text:
Fraternity/Sorority and Graduate Application
I'm going to start applying to graduate schools (Masters and PhD) for Economics in a few months primarily in the US, but also to a few schools in Canada, Australia and the UK. During my time as an undergraduate I joined a fraternity, and was relatively active in sorority on campus. I was wondering what effect my involvement will have on my chance of being accepted into the more competitive programs. I was also wondering in what ways should I display that information on my application/CV/resume?
While in a fraternity, I served as treasurer for the Inter-Fraternity Council (the governing body for fraternities on-campus) for two years. I was treasurer of my own chapter for a year, as well as president of my chapter for a semester--I stepped down after the first semester to run for CFO of the Associated Students (election still on-going).
My chapter has always been very friendly with the campus and has never gotten into any trouble; however, I fear the extra scrutiny brought on sorority may hurt me. My fraternity also has chapters at many of the schools I am planning on applying to, so I fear that that may also hurt my chances--either because the admission committee associates me with a rowdy chapter or because they might see it as a potential conflict of interest if I were to grade or TA for the department.

A reference to "Greek Life" meaning fraternity/sorority stuff might be viewed as peculiar or silly, insofar as few people outside the fraternity/sorority world would refer to it that way. E.g., Greek people (from Greece, say), would not? :)

Agreed, I read the title and thought this was something about life and culture in Greece.

The question seems to have been edited to remove the phrase "Greek life". Bear in mind that, outside the USA, the word Greek only meens "of, from or pertaining to the country Greece". If you mention "Greek" anything, anyone outside the USA will assume you're talking about the country and, while they're probably aware from Hollywood that fraternities and sororities are named with sequences of Greek letters, they will not associate the word "Greek" with those things.

@DavidRicherby: The way it's edited, though, makes me wonder: Is "I joined a fraternity, and was relatively active in sorority" really accurate? I thought fraternities are for males and sororities are for females (or at least that is what the ethymology of the words suggests); can one participate in both?

@O.R.Mapper I agree that it would be helpful if the asker could clarify that point. I guess it doesn't matter too much to the question, though, since I don't think it makes any real difference whether the organization or organizations were all-male, all-female, mixed-sex or anything else.

@O.R.Mapper Sororities are generally female-only but "fraternity" is the word used for both male-only and mixed-gender organizations of that type.

Non-academic activities do not count in any way towards graduate school applications unless they were successful or notable to a heroic degree.  E.g. if you sold cupcakes as an undergraduate and made some money doing it -- or were popular at your church / club / frat's socials by doing it -- no one cares.  If you sold your cupcake company for a million dollars, we'll care a bit: that's an exceptional level of competence and gumption, enough to reasonably expect that some of it will transfer over to whatever you put your mind to.  Essentially, unless you're getting national media attention for your extracurricular activity, don't bother.
(Note: @jakebeal says "non-research-related".  I think "non-academic" is more accurate: teaching / tutoring / TAing in your field is highly relevant.  Being an active member in an economics club which, say, brings econ faculty to speak on campus is relevant, though not a game-changer.  Also: please remember not to use "science" as a synecdoche for academia!)
Participation in "Greek organizations" is totally orthogonal -- I mean, has zero correlation; I MEAN: is completely irrelevant, either positively or negatively -- to graduate admissions.  To be honest, I find the suggestion that it could be viewed negatively quite far-fetched: there is no "conflict of interest" here, any more than a Jewish or African-American or Republican student has a conflict of interest in their dealings with other Jewish or African-American or Republican students.  An otherwise capable graduate student should be assumed to be capable of reasonable, professional behavior until evidence to the contrary comes up.
There is no reason to list this on any academic CV.  As I said in a comment, the only real negative I see is that by putting something on a CV which is completely irrelevant, you show an ignorance of what academics think is important which makes you look less clueful about what graduate school is really about.  It does so in such a mild way that I think almost any faculty member doing admissions would take it as a point of honor not to be influenced by this, but still: anyone who has read this question is now more clueful and knows to leave such things off an academic CV.
P.S.: Hold on:

I fear that that may also hurt my chances--either because the admission committee associates me with a rowdy chapter

So you think that the graduate faculty in the economics department will see your affiliation with, say, Alpha Omicron Pi and say "Well, some fraternities are fine, but not that one -- they're trouble!"  Are you writing this question from the inside of an eighties movie?  In the real world in 2016, the majority of faculty live far away from campus and have precisely zero dealings with Greek life including whatever incidents may occur on campus, and in many departments, at least a substantial minority of faculty were educated outside of the US and are thus completely unable to tell one Greek organization from another.  As one data point: I live walking distance from campus and was educated in an American university with some amount of Greek life.  Thus I happen to know that "AOPi" is a sorority rather than a fraternity.  I would expect less than half of my colleagues to know that with any confidence.  The local chapter of AoPi is two blocks from where I've lived for many years.  What can I tell you about them as a group? Nothing.  Don't care.  Not my business.

