in a thesis I must conclude that, at best, the effect of the number of chapters on the quality of a thesis is unknown; ostensibly, the odd or evenness of chapters having no effect would probably apply to scientific papers and scientific journal articles as well.

You write as many chapters as you need in order to get your message across. this applies to all types of writing, papers, reports or theses. I am sure some people might avoid 13 chapters or whatever number they feel unsettled about, but that will not have anything to do with scientific writing. Likewise there is nothing that says any form of scientific writing needs a certain number of chapters. That said, the Introduction-Methods-Results-and-Discussion (IMRaD) format, which forms the basis for most scientific papers, leads to four main chapters and in addition an abstract and a Conclusions chapter. Again, this is because it is a standard logical form not a "magic" number.
There are, however, many other typographical rules that influence the formatting of pages and chapters. For example, a chapter should start on an odd page number to follow traditional rules. There are thus many aspects of typesetting that influences the format of printed text but not the number of chapters.


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Why do academics work only nine months of the year?
I'm wondering how best to respond to queries from non-academics along the lines of "Why should you be paid during the summer holidays?" This is the sort of question I hear a lot in this economic climate here in Ireland, though I strongly suspect that one encounters similar questions and opinions elsewhere.
There is a subtext that public money is scarce, that people in "real" jobs work themselves to the bone and pay high taxes, while some people get to spend a significant proportion of the year on a sun lounger at the tax payer's expense. I like to think that we academics do earn our crust, but as somebody paid public money I think it's a reasonable question, and one I would like to answer better.
There are a couple of obvious responses.

It's nothing like nine months, especially when you factor in exam marking and processing, dealing with appeals, Autumn repeat exams, lecture preparation for the following year etc.
Did I forget to mention research? That's a full-time job in itself! And there are secondary activities such as applying for grants, judging grant applications, and supervising (post-)graduate students.

However these points don't apply to all academics. For example, I work in an Institute of Technology, possibly akin to a liberal arts college in the US, where there are typically 18 teaching hours per week in term time, but research is a bonus activity, and we have 10 weeks' summer holidays. So the core point seems to be that it's near-universal practice to have a teaching break during the summer months (exactly when this break is, and its length vary of course). But why is this? Are there good reasons that might satisfy somebody who is not already steeped in the academic life?
It's tempting to say that teaching is particularly intense, and this period of estivation is needed to avoid burnout. But is this true of teachers and academics more than, say, junior hospital doctors or care workers?
Presumably this question is tied to the question of why school teachers have summer holidays: I realise that this latter question may be off-topic for this site, but to the extent that answers to it have a bearing on my question, I would like to hear them.
Finally I am aware that not all academics are paid during the summer months. Many have temporary contracts that don't span the summer vacation. I hope that this situation remains the (in my opinion, disgraceful) exception rather than the rule.
EDIT: Thanks to Oswald Veblen and Dave Clarke for pointing out the general practice in US academia of being paid for only 9/12 of the year. In Ireland, and I think in much of Europe, academics are usually paid for 12 months. So some of the motivation for this question ("Why are we paying you academics during the summer?") may not apply in the US, although the basic question still stands ("Why don't academics typically have to teach during the summer?" or, in the more provocative (and inaccurate) terms that this is sometimes put: "Why don't academics work during the summer?")

In the US, some/all academics do only get paid for 9 months of the year, unless they have a research grant to cover the rest of the year.

What summer holidays? :-(

You can always say: "Don't worry, we get paid in those twelve months less than you in nine". Then simply let them make the numbers. The question doesn't make sense as soon as you consider that people make different amounts of money per hour...

The premise of the question is that academics work 9 months of the year. This might be true in Ireland, but it is certainly not true in Canada, for example. My colleagues and I have up to 5 to 6 weeks vacation time by contract, but very few (at least in my faculty) take anywhere close to that amount.

