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Should I use only SI units of measurements in review papers?
I am writing a review paper and I came across a literature in which measurement of force is given in pounds and likewise for other quantities. In all the other papers, only the SI system of units is followed. Should I use the units used by the author or should I convert the measurement values to SI units?

I would convert the measures to SI units. But details could be domain specific

Would the answer change for different countries, or even different faculties ?

If you do convert the measures to SI units, please indicate such in the paper. If you're converting someone else's data (i.e., from another paper), please also include a note that you've converted their data, and include a relevant citation as to where the original data (in non-SI units) can be accessed.

To expound on @tonysdg 's comment, converting units involves multiplication by a conversion factor, generally followed by a rounding. You should make a note (a footnote would probably be the best place) discussing what the original units were and what you're taking the number of significant digits to be, and thus what sort of rounding you're doing.

Yes, please always use SI units. Here in Norway unfortunately calorie is still commonly used for food energy measurement, while our Danish neighbours have sensibly switched to most commonly use kilojoules. Please contribute to making the world a better place by using SI units. If you must use non-standard units to better target some audience, always also present the corresponding SI value.

To avoid confusion and to ensure the comparability of the results, you should use uniform and consistent units throughout the paper. You can write a note explaining that in the original paper the authors used pounds, furlong per fortnight etc.
And of course, yes, use the SI units. Nowadays all non-SI units are defined in terms of SI units. However, don't trust random sources for the conversion factors: an up-to-date and recommended source for conversion factors is the NIST Guide to the SI, Appendix B: Conversion Factors.

And not specifically that if not using S.I. units, the units may be ambiguous, e.g. the term "gallon" can refer to the ~3.8-litre US gallon or the ~4.3-litre Imperial gallon.

There are plenty of fields which use non-SI units, often for good reasons.  For example, Astronomy generally uses CGS.  A good rule of thumb is to use the most customary units in your field, which is not always SI even within the natural sciences.

@JimMacKenzie  closer to 4.5l/imp.gal  . and Fahrenheit is so nonlinear (x-32)*5/9 that no American Scientist should be using it.

@TonyStewartEEsince1975 This is linear.

Sorry far from it. if Thermal resistance is in 'K/W Fahrenheit does not work but 'C does. This is due to ratio with 32' offset

@BartoszKP: it is an affine map, not a linear one (due to the offset).

@TonyStewartEEsince1975 and BartoszKP: Celsius and Fahrenheit temperatures (note that they are two different physical quantities, not two units for the same quantity, see https://physics.stackexchange.com/a/320193/111969) are both related to the thermodynamic temperature through an affine map. In this sense, the Fahrenheit temperature is no worse than the Celsius one, but the latter has the advantage that the magnitude of the degree Celsius equals the magnitude of the kelvin.

@TonyStewartEEsince1975 You're right, sorry. Although wouldn't say it's "far" ;)

@MassimoOrtolano an Affine Map is true yet a nuicance to me as an Engineer, when that imposes a "gain and offset error" to matters of convenince with SI standard, physical properties of semiconductors and many other reactions.  Whether the US is not sync with the ROTW is a separate issue from your truism. What matters to me is a harmonious simple linear method in matters of engineering calculations.    Of course programmers can say the same as we ought to be counting by 2's

I echo Massimo Ortolano's answer that the most important thing is to be consistent: if you normally use SI units in your article, then you should definitely convert the units from articles that use other systems to the same system as the rest of your article.
However, although this wasn't your actual question, you should not assume that you must always use SI units by default. Although that is indeed the almost universal standard for scientific journals, it is not necessarily the case for non-scientific disciplines (and you didn't specify which discipline you are talking about). In particular, some American journals (probably even some scientific ones) seem to permit non-SI units (for example, the published article you found with non-SI units, though that might possibly be an older article). So, the question of which units to use actually depends on the standards of the specific journal in which you are publishing. You should consult the guide for authors or ask the editor if you have any doubt on this point.

I'd venture a guess that many journals permit non-SI units. For example, in my field it's very standard to use non-SI units for some quantities, and I've never known any of the popular journals in the field to have a problem with that.

@DavidZ Many journals actually require the authors to use SI units.Some traditional, field-related, non-SI units are usually tolerated though. How strictly certain requirements are enforced depends also on the reviewers. We once used "ppm" (I know it's deprecated but it's quite common in everyday discussions) in a paper and the reviewer required us to remove it.

@Abigail Good point; I've revised my answer accordingly.


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Copyright issue for uploading books to Mendeley
I wonder whether importing a pdf file of a book that I downloaded in my Mendeley library is illegal or not.
Any advice?

With whom are you sharing the book on Mendeley? Did you buy the book or download it via you library or some ither source?

I don't understand your distinction between "importing" and "downloading". Can you clarify the question a bit? Moreover, the question itself says "uploading". I'm a bit confused.

I understand like this: They downloaded a book somewhere and now imports it into their Mendeley library.

@FuzzyLeapfrog, would that make it public? Is it a form of "publishing"? Or would it just make it more usable to the one who does it - the library "owner"?

@Buffy That's exactly what I'm asking in my first commend. Mendeley allows all of it, afaik.

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Should I ask my professor giving a lecture to switch languages?
I am an international student in a German university. I have participated in an online seminar (in English),in which lecture notes are given. There are lectures in my university discussing the notes and related stuff, I want to join it but it is conducted in German. I basically don't understand what the professor talks about. The course is not mandatory, but the course description said it is in German. Should I ask the professor giving his talk in English?
I have participated in the first lecture (but I was late) and said nothing about the language problem and I skipped the second lecture. Am I in the right position to ask for switching languages?

Does the course description or program rules specify the default language? For example, in my case, undergrad was taught in the local language, grad courses in English (in case non-speakers were present)

However I notice there are courses state in the description is in German but using English when teaching for my university

So the actual seminar is conducted in English and the discussions are conducted in German?

Just ask. Many profs (not all) are willing to switch to English if nobody objects.

@GoodDeeds Yes, the seminar are in English.  There are actually an English discussion forum online. However the discussion session I mentioned in the post is the session hosted by our university itself.

You can ask, of course. But if the description states that it is in German, then you probably won't see a change. There may be others in the course depending on it being in German, of course.
But giving the professor a heads up that you are having a lot of trouble following because of language issues might possibly result in some accommodation.

What kind of accommodation might be possible, given that the course was officially meant to be in German?

That a course is stated by the course description to be in German might or might not meaningful. In my university, courses were seemingly random given (by the course description) in the local language or English - in reality, often profs would switch to English if people did not speak the local language (even if announced in the local language) or just say "I don't feel like teaching in English, the people who only speak English should just look for an English textbook and read that" even if the course was announced to be in English.

@GoodDeeds For example, the professor may have a copy of material translated to English, which they can share with the student. Or they can run their source file with lecture notes through an auto translate tool, and share the result (as pdf) with the student.

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Publication error with ScholarOne?
I am trying to publish a publication in the web site of a journal, and when I put my .tex file (also .png files) the website gives an error and says "File will not display in proof". I think it is treated by ScholarOne.
Do you have any solution for that or may I have to contact ScholarOne?

This happens with source files. For the .tex file that is OK: in fact, the .tex file should not appear in the proof. For the pictures, it probably means that ScholarOne doesn't process .png files: convert them to a supported file format, e.g. .pdf or .tiff.
In my experience, the above is usually enough to make the proof work, and if it's OK, submit, even if you still get that message for the .tex file.

i didn't understand what do you mean by "the .tex file should not appear in the proof. " ?

@BriganosBriganos The proof is what the reviewers will receive to read; typically, the compiled manuscript with added line numbers: the listing of the .tex file is not shown, so it doesn't appear in the proof.

i changed .png to Pdf and it it gives again this error (Unable to find any suitable files to generate the proof) !! do you have any idea ? thanks

@BriganosBriganos But have you uploaded also your compiled pdf?

yes i compiled my Latex files, and put them together in a .zip file and uploaded!

@BriganosBriganos Upload the compiled pdf separately and ad type of file select the option "Complete manuscript for review".

NICE!!  it works, thank you very much.


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Are racist/xenophobic opinions sufficient to revoke tenure?
Think of a tenured (in the US!) professor who asserts something like "Jews are nepotistic" or "Shoot all Muslims and let Allah sort them out" (the latter statement is a real example although better described as xenophobic rather than racist). Assuming that such a professor grades fairly and shows no behaviour in line with those assertions (e.g. attacking Jews or Muslims on the street), are these statements grounds enough for revoking tenure? And does it make a difference if he expresses these opinions

in scholarly literature
in class
on his own social media account
in a magazine
on the social media account of someone else, perhaps even a /one of his own students.

My understanding is that such opinions are covered by the free speech laws in the US and only in cases where these statements can be reasonably construed as targeted harassment (and happen repeatedly) tenure can be revoked.
I ask because I had an argument with someone that got out of hand because I think that opinions that can be reasonably construed as racist are no grounds for termination.