The willingness to take on voluntary functions is not considered at all? I find that hard to imagine, although cultural differences make anything possible, of course.

@O.R. Mapper: "The willingness to take on voluntary functions is not considered at all?" I'm not sure what you mean by that.  Could you elaborate?

@PeteL.Clark I suspect he means things like volunteering for treasurer and the like. Though in honesty, I agree with this answer - I'd ignore membership in the Greek system entirely, and not particularly care one way or the other. And no, the willingness to take on voluntary functions wouldn't come into consideration. My lab doesn't need a treasurer, it needs a potential scientist.

As @Fomite suspected, I meant the readiness to accept voluntary responsibilities and tasks, and to be active also outside your specific area of expertise - in other words, any signs to show that you are a multi-faceted (you might choose the phrase "well-rounded" here) and ambitious individual rather than a person who is interested only in one topic and who spends the rest of their day being lazy and inactive.

@O.R.Mapper: I see.  No, US graduate programs do not (in my experience) look for "well-roundedness" in their applicants.  Lazy and inactive sound like universal negatives, but we wouldn't infer this (or lack of it) from a list of non-academic activities.  If these sorts of considerations play a role in graduate admissions in your department or university, I'd be interested to hear about it.

@PeteL.Clark: In my country, the rule of thumb seems to be to mention voluntary positions or similar in job applications, even if these positions are completely unrelated to what you are applying for, if they underline how you are willing to accept responsibilities or simply if they make you unique in a positive way. Applications for getting a doctorate essentially work like job applications (to the prospective supervisor) here, so more or less the same rules apply. Lastly, maybe this is influenced by the expectation that such personal activities are mentioned, but if a candidate cannot ...

... even name a single hobby of theirs, let alone participation in anything that shows they do not shy away from occasionally making an effort, I would indeed infer a higher probability that the candidate might be lazy and inactive, compared to other candidates who do mention a couple of activities. A detailed discussion, however, certainly exceeds the intended capacity of the comments system and would be somewhat off-topic here, especially since there is probably much variation also based upon personal preference in this topic.

I dunno... I'm not faculty so I can't speak from that position like other commenters here, but I would think that if you have stellar research and top marks during undergrad while also holding some time-consuming leadership role in some club/team/Greek org, then it would directly testify to your ability to manage your time productively--a key aspect of a productive researcher. Obviously it's not paramount, but I can only see it having a neutral to positive distinguishing impact.

@marcman:  As a graduate admitter, I assume that everyone is doing something outside of the confines of their work/studies...and what they are doing is their business.  Even if what they are doing is watching television, playing video games or hanging out with their friends: OK. Having stellar research and top marks itself testifies to one's ability to manage one's time productively, among other positive traits: most grad school applicants realize these are valuable but few have them.  Conversely, if you have top marks, test scores and stellar research: sold!  You'll get into top programs.

In general, your non-research-related activities as an undergraduate will simply be irrelevant to your application to graduate school.  In all likelihood, nobody reading your application would care any more (positively or negatively) that you were in a fraternity than if you were in a drama club, on the swim team, or had a job in the library.
As such, unless it is somehow directly relevant to your graduate application, I would advise simply leaving it off of your C.V. along with all of the other non-scientific parts of your personal history.

If there was a chapter of the applicants fraternity on my campus I'd be concerned that they might get dragged into the organizations activities.  In that sense, it could be a negative.

@BrianBorchers If they made a big deal about their greek roots, sure. Most people move on with their lives after they graduate, though, at least enough so that I think it would be no more worrisome than any other hobby.

A job at the library? That's much better than institutionalized beer pong, I'll see that pretty positively in comparison to the other items on your list

@CapeCode Interestingly, I would see the opposite, having done library work myself: shelving and checking out books is less intellectually stimulating than it may appear.

During my time as an undergrad I joined a fraternity, and was relatively active in Greek Life on campus.

To my knowledge there are no fraternities in Greek universities, only political groups. I guess you mean you were in one of those?
Nevertheless, this has nothing to do with your applications. You should leave it out of your CV and frankly, no one is going to care.
If, however you want to promote your organizational skills you could add an abstract comment about being president and treasurer in various groups throughout your academic life and clarify only if asked, although I highly doubt it.
Being in a fraternity will not help you or harm you in you in any way as your goal should be promoting your scientific skills, not your non-academic activities.

