text:
Will I be treated differently from funded students if I attend graduate school without full funding?
I am told, by both a professor at my US undergraduate school and here at Stack Academia (for example, at Implications of being accepted without funding to a computer science PhD in the United States?), that I should not accept an offer from a US graduate school unless I am offered full funding. The reasoning is that if they actually wanted me, they would be paying me. I agree with this.
So my question is, what would be the difference between going to a school with funding and without funding, besides the money? Would I be treated as a second class citizen? And if I was offered full funding, perhaps from a TAship, what would happen if I wanted to pay for myself anyway?
Existing answers, such as at Will self funding a PhD hurt employment chances?, seem to focus on the money and the chance that the applicant is not strong enough for the program. While I also agree with these, I am interested in learning about external factors too.

Note that much of the discussion against self-funding comes from STEM fields.  In the US, at least, I believe that humanities tends to work differently...

"Only accept if they offer you full funding" - this is true for PhD programs in math. But the situation is more complex for master's programs, where full funding is not nearly as common.

Confession:  I've tried this myself TWICE in the field of mathematics, so what I say comes from my own experience.
You need not worry about the existence of a caste-system among graduate students.  You will not be treated any differently than any other student if you are accepted into a program and not funded.  The main question is whether or not you will get into the program in the first place if you have no external funding sources...
In science-related graduate schools, it is quite often the case that students will not be accepted into the program unless they have some sort of support (i.e. department assistantship, scholarship/fellowship, etc...).  Students who try to do it all on their own often find themselves under even more pressure than a funded student.  On top of trying to pass extremely difficult courses and pursue original, cutting edge research, they may find themselves also working multiple unrelated jobs that barely make ends meet for rent, much less tuition and all other debts incurred along the way.  Often, unfunded students succumbs to financial pressures and drop out to pursue more financially stable opportunities.
Students dropping out of graduate programs also make their host departments' statistics look bad in the eyes of their superiors (i.e. deans, university president, provosts, etc..) and can lead to diminished support for those graduate programs.  Since universities don't want to hurt their own reputations (or lose state/donated funding), they tend to be selective of their graduate students.  And I believe this is a major reason why self-funded students are often not even allowed in graduate programs:  statistically speaking, their success rate is likely too low to merit taking a chance.
Of course there are exceptions (e.g. having wealthy parents, pursuing non-science graduate programs, education doctorate degrees often earned by people who work full time as teachers), but it is certainly a red flag if a student willingly tries to pursue a graduate degree in the sciences without any source of funding.
My advice to you:  If you're offered funding, take it!.  If you are accepted into a graduate program and are not offered funding  and don't have any other source of funding apart from yourself, then don't try to do it all on your own.  The sheer cost of graduate school, combined with the uncertainty of you graduating from the program, along with the nightmare of trying to pay off student loan debt for the rest of your life (even bankruptcy will not save you from student loan debt); it's just not worth it to you.

A key point is that in the sciences and engineering you will typically need laboratory facilities to conduct your research.  Even if a faculty member were willing to take on the work of advising a student and there were existing lab facilities that the student could use they would need to find a source of funding for supplies, travel, etc.  Properly supporting a graduate student costs much more than just a TA/RA stipend.

Erdos once famously quipped "a mathematician is a machine that turns coffee into theorems".  Would your argument that "supporting a graduate student costs much more than just a TA/RA stipend" hold true for a mathematics graduate student?  I only ask because the OP tagged the question as mathematics, so I assume he's particularly interested in a mathematics graduate school.

I agree that I'm not so sure what it means that a grad student costs more than a stipend in math.  Of course, sometimes the department or a grant has to pay tuition to someone else in the university, but I count that as part of the stipend.  Of course, it is good for grad students to also have some travel money, etc. but it's not strictly necessary (especially since often conferences, etc. have money set aside for graduate students).

You have answered everything I want to know perfectly, as well as offered related insight into the reasoning behind the no-funding situation. I didn't imagine I would receive such an excellent answer :). In my specific situation: I come from a wealthy family, so it's worth it for me to shoulder $50k a year if I can get out of a 10-hour-per-week TA obligation. I left this out because I think the general question is more interesting. But your answer clearly solves my situation because of its completeness.

@Anonymous: That may only be true while you are taking the required courses... Once you get into the research phase of your degree, you might as well work as a Research Assistant: basically, you get paid to do your thesis work.

Yes, definitely. I agree that if I'm going to get paid to do research, I want to get paid, because I'm going to be researching anyway. But if I have to teach Multivariable Calculus, I'd rather spend money and then spend my time doing research.

My comments were about what happens in the sciences and engineering.  Many areas of applied mathematics aren't much different in that graduate students need access to computational resources. It's certainly true that many graduate students in mathematics are self funded or supported by TA's and that their graduate advisors have no money to pay for them to travel to conferences, buy computers and software, etc.  That's a tough situation for a student and will make it harder for the student to develop professionally and prepare for the job market.

I think it's important to note that being a TA serves as essential preparation for future teaching responsibilities. If you plan to go into academia you will be at a distinct disadvantage if you pass up the opportunity to TA.

Also, being a TA can help some people realize that teaching is not for them - at a time when it is still easier to change their career path.

My path through math graduate school has been as follows: 1 year unfunded in Ph.D. program at school A, 1 year funded in Ph.D. program at school A, move to different school and spend 4 years funded in the Ph.D. program at school B. So I've spent time in Ph.D. programs both as a fully funded "regular" math grad student, and as an unfunded math grad student.
Being an unfunded grad student had a couple of potentially negative effects (I won't discuss the obvious financial burden):

I felt a bit disconnected from the math department. The funded grad students had shared offices, which naturally led to them getting to know each other. As an unfunded student, I had no office or access to any shared department space (break room/kitchen area, etc.)
My goals were slightly skewed from what they should have been. I went in to my first year as an unfunded student with this feeling that I needed to do "better" than "everyone" else. The reason for this was that I wanted to secure funding for the subsequent years. I basically met this goal, but in retrospect, doing better than my fellow students in all of my courses was not the best goal to have for a first year of graduate school.

To help remedy pont 1, I worked as a paper grader in the math department my first year, while unfunded. This helped me to get to know a few professors better, which I'm sure didn't hurt when I applied for funding the second year.
As for being treated differently: I don't think I was ever treated badly or differently just because I was not funded. There is a range of different types of funding amongst students: Departmental TA, faculty-funded research assistantship, department fellowship (with no teaching, say), NSF fellowship (in the U.S.), unfunded, partial TA (tuition waver, fewer duties, lower pay) etc. Some or all of these might exist in any given department, and some may be considered "more prestigious" than others, but in my experience these differences don't lead to a class system among the graduate students.

I tried this.  Do this only if you do not have to get a job to support yourself during school.  If you do have to get a job, you will probably only burn yourself out and fail.  If you do not need to work to support yourself (you're rich; your parents are rich; whatever), go ahead.
Of course, a T.A. or an R.A. is a type of job, but it's a lot different than a real job.

I started a STEM master's program self-funded because I was changing fields. I had no education or experience in the new field so could not easily be offered a teaching or research assistantship. Once I finished the first year, I was given a teaching assistantship which covered the rest of my degree.
In general, I don't think graduate students really care if you have funding or not. You, if unfunded or poorly funded, may feel jealousy about fellowship-holders or teaching or research assistants with funding.


text:
I want to do research but I'm too old for a PHD
I really love research. I started a research project in graduate school for my M.A. in English. My research topic is a very viable and interesting topic for a dissertation. I'll be 60 on my next birthday and I know that many Ph.D programs are traditionally geared toward younger students.I was wondering are there any programs that I can continue this research in without facing the issues of ageism in academia?

I went and got my Master's in my 30s.  I remember seeing a wall of pictures for current PhD students in our department.  I was impressed by, and had respect for, the older guy on the wall, who looked around 60.

It is also possible to do independent research.  Wishing you every success in your search for a program that will accept you, you should also ask about potential mentors who might welcome work from a motivated collaborator outside academia.  There are a number of tools now that weren't around two decades ago that would make such research comparatively easy and make better use of the researchers' time.

A PhD student at our school is at least 60 years old.

I'll be 54 this year, and I'm doing a PhD.

I'll be 52 when I get my M.S., and haven't encountered any ageism issues.

I'll be 58 in a month and I'm halfway through my DBA. "Doctor by 60" is my motto.

One of my maths teacher got his PhD when he was 62.