How can such an argument get out of hand? It is just an empirical question. Just look up the relevant laws and jurisprudence. I can see such an argument get out of hand if you misunderstood one another, i.e. one thinking the question is should such a person loose tenure and the other can such a person loose tenure.

Some relevant case law here. see for example Sheldon v. Dhillon. Also relevant: AAUP overview

@ssquidd Thanks, I hope that some answers take these differences into account!

This question currently seems to be either opinion based or ambiguous.  It might be possible to edit it to not be opinion-based.

Within the last few days, a tenured professor at an engineering school in New York state was terminated amidst complaints about his social media posts.  We don't know the details of his case, exactly how the institution reached its decision, what the AAUP might have to say about this, or what might happen in a lawsuit for wrongful termination.  The specific details of the case matter a lot, and this Stack Exchange group is no place to discuss this or similar cases.

There are four common reasons for tenured professors to be fired:

Incompetence. Used here in the more general sense of the word, it means that if the tenured professor is no longer able to carry out his or her duties - for example if he or she becomes vegetative after an accident - then they can be fired.
Negligence. If the professor is able to do the work, but does not do it, then it could qualify as negligence. For example if the professor decides to go on vacation during semester, thereby leaving the students without instruction, he/she could be fired.
Immoral conduct. If the professor sexually harasses a student, commits a (serious) crime like robbery, or violates academic norms (e.g. plagiarism), he/she could be fired.
Financial exigency. If the university runs out of money for whatever reason, it can fire professors.

Holding unpopular opinions don't come under any of these four reasons. The most one could argue is that it's immoral, but that would be hard to defend since not everyone agrees that racist/xenophobic behavior is wrong. After all it was pretty common to have racist/xenophobic behavior in the past or even today.
But: it has happened in the past. Professor Edward Ross of Stanford University was effectively fired by Jane Stanford, one of Stanford's founders, back in 1900. Ross expressed some violently racist opinions of Asians. His firing was controversial, and he was defended by many academics who viewed the dismissal as arising from political reasons and therefore a violation of academic freedom. You can read more about it in articles like this one. I would venture that if Ross lived today he'd be less likely to be forced out, but it'd be within the realm of possibility, and regardless of whether he's fired or not it would still be controversial.

I would say, it depends a bit on how those opinions are expressed. If the professor spends all of their classes ranting instead of teaching, that could be seen as neglicence. Even worse, if the students aren't graded objectively but according to prejudices, that would certainly be illegal and immoral. Both are however hard to prove to a degree that will hold up in court.

Opinions of that sort are usually (minimally) tolerated, and are unlikely to affect tenure unless the opinions cross over into discriminatory actions. There are a few exceptions, but there are also quite a few "distinguished" scholars who held quite abhorrent opinions. If you are a renowned scholar in your field, you are safer, of course, than otherwise.
And note that this is a US view and is based not just on general tenure principles but on the first amendment to the Constitution which is also considered here as a factor in such things even when it may not apply in a legal sense. Even private colleges, while not bound by the all of the rules that apply to state and federal governments, are generally required to be accredited (so that students can get grants and loans). They are then bound by the rules of the accrediting agencies, which are, themselves informed by the general principles of the Constitution in the US. Again, there are exceptions but not so many. The exceptions tend to stand out, in fact.
But don't expect to be invited to social events or invited to interact with students if your views (well, their views, actually) imply that you hold prejudices that you are unwilling to overcome.
And the antidote to bad speech is more and better speech.
But yes, harassment is an action that can earn you a quick path to the door. So can some more subtle things.
And for tenure decisions of junior faculty, such opinions if expressed are unlikely to win you many votes. But that is pre-tenure.
A friend/colleague of mine was once fired for speaking out against the Vietnam War. The decision was very political and the university was widely condemned throughout academia for the action.
It is also important to note that the fundamental purpose of tenure is to permit scholars to hold and express unpopular views. I'll argue that if you can be fired for speech alone, then you may hold tenure in name but you don't hold tenure in fact.

The first amendment to the constitution doesn't apply to the many private institutions of higher learning in the U.S....

@ff524, not in a legal sense, but it does inform opinion in the US. And some private colleges do explicitly discriminate on religious grounds. But a person wouldn't get hired in the first place if they don't accept the parochial view.

Relevant xkcd

@Buffy Thanks. But when does the voicing of an opinion become harassment? Posting on someones facebook wall? Tweeting about it whilst having a massive following?

Those are, perhaps, judgement calls that could be harassment or not. DOXing someone is clearly harassment. Threats, intimidation, etc. And someone accused of a tenure violation has a process by which it can be handled. So, independent views can come in to play.


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Does one page LOR hurt my chance of getting to graduate school
I recently asked from the professor whom I have done research with him and I also did great in his class for LOR. He agreed to write a positive letter of recommendation for me however when I talked to him further he said his letter is going to be one page double spaced. I am thinking this is really short letter according to some pages in the internet and also a post in this page
How long should letters of recommendation for students be?
Do you think this will hurt my chance of getting into top graduate school in US?

Note that my answer to the linked question was about letters of recommendation for graduating Ph.D. students, rather than applicants to grad school.  Letters for grad school applicants are usually shorter, since there's less to say.  One page double spaced is still on the short side, but it won't be a disaster (especially if your letters aren't all that length).

How long letter to graduate school is on average?

My letters of recommendation for graduate school are typically one to two pages long, so this doesn't seem unreasonable to me.  For an undergraduate student there typically isn't much to say about the student's research experience (other than perhaps that the student participated in an REU program), so these letters tend to be more about what courses the student has taken and how the student compares to his/her classmates.

Thanks. When you say one or two pages do you mean  double-space or single space?

One page double-space sounds like your professor is willing to say good things, but doesn't have all that much to say.  That's not going to be a particularly strong letter of recommendation, but it's better than not having a letter.

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Is my plan for sticking with my incompetent advisor reasonable?
There have been previous questions related to mine; for instance, this one:
Losing faith in my PhD advisor?
I believe this new question is worth asking because of my specific proposal for action.
I am a PhD student in mathematics in the US in my final year. My advisor is not a competent mathematician, and does not really understand even the basics of the field he is supposedly working in. Please understand that I have come to this conclusion slowly and reluctantly; I am well aware that, for instance, people can say "dumb" things in the moment.
Anyway, I've been on my own as far as learning this field and producing some research. I feel like I've just gotten to the point where I know what I need to understand to work in this field, and if I had another year to actually learn it, I could start really doing research. Essentially, I feel like this is where I should have been a few months after working under my advisor, but it's been 2.5 years.
Unfortunately, I feel like it is probably too late to switch advisors or schools. Staying an extra year with this advisor may be an option, but would be difficult financially.
I think I will be able to produce a dissertation and graduate this year. My dissertation will not be a work I am proud of. My idea is that I could get a postdoc and make up for lost time there, really learning my field and establishing a decent research track record.
While this plan is very distasteful to me (of course I am not happy about producing work that embarrasses me), I want to ask about the practical aspects. What are the chances I could actually get a postdoc? My advisor seems to think this is very possible; but other people lead me to believe that as someone with no significant research results and no one with prestige to recommend me, it is unlikely. (I no longer trust my advisor's advice on anything.) Assuming I obtain a postdoc, is it likely I could establish a decent track record of research, given that I will be in some sense two years behind schedule as far as learning this field and establishing myself?

"I think I will be able to produce a dissertation and graduate this year. My dissertation will not be a work I am proud of". No. Just no. Especially, since you want to pursue a career in Academia

Does your advisor's work seem to be respected by others in his field? If yes, then maybe you should reconsider your opinion of his competence. If no, then his letter is not going to get you a postdoc, and your efforts had better be pointed toward doing better work and finding an outside mentor who can praise it convincingly.

@NateEldredge : It took me an unfortunately long time to really make this determination, but no, my advisor's work is not taken seriously by others in his field. I would at least also have letters from people who are taken seriously -- although they are not giants in the field, and it's unclear both how highly they can praise me and how much weight their recommendation would hold.

Do you have a co-supervisor? Have you discussed your concerns with your head of Department/Division/School? With your graduate advisor?

I have talked about this issue with a member of my dissertation committee (but focusing on my situation and not my opinion of my advisor). He assured me that I am still on track to get the kind of position I want. That was reassuring at the time, but I am now very doubtful that this is accurate. As for the other people, I have not spoken to them. They seem distant to me, and it seems like a potentially sensitive issue.

I don't know how feasible it would be, but are there any travel scholarships you could apply for that might allow you to spend time working with someone else (eg one of your reference writers) and also help somewhat with the financial situation? In my experience the chances of getting a post-doc full stop are not as high as you might like when applying, so the chances of doing so with a low-quality thesis won't be good (on average).

What are the chances I could actually get a postdoc?