Fraternities and sororities are called "Greek" organizations because their names are typically composed of Greek letters. That's what was meant by "Greek Life", not the OP attended a university in Greece.

Oh, I had no idea. Thank you for the information.

Well, referring to fraternity or sorority stuff as "Greek Life" is rather silly, at best, in the larger scheme of things.

so I fear that that may also hurt my chances--either because the admission committee associates me with a rowdy chapter...

I would not be concerned about being seen as rowdy.  Every university, including your current one, will ask for your transcripts and your public file, and likely run a background check.  If you have a good GPA, and do not have any disciplinary actions against you do not worry about being seen in a bad light.

...or because they might see it as a potential conflict of interest if I were to grade or TA for the department.

If universities couldn't hire frat/sorority members as TAs, then there would be far fewer TAs.  As a TA your expected to grad and assist impartially.  You cannot favor a specific group of students for reasons besides their academic performance, but you probably already knew that.

While in a fraternity, I served as treasurer for the Inter-Fraternity Council (the governing body for fraternities on-campus) for two years. I was treasurer of my own chapter for a year, as well as president of my chapter for a semester

I would put your greek affiliation on your resume/CV, then right below it, list all the leadership positions you've held, either within the greek house, or with the university (its ok if they are related to greek life).
While simply being a member of a frat/sorority likely won't help you get into grad school, leadership positions in these organizations will.

No one is going to admit you to a PhD program because of what fraternity you were in, but it's unlikely to hurt you to include a line on your CV mentioning you were a member of ABC House.


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Publishing dissent
My team has been trying to replicate a study published in a journal.
After a month of effort my team is convinced that the details provided in the paper are incorrect and the study cannot be replicated with the information provided in the paper.
We now want to publish the discrepancies in the paper along with proposed modifications.
I want to know:

What article type (Commentary, Letter, Note, etc ) would fit for the proposed submission?
Should it be submitted to the same journal or could it be submitted to any similar interest journal?

You spent a few days on a study that potentially took the researchers years, but you're sure it's wrong? Have you considered contacting the authors for assistance?

Few days is one month. There are clear discrepancies in the paper. The mathematics of the paper is just not right.
We have tried to contact the authors, haven't received any reply.

Possibly a careful question or two sent to the authors first? Maybe there is some misunderstanding somewhere,  yours or theirs.

Yeah, a month seems a little early. I spent 2 years reproducing a result form a paper when I was a PhD student. It did eventually work, but i was sure hard work to do.

@Ian reproducing a result should take much less time than the first work, since the method is already outlined, so I disagree with your sentiment there. But agree that OP should've mentioned their attempts at contacting the authors in the question, since it's part of due diligence in reproducing a result.

to the commenters: how long it takes to reproduce a result is clearly very strongly dependent on what kind of thing the result is - I don't see how you could give an estimate either way without more information.

To add to N.Virgo's comment, there is a difference between "We can't reproduce this experiment" and "These results cannot be reproduced because of reason X". If there is a positive argument for why claimed results aren't correct (provably incorrect analysis methods, mathematically impossible values, etc.) then this doesn't require you to keep trying for many months to make the method work to prove it doesn't work. Of course, you have to be confident you're right, but that's a separate issue, and I don't think one we can comment on with the information given.

It's not clear to me what "the study cannot be replicated with the information provided in the paper" means - or rather, this statement could have so many different meanings that I don't think it's useful to answer without distinguishing between them.

Discuss the other paper in yours, cite it, explain why you believe the results in that paper to be incorrect.