Are you sure you need a PhD for your research? At least in Germany you can work as a scientific assistent with just your Diploma/Master. A PhD is really time-consuming, not well paid and you may have to do a big amount of unrelated project work for the University.

I know this guy who was a phd student in my dept (mathematics) in the 60s, didn't finish, left with his masters and was teaching in community college. He kept doing math on his own time though, and he came up with something cool, enough that a faculty member he had been in touch with got him back into our program and he eventually got his PhD in 2011. He is an inspiration.

There's a guy who lives here in my student accommodation doing a PhD. He's about 70.

This question is probably mis-stated.  You are not too old to start a PhD if that's what you want.  But you should be realistic about your career goals.  By the time you get done, you will be older.  If you are just doing this for fun, fine! But if you want to make a career, do you think you will be realistically able to get a professorship in your field?  There are many unemployed English PhDs out there.  If you don't need money, go for it!  If this is a career move, you need another strategy.

Preparing a PhD is time-consuming and if you want to finish in more or less 4 years, you need to be retired or quit your current job. But many PhD funding programs have age limitation.
If your background is interesting, there are also possibilities to do research in a laboratory without a PhD. The best thing would be to contact a professor in your area of interest to make a more accurate evaluation of your situation.

I had two friends in my ecology Ph.D. program who started in their 50's. They were full participants in our department, including grad student activities. If you're passionate about the subject, go for it!

I would look at who is doing something similar, contact that person with a clear idea of what you want to do. You might be able to convince them to just work with you.

My friend told her friend, "But, I'll be 52 when I get my Masters!" Her friend told her, "You'll be 52 anyway." I started my bachelors full-time in fall 2009, and graduated last year. I'm starting a PhD this fall. I'm 51 years old.

My father got his Ph.D. (from a highly respected department at a major university) in his late fifties. I brought my regalia to his graduation. There were also two grad students in their fifties in the same program I was in. One was puttering along at his own pace and on his own funds, but the other had a funded position and was working under the same time pressure as the rest of us.
Some departments may effectively limit funded positions to younger applicants, but there is no magic number after which people won't accept you.
If that is what you want to do, then do it.

When I was in grad school I know a professor has a student with double age than him.

Dad was near the end of a long and prolific industry career and found himself in the position of being the chairman of a conference session that his adviser wanted to give a talk at.

I wish one day I can have the same experience like your dad :)

uni name? they always say major university, which could mean anything

Here are some statistics on Doctorate Recipients from U.S. Universities in 2009:

from Doctorate Recipients from U.S. Universities: 2009:

Data presented in Doctorate Recipients from U.S. Universities: 2009
  were collected by the Survey of Earned Doctorates (SED). The survey is
  sponsored by six federal agencies: the National Science Foundation
  (NSF), U.S. Department of Education (USED), National Aeronautics and
  Space Administration (NASA), National Endowment for the Humanities
  (NEH), National Institutes of Health (NIH), and U.S. Department of
  Agriculture (USDA). This year's edition of the report presents the
  summary of these survey data in new online and print formats, and the
  report title has changed slightly. Previous reports were titled in the
  series Doctorate Recipients from U.S. Universities: Summary Report

./SED_2009/data/tab24.xls.
Since the NSF often blow their links, data back up as CSV:
"TABLE 24.  Median age of doctorate recipients, by broad field of study, sex, citizenship, and race/ethnicity: 2009",,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
"Field of study and
demographic characteristics","Median age
at doctoratea (years)",,% distribution (in age),,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
,,,All,25 and under,26–30,31–35,36–40,41–45,Over 45,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
All fieldsb,32.2,  ,100.0,0.6,38.9,30.4,13.5,6.0,10.5,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Life sciencesc,31.3,  ,100.0,0.4,45.9,32.0,11.1,3.9,6.7,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Physical sciencesd,30.2,  ,100.0,1.3,56.7,29.0,8.2,2.6,2.2,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Social sciencese,32.4,  ,100.0,0.4,37.5,32.6,15.1,6.0,8.4,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Engineering,30.5,  ,100.0,1.2,54.0,30.3,9.1,2.6,2.7,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Education,40.5,  ,100.0,0.1,10.1,21.4,20.2,13.6,34.6,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Humanities,34.5,  ,100.0,D,21.0,37.7,19.1,9.0,13.0,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Other non-S&E fields,36.1,  ,100.0,D,18.0,31.2,20.7,11.6,18.1,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Sex,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Male,32.0,  ,100.0,0.7,40.5,31.9,13.8,5.7,7.4,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Female,32.6,  ,100.0,0.5,37.2,28.7,13.1,6.4,14.1,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Citizenship,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
U.S. citizen or permanent resident,32.7,  ,100.0,0.6,38.0,26.3,13.6,7.1,14.4,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Temporary visa holder,31.7,  ,100.0,0.7,41.0,39.7,13.2,3.6,1.8,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
"Race/ethnicity (U.S. citizens and
  permanent residents)",,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
American Indian/Alaska Native,38.0,  ,100.0,D,23.6,20.8,17.4,8.3,29.2,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Asian,31.8,  ,100.0,1.1,40.6,32.0,14.0,5.9,6.4,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Black,36.7,  ,100.0,D,24.3,22.6,18.5,10.7,23.7,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Hispanicf,34.1,  ,100.0,0.3,29.3,30.9,15.2,7.7,16.6,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
White,32.3,  ,100.0,0.5,39.7,25.6,12.9,6.8,14.3,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Two or more races,32.3,  ,100.0,0.8,40.8,27.9,13.3,6.2,11.0,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
D = suppressed to avoid disclosure of confidential information. ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
a Includes only doctorate recipients with a valid year of birth.,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
"b Includes those of unknown citizenship, unknown race/ethnicity, and Native Hawaiians or Other Pacific Islanders not shown separately.",,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
"c Includes agricultural sciences/natural resources, biological/biomedical sciences, and health sciences.",,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
d Includes mathematics and computer and information sciences.,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
e Includes psychology.,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
"f Persons reporting Hispanic ethnicity, whether singly or in combination with one or more races, are included in the respondent-selected Hispanic ethnicity
category.",,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
"NOTE:  Due to rounding, the sum of percentages may not equal to 100. ",,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
"SOURCE:  NSF/NIH/USED/USDA/NEH/NASA, 2009 Survey of Earned Doctorates.",,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Why doesn't this answer get more upvotes?

@dmcr_code Age at completion.

@dmcr_code Yes (physical science actually).

A guy at my old department had just started his PhD when I left. He retired from his old job, travelled from the USA to New Zealand with his wife, and started his PhD. He is about your age.
Granted, I don't think he intends to try an academic career. That would be difficult. But there's no such thing as too old to start your PhD.
A professor who judges you solely on your age is one you don't want to work for. If you're in the Arts, funding is always tough so don't be disheartened too quickly. If you are able to fund yourself, you'll probably have the luxury of being able to study for your PhD almost anywhere and under whichever professor you want.

In my opinion, there is no age limit for doing academic research. As far as it seems you have sufficient academic background, so prepare your resume and send your request to the universities. Do not prejudge your application.
By searching the admissions pages of the universities' websites, I found that the only age limit may be that some applicants under a specific age are not accepted, for instance, students younger that 16; but there also some exceptions exist.
Further more, in the application pages, the applicants with disabilities (because of age, accidents, born with disabilities, etc.) still have the chance to apply for their desired programs and their disability does not prevent them from doing his research. In our university, I have seen two or three blind students doing MSc research. So, you see even that these rare problems do not affect applicant chance as they have strong education and research background.
Examine your chance and let the admission committee decide to accept you or not. But first work a little on your research topic which you are interested to work on and prepare a proposal or something expressing the things in your mind. Then prepare your resume and gather all your work and research background in. After all, be realistic and choose the university program which suits you more. If you can provide financial support for your PhD, this may boost your chance up. Furthermore, based on your research proposal; choose the university in which the professors are working in your field. That is why I am saying be realistic. Choose the programs wisely that are not far from your research interest.
There are good answers in this question Will my age affect my chances of finding a funded PhD position?, but I do not think that your question is a duplicate of that one.
Also, in this post, you see that the age may not be the first concern of the admission committee. This is part of the writer's answer to a question which is almost near your concern.

[...] Frankly, though, I don’t think this is a first-order concern for an admissions committee, who are mostly concerned with your raw intellectual potential and ability to produce distinguished research.