Of course there's no way to give a definitive answer without far more information, but here are some factors to consider.
First, how bad do you think your thesis would really be?  It's possible to graduate with a thoroughly unimpressive thesis, good enough to qualify for a degree on the basis of hard work but not good enough to satisfy any employer who cares about research.  If that's your situation, then the chances of a worthwhile postdoctoral position are negligible.  On the other hand, perhaps your embarrassment is because you're writing a merely average or even good thesis rather than a truly noteworthy one.  If that's the case, then you might be fine.  Perhaps the truth is somewhere in between these extremes, but we can't know where based on your question.
Have you had any feedback from third parties?  For example, have you spoken to other mathematicians at conferences?  What about visitors to your university or collaborators of your advisor's?  If other mathematicians have heard of you and expressed seemingly genuine interest in your work, then that's a plus.  If you've never interacted with anyone but your advisor, then you're in a much worse position to look for a postdoc.
What about letters of recommendation?  You'll need several from people other than your advisor who can address your research accomplishments.  Do you have letter writers in mind?  If you can't think of anyone, then that's a major obstacle.  If you can, then have you sounded them out on whether graduating is a good idea?  If they are unenthusiastic about the idea, then you aren't likely to get compelling letters from them (and without such letters you won't get a decent job).  If they are as enthusiastic as your advisor, then you should feel reassured.
Does your advisor have a track record of helping students get jobs?  If so, then that's an excellent sign.  If he has a track record of failing to help students get jobs, then that's a terrible sign.  If he doesn't have a track record at all, then that's worrisome, and his views on the job market might not be well informed.

Assuming I obtain a postdoc, is it likely I could establish a decent track record of research, given that I will be in some sense two years behind schedule as far as learning this field and establishing myself?

If you can get a three-year postdoc, you'll be able to accomplish a lot in that period.  You may not have time to achieve your full potential before going on the job market again, but you'll be in a much better position than you are now.  If you get this chance, then it's worth taking it.
Incidentally, I don't think it's fruitful to count how many years you are behind schedule.  There really aren't schedules or mileposts for research, and different people's research programs and abilities often develop in incomparable ways.  Some mathematicians do their best work much later than others, for reasons that are not always apparent.

Staying an extra year with this advisor may be an option, but would be difficult financially.

Perhaps you could apply for jobs now but fall back on staying another year if your job search is unsuccessful.  That's not ideal, but it might be your best option.  If you really can't afford to stay another year, then your choices are far more constrained.  You either apply for jobs this year or choose another career.

I will address the questions in this helpful answer. My expectation for my thesis is that it will not be entirely without merit, but well towards the unimpressive side. I have worked with a collaborator of my advisor's, and will be receiving a letter of rec from him and one other mathematician (with whom I have had less contact than would be ideal). My advisor has no track record with students. Your advice to apply but stay if necessary is probably best (and may be possible).

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Old transcripts for Grad application
I thought of applying for master's in US universities in 2011 for fall 2012. So, I had taken official transcripts from my college. But, I didn't apply then.
I'm thinking of applying this year for fall 2014. Can I use the old ones? They were signed with 2011 date on.

Are they still sealed? If so, it wouldn't hurt to simply ask the institution where you intend to apply.

In general, a signed, sealed transcript of a completed degree program should always be valid, as there presumably there has not been any changes made to the contents of the transcript since that time.
"Interim" transcripts, of course, would no longer be valid.
One other thing to note—many schools nowadays want the transcript submitted directly by the university; in such cases, it is unlikely that they would accept a transcript mailed by the student along with the application (if they even accept mailed applications!).


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Reference for scientific writing for an international journal in the micro-biology/micro-organism field
Could someone do me a favor for any guidance (link) for writing an article that is supposed to be submitted to an international journal in micro-biology/micro-organism field?
Could you please lead me to another source instead of this site?

Hi des, and welcome to Academia Stack Exchange! We already have some good resources for writing papers: How to write an academic paper for the first time? Are you asking about advice specific to micro-biology/micro-organism?


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Research paper about an enhancement to algorithm
A question that has been bothering me for so long about research work is, what level of work can be called research and is worthy of publishing in a research paper?
Let's say I am working with JPEG compression, if I make some may be a little enhancement in the algorithm for the compression, can it be given the title of research.
So my question is:
If I make a little enhancement or added a little new stuff to an already existing work, can it be called a research and can I write a research paper for it?

The question I would ask is: "Are there people working in this area who would learn something interesting and useful from what you've done?"  If the answer is yes then your paper makes a contribution and so is potentially publishable. At that point you could consider some secondary questions, e.g.:

Length of the paper: this should be commensurate with the extent of the contribution (i.e., how much someone would learn) -- a small contribution merits a short paper.
Venue of publication: some place (conference, journal, forum) typically accessed by the people who would learn the most from your paper.  For example, a theory journal would not be the right place for systems-oriented paper about the guts of a compiler.

I would definitely say yes, if you researched your field thoroughly and found a solution to a problem, why not? But just to make sure: I would discuss my ideas with a supervisor, or colleague first.
A lot of people made improvements on existing algorithms and wrote about it. I have read a few papers about compiling mpeg on the GPU using OpenCL.
Check out Erich Marths Paper: "Parallelization of the x264 encoder using OpenCL" at ACM he did improve some aspects, but interesting is rather what was researched. We tried his code and approach years in 2012 to find: CPUs had outgrown the improvement already and the approach could not be followed any more without significant work put into it.
Just make sure your research effort becomes clear. If in doubt, hand the draft to a "mentor" or colleague to judge the degree of research effort.

Actually, you are not necessarily required to show any improvement in performance.
What journals typically require of a publication is for the results to be novel, sound and withing the scope of the journal's area. More prestigious journals also judge how interesting your results are to their readership. However, some journals will accept any work as long as it is novel and technically sound (e.g. PLoS ONE).
As an example, if you find an algorithm that has performance that is similar to current state-of-the-art algorithms but gives some new insight about the structure of the problem it could be interesting enough for publication.


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Is there a quick way to search for a given researcher's past collaborators/co-authors?
Is there a website or software for one to search for all the past co-authors/collaborators of a given researcher?
I can of course go through the researcher's publication and get the names one by one, but just wonder if there is a shortcut way of doing this.

Most bibliographic systems include this, for example, Google Scholar has a co-authors network, as well as Microsoft Academic Search.

For researchers in computer science, another approach is to use DBLP, which is free. For example, this is the coauthor list for me on my DBLP page. It is reached by going to the researcher page at DBLP, and then clicking the little 'people' icon on the right hand side.

Not working for me

Yes, you can do this with many scientific indexing service.  Personally, I like Scopus.  It is subscription-based, though.
First, find the author page.  I find this easiest by searching for the title of any publications by the said author, because most names are far from unique.

Here, you can click on co-authors.  This will give you a list.  For example, I currently have 31 co-authors, here sorted by number of publications:

Note that this doesn't state how many documents in particular I have in common with this co-author.  To get that, click instead on Documents, then, under Author Name, on More:

You can get similar information through the Author Evaluator → co-authors.
Needless to say, 100% of my publications have myself as an author ;)

Web of Science has the same feature

Both Scopus and Web of Science are commercial systems. By default, you assume that the OP has an appropriate academic access to these, but this may not be so. Sometimes, coverage between the systems may differ. Scopus, an Elsevier product, would be adamant in promoting Elsevier titles, but not so much Wiley or Springer titles that it may be parsing for co-authors with a lesser accuracy.

Google scholar tries to do this, but it looks as though the author needs to have a profile, and so do the co-authors, and either both authors need to have added the publication to their record, or one author needs to have added the others (in addition to them being named on the paper's author list).
ResearcherID can apparently do the same, again, if the author has a profile, but the search doesn't appear to work (I can't even find myself without the ResearcherID), and it can only cross-populate the author list from papers which the author has added using web of science.
So if your target person has a google scholar profile that they maintain nicely, and that's common in the field, you might do quite well.
Otherwise, can you automate scraping their publications page?

The scholar package in R can get a list of co-authors; I gave an example in my answer to a related question https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/163709/258

Where does scholar allow that?

@borgr scholar.google.com, go to the author's profile, Co-authors are listed on the right, click "view all".  But as I said in the answer, it only works for those with the common articles in their profiles, so not many of mine show up

It is widely assumed that Web of Science is the most comprehensive citation index. It is also true that it is not the most intuitive web interface available, but it is very powerful.
As an example, you can create criteria such as counting the number of citations for an author excluding past co-authors. This one is great to measure impact outside one's own circle of acquaintances.
I would have included a link to the search page, but unfortunately I don't have institutional subscription for that service anymore.


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When to start seeking PhD positions?
I'm about one year from receiving my master's degree. I have published a few papers, so I'm confident that I want to do research. I have been offered two different PhD positions at my current university, but I might not want to stay here. The reason for not taking the first position is that I don't like the advisor too much, and for the second position that they lack funding/other resources.
I recognize the early(?) offers are due to my hard work. If I would like to apply to somewhere else, when should I start contacting potential supervisors?
Also I need some strategy to get out nicely... it will be difficult to stay under the radar

Short answer: You haven't been looking already?