Journals publish less-than-perfect papers so often that it's seldom even noteworthy. I can think of several often cited papers from the 20th century with glaring typos in the math formulas, and/or with gaps in proofs, which were fixed in later papers.
As your first step, you should contact the article's "authors", using the contact information in the paper, or on their departmental web site. You should include all the authors, not just the designated "corresponding author", unless there are too many of them. You should include all your detailed and specific criticism of their paper in your initial e-mail, rather than a "teaser".
Example of a bad e-mail: "I found problems in your paper, please contact me so we can discuss." - many people would assume this to be spam/crank e-mail, and not even bother responding.
Example of a better e-mail: "You state in your paper that because water is wet, therefore the sky is blue. But I see a gap in your argument because you assume that the quadratic variance term is zero." Unless you have reasons to suspect intentional  misconduct, you should assume an honest mistake, and treat the authors like you'd want to be treated if you were in their shoes.
Optional: "We further proved a weaker result, that the sky is blue-green, and found some counterexamples of the sky being green." If you've made some non-trivial advances, then you may choose to share them with the authors or not. Could you use them in your own publication? Are you worried that the authors would steal it?
The authors should immediately acknowledge the receipt of your e-mail, and within a few weeks either explain to you why this is not a problem, or send a correction / retraction / clarification to the original journal, graciously thanking you for finding the problems. It would be unusual for the journal to decline to publish a correction submitted by the authors. Or they may even argue that the problems are unimportant, but you may disagree.
If the authors blow you off or you're otherwise still not satisfied, then the next step may be to post your criticism on pubpeer. Other people may comment on your criticism there, and help you improve it. Or the authors may respond to your satisfaction this time. You may decide to skip this step and go straight to the letter to the editor.
The editor should acknowledge its receipt right away, solicit feedback from the authors and the reviewers, and hopefully publish your letter, together with any rebuttal from the authors. But they may totally blow you off, especially if it's not a reputable journal.
The next step may be to write a little paper on your own. Frankly, a paper focusing mostly on the problems in another paper is unlikely to be of interest to many people. You should try to include some new results if possible, so people reading it won't feel that it's a total waste of their time. Posting a preprint on arxiv or the like may be more realistic than a journal.

Another template email might be: "Hi Prof X, We read your paper about fooing bars with interest. Our research focuses on fooing buzzes, so we thought your result was interesting and though to try your fooing method. Unfortunately we couldn't get it to work, even on bars. You don't mention the composition of Buffer X. We'd assumed it concated super-foo-ium but perhaps its based on a different foo-donor? We'd really appreciate your help getting the fooing protocol up and running. "

Often papers name a "corresponding author", are you suggesting to contact all the authors even though a corresponding author has been identified?

Ian -- thanks! @FerventHippo yes, absolutely, I'm suggesting exactly that. I've heard multiple stories where the designated "corresponding author" died / retired / switched careers / lost interest / went missing / was too lazy to forward... and the other authors never heard about the failed contact attempts until much later. Unless it's one of those dozen+ author papers, please don't rely on the known weak link in communications, but rather do let every author know initially about your concerns. The subsequent conversations can involve fewer people.

I don't think we can answer your first 'article type' question, as different journals call different types of submission by different names. Look at the journal's instructions to authors and see what they say should be submitted to comment on previously-published work, and follow that. Or ask the journal directly if it's unclear.
In terms of the 'where' question, you can of course submit it to any relevant journal. But if it's a narrow criticism of a single paper's methods, it's unlikely that any journal other than the original publisher of the article would think it's sufficiently noteworthy. If the result you're questioning is particularly high-profile, or the method is widely- and incorrectly-used, there may be more interest from other journals, but it doesn't sound like that's the case here.

First of all, as the comments have already indicated, I, and most reviewers, would be skeptical that the paper in question has various errors/discrepancies. Maybe there are some notation issues, different understandings, or other typesetting glitches, but these errors are different than what you seem to be implying, which is that the paper's claims are "wrong". You should make it clear in your question whether you think this original paper is simply flawed, or whether you think this original paper has serious issues and should be retracted or corrected (I get the impression that you're implying the latter).
If there are errors, you need to make the distinction between a technical error which is mostly harmless and due to imperfect human understanding, as opposed to an intentional or negligent error on the part of the study's authors. Just correcting some notation/equation issues is not significant enough to warrant publication by itself, at least in the fields I am familiar with (e.g. various areas of engineering). On the other hand if you think there was intentional or negligent errors on the part of the original study's authors, and you have some evidence to back up this claim, then it sounds like you should contact the journal's editors with your concern and evidence.
Ultimately, to warrant publication, it is expected to make a significant new contribution. Correcting some typos or pointing out problems in previous papers shows that you understand the material, but that by itself is not a significant new contribution. If the paper you're correcting is especially noteworthy, I suppose the correction might warrant publication by itself as a letter length paper. But you really need to think in terms of making a significant new contribution, as opposed to your current mindset which comes across as more "this paper in the literature had various problems in it" (which may very well be true, but saying that by itself is not a contribution).
Lastly, you raise the question of reproducibility: well in a lot of engineering, it's basically impossible to reproduce a study unless you also have the code. The code might not be available for a number of reasons (e.g. funding might impose that the funding agency has sole access to the code for some time; or maybe the authors have a follow-up in mind and have kept the code private intentionally until the follow-up is completed). Also, the authors might not reply to you for various reasons (e.g. they're on vacation, or have too many emails and missed yours). This is all to say, a lot of the literature is, unfortunately, NOT reproducible (at least in the strict sense of what 'reproducible' means).
You should focus on your paper's contribution (not the contribution of previous papers), and if some paper in the literature gets some parts wrong, then of course you should present the correct way in your paper, but it's not needed to call out specific authors/papers as being 'wrong' or 'bad'. If your way is truly better, rest assured that other people will (eventually) notice this as well, and tend to cite your paper more.