In the other part, the writer says:

[...] If someone is 28 or older, with a previous career, an admission committee will probably reflect on whether that experience is going to contribute to or detract from the person’s research potential, and what the career switch says about a person’s focus. So a lot will depend on your specific story and experience.

Also, in the page Should You Take Time Off Before Applying to Graduate School? you can find good advices on your question.
The only problem you may face because of the age may be the chance of applying for a fund may decrease but I have no citation for this and because of your high level of academic background, you may face no problem for fund or scholarship.

I am writing this part after a while:
I was searching the Academia website and found many questions in which users have talked about the similar questions to yours. I am not saying that yours is a duplicate of them, but I think that reading those questions and answers may help you to better shape an answer for your own question.

Age and Graduate school
Am I too old for academia after a PhD?
How old is too old for a PhD?
How important is age in CS phd admissions?
Will my age affect my chances of finding a funded PhD position?

This. English is surely one of the disciplines in which life experience is and should be presented as an asset, not a liability.

Did I misunderstand you, or did you mention "age" as a disability? I ask this b/c a 50 yera old friend of mine who graduated last year with her MS, told me that "age" is now considered a disability and it was her opinion that her age  actually improved her prospects for admission.

@GremlinBrenneman I did not mention age as a disability; I was saying that, even there exists some disabilities because of aging (like problems in walking or weaknesses), if they do not interfere with the person's ability to do his research and study, it will not logically affect his chance for admission and apply. Even, I have seen many blind classmates, who were able to do research and study and they all were accepted for MSc and PhD degrees.

I completed my Ph.D. in computer science at UCSD in 2009, when I was 60 years old. I don't think being a few years older than that would have made any difference.
The only problem I had in the application process was a limited space for the statement of purpose that was also required to contain a list of every job I had held since getting my bachelor's degree - in 1970. I was able to use my industry contact network to get to talk with three of the faculty before my application went in. I don't know whether that helped.
I felt a little bit disconnected from the social life of my fellow students, not just directly because of the age difference. Many of them had recently moved to San Diego, and so only knew other students. I had been living in the area since 1975, and had an established network of friends who share my non-technical interests. Most of them were living in dorm rooms or shared apartments, on or near campus. I had a home about 10 miles from campus. I went to a few parties, but mainly continued my pre-student social life.
===============================================
I think I included above most of the information about my experiences that applies to this question.
I had entirely different reasons for doing a Ph.D. I was already doing work of comparable difficulty and creativity to a doctoral dissertation project, but in an environment where the result was patents and products, rather than papers. I had had to choose between an academic and an industry career when I was about 25, and had picked industry. After selling some stock options in 2000, I realized I had the option of trying out the other path.
After completing my doctorate, I took a year off to celebrate, and enjoyed it so much that I decided to retire permanently. I did not seriously consider continuing an academic career. If I had looked for work, it would have been a pure technical job. My industry employers, at least since I moved to California in 1975, had each had a technical promotion track, parallel to but separate from the management track. As far as I can tell, universities require professors to do teaching and administration, as well as research.
Although I picked an entirely different subject for my dissertation, my long term field of interest is the logical design of multiprocessor interconnects. Critical technical work for a large server design cannot be done half-heartedly - it requires an intense commitment to spending whatever time and effort it takes to get the product working and into customers' hands. I'm enjoying luxuries like time for travel, horseback riding a couple of days a week, crafts and hobbies...

May I ask you to complete your answer by adding what happened after you finished your PhD? In particular, did you continue reseach? On your own or financially supported by an institution? It may help the OP since the title of the question is "I want to do research..." not only the PhD. Also, you mentioned industrial contacts to connect to professors. Could you expand on this if it is relevant to your PhD/research experience?

Actually, I am interested in the same question posed by @Taladris. I am going into statistics (at the old age of 52) and see consulting as a good career option. I see a great deal of technical work now being "farmed out" to contractors and I think this type of work as maybe better-suited to an older person.

You look so happy :) @Patricia

I received my PhD last year at 54 years old.  It took me eight years part time while I worked full time.  I had taken classes in the 1980s at Drexel in Philadelphia and remembered a 60 yr old PhD candidate.  So Drexel seemed 100% friendly.  I also did not want to be favored and they did that well also.  I was in engineering and the main focus was to publish.  I suspect various schools will gladly meet with you in info meetings and in person (as they did with me).
You are basically offering free hard labor for them.  There will be some who will be happy to work with you if you focus on the work and publishing (co-author). If you publish, then you are probably "in" and the work counts.  I know little about English and similar majors but I think this applies.  BTW: it was very hard.

Note that the OP never said he wants to offer "free" work.

Platitudes and hope are nice, but the reality is that the outcome of your situation depends on many variables: your field, your experience, your financial situation (can you support yourself?), the institutions to which you are applying, and your current set of skills (which go to your preparedness for a PhD level program). Any one of these factors can significantly impact your chances for admission. Unfortunately, in your case, you have to add to that mix, age discrimination, which does exist. Given the glut of very qualified international students in the sciences and budget cutbacks in this arts, this is something to be aware of going into the admissions process. Because there are not that many +50 yr old adults going back for their PhD, there is not as much data to go on, just a lot of anecdotal evidence (that doesn't contain most of the people who didn't make it). But age can be an advantage if you can show that it has translated into maturity, seriousness of purpose, and a true love of your discipline. Proper preparation demonstrates this to the admissions committee.
First, research those schools of interest to you. I'd look at whether they have older grad students and if there is a concentration of profs in your area of interest.
Second, contact the professors personally and talk to them. Making a personal connection can be an important in your application process: you are not just candidate X, but that nice person from so and so who drove all the way out here to get more information and see if they were suitable for our program. Professors higher up on the food chain improve your chances. Are they currently interested in taking on students at this time? Are they still doing research in this field? Do they seem to like you and have an interest in potentially having you as a student?
Third, prepare as much as you can. If you need to get a good GRE score, make sure you put in the time and money you need to prepare sufficiently. Take upper level courses at a local university: you can get references from those profs and this provides evidence that you can endure a PhD program. If you can squeeze in some teaching experience, consider doing so. Volunteering to help tutor or participating in English related activities (like debate team) at a local high school broadens your network,shows you enjoy helping students, and gives you experience on your resume. Even being an online tutor for 5 hrs/week may help.
Fourth, be persistent.If you don't get in this year, do more to prepare yourself better and apply next year. Persistence is a key attribute of a true researcher and does not go unnoticed.
That being said, I'm starting my MS at 52 and will probably go on for a PhD, but I think it takes some planning on your part to insure you will get into a decent program.
Good Luck!

I did some, but not all, of the things listed here. I had a very demanding full time job I was not going to quit unless I was admitted, so tutoring or taking courses was not possible. I did spend some time on GRE preparation, but very little money. I contacted professors, starting high up the food chain, through a colleague.

Of course, these are good things for any graduate applicant to do, and everyone can modify them to their specific situation. But I do think that older applicants, esp in the hard sciences, do have a harder road to hoe. If I was a professor, esp at a group I/II school, and I had 2 applicants of equal quality, but the one was 25 and the other 50, the thought would definitely come to my mind that the younger candidate had the advantage that he would more likely have a longer career and be able to contribute more (let alone the fact that he would be a more viable candidate for a univ position)

In at some ways, age made it easier. I had peer contacts who had peer-to-peer relationships with high ranking faculty, which would be unlikely for a 20-something. I believe the 40 years during which I had been reading college-level material in a wide range of topics made the verbal portion of the GRE general test much easier for me than for most young computer science graduates. I did not need financial support.

You had a lot going for you. FWIW, I'll just close by adding that if I were to give generic advice to a 50's something PhD applicant, I would say two things: first, be able to prove you can handle the coursework and quals and secondly make contacts with profs in your area. Profs with weight make entry to grad school a breeze.

I don't believe that 60 is too old to study for a doctorate - or anything else for that matter.  While I don't know your situation personally, I'd suggest that most 60 year olds are better placed in life to commit to a PhD than younger people are because generally a 60 year old is more likely to have the necessary financial wherewithal to do it.
You are unlikely to face ageism in most programs of study in my experience.

There, I've re-worded it to make the answer I was giving more explicit.  You may not like my answer; you may not agree with it; but it is an answer.  It's very telling that you are willing to turn a blind eye to users with more Reputation than I doing exactly the same thing.