It is never too early to look around for PhD positions. Start out by looking at what is advertised to see what is available and where. If you already know of places to go then get in touch with the department/research group to present yourself. Having a few papers under your belt will be a plus so provide a CV and the papers in your first contact and add a statement of what you want to do and why you are interested in that place.
Being focussed and showing you have a strong urge to continue is likely to impress.
I can understand it is difficult to say no to two offers and move away but remember that you are free to move. Saying no to a position without funding should not weigh you down. The other position is a little more sensitive of course. But, people move for many reasons, personal and professional. I do not think you need to explain your motives. A change in location is enough. Moving is a positive so there is nothing remarkable about doing so. There is, furthermore, no reason to bring up any negatives about your present location. If your move stirs bad feelings then it is a sign things are not right anyway.

There are two factors:

looking for a university and a research group,
having time for the formal admission process.

I will start for the later, as it is simpler.  It depends on place, but some typical estimates of effective time you need are (at least, for applicants from aboard):

in US ~1.5 year,

applications for Oct in Dec-Jan plus SATs that need to be taken before,

in UK ~1 year,

applications for Oct in Dec-Jan,

in continental Europe ~3 months,

some applications May-Jun, some - on rolling basis.

However, it depends to some degree on particular university or institute (so always check that; and also check prerequisites, e.g. language tests, documents to be collected - some of them need time).
Moreover, it depends also or your national/visa status.
When it comes to searching for a group, it varies. You may find an advisor of your dreams on the first conference you attend (or via a talk at your university, or recommendation of a local professor), or you may spend a year and be far from that. (See also: Methods for finding graduate programs for specific areas of research.) The time you need depends on:

popularity of your target field,
how well are you networked in the target field,
how popular is your current universities for that field (are professors well networked? are there many talks of invited guests?),
how many conferences/schools/workshops you attend and how good are you at networking.


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Can I publish a sum up paper?
Are there papers that sum up ideas and results from other papers? What are their characteristics/form? Do they provide insights on the field or try to predict the future?
I have read some papers for a class homework and I would like to know whether I should try to summarize and publish it somewhere.

The sum up papers you are referring to are called review articles. In order to write one, you should know the research area in question very well.
Note that there are also systematic reviews and reviews of reviews (tertiary reviews).

Also called survey articles.

I second blabla's answer, short and too the point, with adequate amount of emphasis on very well :)
I'll expand it a bit by saying that journals are not typically interested in review papers that merely summarize other papers in the field. It is not simply a report on the papers you read: this has some value for your studies, but it is not a valuable publication in academic research.
The value of a review paper is to provide perspective, giving the author's deep insight into each of the papers and the way they articulate together, his ideas of the directions in that particular subfield, a critical overview of the recent advances and deadlocks still to overcome.

However, while your summary paper (or bibliography report) is probably not publishable in respectable peer-reviewed journals, it doesn't mean you cannot publish it (in the sense of “making it public”). If you are careful about how you title it (not “review paper”), you could upload it to your webpage or to arXiv.org, so that it is useful for other students discovering this field…

Emphasising very well again - you're very unlikely to get a review paper published (in a journal) as a student. These papers are usually authored by the seasoned experts - we mean no slight on your abilities. I certainly would still encourage you to read widely and summarize the findings yourself. Doing so is an excellent learning experience.

Survey articles can be published "through the usual channels".

This is one of those questions that depend on the area.
In some cases you can do a summary or a review, e.g. a survey paper or a review paper. These papers are very useful because they provide an overview of the state of the art in some area, (if they are well written) they are good for citing and for anyone who is not yet an expert and is interested in the area (new grad students, interdisciplinary people that can benefit from an overview, etc.)
Sometimes you may prefer to do some evaluation, benchmarking or comparison, this is usual in computer science and I guess it's normal in engineering and other sciences (robustness tests, stress tests, statistical significance and that kind of things). So this takes more than listing papers, it takes executing/testing things, maybe on new settings, obtaining new results and publishing these results. The difference with research papers is that you don't develop a new system/theory, you only test them on a new (better) setting.
Finally, some people (but probably not you) can write a position paper, where they make educated guesses about how the future will or should be, the directions of research, etc. This is usually done when you are an expert and your opinion matters. Usually nobody cares about the opinion of grad students. Personally I don't care about opinions in general, but these papers are interesting because they influence decision makers and investment in research, they are self-fulfilled prophecies to some extent.
There may be other possibilities that I cannot think of now.


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How marketable is a BS in Economics for different Masters degrees?
I'm currently an undergraduate Economics student with minors in both business and mathematics. As I look towards my future, I'm trying to see what options I have and ultimately make the best decision.
Anyways, I am hoping to find out more about graduate school and the different masters degrees I could obtain. Is it fairly common for students with my academic background to get into a quality masters in finance program? Obviously I could go for economics, I was just wondering what different options I have available.

Depends on the program. Fairly uncommon to get into something like say MS Chemistry, Medicine, MS Computer Science, MS Math, MS Stat, MS Physics (though for the last four, the converse is fairly common, I think). Fairly common to get into something like MS Finance, MA Economics, MBA. If you're going to go into something more rigorous (ie fairly uncommon examples), you better be able to demonstrate your ability and passion to tackle at the very least your math and statistics classes as well as your ability to do research ahem thesis ahem but then there's also those small research projects

As a general rule, your exact undergrad major is less important than having strong letters of recommendation, high GRE scores, a high GPA, etc. Of course, an admissions committee will want to see that you've taken some relevant coursework and that you've done well in it. See the web site for the programs to which you intend to apply: most will spell out both the minimum preparation they expect and additional coursework they would like to see. (For example, an economics program might require that you have taken intermediate level micro and macro, calculus, and statistics.) If you are a strong candidate in other respects, you may even be able to make an argument for admission despite some missing prerequisites.
I'd suggest that you might want to focus on what you hope to do with a graduate degree and then work backward to which degree to pursue, rather than casting about for a degree to pursue. Unless the subject is wildly-unrelated to your course of study so far, you can probably add coursework to make yourself a good candidate for the degree you need.

As Szarka stated, your coursework and experience is generally more important than your specific degree. That said, the type of coursework that is generally taken towards an economics degree is very relevant and good preparation for further degrees (incomplete list) in finance, business, public policy, public health, and, obviously, economics. Statistics and Computer Science are somewhat common as well assuming that you have taken some relevant courses.

I think people from Math, Stat, Physics or CS often go into economics/finance, but is the converse just as often?


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Right time to start applying for PhD - Germany
I am a computer science student and am currently doing my Master Thesis in Germany. I am in the second month of the six month duration for the Master Thesis. I wish to pursue a PhD after Masters and I was wondering when the right time is to start applying for PhD positions. I found a few positions that start in September 2015 but I would be done with the Masters only at the end of November. Is it alright to start applying for a position from now itself or should I wait for a few months?

Where do you apply in Germany? Graduate School or PhD Researcher position (Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter)?I don't think your application will be successful for the former before you have graduated. In the latter case, it may depend on whether you know the prof. If they know you and believe you are a good fit for the position, then they might keep the position vacant for two or three months.

Also, don't you want to take a couple of weeks off after graduation? ;)

I intend to apply at universities such as TUM, RWTH Aachen or at institutes such as MPI, DLR etc. There are a few openings at these places that start in October which are interesting and on the similar lines of my Master Thesis and I am worried that I am missing out on such positions. What is the usual time (in advance) when one applies to universities or institutes. Do all the potential candidates apply only after graduating? @henning

I can't give a definitive answer for computer science (political scientist here), but every call for application that I know requires that the applicant has graduated. Only for postdoc positions, being close to graduation (i.e. dissertation is written but not yet defended/published) is sometimes enough. If you don't already have suction with your future boss, I am sure your chances are slim. The first things they will be looking for are your master certificate and letters of recommendation (LoR). You probably can't get a good LoR from your advisor before she has read you thesis.

I'd recommend that you start applying a few months before you graduate. The process may easily take several months, and if you want a direct transition, you need to find something before you actually graduate.
In most cases, it will be possible to delay the start of a position by a few months. So by all means, if you find an interesting position that starts a bit before you expect to graduate, you should still apply. Just state the date of you expected graduation (month/year is fine) with your application.
Note that many potential employers, especially if they don't know you from earlier activities, will want to see results of academic work such as a Masters thesis (or at least a draft for it) or other academic texts. If you can't show anything in that direction, it would be good to first focus on positions where you know the professor.


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Why do academics frequently write very short email replies?
Why do many academics write short replies to emails?
For example, I write Professor MK some polite email with salutation, etc., just polite and decent email.  MK then responds like this:

OK, MK

Is MK so busy that they have no time to write, for example, this:

Hello,
It is fine. This is the correct approach.
Best regards,MK

I do not understand this.

Obligatory PHD comic: http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1047

I remember how as a young student I wrote a long e-mail to a professor I was working with describing possible approaches to a problem, and asking at the end of the mail if any of these sound reasonable. He responded with a single word: "Indeed". Still makes me smile.