I do not think these kind of omissions are publishable unless the paper is highly cited and the results are misleading.
If this is in computer science, a significant portion of the papers are in the same state. Replication therefore requires guesswork. Although this makes the paper a low quality one, there are many of these even in top journals. General response to these are simply contact the author to obtain additional information or source code of the project. I suspect most of these authors think that explanation that they provide is enough, but since only they have complete knowledge, explanation given is often too little. Even when there is an algorithm, it generally does not cover entire method.
To summarize, while this trend of low quality, very hard or impossible to replicate papers do slow down the speed of research conducted, it is considered normal and you will not be able to get back anything for the time you have lost.

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Is it possible for a research article to be informative and ground breaking without referencing any other work?
This is a hypothetical question, but I am assuming that if there is a research field out there that has not been discovered, it will, in theory, be possible for an article to be written without containing any references.
The reason I ask this question is because I see that a good number of published articles seem to cite other works just to cite them and less often is it the case that the cited works add anything to the paper.

If I see a paper with no (or few) references, my first thought is that the author is a crank. What is more likely - a paper so novel that there is no related work or an author who hasn't read the related work?

Is it possible? I guess. Is it desirable? I don't think so. Part of a research paper is the introduction, to establish your topic, your problem you discuss and position your solution. Even if it is a new field, it seems to me much better and thought practice if you actually have specifics to say in your intro - which mean you most probably will have references on the problem, on analogous or related research field etc. If not, it may suggest you yourself don't know much what you are doing.

I know of exactly one peer-reviewed research paper with no references at all.

Mark H. Overmars and Emo Welzl. The complexity of cutting paper.  Proceedings of the [First Annual] Symposium on Computational Geometry, 316–321, 1985.

Here is a screenshot of the references section:

According to Google Scholar, this paper has been cited 29 times.
So yes, it is possible, for the right value of "ground-breaking", but extremely rare.

That is a fantastic answer. Just a random question, how did you come across that paper? Did you search for "article with 0 references" or did you encounter it in your "relaxed paper reading time"?

The paper is rather famous in my field, because it has no references.

Are you asking for a paper that cites nothing else, or more broadly doesn't even acknowledge that anyone earlier had worked on related ideas?
A famous example of the first case is Einstein's "Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper," the paper in which he introduced special relativity. An English translation is at https://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/einstein/specrel/www/. It has no bibliography. The first footnote suggests a work by Lorentz could have been a reference, but it was not.

While the answer is true, I am not sure 100 years ago publications were much similar today standards. I am always puzzled when read how 50-100 years ago people wrote those papers, collected and organized citations, how fast they were accepted and so on.

In math, papers from that vintage had citations, but the citation details usually appeared in footnotes on the page where they were mentioned, not collected into a single list at the end like they are today.

No, it is not possible to be coherent without citing prior work which gives the context. And, specifically, might give progress toward whatever goal. Nothing makes sense in a vacuum. Indeed, a great part of "expert-ness" or "expertise" is understanding of the state-of-the-art, the context, that we human beings have arrived-at, have managed, by a given date. To be ignorant of this, or to ignore it, is a sort of professional incompetence.
EDIT: apparently some fraction of the people here interpret my remarks as "commercial". I can only guess that this refers to the impact-factor game, but I did not at all mean that. Rather, as reader, I would be unhappy if a writer gave no indication of prior work of a similar nature. Also, regarding "context", I do not mean "application to marketable products", for example, but scientific or intellectual context. How did the situation arise, and why might I care?
(The notion that "in mathematics, many theories [sic] exist for years without any use..." I think is misleading. Namely, people had reasons for doing what they were doing, in the first place, whether those reasons were tangible or not. And "use" can be tangible or not. I would claim that claiming that context doesn't matter is just a form of obliviousness to context. But tastes vary, I hear...)

So does it also mean that going in other direction (citing other articles just for the purpose of citing) is sign of professional incompetence? And so an article shouldn't  be judged by the amount of work it is citing.

@ZanCoul An article should cite enough relevant work to place its results clearly in context.  There's a wide range of what "enough" means, but excesses in either direction indicate problems.  Excessive citations, however, seems to me to more often be a sign of sloppy writing, politicization, or lack of confidence, rather than incompetence.