I think that is absurd! Age is nothing but a number.
Who is to say that you are too old? The other students? The faculty? Who are they to make that distinction? You are the only one who lives your own life and who makes it out to what you want it to be. If you want to pursue a Ph.D. at 60, that is nothing but honorable and it will only make your life better by allowing you to do what you want.
Hey, maybe you are at just the perfect age, and all the other kids in your program are too young?
Personally, it just pains me very deeply when people limit themselves because of some imaginary "social norms". Some routine self-destructive lifestyle justifications that people love to give, such as

"I am going to stay in this terrible marriage, because divorce is frowned upon"
"I hate medicine, but I am going to become a doctor anyway, because that will allow me to become a respectable member of this society as well as appease my parents"
"I want to buy a dog, but am unsure how will my neighbors react"
etc.

have no effects on peoples' lives other than wreckage, with the sole purpose of appeasing the opinions of others (with (note!) absolutely no benefit whatsoever for themselves). No one out there will live your life for you (I am sure you understand that by your age). "Social norms" were established to maintain order and create imaginary boundaries; for example, the core historical purpose of politeness (in the form of respect for a person who is of a higher social rank than you) is simply to make sure that the peasantry "knows their place"; self-deprivation measures, such as the all-glorified "self-control" and "moderation" among the wealthy, were also put in place to keep the upper classes on a pedestal (and thus prevent the possibility of them, for example, appearing drunk in public, etc., so that the lower classes would look at them as betters instead of equals). It's nothing but social engineering at its finest (perfected over millennia).
Now, where do you fit into this whole picture? Are you really going to sacrifice your own happiness because someone out there said that you are too old to do what you want? Because you are "too old" to be happy? Who are they to have the authoritative word? Maybe you feel that they are too young to be happy... Why does their word weigh more?
I once read a beautiful story about an 80-something-year-old woman who realized that throughout her entire life, she despised the career that she had. At 80, she decided to forget all social stereotypes, and enrolled into a university to get her bachelor's degree in something that she always wanted to do. She succeeded, and spent a few years doing something she dreamt of since her childhood (I forget what the exact field was, and I forget the name of the woman; I'd be happy to look it up if you are interested, though).
As a matter of fact, there are plenty of 70-year-old hippies and 50-year-old clubbers out there, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that if that is what makes them happy. Society can judge all they want... People will always judge. Because that is what people with too much time on their hands do. They sit, and judge. Because they are so unhappy with their own lives. And frankly, if everyone listened to them, no one would ever be happy and no one would ever achieve anything.
It is absolutely never too late to do anything! Don't let some crowd's musings, let alone something as superficial as some imaginary "social norms", dictate whether you have a right to be happy. You have a right to be happy and pursue any purpose you wish. It is your inalienable right.
You are only given one life. And its yours, no one else's. We all write our own book. Make yours out what you want it to be. After all, it's only the best that any of us can really do. At life's end, all social norms, material wealth, and others' opinions and judgements, will not matter. The only thing that will matter are the memories that you created and the moments of happiness that you enjoyed; that's really the only thing we can take with us to whatever is next (and if there is nothing next, than at least it is something we can cherish it and bask in on our death beds). It's the only thing in this world that is truly ours. Don't ever let anyone take that away from you.

I love your answer and I agree 100%. If we can dream it and we believe in ourselves, there is no limit to what we can achieve. This deserves more upvotes!

source: Stack Exchange

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

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

sort: votes


text:
Using proprietary software to demonstrate work in conference
I am going to conduct a workshop on my research work and for that I need to show how it is done on the software. I want to know,

Is it ok to display the proprietary software (through TeamViewer) from my university?
or Should I use screenshots?

I think it will depend completely on whether the license of the proprietary software allows this.  So you'll have to read it.  But I'd be pretty surprised if it did not.

Be aware that, depending on what exactly you do, such a demonstration can be seen as advertising the software, which can have advantages (as the software manufacturer usually likes this) and disadvantages (as you may not be supposed to advertise software in the workshop).

The question here is why are you using proprietary software for research at all?

@mirabilos propietary software is very common in some areas (MATLAB) and unavoidable in others (vendor instruments is the most obvious, lack of open version is another).

@Davidmh a friend of mine just ported a Windows driver for some instrument to Linux, during his work on a Chemistry degree ;-)

Generally speaking it is totally fine to use or demonstrate publicly (at a conference or elsewhere) some proprietary software. Many presenters use Microsoft Windows along with Microsoft PowerPoint, and nobody ever gets into trouble.
That said, if you want to be 100% sure you need to peruse the end-user license agreement (EULA), which is the contract that stipulates under which conditions the program might be used: this is the ultimate reference. For example, the EULA can prohibit researchers and scientists from explicitly using the names of their systems in a benchmark. (Oracle is notorious for that, they sued David DeWitt following some benchmarks he had published that mentioned Oracle, see the DeWitt Clause).
Beyond the EULA, one exception I can think of is if you have signed some confidentiality contract, which can happen when the software hasn't been released yet and the developers give you access to some pre-release version of it.
Another exception is that if by "show how it is done on the software" you mean reverse engineer the software, then you might want to be careful: reverse engineering is borderline. E.g. in the United States, EULA provisions can preempt the reverse engineering rights implied by fair use, c.f. Bowers v. Baystate Technologies.
The last exception I can think of is video games: they can be seen as art, both for the graphic and the music. Just like you can't show a movie or broadcast music publicly in the general case (e.g. Twitch mutes some screencasts), video game publishers might use some similar arguments in court. That's very theoretical.
All in all, if you're having some doubts, you might want to drop by the legal office in your University, because as any law 101 course says, the answer is always "it depends".

Note that EULAs (in particular, if they are shrink-wrap contracts) are disputed if not clearly void in many jurisdictions.

A DeWitt clause does not forbid mentioning software names in an academic paper. It forbids publishing benchmark information, aka performance results, without approval by the software maker.

@mkennedy Yes a DeWitt clause restricts the mention of the program name in the context of a benchmark. Note that you can still publish benchmark information if you don't mention the name (and e.g. instead say "some main competitor").

@Wrzlprmft Yes, e.g. in France's legislation some EULAs' conditions can fall under the definition of abusive clauses.

Hi Franck, the reason why I commented is that I don't think the distinction is clear in the answers that you're giving.

@mkennedy Thanks, I edited the answer, is the distinction clear? Legal matters are always tedious to explain precisely :)

Screenshots are much better than a live demonstration.
Too many things can go wrong with a live demonstration: Problems with the Internet connectivity at the conference, at your university, or anywhere between the two points. Servers being down for maintenance. Software crashing unexpectedly. Embarrassing user errors during the presentation. You cannot connect your own laptop to the video projector at the conference, and you need to resort to another computer that does not have the right software installed. Yearly software license expiring the same morning as you are supposed to give the talk. Wrong screen resolution for the software. Etc., etc.
None of these reasons are related to copyrights. Of course if you can show screenshots you can also show the software itself.

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


text:
Should I mention in my manuscript's cover letter that I am a PhD student?
I am a PhD student in Mathematics. My adviser told me that I can submit our manuscript to some journal. So I am writing a cover letter and I am just wondering if I should mention in the cover letter that I am a PhD student.

@EnthusiasticStudent: I actually suggested an edit to that tag-wiki to explicitly exclude such cover letters. As far as I can see, there are very few questions on this and they all naturally are about paper-submission, so I do not feel we need a separate tag for this.

If a cover letter is needed at all, its purpose nowadays is usually to include information for which there is no appropriate form in the journal’s submission system (which can inlude suggested reviewers, unwanted reviewers, informations about prior submissions, etc.) – see also these two questions.
I do not see how the information that you are a PhD student is relevant to the editor or anybody involved with the paper, so I wouldn’t mention it. Every spurious information in that letter just wastes the editor’s time. I submitted a few papers as a PhD student (with and without coauthors) without mentioning this fact and did not encounter any problems that I would even remotely relate to this.

An aside: unfortunately journals continue to require cover letters even if in most cases, with nowadays' electronic submissions, they are not at all needed.

@MassimoOrtolano Not all journals. I've never needed to submit a cover-letter when submitting through an electronic submission system and, when I've submitted papers by email, the cover letter has been, "Dear Prof. So-and-so, Please find attached a copy of my paper 'Dave's Great New Ideas', which I'm submitting for publication in the Journal of Awesome Stuff."