Moral of the story:  don't (as I used to) spend hours agonising over the phrasing of a short e-mail that will barely be looked at let alone scrutinised.  I wasted lots of time asking myself and others whether one word would 'sound better' than another (likely out of fear that I could have been looked upon slightly more favorably but made the wrong choice) and have gotten no, and in fact probably slightly negative, return on that investment.

Please note that this question has 16 (!) real answers already; additional answers in the comments will be deleted without warning.

"Is MK so busy that they have no time to write, for example, this:"? Yes.

Is hello acceptable, or should it be more formal (with or without academic titles)? This is a matter of (sub-)culture. Once you know what to expect, you can effectively communicate. This style is minimalist, but it tells you everything you need to know.
If this bothers you, think of it this way: MK is not only saving their time, but they are also saving your time. By using this style it minimizes the time you have to spent reading their message.

Actually, if you think about it, MK didn't save any time to PS Glass: on the contrary, he/she has spent time thinking about the email, writing a question here, reading the answers, and commenting on them. Personally when I get such a curt email from a colleague or friend or superior, I spend time thinking about whether the email is just "efficient" or rude. So the shortness doesn't save me any time at all.

If you don't share the same culture with the person with whom you are comunicating, then communication will be harder. This was the first part of my answer. The second part was offered, so PS Glass could view this from a positive angle. It is hard to change culture, seeing the positive side of it is probably a more realistic way of coping with the situation.

Why write MK under every email? My professor had his signature set to "Best, Joe". Now, that saves time.

Beyond a certain point in their careers, academics (in particular tenured professors) are essentially a subspecies of managers.
And managers literally receive hundreds of emails per day. Some of these indeed require a more formal response, or a lot of work before you can even compose an answer. If you get 20 emails that each require half an hour of work, 50 more that only require a yes/no answer, and another 100 that are just FYI, you don't spend a lot of time on crafting replies to the yes/no mails... because the first category alone already is more than you can handle in a normal day, given all your other responsibilities.

-1 from me for "essentially a subspecies of managers". I agree with the rest of the answer, anyway...

"subspecies of managers" is sad but accurate as far as I can tell.

@Dirk: care to elaborate? I did not mean this in a derogatory way, and I don't necessarily find it sad as per Thomas S. There comes a time in many people's lives when they can have a bigger impact not by standing in labs, watching mice, analyzing blood samples, or writing code, but by supervising and managing juniors to do these tasks. I personally know professors who consciously decided against the managerial approach, and it appears they are happier that way (I couldn't imagine them in a managerial role, anyway), but I also see professors that indeed went the managerial route. ...

... And the second kind definitely has the larger impact, whether you count this as papers coauthored, concepts introduced, Ph.D. students supervised, or overall direction in their research field. I can't help feeling that someone who does not go the managerial route that allows him to multiply his contributions and experience allows at least some of his potentialities to go to waste.

The sentence "Beyond a certain point in their careers, academics (in particular tenured professors) are essentially a subspecies of managers." is just misleading. It seems to be a commonly believed misconception and this site should not perpetuate this. Along all the colleagues I know only a few come close to being member of "a subspecies of managers". I would totally agree with "some academics turn more and more to management" but still "management" is not really the point here. It's probably just that many academics tend to be efficient.

Isn't "watching mice" why $deity invented graduate students? :)

@Dirk, This may depend on the field. I can only think of a handful of biology professors who still do benchwork--it's just too time-consuming. Instead, they spend their time training students, technicians, and postdocs to do the work, going over data with the trainees and using it to plan future experiments, and writing the grants/papers needed to support/report those experiments. Those duties are all managerial (even if they're not deans, provosts, etc).
On the other hand, many CS or math profs do spend non-trivial amounts of time coding or doing math and some have their "own" projects.

My experience as a professor is exactly the opposite. I write full emails, and most often students' replies have no heading, nor greeting, nor signature.

Ok, thank you for you answer. I am really surprised, because everytime when I was writing some email to professor, I also wrote a polite email with heading, greeting etc. I think that this is polite and it expresses some kind of  my respect to this person.

Completely agree, I also receive quite a bit of emails from various staff, students and clients and I always include a greeting (Hi so-and-so) and signature (Regards, Joseph). Doesn't take long and, as you mentioned @PSglass, shows politeness and a sign of respect.

@PSglass: there are some students like you who writes properly, and I appreciate that. I just wish it would be more common.

I tend to think of these things as dependent on the personality or even personal preference of the professor/lecturer. I have received many full answers, many short answers (no matter what the question) and many no-answer at all. I wouldn't take offense and would just think that was the way the professor likes to communicate via e-mail and that's it.

TL;DR: I completely understand the need to be efficient, but I think that the optimal (to maximize the average pleasure that can be derived from human interactions) ratio of politeness to efficiency lies way above "OK, MK".
I personally disagree with the view that saving time and being polite/considerate are mutually exclusive or even inversely correlated beyond the most minimal of ratios.
Turning that "OK, MK" reply into "This is the right direction, thanks for the update" takes an extra 2 seconds, not even. While it can be generic in its design, it certainly can still be genuine the same way that even though we say "thank you" a million times a day, it can be meaningful every single time.
Should we stop holding the door for people so as to save a few seconds here and there? To me it's exactly the same argument. People are busy, and yes you do take a few seconds extra to hold the door for someone, but it's a nice gesture and personally I think that small gestures of respect and helpfulness such as those increase the overall quality of life in society.
Actually I strongly believe (no research unfortunately, for those who believe that nothing can be stated just from observation without properly methodologized research), a lot can be said about a society based on the manners of its participants. Just think about how you feel around poorly mannered people and children in particular.

I think this depends on context. In my department we often fire emails back and forth at each other that ask about clarifications, requests for data, confirming meeting times and so forth. It's considered polite to make a quick response because we write so many of these each day. If it's about a social event, a journal club, or anything else where we are conveying more than just quick snippits of info we will generally include much more content. Everyone is happy with this so I don't see the problem.

I agree with what you're saying and actually upvoted your comment. However from the description in the OP, I think the context is very different from the one you describe. The difference to me is that in your example, everyone is on the same page as far as mode of communication and expectations and there's an implicit agreement that all are happy with the arrangement, whereas in the OP's example there's a significant asymmetry in all of those regards.

I don't think the OP really gives enough context. However, I can definitely see that being a reply I might give to one of my students as TA. When 40 students don't read a handout or syllabus and I have to answer the same question 40 times, I tend to leave out any formalities and just answer the question. This seems like a social culture clash to me - OP suggests they are used to a different standard.  I do agree that everyone should agree upon the rules but this is sadly not always possible. I usually just accept that fact and move on. I wouldn't necessarily find it rude.

While I mostly agree with you, I have a comment on your door example. If your job implies to go through 300 thousands doors a day, maybe you won't hold each of those door.

An extra 7 words in 2 seconds implies a typing speed of 210wpm, which is around world-record standard. Which is not to say that your main argument is necessarily wrong in substance, but you are dismissing the facts that don't support it :-) To me the main issue is that, while we don't want to offend people, the contortions we perform to avoid doing that are essentially arbitrary and established solely by convention. It's open as to whether saying "thank you" many times a day really is polite, or whether it's rude of you not to express more specific and detailed gratitude each time.

So ultimately, saying "thank you", or writing out salutations and valedictions in emails, isn't inherently polite. It's polite if it makes the other person feel better about the interaction, and it's rude to make people feel bad about the interaction by omitting such things. Conversely, feeling bad about interactions in which the other person doesn't say "thank you", or doesn't offer you a cup of tea, places a burden on others if they wish to remain polite. There's a form of aggressively demanding politeness that I consider about the rudest thing there is.

As someone who has a lot of emails to respond to, my approach is the following:
On first contact for a particular conversation thread, I tend to be complete, with "Dear/Hello xxx", and proper conclusion salutations. Further extensions of the conversations then I pick shorter responses, as the "contact" has been established. Sometimes a conversation can extend over a period of days, even in this case, I use the short form as a continuation.
The reason is the following: the cost of writing the email is not the net time required to type in the words. It's context switching. The polite forms of communication are polite exactly for the reason that they invest full attention to the other person. This is ok for a party or a social event, but if you have papers, grants, reviews to handle, lectures to give and 100 emails to respond to, ideally today, attention is a scarce resource. The other side of the politeness coin is respect for the resource constraints of others.
So, when, on the other extreme, I have to write very long, detailed, emails, I prepend them with a 1-2 paragraph summary, so that people can get a (TL;DR) if they do not want to delve into details.

More relevant than other naively-absolutist answers.

E-mail is its own medium, and in some ways is closer to spoken conversation or text-messaging than to letter writing. Many experienced E-mail users dispense with formalisms and basically just write what they woukd say if you asked the question in person. Salutations and valedictions are considered entirely optional. The informality is in no way a sign of disrespect, it's just a different set of social conventions, and I'm afraid the best advice we can give you is to learn to accept it as such. You aren't required to become less formal in your own E-mails, but I suspect that you will, once you get used to it.