@paul garrett: "it is not possible to be coherent without citing prior work which gives the context" this sound like utter and complete commercial nonsense to me. There are enough aspects in research that are interesting in themselves. There is no inheren need for "context". "This is an observation, this are the mechanics" works equally well. And if you look at mathematics, many theories will exist without any use which then is found years later. If anything, prior to reading, one might question whether the author(s) have done a thorough literature search if a paper has no references.

It is very rare. Because chances are there are similar works, at least on some abstract level. A similar approach on another field, a similar problem solved in another way, similar methods for a different problem...
Remember that one item in every review form relates to the adequacy of the literature review....

What is a "review form"?  It sounds like some kind of document with preassigned questions which are to be filled out be reviewers...but I have reviewed many papers and never seen such a document.

you never filled an online form where you grade from X - Y the paper in different aspects (and the last part is general comments)? Difference from CS to math maybe? I don't remember doing a review that didn't have that tbh...

No, never.  A referee report is a document prepared by the referee that contains whatever information the referee feels is appropriate.  In fact, I don't really know what a "literature review" is either, except what I have gleaned from participation in this site.

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How important is the write-up of a PhD thesis for an academic career?
How important is your written PhD thesis for an academic job search, assuming the results are already written in papers? Do search committees ever read your thesis in addition to your papers? My PhD advisor said that the written thesis is not important and I can write whatever I want as long as it's not about Star Wars.

You will presumably have to defend your thesis in an exam.  Don't expect to pass if it's not a reasonably large contribution to knowledge in your discipline.  Look at other theses by candidates who have passed recently.  That will give some idea of the scope and scale that's expected.

Due to time constraint, I completed my PhD dissertation in a week so I'm pretty sure others have better quality than mine, but at least I did not write about star wars!

Counterexample

I'm insulted with a high quality star wars thesis XD

I revised the post to make it clear your question was just about the write-up and not the results, as this is what I gathered from the comments.  Please clarify if I misrepresented anything.

I have seen a few examples of people making a substantial rewrite to a thesis long after successfully defending. If you do not like the exposition, but still want a well-written thesis (for people to read) at some later stage you have the option of fixing some of the exposition when you have the time.

If the academic job search fails, expect other employers to look at your thesis, and if the introduction etc is not clear and well written, they may assume you are not able to explain yourself in writing.

Your thesis and what is written about it your letters of recommendation will have a big effect on your career initially.  To get a good postdoctoral position, you'd better have a good thesis.  Later in your career, your thesis won't matter much any more, because people will be more interested in your recent achievements.

I got lucky and received a pos-doc offer even before written my PhD thesis, but I was worrying about the quality of my last-minute PhD thesis.

@user10694 You mentioned in an earlier comment that the "meat" of your thesis existed before the "bun". It's entirely reasonable that you got a postdoc offer on the basis of the meat; buns don't matter so much. I often have to write letters of recommendation for Ph.D. students who have proved enough theorems for a thesis but haven't yet written the thesis itself. A letter of recommendation saying that the thesis will contain such-and-such theorems is fine (as long as people trust me on that).

Thanks, while writing those "buns", I feel I'm just repeating myself. I just don't think the whole thing is good for the show tho.

i think this question is highly field-dependent.

I am a faculty member who sits on many PhD thesis committees.  I always read the thesis.  More than once I (and other committee members) have decided to fail a student at the thesis defense because of a thesis that was poorly written.  This usually was a combination of both small issues (like rampant grammar and spelling errors) and larger issues (like lack of clarity, lack of motivation, no clear indication of the student's contributions).  Usually these students rewrite the thesis and retake the defense successfully later.
You cannot fully separate the quality of the writing and the quality of the work.  Excellent work can be masked by poor writing; poor work can be made to appear good superficially by superficial (hence poor) writing.  Surprisingly often I find that as one digs into the writing issues, one finds significant scientific issues.
Even if your institution and/or your advisor advertises low standards and is willing to graduate you with a poorly-written thesis, it is probably in your best interest to produce a well-written thesis.  Writing is one of the central skills that will get you an academic job, and writing a good thesis will help substantially in the development of that skill.  At this point you probably have few papers, so it is likely that potential employers will look at your thesis.  It is often the first thing I look at when hiring a postdoc, and if it is poorly written then I assume I will need to spend a large amount of time helping that person learn to write and editing their work -- which usually means I won't hire them.
Finally, a well-written thesis should be wonderfully satisfying to you.  Your thesis should be your magnum opus, a thorough explanation of this new corner of knowledge in which you are the world's leading expert!  Put in the effort to do it well.