@DavidRicherby: Yes, not all journals, but, at least in my field, several or many do, even those employing an electronic submission system. In these cases, I'm used to attaching a cover letter simply stating that I'm submitting a paper - an obviously useless letter.


text:
What to do when the tools I am supposed to compare my work with are no longer maintained and functional?
Recently I got a review asking me to compare my work with a few more works in the same domain. Now in my work, I developed a tool, and have made it publicly available. I have been asked by the reviewers to compare my tool with a few other tools available. While trying to compare I found none of the tools are maintained publicly. I have mailed them for the codes of these tools but no one replied. The executables are also not available. I mailed them for these executables only. But no one replied. What should I do?
Note: There were 2 reviewers. One said either compare properly or remove this section totally, other asked me to compare the works. Apart from this comment, all other comments have been addressed.

So what is available exactly? The executable files of these tools? What fails exactly? Have you tried running them in a Windows 95 VM, for instance?

Can you run the same kind of test or use the same data and compare your final numbers?

Just the research papers are available. The tools are no longer maintained. Even The people who were supposed to be contacted for the tools have not replied.

@ASimpleAlgorithm i need the tools for comparing. The tools are not maintained now... One of them said they are developing a new tool

Explain it to the reviewers and/or try to reimplement them (if it is a must). Also you should explain the methodological differences with these tools, I assume you already did it, didn't you?

@Llopisyes that I did. SO there were 2 reviewers, one said to either give proper comparison or remove the section of the comparison totally, other reviewer asked for the comparison.

I see a few ways on handling that:

write to the editor that the tools are unavailable and let him decide what to do with your paper.
add a passage in your comparison section stating that due to unavailability of those tools the comparison was not carried out.
ok, the authors don't reply. But if the reviewers want the comparison that probably means that at least someone is still using the tools in question. Maybe you can get in touch with some other laboratory that has the executables and run the necessary tests on-site there?

How do i contact anybody outside the author list of the tools?

@girl101 That's where your professional network of contacts comes into play.  Do you know anyone who may be using the tools? Maybe colleagues in your workplace can help? Do you have any supervisor you may report the problem to?

none. I am the only one doing this type of work in my institute.

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


text:
Switching tenses?
I finished writing a paper but haven't sorted out the abstract yet. Currently it looks something like this, but I'm not sure if this is OK.

Hello, my name is _____ and I am currently a ______ in high school.
  This is my first paper on math.
In this paper, we investigate....

Notice how I changed from "I" to "we" in the second paragraph. I'm not sure if this is normal?

What paper is this? "Hello, my name is ..." would seem very strange in any scientific literature I've read.

@JiK: It's not a really serious paper, I wrote it for a journal our school math club runs

Are you asking about what you should write in the abstract, or what you should say when presenting a paper? Your first sentence would be out of place in the written paper, regardless of the I/we issue. However, when presenting a paper, it's common enough to start by introducing yourself (using "I") and then switch to "we".

@mhwombat: Ok, please advise me on what to change it to. I want to keep the part where I say that I am a high school student and this is my part paper. Thanks!

@user45220 That it's your paper and that you are a high school student should both be evident from the author and the affiliation on the title page. Mentioning it in the abstract is not needed if you want to sound professional.

is it about tenses or the grammatical number?

By usual standards of academic writing, the first paragraph should be removed entirely.  In academic writing, unlike conversations, the author does not begin by introducing herself.  The focus is always on the topic of the paper, not the person who wrote it.
This is particularly out of place in the abstract, which should be a very concise summary of the contents of the paper, so that a reader can tell as quickly as possible if the paper will be interesting or useful to him.  It definitely should not contain anything unnecessary.  (Also, it is normally limited to one paragraph.)
In some cases, a brief biography of the author can be placed at the beginning or (more commonly) the end of the paper.  But it's normally written in third person, and should take a formal, rather than conversational, tone (don't say "Hello").

User45220 is a sophomore at Groucho Marx High School in Frostbite Falls, Minnesota.  This is her first mathematics paper.  Her interests include geometry and calculus.

The question of whether or not to include a biography, and if so where to place it, is up to the journal where you will publish; usually they have a policy of either always including biographies, or never including them.
Now let me address the question I think you really wanted to ask: within the paper, should the author be referred to as "I" or "We"?  (Grammatically, this distinction is called number, not tense which is something else.)  There is no universal agreement on this.  Historically, "we" has been more common, even if there is only one author. ("In this paper, we investigate splines.") But some authors prefer to use "I" ("I investigate splines"), and this is generally okay, if the editor of the journal approves.  Another possibility is to use third person, and use "The author investigates splines" or "The authors investigate splines", according to whether you are writing the paper yourself or with co-authors.  Ultimately, your preference as to which option to use is part of your own personal writing style.

You may choose as you wish. Personally, I find "we" in papers authored by a singular person very odd, and I find the image that the author prefers to use the majestic plural in reference to himself in ordinary life inescapable. However, it is quite common, and probably the "safe choice". Most top-tier papers are very happy with the singular first person.
Certainly I (that is to say, "we"!) would not be inconsistent. If you want to begin with "I", then continue that way. If you are going to use "we", then keep it consistent throughout your work.
Finally, do not worry too much about it. If your paper is accepted, you may ask the journal editors for their opinion.
Good luck in your submission!

In a math paper, for example, the use of "we" in a single-authored paper invites the reader directly into the process. It's not a majestic plural but rather an invitation to the reader.

Aye, it can be, no doubt of this; if the progressive or present aspects are used in the verb conjugation. But quite often it is the perfect tense "we found", which precludes the reader from joining in.


text:
Can a graduate student with deficiencies get an assistantship for the needed undergraduate courses?
I see many graduate program informational pages listed by various schools.
Many of them require specific undergraduate degrees, but also have discretionary exceptions for those without them. Most of them say something like:

"An applicant without satisfactory undergraduate training may be
  admitted to the program, but will be required to remove deficiencies
  by completing the necessary undergraduate courses without receiving
  graduate credit for them." - UND Physics & Astrophysics M.S.

I understand that the answer to this question is probably not all or nothing.  Has anyone reading this had experience in such a situation or have any suggestions for a person seeking a graduate degree in any program with similar deficiencies who is strongly against debt and aims to make it through a program with an assistantship?
Is it typical for one who begins a degree with an assistantship to maintain it until program completion provided that they maintain satisfactory performance in all facets of the assistantship ie. academic and duty performance?

One important general comment: It seems like you feel as though the department will leave you on your own to take these "needed undergraduate courses". I find this highly unlikely! If a department admits you (and funds you), then they are on your side and want you to succeed! If you are lacking some "satisfactory undergraduate training", then the admissions committee will know this before offering you a spot in their program. When they make you an offer, they know what you specifically will need to do to meet the requirements of their program, and it's in the best interest of the department to help you work towards meeting these requirements.
If you enroll in a graduate program, you will be expected to get your knowledge of the basic areas of the subject up to the standard set by the department. Moreover, you will be expected to do this according to their timeline. Sometimes this may require you to take some undergraduate courses, which is not a big deal.
In my experience in mathematics graduate school, students given the "standard" teaching assistantship are free to take courses of virtually any kind (with perhaps the approval of the math department), and the tuition for these courses is covered by the assistantship automatically. There is no extra assistantship needed for such courses. In my department, I've never heard of a student being denied permission to take courses outside of the department, and I've seen math grad students take undergraduate courses like dance and Japanese. So presumably if you were a "fully funded" grad student and you needed to take some undergrad courses while in grad school, these would be covered by your existing assistantship.
As to your last question: For the "standard" teaching assistantship, in math, it is typical that the student maintains (or rather, annually renews) the assistantship until she is done with the degree. This is of course dependent on the student making satisfactory progress towards the degree, as defined by each individual department.


text:
How important is seeing the face of the instructor?
So, I am yet to make up my mind on which is a superior mode of teaching in flipped classroom videos:

Khan academy type model where you see slides or a digital drawing board and only listen to the instructor.
Or a video in which you see the instructor communicating with you. Maybe in one third of the video and the rest of the screen real estate is focused on graphics, video etc.

Let us assume that you have a superb communicator in both cases.
Which model is superior? Have there been any studies in this field?

I'm leaning toward calling this a question that has no clear answer - it's very opinion-based in that some people need the person-to-person contact, and others just care about the content.

Isn't this part of stackexchange for opinions? This is my first time outside the programming side of SE. I would like to hear diverse opinions.