@TheodoreNorvell The premise is that academics are often thought to work only 9 months. This is as untrue in Ireland as everywhere else. Like many people, I find that the summer is the one big opportunity to make some progress on my research. So this is one good reason to have a teaching break in the summer, but I would like to learn of others. (The title of the question was originally in quotation marks; maybe I should restore them.)

Related: How I Spent Summer 'Vacation', by Eszter Hargittai.

In Ireland, what happens if you teach a 'summer term'

@CGCampbell Well summer terms are not a familiar phenomenon to me. If you did have teaching to do over the summer you would probably either get a reduction in your (non-summer) teaching allocation, or be paid overtime.

It might be true in some positions in some Irish ITs, which are not at all like liberal arts colleges, but it's not true for most academics in Ireland. They have a research and administration load that can happily carry them through to the Autumn. My answer to such questions 'are you back from your holidays yet?' is (to the questioner) 'I get the same holidays as you and other than that I work.'

Oh, you think I earn a lot with little work? Nothing is stopping you from taking a PhD, postdocs, finding a position... !

@ShaneORourke if the premise of the question is that academics are 'thought to work only 9 months', then you should change the question. The question 'Why do academics work only nine months of the year?' does contain the assumption that academics work nine months of the year.

@jwg I think (and hope) that the body of the question -- the opening sentence in particular -- makes it clear that I make no such assumption. I also think that the title is a reasonable shorthand for the full question. Perhaps the title should have been "How to respond to questions such as "Why do academics work only nine months of the year?"?" But I'm reluctant to change the title again at this stage unless more seasoned users (than I) think it's a good idea.

@ctokelly "[Most academics in Ireland] have a research and administration load that can happily carry them through to the Autumn." Indeed so; I don't think I implied otherwise. I take your point regarding liberal arts colleges. Perhaps somebody can suggest a better comparison?

As an academic, I work practically every day of the year, including major holidays. I work on weekends and in the evenings. I don't have the luxury of taking vacations, and if I have something like a one day vacation, it's because I am practically ordered to take it. I'm not sure where 9 months comes from. Perhaps it is the case for professors that teach two semesters per year out of three and don't do any research, but I don't know any professors like that.

The following applies to a previous version of the question: "Why do academics get paid to work only nine months of the year?".  The question of whether academics do work work in the summer, compared to whether they are paid to work over the summer, is more difficult.  Most faculty in the U.S. have 9-month contracts, but in my experience most faculty nevertheless work on their research and teaching during the summer.

In the United States, it is very common - nearly universal, in fact - for a standard academic contract to span 9 or 10 months. There are several reasons for this:

It allows the university to pay less. The standard rule of thumb is that a 9 month contract pays 9/12 of what the corresponding annual contract would pay. Many (most?) faculty have their 9 months of pay split up into 12 months of paychecks -- but this is an accounting fiction, not a sign that they are paid for 12 months of work. If few students are around over the summer, there is less reason for universities to pay salary to their faculty for that time - having a break in the contract balances the university income and expenses.
It allows faculty to be paid more. This is the flip side of paying 9/12 of an annual salary: the faculty member can, in principle, take another job during the summer.

Many grants, for example, are able to pay "summer salary", which is really just extra income. But these grants do not allow the faculty member to take salary from the university at the same time they take salary from the grant. The "9 month contract" resolves this: the faculty member can state they are actually only paid for 9 months of university work, so the grant can pay 2 or 3 months of extra salary during the summer.
Similarly, some universities pay extra to faculty who teach during the summer - that would not be possible if the summer was treated as part of the basic contract.
A smaller number of faculty use the summer for consulting work, or other jobs genuinely different from their university position.

Faculty like to travel over the summer. During the academic year, it is hard to leave for personal reasons, because of class. By claiming that the summer is "off contract", academics can travel however they like during that period of time, without having to justify their time.  So having the contract pause during the summer makes the job more attractive to job candidates, allowing the university to attract some people who might otherwise take higher-paying jobs elsewhere.