At my university, if a student fails the final Oral for a PhD, they do not get a second chance. It's all over. Especially with that in mind, how would a student be allowed by their advisor to function in a vacuum to such an extent that anyone is surprised by what shows up for such a defense? Shouldn't the defense be delayed until people are satisfied? Here, also, theoretically, the committee has to sign a form that the thesis is ready for defense. If I were thinking that it's not, and would fail the student... I'd not sign that form, etc.

I think this is very dependent on institution and field. In many cases the thesis can consist of an introduction chapter, copies of a number of published papers (the main body of the thesis), and a discussion chapter. In these cases the quality of the published papers can be very different from the rest of the thesis.

@paulgarrett Your experience sounds a lot like mine.  I got some interesting comments on my answer (which cites that type of experience) to What makes someone deserving of a PhD? that might speak to some of your questions.

@JoshuaTaylor, yes, some people believe, and enjoy believing, in the mythology that even novices can somehow come up with wonderful research projects, and that the old people don't know anything worth hearing about, etc. At the very least, there are conflicting/competing mythologies.

@paulgarrett Yes, I know it works that way at many universities.  At my current institution the student need only provide a complete thesis two weeks before the defense, whereas it usually must be scheduled much further in advance.  And there is a "fail with possibility to retake" option, which is primarily used in cases like this.

This will depend on your field, and how your thesis is formatted. That being said, I don't think your advisor's (hopefully) flippant answer is correct. If nothing else, while the content of your thesis might not be read, your thesis topic is the thing you're best positioned to present yourself as The Expert on, and as such will have a pretty significant impact on your job search.
You will, on the academic job market, be expected to talk about your research, etc.
Beyond that, many people repackage their thesis as a series of papers - indeed, many institutions now allow (or require) a thesis to be formatted this way (sometimes called a "sandwich thesis"). In this case, you're dividing your thesis into several hopefully published papers, and you should absolutely plan on those being read.

I did the sandwich thesis, but my concern is that the "bun" was written in a haze and was not as good as the "meat" in between.

In principle, several years of work worth to be written is worth to be written well. However, cumulative theses are not unheard of.

So, nobody actually read your PhD thesis/dissertation except the title? How about the job search commitees?

@user10694 I don't even think they could have gotten a copy of the fully-fledged dissertation. As mentioned however, they did read the papers that made up Chapters 2, 3, and 4. More than once a copy with scribbled notes was on someone's desk during interviews.

Thanks, that eases my mind. I was just thinking of placing a two years embargo on my PhD thesis.

As for your academic career, it's not the most important, but it's not unimportant either. A sloppy thesis gives a bad impression about you, even if the research itself is good. It's true that if you did a "sandwich" thesis, the majority of people will only read your published papers and not your thesis. But not all of them: think of the people on your thesis committee and the future members of your research group for example, do you want them to have a bad impression about your work?

Besides, there is one central person that you need to please when writing your thesis: yourself.
A PhD thesis is something for which you put tremendous amounts of effort, personal commitment and sacrifice (salary, free time, etc.). You should be happy with the result. You might browse it in the future and that might annoy you that such good research is presented so poorly.
One week, counting the nights, is a lot of hours, enough to turn an ugly draft into something you will be proud of in the future.

From my experience, at least with regard to life sciences your advisor is absolutely correct. In life sciences, journal publication is the standard and everything else is typically considered "unpublished" and "unreviewed" - and most people will not bother reading it.
The only exception I can think of is if you have important material in your thesis that is not published yet (for example if the project is still ongoing). Even then, you would have to specifically point out that this is the case and urge the relevant people to look in your thesis (and it may still seem weird).
Of course I am not passing judgement whether this state of affairs is good or bad.

My thesis has, as far as I know, never been read by anyone. But the paper it was based on has been published and cited, of course! I'm in pure mathematics.

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text:
Quit a PhD for another PhD
During the last month, I applied for PhD programs in some of the top US Universities in my scientific field. At the same time, I applied also for a PhD position in a very good European University. About one month after I submitted my application to this European University, I was offered a full-time, funded PhD position, in which I was supposed to begin as soon as possible.
Admissions for the US Universities are announced in the spring. So, I currently have an offer from Europe and a very short deadline for accepting or rejecting this offer. My ultimate career goal, however, is to study and work in the US, and there are some serious reasons for this. If I reject this offer from Europe and if I won't be admitted in the US, I will have lost every chance for a PhD, since a long educational gap will have been accumulated, putting my career at risk.
So, I'm thinking to accept this offer from Europe, until next academic year, and if I have a positive answer from the US, then quit my PhD studies in Europe and begin a new PhD in the US. I would like some insight about people in Academia. I acknowledge that such a scenario might affect the whole PhD project because of my possible withdrawal. Would this considered to be immoral? Could I have any consequences? Could this choice of mine - quit a PhD for another one, in a new country - seem bad to prospective supervisors in the US?
I already know that pursuing a PhD is a serious career choice, and I have no intention to take silly decisions for no reason. I just want the best for my career. To my eyes, this would be no different from quitting a job for a better one, for a better "company", in a "market" with greater opportunities. I would appreciate every advice from you people, since I have no experience related to Academia other than my undergraduate studies.