You aren't required to become less formal in your own E-mails, but I suspect that you will, once you get used to it. I certainly won't and I have been dealing with this sort of thing for a good few years :)

@joseph: Up to you. Computer science types are notorious for.terseness when it's appropriate, though we'll write In a more formal fashion when more context or exposition is called for. But look at what you've just written -- no salutation or signature on that reply, is there? Like it or not, you've started to adapt.

I have no problem with email, which doesn't contain salutation, etc. I was just curious why, because sometimes I think that my email is very irritating and boring for person, who receives my email. (I guess on the basis of response to my email.)

Not irritating or boring, just not their highest priority at the moment, and not in need of any additional data. Terse, not curt.

@keshlam - Personally, I think emails and writing comments in a forum are slightly different. Especially when a forum like Stack Exchange discourages greetings and signatures. But each to their own.

You should not think of the choice as being "OK, MK" versus "Hello, It is fine. This is the correct approach. Best regards, MK".
You should think of the choice as being "OK, MK" versus WAITING THREE DAYS and then receiving "Hello, It is fine. This is the correct approach. Best regards, MK".
From this perspective, your professor has shown you great respect by doing what is necessary for them to respond to your email promptly.
(I can say from personal experience that I switched this semester to signing my e-mails to students simply "TC" instead of "Best, Tom Church". The result is that I respond ~1.5 days faster on average to e-mails from students. I feel this is clearly worth the tradeoff in politeness.)

Every common e-mail client has an "add signature line" function, if that is really the issue.

@FedericoPoloni The suitable final line depends on who you are talking to. Also, many email programs show signatures as that, so it's clearly not the same thing as actually adding a sign-off.

Functionally, e-mail replaces several different forms of paper communication. The question treats e-mail as a form of letter writing, which is certainly one of the predecessor forms.
I think the very short reply replaces a different form. When we used paper memos, a recipient could indicate agreement by writing "OK" or similar on the memo and initialing it.

Good comparison. Often the "OK" gets scrawled on the sheet of paper it's replying to, or on a scrap clipped to that sheet. Common office practice, or used to be when we were passing more paper notes.

They mean different things. "OK" means you have approval to continue as outlined in your email. "Hello, It is fine. This is the correct approach." means that the other person has specific positive knowledge that (a) there is a known correct approach and (b) what you've described in your email is that.
It would be wrong for someone, in an attempt to add extra words to their email for the sake of polite encouragement, to say something that isn't what they really mean.
At risk of perpetrating a stereotype, academics are more likely than average to be the kind of people, and operate in the kind of environment, where accuracy of expression is valued over diplomatic platitudes and polite but unwarranted praise. Whatever their subject, they're familiar with the notion of precision. But it's not just academics: you'll often find enclaves in professional environments where people customarily do the same thing in email. You'll also find groups who don't communicate this way in email, rather they always write complete sentences. You'll find people who do different things for different audiences. Maybe this academic is one of them, but since they've offended you they have perhaps misjudged what kind of audience you are. But equally you seem to expect everyone to write complete sentences all the time, and that's just not how everyone uses email.
That's not to say academics are always rude, or that it's necessary to be inaccurate in order to be polite: one can always be accurate and also take time to be considerate. But if you consider it impolite or indecent for a reasonably busy person to give a curt but accurate reply, then you're swimming against the tide and you will probably need to consider again :-)

A lot of people prefer small mails with meaning rather than large mails that tells nothing. Some benefits:

You save time, if you reply a lot of email this is a really reason
You skip all the large mails, that is boring and time consuming for others to read.
You get directly to the point.

Small replies is a habit not only for the academic staff but also for the business people.

I think that there is a contradiction between saving time and being polite. It depends on ones nature, what one prefers - saving time vs. being polite.

@PS glass At least for many academics I know that are communicating quickly with others, the definition of "being polite" is equivalent to "doing what saves the most time for those they are writing to" not writing salutations and extraneous details. I even know some who would consider a long email to be rude. So it depends on your definition of "polite" and the kind of information conveyed in the email.

Of course there is some truth in all these answers... Equally, in my opinion, there is the subtext of the relationship between the correspondents, whether it is stable (if not "peer"), or whether it is yet-to-be-established, possibly peer, possibly not.
The slightly-red herring of "efficiency" is interesting, but I think fundamentally an excuse for taking slightly less care than one might, whether with up-status or down-status correspondents. Yes, if one email is among many in a flurry of back-and-forth between familiars, that's wildly different from isolated emails between strangers who have yet to establish a relationship.
The probably more statistically-relevant question could be about students emailing their instructors, and the replies. If the goal is to show respect, then use of an honorific, and investment of an extra 10 seconds to format the email, is an investment with a great return.
About more-senior students and faculty supervisors: same criterion... namely, if your goal should happen to be conveying a token of respect (as opposed to conveying familiarity), a few seconds' effort will be well repaid. (If a particular person really wants to be first-named, give them the chance to tell you that, rather than presuming, or even asking... the principle is always the same.)
If the person you're addressing is older than your parents, maybe as old or older than your grandparents, ... if nothing else you should imagine that they have had a different cultural experience. Not necessarily better or worse, but different. In particular, some decades ago, in the U.S., in my experience, youngish people would never address older people by first names, except in highly ritualized ways/settings. Some older people in fact chose "radical seeming-familiarity" in their interactions with younger people. This slightly confused me at the time, although, on one hand, it seemed sooo egalitarian. On another, as I thought about later, it is only the really, really powerful people who can afford to pretend to not be what they obviously are. Hm.
(FWIW, my 20-something daughter makes a caricature of first-naming me both in person and in email (and in text), but fairly tongue-in-cheek.)
Bottom line: take into account your recipient. They may have expectations (duh!)... which may or may not include courting "familiarity" in language. They may or may not feel that their own status allows them to be curt with you, should they feel the need... sigh...
Another summary: if the primary information in the emails is pseudo-objective, probably people will be less interested in the social information. On the other hand, if there are significant social issues being negotiated by voice, language, tone, form-of-address, etc., then ... well, gosh, yes, voice, language, tone, form-of-address will matter.
Edit: the form of responses to your emails certainly does convey something about the attitude of the responder... however, it depends (apparently!) enormously on the preferences of that person. There are at least four different cases... (1) brusque, brief, and in fact is not interested in you (2) brusque, brief, but may or may not care about you (3) polite, but does not really care about you (4) polite, and may possibly care about further interaction, but it's unclear from this preliminary communication. You cannot begin to understand the nuances of response to a "cold-call" email without knowing the person and their preferences.
TL;DR, context.

It depends a lot on the culture. I think professors (for example) implicitly have the right to short or curt emails regardless. In the United states, I think if you are polite to your teachers (avoid the word professor) , you don't have to worry too much about writing long elaborate emails. For example you can call them by their first name rather than using a title.

Hi John, I was curious if x. Thanks, and then just use your first name in the signature.

Think of emails in the Unites States as "business casual" - well dressed but not ornate.

Leave a darn explanation if you disagree.

It's obviously not a sin to call a teacher by their given name, ... but, still, there is the point of no honorific. If you yourself do indeed call your grandmother and grandfather by their first names, don't you prepend an honorific? (Not to mention tone-of-voice.) And then there's "sensai"!? Or have you had the misfortune to never have had a worthwhile teacher??? My condolences if so.

Like I said, it depends on the cultural context. A lot of teachers just like to be called by their first names.

I do like my own students to feel close to me... indeed... but that is a different thing than "being buddies", and so on. I understand that many people do not care about such things.

I've had professors tell me just to call them by their first names. In a high school I could see why it's inappropriate.

I guess a relevant point might be that it's better to be "too polite" than "insufficiently polite"? Maybe that depends on the ambient culture, though upon reflection "being too polite" has less sever repercussions than its opposite, in most cases?

And, yes, in response to @the_prole's comment, if a senior person does ask you to address them in such-and-such a manner, I guess it'd be smart to do it so. Note that such a request is possibly more subtle than what many might think it. It's not that there's equality of power/status, ... and, then, after we note that, all the interesting questions still remain, and are still less clear... oh, nevermind... (?)

Well actually I extrapolated from the fact I was asked to address this particular professor in this way, that I should address my other professors in the same way, at least insofar as they teach at the same school, and let's keep in mind this a community college in a state where personal address is less formal than usual.