The reason I just cited are all purely economic - they can be justified solely in terms of saving money for the school, increasing pay for the faculty member, or attracting better candidates. There is also "tradition" as a reason for the summer break, as is also the case at lower levels of education.
However, the "9 month contract" is fictitious in a few ways:

Most faculty still have access to their office, library, email, and other university resources even when they are technically not "on contract" over the summer.
Research faculty usually continue to work on research during the summer, and travel to conferences (which may even be reimbursed by the university, even though the faculty member is technically not on contract!). This often happens even when the faculty don't have grants or other summer funding.
Many faculty use some of their summer time to prepare for their classes, even though they are not being paid to teach over the summer.
There are other activities during the summer: committee meetings, advising, etc. Some faculty participate in these, for various reasons, even when they are off contract.

So my own response to "why are you paid over the summer" is "I'm not; my contract indicates I will be paid a fixed amount for 9 months of work. But they divide that amount into 12 paychecks rather than 9 for accounting purposes."

This is all very interesting to me. So from what you've said, the premise of my question doesn't generally apply to US academics.

It may be that the "contract" situation is different in other countries, so that professors are quoted a monthly or weekly salary, to be paid year round, rather than a fixed salary in exchange for work during the academic year. That is also very interesting to me, because it motivates the original question much more! At the same time, I think most faculty in the U.S. realize this 9-month vs. 12-month distinction is a little disingenuous, because few faculty really take other jobs for the summer, so apart from summer salary (grants and teaching) the 9-month salary is a de facto annual salary.

Perhaps a similar argument could be made in settings other than the U.S.: although the faculty member is paid in smaller increments, the sum of their pay is intended to cover the sum of their work for the year. One cannot come and go from a professorship like a part-time job (teaching one week, then taking off a week, then teaching two more, etc.)  So it seems inaccurate to think of each paycheck as independent of the others, which underlies the argument that faculty would only be paid during the semester. Rather, the paychecks together compensate the faculty member for their total work.

It may be worth pointing out that universities would also usually offer a "startup package" to new hires, which covers the salary for the first couple of summers (and support for PhD students) until the new faculty can get a grant. On the other hand, over in Canada, professors are paid throughout the year, and the base salary tends to be a factor of 4/3 higher (but funding agencies do not include "summer salary" money with the grants).

As someone who works in Asia (teaching for a British university), I get paid 11-12 months out of the year (depending on my yearly negotiations). I had one student ask me why I don't teach 40 hours a week since that is a full-time job. So, I took a moment to explain to the student that standing in front of students is only one part of my job. Yes, it is the most visible but there are many, many other things I do and my work does consume 12 months out of the year (even when I'm only paid for 11 of them).
There is always prep, which includes research (identifying what should be taught based on the latest literature). Of course, there is marking, resits, special classes, along with a host of general administrative tasks which need to be done.
While it is possible for someone to work less than I do, it is only possible by producing lower quality, quickly outdated content for the students.
So, in short, I do not believe teachers work only 9 months out of the year. Those in the US might only work 9 months and take 3 months off but that is more related to the lack of appreciation (and sadly the lack of pay) for the efforts that go into properly educating the next generation.

Please don't misinterpret my answer as saying that faculty in the U.S. can simply take 3 months off - that's far from true. In particular, active researchers are very unlikely to stop working on their research over the summer. It's just that the legal framework of employment is set up with a 9 month contract.

In my experience any serious researcher in the US is still working summers, and if anything that is their busiest time. My lab converted the lunch table into a workstation for summer interns and we were nearly ready to start doubling down on desks. The lab was at its busiest.

 "Why do academics work only nine months of the year?"

As pointed out, we don't. I work year-round; for instance, this summer, I revised an online course that was introduced in Spring 2014 at my university. Without being paid. (However, the paycheck issues mentioned elsewhere might make this last sentence "not quite true".)
 "Why don't you work 40 hours a week?"