That's true - I'm just not sure you can answer "which model is superior".  You can answer "which model is superior for individuals with XYZ traits", though that may no longer fit for Academia SE...it just seems a bit vague in my opinion.  But as you noted - that's my opinion :) Stick around a bit and see what others have to say! (P.S. Welcome to Academia SE!)

Thank you. I understand your perspective. Alternatively, I am happy to hear what kind of people (personality traits) can 1 and 2 target.

Hm, seems like kind of an interesting research question, at least, though I can't say I've heard of any research in this area I'd imagine this would be heavily in the education field. It could potentially be in HCI though in the area of intelligent teaching agents, though I don't recall a study looking at something close to this. Would love to read such a study if anyone finds one, though!

OP: in view of the discussion in one of the answers below, would you please kindly specify if (1) includes a video, too, or is audio-only?

I cannot cite studies, but extensive anecdotal observation (maybe 5,000 undergrad students, 500 grad students) suggests that about 1/4 of students do not need, or do not care, about the person who is the instructor. But a vast majority, perhaps 3/4, do care. There is a sense of needing/wanting reassurance from a person, and caring about the insights of a person. The lack of this need/want comes in (at least) two very opposite forms: obviously the oblivious/incompetent failure to see what's going on, but also the relatively-very-competent student who scarcely needs or wants reassurance and has better ways to spend their time. The middle ground seems not to exist.
So, operationally, for almost all purposes, the person who is the teacher matters, whether or not they are a truly wonderful teacher (as long as they're not completely inert as a human being).
(The "funny case" is the few students, both at undergrad and graduate levels, who for some reason expect/demand the teacher to be an automaton, reciting a text, not looking at students, not caring about students, not contributing, not critiquing, not improving. Yet they come to class rather than read the book? Maybe in anticipation of "books on tape", to have the classic text read to them out loud, in a room with other people?)
(The aspect of trusting in the expertise of the instructor seems, sadly, less relevant than the mandated understanding of their "authority". Tsk.)

Thank you. I am guessing this need of human body interface translates into online video as well? In that way, other models where the instructor faces the student in the video maybe more effective than Khan Academy where you only hear the audio of the instructor.

I would think that for the vast majority of students, a video that shows the person would be more effective, yes. Still, there is a significant minority of students (in math, for example, perhaps a somewhat extreme case) who seem happier to not have the instructor be present as a person...

I would think so. Math/Programming etc. are special cases.

Students probably don't need to see my face so much as my hands --- and that's not just when I'm doing hand-waving (substitutes for) proofs. I often use my hands when explaining how to visualize something.

To answer your question: I had a few instructors who did nothing but copying a text onto the blackboard and reading it out loud. Why did I come to lecture? The following reasons did hold: 1) The text was not avaiable otherwise. 2) Threats of lectures against people who didn't come. 3) Without the text, it is not clear which context is important (for life and for exam). 4) University is a social place: meeting friends (in and after the lecture). 5) The faint hope that at some point, the lecturer would explain something more than in the text.

Not all of this instructors were "mean", though. Some really thought is this a good way for education (or just didn't want to prepare more). Those instructors might additionally explain once or twice in the course something in their own words which was indeed helpful. (but spontanously, so you didn't knew which lectures would be those were something was explained). I hope this answers your question.

Which model is superior?

That entirely depends on the metric you use to measure superior. I will assume that your primary interest is how much knowledge ends up sticking in your student's brain, i.e., you are measuring superior as better scores on learning outcomes.
In your scenarios, the main source of difference is the social presence of the instructor. The primary advantage of the scenario that uses a video of the instructor is that you can communicate through gesture and facial expressions. As I understand you question, this video is only used to supplement the audio; it won't carry any meaning by itself, but may be used to emphasize. This increased social presence will likely lead to higher engagement (as also observed by paul garrett's anecdotal evidence), but its effect on learning outcomes is less clear.
There is a nice meta-analysis that looks at general interfaces that either have or don't have an embodied agent (Yee et al. 2007); in other words, if it is useful to show the picture of a person, and how realistic that picture should be. The authors find a significantly larger effect of embodiment on subjective measures ("did you think you learned more?") than on objective measures ("What was your course grade?"). They also find a generally low effect of embodiment.
More close to this question, there exists a study by Kizilcec et al. that investigates almost what you are asking. The authors performed experiments on MOOC courses on Coursea (not a flipped classroom, but close enough). One version of the course videos had audio and slides only, the other had an added talking head in the corner of the screen.
In short, the authors find in a first observational study that, if a head is present, students think they need to exert less effort, and learn more, while also rating the experience as more positive when comparing to the version without a head. However, in a following experimental study, when comparing always showing a head to strategically showing a head for some (~30%-60%) videos, no difference on course grades or likelihood of taking assignments is found. The authors did find an effect on cognitive load, which seems to be influenced by the (visual vs. verbal) preference a of the individual learner. This appears consistent with the results of the meta-analysis on embodied agents for interfaces.
My opinion is that the direct effect of a video of the presenter on learning outcomes is likely too small to be of practical relevance; then again it might increase engagement just enough to get students to watch the video that would have otherwise not watched it.

Audio stimulates one sense, video stimulates two. One sense may suffice for some material, but not for others. Equally, one sense may be necessary, e.g., some material thrives as a podcast, but wouldn't as a video. For highly technical content, I'd need video to provide information rich visuals to support the audio, others could perhaps digest the material with just the audio. (Albeit, I suspect the video's audio wouldn't suffice for many and audio-only delivery would require audio to be prepared for that purpose.)
Note: A comment suggests the OP is not comparing video lectures to audio-only lectures. Yet, the title (How important is seeing the face of the instructor?), bounty (...additional effort and bandwidth needed for showing the instructor...), and question body (only listen[ing] to the instructor vs. a video) suggest differently. Nonetheless, the comment is plausible. Perhaps the OP can clarify.

I think you misunderstood the question. OP is not comparing video lectures to audio-only lectures. They are comparing 1. video lectures in which you only see the content of board to 2. video lectures in which you also see the recorded face of the teacher speaking to you.

The OP wrote you only listen to the instructor vs. a video, but your understanding makes far more sense. I guess only listen  should be replaced by only see.  (I have no idea what flipped classroom videos nor Khan academy type model mean.)

Regardless, if you only see the instructor, then information rich visuals aren't being provided, so much of my answer still applies. Audio only can be considered more primitive than video of the instructor speaking (non-verbal cues help), such videos cannot provide information rich visuals, so I'd personally struggle to follow highly technical content.

@FedericoPoloni I'm not sure what the OP is asking. I've now noted that in my answer. Perhaps the OP will clarify.

Let us wait for an edit, but "Khan academy type model" in my experience is quite clear; it means something like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvOkMYCygps .

The OP hasn’t visited the site in years; so it’s unlikely that they will clarify. I don’t see how the title or my bounty notice support your assumption. For example why would the asker ask about the face explicitly in the title? As I don’t think anybody here disputes that visual explanations can be helpful, I edited the question to be clearly about showing the instructor. If you think your interpretation of the question has any merit, feel free to ask and self-answer it separately.

@Wrzlprmft (I hadn't realised you'd bountied an old post.) As for, why would the asker ask about the face explicitly in the title? The OP asks How important is seeing the face of the instructor? With audio, you don't see. With video, you do. They're the two ends of the spectrum. It seems like an obvious conclusion. You referred to bandwidth needed for showing the instructor. I thought it obvious to consider audio (very low bandwidth) compared to video (high bandwidth). I fully appreciate that I may have utterly misunderstood what both of you were trying to convey...

@user2768: Regarding bandwidth: When I am showing typical slides, they change only rarely. A good video-compression algorithm can exploit that. This does not hold for my face, which changes all the time.

@Wrzlprmft Yes, I had since guessed. Nonetheless, it is easy to produce large video files (I have), and it requires technical expertise to reduce them (at least, for me). Of course, this is a tech problem and some software is better than others. Regardless, an audio file is minute in comparison, at least, in my experience. I completely acknowledge that I have misunderstood you; I can't be sure for the OP, their wording seems to support my understanding.

Regarding, some software is better than others, I wonder whether Powerpoint offers a solution: It seems trivial to simply combine slides with audio, thereby avoiding video altogether. Albeit, putting such a compilation together may place an additional burden on the presenter. (Surely recording video is easier than getting Powerpoint to cooperate...)