In the age of written letters, email once was meant for short messages, and used by very few people. When I was younger, it was not (always) considered offensive to write something in the "Subject field" only ("back in my office in 5min"). Mail was meant to inform, shortly.
A friend of mine had a PhD advsisor (before 2000) who, when my friend had sent a "too long" mail, answered in 6 letters: "PLSSPK", meaning "please speak": come to my office, explain in spoken language. Mail is not efficient for everything (try humor, 2nd degree without emoticons).
Now, nobody writes letters anymore, mail is widespread, and some use it for control, to keep track. Some use it to avoid direct contact. Good reasons. The problem is people using mail do not have the same standard.
From "PLSSPK" in the subject, to "Good morning, or good evening if you read my mail at your own timezone" followed by tens of lines, there are worlds. It is about habits, responsiveness, context switching, all good reasons.
Nowadays, I have surendered to long emails because most of my colleagues expect me to do that. They would feel offended if I don't. But on occasion, face to face, I suggest we both could write shorter emails, and ask if the other would feel offended. Very often, not.
It's like shaking hands: some don't like to do that, feel obliged to (and it is not healthy, smile). If you ask her/him how they'd like to be salutated, they'd say: "just say hello, or nod". It is a manner of personal trend, and social conventions.
My suggestion: if you cannot see or talk to the person, accept that he/she has answered you, not the way you would have, but in her/his way. And stick to your own way of answering. If you can talk to the person, ask (politely) about these habits, find a common ground. Say something like "You answer quite shortly. I am not used to that (express you feelings, important). Where did this habit come from. Do you mind if I still write long emails, or would you prefer shorter ones?".
People act differently, this does not mean they are SO different.

Lots of good points in the replies, but I think we're collectively overthinking this.
Email culture varies as to length and formality. It varies by country, language, sector (including academia vs industry vs business), and by subgroup/industry. It's pointless to overthink it.
It sounds like Prof. MK feels their 2-word reply says all that needs to be said. It probably did not occur to them that anyone, e.g. you, would feel differently.
As a 2nd order point, Prof. MK probably feels secure enough in their position to not think too much how their email is coming across, while more junior people may anxiously reread and rewrite their emails multiple times to get the tone "just right". It's even possible that Prof. MK might find what you call "polite and decent" emails overlong and fluffy, and might even be trying to telegraph that to you. Impossible to tell.
Don't take it personally. Be happy they're in agreement with your approach. And perhaps take it as a gentle nudge to be briefer in your own emails with them. We're all always adjusting our tone based on what we observe around us.
I spend my time weaving across the line between academia and industry/business. Especially on the business side, "OK, [initials]" is fully acceptable and neutrally polite. As is your alternative, though in that subculture it would be worth a bit of an amused smirk.

Those short emails will happen more frequently if you are in a good relationship with him.
"OK" is good signal. If he find mistakes in your writing, he will point them out in his long email. You don't want such a long email from him, do you?
Short email also happen more in natural science comparing to social science. It happens more in large group than small group. If you are his only advisee, he might spend more time on you. But if he has 30 advisees in all undergrad, master, phd, pos-doc levels and 200 students in the class he is teaching, short email should be appreciated.
Short email will also shorten the "turn-around" time. If you want him to send long email to everyone, you might need to wait for days for that reply. But if you are fine with concise and clear email, then you only need to wait for a few hours.
Also, a lot people is use the email as a real-time chatting platform. In such platform you don't say "hello" and sign your name each time. You just write the same way as you talk.
I like short emails as long as they are clear and rigorous.


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How to title a research paper of a problem which can have two solutions?
I have been working on a problem which, after a research turn out to have two solutions. One of the solutions is realistic while the other is just a proposed and abstract model.
So for example:
The problem P and two solutions S1(more realistic) and S2(abstract idea).
How can I title the paper?

I think this is unanswerable, as we don't have any idea what P or S are. Apart from that, I can only think of "Two solutions for P".

Or you could say "On P"

I voted to have this question remain opened. I think this question is answerable and on-topic for the site.

If it is possible (you have worked on each solution perfectly and each can be published separately), you can publish two papers each include one solution. I mean, you can publish solutions separately if (and only if) each of your solutions are perfectly developed and publishable.
However, if you have derived two separate solutions to a problem, it is not that much difficult to find a title for your paper. Here is one possible title which comes to my mind:

Solution of problem P by means of two separate methods, S1 and S2

But, if you think the second solution is only an abstract and it is not developed enough to be mentioned in the title, you would better not to mention the second abstract idea in the title of your publication.

+1.  A "proposed and abstract model" without supporting evidence would not normally be a publishable result.  The paper will stand or fall based on the realistic solution S1, and that is what should go in the title.  The abstract idea S2 can be discussed later in the paper.


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How PhD classes are different from undergraduate?
PhD program is new in our department, and first experience of the faculty members and department head.
Our PhD classes are exactly like undergraduate classes: monologue lecture, strict attendance rule, no discussion, etc.
We are PhD students, and we have not experienced PhD classes before, but our expectation was something different. When we complain, the department replies this is the standard method around the world.

How can we gather some information/evidence that how is a standard PhD class to convince the department?
How the PhD class are actually different from undergraduate courses?

Don't you have other universities having PhD classes in your country? Could you please tell a little about their successful experiences? At least you may have contact with other PhD students and you may know how their programs are organized. Also, what exactly are your expectations from PhD classes? If it is having no strict attendance rules, then this is not a good reason to complain about your program, in my opinion. Specially having no discussion during your classes is your lecturers' taste of teaching. May other professors have different teaching style. There is no standard teaching style.

Um, it can't really be their first experience because all the faculty went through Ph.D. programs themselves.  You can bet your last nickel they've discussed the approach to the new classes, probably heatedly.

Graduate-level classes are not necessarily any different than undergraduate classes, just more intense and more specialized.  Some graduate-level classes are just exactly the way that you describe.  Others have more of a "seminar" format, in which there is more reading and discussion, and in which students are expected to do part of the teaching---but at many institutions, there are also undergraduate classes like this.
The real heart of a Ph.D. program, however, is not the classes, but the research that students are involved with and should ultimately learn to initiate themselves.  Typically, Ph.D. programs start with a couple of years of intense classes, but then, once students have "qualified" (often by passing an oral or written examination), then classes become largely optional and you are expected to focus on research instead.

Sample of one: My doctoral classes covered parts of the subject in great depth.  The student was expected already to have the breadth of knowledge or to acquire it independently.  There was a reading list to help with the latter.

Students in a PhD program can (and should, and should be encouraged to) give feedback and offer constructive criticism on various aspects of the program.  However it is a different matter for them to try to convince the faculty running the program that it should be run in a significantly different manner than it is.  I don't mean that it is not their place to do so, but rather: if as a group the students in a PhD program feel that they know what the program should be doing better than the faculty then....time to go to a different PhD program.
As for many questions on this site, yours could be improved by adding more identifying information, both geographically and in terms of subject matter.  Advice which applies to all PhD programs everywhere in the world must be very general to the point of lacking acuity.  However, from the little you've said it sounds to me that you are in a very small place: certainly a small university, maybe even a small country without a wide or strong academic tradition.  The idea that the faculty members in your program have little experience with PhD programs sounds very provincial and distressing.  Certainly they should have had, at the very least, experience in their own PhD program.  (If that is not the case -- i.e., if by any chance the curators of your PhD program do not themselves have PhDs in your field -- just get out right away.  That's silly.) But really each of them should be familiar with at least one PhD program other than their own, either from a postdoctoral or visiting position or, at the very least, being well-traveled and asking key questions to the people that they visit.
(It is highly typical for academics to engage in shop talk like this: for instance I visited a collaborator at a different university last semester.  I believe I was there for three days.  In that time I spoke to about one third of the department faculty and had lunch with my colleague and a handful of graduate students in which I asked them questions about the program and their decision to enroll in it.  At one point my colleague asked me what graduate courses we typically offer in area X in my department and he wrote down what I told him and asked followup questions.  Does this make you think that this department was either very new or trying to recruit me for a job?  Neither one was the case!  We just very much want to know how everyone else does business...in fine detail.)
The point is that most faculty administrating PhD programs are continually comparing their practices to what other programs are doing, to make sure that their own practices are as good or better in various ways.  When you start up a new PhD program you need (I believe: I haven't done it) to do an enormous amount of this type of comparison in advance, and you have to explain to everyone involved why you're doing what you're doing: much more specifically than "this is the standard method around the world".  Also most new programs start gradually: first you add a master's program and give everyone time to get used to that.  Then, when you have enough master's students who really wish they could stay where they are for their PhD, you begin to try to build a PhD program, but it will be small at first, small enough to be easy to cater to the needs of the students you already have.
In your case it sounds a bit like someone just came in the middle of the night and built an entire PhD program based on very broad ideas about what such things should be.  That doesn't sound very good to me.  I would encourage you to shop around for a more established program and one that meets the needs of the students who are taking it.  If you are in a geographically isolated region, seriously consider moving out of it, at least temporarily.  Going from one place to another to avoid provincialism is not an essential component of the academic experience, but it is a common and healthy one, and I strongly endorse it to those who have the option.