Working is not just teaching. There's also:
preparation for class ("what will I talk about today, and how will I do it?"),
creating preparation materials (the PPT Fairy doesn't create Powerpoint presentations),
responding to emails (homework questions, excuses for absence, policy questions),
choosing homework exercises (you can't use anything from a book that's a few years old, because all the solutions have been worked out and posted somewhere online),
grading tests (at my university, we have graders for homework, but tests we have to do all by ourselves),
and probably a few other things I can't think of off the top of my head.
Final note: I've always respected my high school teachers [well, the good ones; my Phys Ed teacher nicknamed "Bobo" is an obvious exception], but after realizing how much grading they do overnight for more classes than I teach, I have a new-found respect for them.

In the Netherlands, I get paid 14 months (one of those is called “holiday allowance” and another one is called “end-of-year bonus”). One way or the other, it's a fiction, the most relevant comparison is between yearly income. Whether it's excessive or not is an entirely different question.
Academics are not the only ones to have a regular salary, paid holidays or flexible time. What sets them apart is that there is relatively little oversight compared to many occupations. To some extent, you can show up, read, write, etc. whenever you decide. And you do get two to three months without many concrete obligations or schedule constraints.
Note that at my university (and I guess at many places), you have to officially take holidays and you “only” get about 6 weeks (a couple weeks more than the mandatory legal minimum). During the rest of the summer, you are supposed to work and account for your time in the usual ways.

@MarcvanLeeuwen Personally, I think it's the German Lohn that influenced me but I did mean wage and obviously knew the difference.

Having been in Academia in both the US and in the Netherlands, I can safely say that academics work the full 12 months and dedicate most of the summer to "real work" (i.e. research) when they are less distracted with teaching responsibilities.


text:
Research collaboration outside of university for first 9 months as international student in United States
Is (unpaid) research collaboration outside of universities not permitted for F1 students in the United States for the first 9 months? After 9 months, if a student wants to collaborate, does it require CPT?

Not enough details on what you intend here. Your university international office can better inform you. If this collaboration is outside of your university program it likely will interfere with you making the necessary progress as a full time student in a PhD program.

These should be questions you ask your Designated School Official. Unpaid outside "collaborations" (which, given how you phrased it, sounds like "unpaid internship" to me) could actually be considered a form of employment and a violation of your visa.

F-1 students typically cannot engage in off-campus employment during their first academic year (9 months) in the U.S. This includes unpaid research collaborations. The restriction aims to help students focus on studies and maintain visa status. After the first academic year, F-1 students may become eligible for:

Curricular Practical Training (CPT)
Optional Practical Training (OPT)
Whether a research collaboration requires CPT depends on factors such as how it relates to the student's course of study or whether it's considered part of the curriculum.

Source: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). "Student and Exchange Visitor Program: Employment." https://www.ice.gov/sevis/employment


text:
Are publications strictly required to obtain a PhD thesis?
I am a PhD student in electrical engineering and I am writing my first article, probably for a Q1 journal. My question is the following: in order to get a PhD degree, do you need to have one or several publications? Is this a typical requirement, or does it depend on the university where you are doing it?

It always depends on the University and Supervisor, there is no general rule.

This depends on both the field and the university, or even the department within the university. In math, for example, such a requirement is rare. In some fields a "dissertation" is precisely a collection, perhaps three, of published papers with some summary material.
If you weren't yet in a program then a publication would help with an application, but it may not "count" toward graduation. Since you are already in a program ask locally and be sure about the requirements. Hopefully you have an advisor who can provide details.

In some areas (history, English, ...) a dissertation is the only 'publication', and often the next step if hired as a professor is to try and turn the dissertation into a book.

I would say it is perhaps country specific as well. In my country India, one have to publish articles before including them into their thesis according to current regulations. I am myself a PhD student in mathematics.

Yes, it is curious how this changes inside the same university. For example, for Computer Sciencie in my university (one in northern Spain), they usually need to do the thesis by "compendio", which is a collection of three published papers.