For discussion of PDF slides with audio see: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/2862/how-to-create-pdf-of-slides-with-audio


text:
What is exactly meant by "research experience" in grad application?
I'm confused by what the term "research experience" actually means in a PhD application. The following examples come into my mind:

working as research assistant with university professor
publishing research papers in conferences
work in R&D division of company (industry research)

Do all examples of the list above count as research experience? Or which ones do? If so, what are they?
Which ones are more important and provide competitive advantage for getting accepted to good university?

I would say all of those count as "research experience".  Which ones will be most valued depends on the nature of the program you're applying to, and the exact nature of the work you did.  In general, though, the more independent your work was, the better, and the more generic it was, the worse.  So if you were a research assistant but all you did was photocopy documents, that will not earn you many points.  If you were a research assistant who, e.g., conducted experiments, did fieldwork, participated in lab meetings, whatever, those will be worth more.  If you actually contributed to the writing of papers or presentation at conferences, even better.
As a rule of thumb, the more that what you did was something other people could not have done (i.e., it required your special expertise, not just "more hands'), the "better" it is.

Most of the applicants for PhD positions (after bachelor, different for master) don't have much research experience or have even written a paper as first author, more common would be poster at a conference. So if you have to show something here over average, list it in your application.
As professors get sometimes over 100 applications for PhD positions, more importantly list in bullet points what you experience handling distinct scientific methods is (technical terminus and usage time, e.g. electron microscopy on biological objects for one year or matlab scripting on neural networks for 6 months). As soon as you have worked for several weeks with a distinct technique, list it as research experience (name - object - duration)
This profile of your expertise is in the end to my experience more important to a professor/distinct position than a higher number of posters/papers of a distinct candidate, because it depends more on your team/advisor/co-workers if you publish before PhD a lot

It means during your undergraduate or after your undergraduate or in masters (if you are going for a PhD program), what did you do that counts as research.
In PhD application, the committee is looking for whether you already have warmed up for research or not because PhD is about taking a problem and doing research which only you could have done.


text:
Major review for the second time
I submitted a research paper to a journal in March 2015. One a half month later I got back a major review from one reviewer and a minor from the other. Overall, it was classified as major revision.
It took me two months to inculcate all the suggested points and I re-submitted the improved version on the 3rd of July. The status immediately changed to under review. Since the original reviewer who suggested major revision could not review it this time, the services of a third reviewer were acquired. After four and half months (on 13th of November), I got back yet another major revision.
Is it normal to have a paper reviewed by another reviewer? And what can be the probable outcome? My colleagues were telling me that major review for the second time is very concerning.

It is difficult to see what other alternative the editor has; given that problems were identified in the paper by the original reviewer, the editor need to be confident that these have been adequately addressed, and a good journal should not base their decisions on the view of a single reviewer.  I'd say it is perfectly normal, and beneficial.
If the second reviewer has identified further shortcomings in your work, while that it perhaps not what you were hoping for, but in the long run I suspect they have done you a favour as it will strengthen the paper that is finally published.  I wouldn't be too concerned by this, just address the new set of criticisms as well as you can and resubmit.
What is not really acceptable is for a reviewer to give one set of comments, which you then address, and then for the same reviewer to give another set of criticisms about the revised version that they could have made in their original review.  However as this is a new reviewer, I don't think there is a real problem.


text:
Citing another author’s summary of other works in a journal article
I want to use the information from this block of text talking about psychoanalysis:

Some authors (e.g. Allison et al., 2006 and Turkle, 1995) compare the player and avatar's relationship to a transmission field, as roughly defined by psychoanalysis: the avatar is not in exclusive competence of the player, while not being completely separated from them. It lies somewhere near the boarder of external and internal (psychological) reality.

I am unsure how to put it in my paper. Do I still say that the information is from the article I'm reading it from, or would I mention the authors of that information? Something like:

Lukas Blinka in his article entitled "The relationship of players to their avatars in MMORPGs" compares the relation of a player to their avatar to that of a transmission field...

The relevant style guide is MLA.

What you need to do is write it so that the author of article is clearly identified as the compiler, rather than the originator, of the idea. For example:

Lukas Blinka notes that some critics have “compared the player and avatar’s relationship to a transmission field” (##).

You would only include Blinka's article in your bibliography. If I cared to know who those critics were, I'd go to his article to find them.


text:
Could I submit a paper that I'm not sure about its proof?
We (including my teacher) designed a new algorithm in computer science and my teacher proved that it is good enough about its time complexity, but I'm not sure about that and worry that the proof be wrong.
Could I submit it to a journal?

Two questions: (i) is your "worry that the proof be wrong" a concern about a specific part of the proof or just a general anxiety?  (ii) Is your "teacher" an academic in CS with other publications in the field?  If the answer to the latter is "yes," then you should direct questions about journal procedures to her: she will be well qualified to answer them.  You should also discuss your concerns about the proof with her, provided they have any positive amount of grounding in fact.  Collaborators need to discuss reservations with each other; that is a critical piece of quality control.

@PeteL.Clark (i) I have a general anxiety that our work have no useful thing to be expressed as paper. (ii) unfortunately, my teacher is not so professional and seems it does not have any paper in journals! but since this is my obligation to submit paper for project, I do.

"unfortunately, my teacher...does not have any paper in journals!" I'm sorry to hear that.  "[B]ut since this is my obligation to submit paper for project, I do." Wait, what?!?  The course you are taking obligates you to submit work for publication??  That has been discussed on this site before, and the consensus was that this is a bad and possibly unethical requirement.  Requiring students to submit a paper for publication -- coauthored with you! -- when you do not have any published papers seems especially fishy.  These are two red flags that you are not in a good academic environment.

@majidR Here is a question from years ago that Pete might be referring to. It discusses whether it is acceptable for a professor to require students to submit papers in a course: Professor withholding course grade until submission of conference paper

@AustinHenley oh! it seems you was in my state too! but my grade now is given, but I should submit paper, otherwise it will be retracted!

Your reputation is at stake here. Be wary of submitting material you are not sure of.

It is your responsibility, not the referees', to make sure that a published proof is correct.
The reviewers should make sure that the results have some merit; some check proofs line-by-line, and some merely check that the result is plausible and that the proof methodology looks sound. Sometimes errors slip by. Nevertheless, if the result later turns out wrong, your reputation is at stake, not the one of the reviewers.
So speak with your advisor and make sure that your proof is correct before you submit. It might be the case that the proof is correct and you just haven't grasped all the details because you have less experience. Or it might be the case that there is a flaw to address and correct, in which case you should act before submission.
It is not a good research mentality to think "We only have to fool convince one or two referees", in my opinion.

How my reputation would be at stake: (i) if I submit a paper with an error that I couldn't get it, but the referees get it and rejects paper?(ii) what about no one (me and the referees) got it? Is there something like black-list or what?

If the referees find it and reject it, you get the reputation of a researcher who submit bad papers with them and the editor. There is no formal black list (as far as I know), but they are less likely to spend time on your manuscripts in future, since you put little care in producing them. If no one finds it at this stage, it is even worse: the paper gets published with an error, and you get the same reputation with everyone in the community. People will report your error in their findings and correct it when they cite you.

You should not submit if you are not confident the proof is right. Why not trying to boost that confidence instead? Two strategies I can think about to do that:

Give a talk in your department where you explain the proof to your peers and to more experienced researchers. It doesn't need to be anything formal, it could be a seminar, a research group meeting, or even a reading group.
Publish a preprint instead (for example on the arXiv), or write a blog post. If you are lucky, another researcher who is interested in the result will comment on it.

In general, I am suggesting that you discuss the result with other people before you publish it. It may be that you will catch the mistakes (if any) yourself, just by getting the chance of discussing it with other people.
EDIT: As pointed out in the comments, the second suggestion applies or not according to the OP's level of confidence. Of course, I didn't mean people should use the arXiv users as oracles that check the correctness of their proofs. It is nevertheless, at least in my opinion, an intermediary step before publishing to a journal. And anyway, arXiv was just an example, what I really suggested is to publish it somewhere online in order to give it more visibility.

You are right, but I afraid that if my professor know that I'm not sure about its proof and asking others for correctness, become upset!

@Alessandro Publish a preprint instead (for example on the arXiv). Could you explain why arXiv is a place to publish a preprint of a potential publication of which the author have doubts on the correctness of a proof?