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Alternatives to relying solely on student evaluations of teaching to help administrators more accurately assess teaching effectiveness
This question is about my attempt to give the administrators at my institution some feedback on how to better help them assess faculty teaching effectiveness.
My institution is soliciting input from faculty on how to improve the way teaching effectiveness is evaluated and assessed at the administrative level (e.g., by department heads, deans, etc.). Currently, as is probably fairly common at many institutions in the US, the administrators at my institution rely mainly on student evaluations of teaching to gauge whether an instructor is effective in the classroom or not.
One of the main problems with having administrators relying solely on student evaluations of teaching to gauge teaching effectiveness is that the average student is not equipped with the necessary skills to adequately assess an instructor's teaching effectiveness. Further, as highlighted in this question, if an instructor wants to boost their student evaluation ratings, one possible way to do that is to lower the standards in the course. The problem with that is, for those instructors who actually care that their students come away from the course with some tangible benefit (e.g., better prepared to move on to the follow-on courses, better prepared to enter the workforce, etc.), lowering standards is obviously not the correct course of action.
What's more, in this question, research is cited which basically concludes that student evaluations of teaching are not accurate tools for assessing an instructor's teaching effectiveness.
While I am a bit skeptical that my institution is really sincere in their claim that they want to improve this situation for faculty, I would nevertheless like to give some good feedback on how the teaching evaluation process can be improved such that the administrators more accurately assess faculty teaching effectiveness.

Are there any practical alternatives to relying solely on student evaluations of teaching, which are better at giving administrators a more accurate measure of whether a teacher is effective in the classroom?

Note:

I am not asking for how to evaluate my own teaching in the classroom, or even how to improve my teaching.
I am looking for alternatives to student evaluation of teaching that will help the administrators at my institution more accurately gauge faculty teaching effectiveness.

Both personal accounts and research references of better teaching effectiveness assessment alternatives are welcome. If one provides an answer with several alternatives, a listing of the relative upsides and downsides of each would also be very helpful.

I am a recent part-time faculty at community college level. In our campus students as well as peers evaluate faculty teaching.
We have only one student/peer evaluation per year. In my case, I got feedback from a professor who taught that course for more than 25 years. His recommendations were not that different from what student's suggested in their evaluation.
Another option would be to test students understanding by assessing Student Learning Objectives (SLOs). For example, I give my class a questionnaire assessing their knowledge in SLOs on the very first day of the class and plans to give the same SLO questionnaire at the end of the course.
Hope this helps!

Could you expand on what's an SLO?

Did that professor attend your lectures? How many?

SLO = Student Learning Outcomes

Yes, the senior professor was there for the whole time, took notes and gave me really good feedback after my class. This is a community college BTW!

Our university has something called Teaching Triangles for PhD students. It could be applied to faculty as well.
In this program, you form a group of 3 with PhD students from other departments (it is best to find people you don't know personally from related fields). After a session where you learn to give good feedback, you specify for your group the topics on which you are hoping to get feedback. Then you take turns observing (one time) and evaluating each other's courses. You meet with each member of the triad to exchange written suggestions for improvement. I have found both the observing and receiving feedback helpful.
The university does not give negative consequences for poor performance on Teaching Triangles, but does give credit for successful completion.

As it turns out, teaching is actually a teachable skill, and there are entire schools dedicated to either teaching teachers how to teach or improving their teaching technique. As such, it would probably be a good idea to borrow from their appraisal techniques when working on improving your own skill. I am not a teacher, but my wife is, so my knowledge comes from watching her having gone through education school.

If you do nothing else, I strongly recommend you do observations. Almost any elementary/secondary/high school teacher will regularly be "observed" by someone from the administration or another faculty member. The person observing will often just enter an ongoing class/lecture/lab/what have you—sometime having notified the teacher beforehand, sometimes not—and simply watching their technique. They will take notes on what they see and then speak with the teacher afterwards about the good and bad. This is a regular process and is done for all teachers... the brand-new ones and those who have been doing it for 30+ years.
If done properly, this is an immensely valuable tool. Someone with sufficient teaching knowledge themselves watching you teach and giving feedback is critical to improving your skill. As with many other areas in life, its very difficult to tell whether you're doing well. Unlike other areas, you're talking to a class, and there are things you will certainly miss. Another person in the classroom—who after five minutes will be invisible to the students, particularly if the students have sat through numerous observations before—will definitely see things you miss.  If done improperly, it can be highly damaging, as the person giving feedback either doesn't know what they're talking about, is insulting, doesn't give useful feedback, or what have you.
If just starting this I strongly recommend finding people from your university's education department to perform the observations, as they'll likely have the most useful feedback. Your own teachers may not know how to perform one properly or usefully.
On the topic of education school, have you every actually studied the science of teaching? Yes, it is a science, and there's a lot there. Maybe just take a class or read a book on teaching. There are a lot of them. I won't make a recommendation because I'm not an expert here, but there are this who are. Find them and read their stuff.
I'm not sure whether this is implicit in your question, but student grades should definitely factor in. Not just the final grades... grades from assignments, labs, tests, etc. Effective teaching will definitely be visible in effective knowledge transfer. Obviously there are lots of confounds here—assignment difficulty, self-study, bad students, the material being taught—but generally speaking, more effective teachers will be transferring knowledge better than ineffective ones.

This answer focuses more on the topic of "how do I improve my teaching" (which my question has very little/nothing to do with) and less on the "alternatives to student evaluation of teaching" that my question is really about.

@MadJack - I see your edit now. I had read the question as referring to the individual, not the administrators. You're right, after the edit this is entirely off-topic. Its a shame that answerers don't get notifications of edits to the question... I never saw your earlier edit.


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Should I do a dual Ph.D.?
So there are already some good questions on the topic of double doctorates:
Is doing two PhD's a good path?
When does one go for a double doctorate?
I'm looking for some advice specific to my situation. I'm currently enrolled in a Ph.D. program in a mathematical field (computer science) but most of my research is geared towards applying these methods in a scientific field (stellar astrophysics). Because of this, my advisor is encouraging me to take up a second Ph.D. in astro. He says I can write one dissertation to get both degrees, and he doesn't think that it will delay my time to graduation too significantly.
On the one hand, it is attractive to me, because it might help qualify me more towards future positions in astrophysics. On the other hand, I don't necessarily see too much additional value in getting a second one; to me a Ph.D. is a license to do research, and one doesn't need two licenses. Further, I'm sure there is a real risk of it delaying my time to graduation significantly despite what I might be told. I'm also not completely convinced that it would equip me with skills that I wouldn't already be getting, although it might demonstrate to others that I have those skills. But then again, can't they just look at my publication record? Finally, while I absolutely love astrophysics, I am also attracted to other sciences, and I wouldn't want a doctorate in astro to cause people to think that I can't work in other sciences also.
Are all these concerns legitimate? Have I laid out the pros and cons appropriately? Are there other considerations I should contemplate? Are there some drawbacks or advantages that I haven't listed?

Wouldn't you need to do the extra classwork and pass qualifiers in astrophysics as well? That must add some time, and the dual degree would certify that you have that knowledge of the astrophysics not only CS.

to me a Ph.D. is a license to do research — nope. Nobody needs a license to do research. A PhD is just a license to apply for certain types of funding/jobs.

He says I can write one dissertation to get both degrees — Red flag! I seriously doubt this is true.  I recommend asking someone else for an official opinion.

...my advisor is encouraging me to take up a second Ph.D. in astro.

I would not trust random strangers on the internet more than my advisor. He has nothing to gain with proposing this and he is probably genuinely interested in your welfare. Still, he may not know well the administrative part of his proposal, so make sure you know the details well by asking the administrative people of your university.

Is there extra courses required?
Do you need to write only one dissertation? How will your dissertation change in case of the dual PHD.
Will the PHD awarded from the same department as the single PHD or from a combination of departments.
How much longer will your PHD take?

So make sure you get your facts straight and then talk your objections with your advisor. Then you can decide what you want

I don't really see the point. I agree with a PhD being a license to do research. If you are interested in astrophysics and want to get a strong profile for future work there, make sure your publications are related. That's much more convincing than two PhDs.

Your research interests and ability to articulate your interests in grant proposals will be significantly weightier in your future career than precisely which department from your university's school of arts and sciences signed off on your dissertation.
Your publication history (which journals, what topics, etc.) will be more convincing than a dual PhD (which, honestly, would get you more sideways glances than researching or professing outside the department of your degree issuance).


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What is a better word for 'code' when taking about programming code?
Im writing my project thesis in Computer Science and I want to make sure I am using correct and non colloquial terminology.
Is there better word for code when talking about your program code in programming. Is it acceptable to use code or program code? I remember my programming lecturer had a go at a few students for using the word code when to describe there program, but I just can not think of a better word.

In a more abstract sense, you can refer to it as an algorithm.

Maybe your instructor was opposing the use of "code" as countable, as is discussed for instance here? While it may look abhorrent, the use of "codes" is not uncommon in some academic circles.

Maybe "source code" would sound a little more formal than just "code" by itself.

This question appears to be off-topic because it is about English Language Usage, not Academia

I'd like to suggest digital DNA.