@Sathyam Obviously it depends on the level of confidence he has in the correctness of the proof. All things considered, I think the level of confidence required for a preprint is lower than the level of confidence required for a journal submission. With a preprint, you aren't asking editors and referees to spend time on your work; the process of correcting and submitting a revision is simple; and it's understood by readers that the work has not been peer reviewed and may be preliminary (he can even give an explicit warning in the text)

@Sathyam also see I made a huge technical mistake in an arXiv paper... How bad is it?

@Sathyam I was going to reply exactly what ff524 wrote :) Let me add: he could always add a comment along the preprint saying which part he is not confident about. Anyway, it doesn't need to be the arXiv, which is maybe a bit too "formal".

@majidR You are not "asking others for correctness", you are discussing the proof with others. If he becomes upset, tell him that you saw Prof. Babai doing the same :)

@ff524 The OP shows a visible worry about the correctness of the proof and OP's teacher proved that it is good enough. Even though preprint carries less severity of a possible error, it is advisable to try to recheck the correctness of the proof while they can since OP had doubts beforehand submission. This is a completely different situation compared to finding an error after submission.

@Sathyam yes, I realize it's not the same - I mentioned that related question in reference to the point I made that it's easy to correct and submit a revision to an arXiv paper

@Alessandro feel free to edit these details into the text of your answer

@ff524 Done! In general, my answer was meant to give more practical suggestions, instead of just saying "bang your head against the proof until you're confident."

+1 for the talk, thats a good idea. Each week, in my department, somebody talks about its research.

My first hypothesis is that all the authors have done their best to have correct proofs, and that the question was asked with honesty to get advice, in order to be published in a serious journal.
This being said, it is not uncommon "not to be sure", or "to be afraid proofs might be wrong". Indeed, the history of science is paved with significant published papers containing flawed proofs, sometimes quite small. This happens even in mathematics, as detailed in Widely accepted mathematical results that were later shown wrong?
If your proof is ok, great. If not, and the algorithm is interesting enough, options are:

a reviewer detects it, and rejects: you would work some more,
a reviewer detects it, and suggests corrections: you can publish or resubmit, possibly adding the reviewer to the author list (if the contribution is significant enough), or at least to the acknowledgement part,
nobody detects it, but you does afterward: submit a correction.

If you are aware that the proof is wrong, you ought to correct it before submitting it.
Meanwile, there exits a huge business of poorly reviewed conferences and journals, that would publish anything with some fees, and a huge amount of retracted papers recently. This undermines the work of honest scholars.

I strongly disagree with this cavalier attitude.  Correctness is one of the minimum requirements for publication.  Of course, people make mistakes, but why would you submit a paper that you don't believe to be correct?

The algorithm isn't interesting if it is incorrect, or in this case has a worse than expected time complexity.

@David Ketcheson When I wrote my answer, the  OP said he was not sure, and was worry the proof could be wrong. I (still) believe this was a sound attitude. Now his comments have clarified the situation, but I believe the questions should be updated to reflect the actual situation. And I will update my answer, based on the hypothesis questions are asked with honesty

I disagree with this answer. Referees are busy enough already. Do not waste their time with proofs that you yourself do not believe in (and which also are probably unreadable, or else the correctness or incorrectness would be clear to you).

The edits have improved this answer but I still think that any advice other than "Don't submit anything unless you're absolutely convinced it's correct" is bad advice. If you're not convinced that something is correct, it's not ready to be submitted. Of course, you might be sure that something is correct and it still turns out to be wrong -- that happens to everybody -- but you must make every reasonable effort to avoid that.

I do not give advices I  would not follow. To me, "have done their best to have correct proofs" is a correct requirement, and I feel it  is coherent with your last sentence. Let us be specific: I  do signal processing. Parts of the  works is proofs, part is algorithms, part is experiments. Nearly everybody  in the field measures errors using  some instance of squared errors.  Everybody knows such measures are irrelevant. Nobody checks  on each data available. So nobody can be absolutely convinced the  results are correct. Even in pure maths, full logical proofs are difficult and rare.

Another  example: when I lecture in image processing, I provide quite early examples of visual illusions. I am very aware of the  capacity of humans to fool themselves. Should I be a witness at a trial, I would have extreme difficulties claiming I am 100% sure of what I saw or heard. I am a skeptic. And there are so many  other ways How scientists fool themselves – and how they can stop.

Proofs play different roles in science versus mathematics.  In science, empirical evidence is the ultimate arbiter of correctness, and proofs are just ancillary evidence.  In mathematics, proofs are the sole and ultimate arbiter of correctness, so they are treated differently.  ("Computer science" can be science or mathematics depending on the subfield.)  MATHEMATICS IS NOT SCIENCE.

Indeed, the nature of proof, evidence, and validation varies a lot across the different  academic fileds. Whether mathematics is a science or not (in capitals) is a huge debate.


text:
Is acceptable for international conferences to use your own simulator in your paper?
I want to propose some approaches in wireless networks and I want to simulate it to prove that it is better than others; but I don't want use commonly-used simulators and I want to create new simulator according to requirements. Is there any difference in paper acceptance for international conferences to use your own simulator or famous simulators?

By "international", do you mean "internationally recognized" or "prestigious" or "indexed in DBLP"?

@JeffE I specially mean conferences which indexed by IEEE and others like ISI.

Presumably, if there is a technical reason for needing to write your own simulator, the reviewers couldn't reasonably object. However, if there is no technical reason then, regardless of what the reviewers would think, your research time is probably better spent doing novel research rather than writing unnecessary software.

@DavidRicherby my reason to write new software is that I couldn't find any software proper for my research.

@majidgeek Just a side comment, but "there is no proper tool for this, I'll just write my own" is something I hear way too much from my own students as well. Make sure that there actually is no tool, and you're not falling into the trap of thinking it is more convenient to build your own tool than to make something existing work.

The important thing is to use the right tool for the job, and justify it.
The existing simulators have the following advantage: a great deal of time and effort went into their development, and they have been used, debugged, and extended by many people. Therefore, they are likely to be more complete and/or more accurate than anything you could come up with on your own in a reasonable amount of time.
However, if you have a compelling reason why these are not suitable for the particular bit of research you want to do, by all means write your own simulator; but you should be able to justify this in your paper.
For some objective numbers, I refer you to this survey of papers published in MobiHoc from 2000-2005. 80 of the 114 papers that used simulations stated what simulator they used. From those, 22/80 said they used "self-developed or custom simulators" (27.3%).


text:
Some bad grades but many (good) publications; applying for a PhD
I'm considering to apply for a PhD. My situation is roughly this:

GPA in my BSc is about 2/4.
GPA in my MSc will be about 3.6/4

I have two peer-reviewed conference papers with proceedings and two peer-reviewed journal publications. I'm a first author in two of them. I could probably have two good recommendation letters. Third would be related to teaching, not research.
Would I have any chance to get admitted to top universities? I feel that the BSc GPA is a problem. And I'm now in a small university no one has never heard of. On the other hand, my MSc grades are good, and as different from my BSc grades as "night and day." Will schools likely give more weight to my MSc or BSc grades?

What is your area?

It may also be a duplicate of http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/3499/how-essential-is-your-gpa-for-admissions-to-phd-programs-to-us-universities-in-t and http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/8380/importance-of-gpa-and-gre-scores-for-grad-school-admissions

Give that he mentions peer-reviewed conferences, I assume @thinking is a computer scientist.  But what kind of computer scientist?  Are the papers at conferences and journals everyone (in CS) has heard of?

@StrongBad: IMHO, this is NOT a duplicate because of slight wrinkle. Here (and not in the other case), the OP has MUCH better grades in the Master's Program, than in the Bachelor's program. I would like to base an answer on the "progression" rather than the "blended" average, and was wondering if the question can be re-opened.

@TomAu it doesn't seem different enough to me to reopen, you could raise it on chat/meta to see if you can get some support to reopen it.

@StrongBad: I tried to improve the question by stating my main point, that the MSc grades were in a "different world" than the BSc grades. There are several other questions along the lines of "can an EARLY bad grade be overcome by my RECENT record?" That's different from the other question, "My transcripts suck. There's no way to dress it up."

I think you need to retitle the question: asking if a great master's degree performance makes up for the poor bachelor's performance is a different question than what was asked here.

@aeismail: I would say that my version was "more explicit/emphatic," rather than different. It could probably use further work but I'm uncomfortable doing more, for fear of ruining the fabric of the original question. Would you or someone else like to take a try?