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

As Europe is a bit larger than a point, it may be worth mentioning that there are places in Europe where groups have to put down the whole sum for funding a PhD candidate in advance, prior to advertising the position. If such system applies to the place you could go, eating up a part of the money will result in more than a minor inconvenience to that group.

Quitting a PhD because you realise afterwards that it's not the right path for you is fine. A fellow student during my PhD did so (due to homesickness, primarily), and immediately started a PhD at a university in his home country. The supervisor/group leader/etc were disappointed but didn't hold it against him.
Quitting because you only accepted the position as an insurance policy is a very different matter. If it's not for personal reasons, such as those above, leaving mid-course for another university will be seen as a very selfish act. Even more so if anybody finds out that you were hoping to do it before you even started. From your description it sounds like your field is relatively small. That means people tend to know each other, which means this could very easily hurt your reputation far more than attending MIT (or whichever other prestigious institute) would help it.
In short: you shouldn't accept a position unless you intend to stick with it. You have an offer on the table, you can either accept it or reject it. If you accept it, the right thing to do is to withdraw any other applications which haven't yet responded. If you aren't willing to commit to it, the right thing to do is to reject the offer. There is a third option, too: you can ask the European university if they'd be willing to grant you an extension to the decision deadline. How likely this request is to be accepted strongly depends on many things, including national and institutional cultures and the length of deferral you're asking for.

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

This is unfair to another PhD prospect, who might not have the options you have. Because you know now that this position would not work out long term for you, just go with the US position. When you sign up for a PhD you agree to commit n years to make a full project. When you sign up for a different job the commitment is not as clear. In both situations it's fine to quit because the ambient is toxic or your situation changed. But this is not your case, you know this beforehand.
As other people point out, this is unfair to the supervisor who accepted to commit time to work with you on a specific project and to the funding agencies that have given support. These commitments come in the form of time cycles, that's why accepting this job is not like accepting other jobs that don't have this type of requirement.
The thing is that you are trying to insure yourself against all odds and by acting according to your best interest you hurt other people (those who might get offered the EU PhD or the US PhD if you deny any offer). The fact that you can grasp that something is wrong but you still wanna do it anyway makes it clear that it's not the most honest way to act. Sure, everybody does it, and everybody marks later that their behavior was not proper/good/acceptable/... or somewhere else depending on the scale.
What we often have to do is called choosing without enough information. Nobody likes it, I guess this is your first challenge as a PhD student. Learn this lesson. And, in fact, switching is not even in your best interest! Accepting the EU PhD to quit will hurt your career. If you want insurance, you have a 100% chance with the EU position. If the university is good and you are good (as implied in your question), you will have opportunities in the US later. EU PhDs are shorter and pay better, you'll be in the US in no time.
Quitting for acceptable reasons that come after you committed to do a PhD is acceptable because you did not make a dishonest deal. Your original intentions were true, something that you could not foresee or can no longer tolerate has happened, which is a valid reason to revisit agreements that no longer work (aka, quitting a PhD).

Let me be honest here: I would never back off my interest, in order to make the world more "fair" for some unknown, vague people with similar interests as mine. It may sounds very selfish, but it is what it is. I think everyone acts like that and this is how it should be. Consider this: What if I actually realize that I don't like the project, the supervisor, the University, the country in the EU PhD, 6 months after the beginning? I should quit, I guess. What if, at the time of withdrawal, an offer from US arrives in my email? Should I still reject it, lest I'll be perceived as selfish?

@Teufel "I think everyone acts like that and this is how it should be." Firstly, this is not necessarily how everyone acts; and even if this were mostly true in the sense of the statistics, that is not an argument that this is how people should act. Most societies and communities have to operate with some level of trust, not just contractual obligations. If one wants to get ahead by ignoring that, well then it's a free world, but one shouldn't be surprised if people who operate according to those codes get annoyed

@Teufel: No, nobody is saying that you should reject it in that situation. The one and only piece of advice people are trying to give you here is that you need to be honest about your intentions (and no, appearing to be honest is not the same thing as being honest), and one (of many) reasons for doing so is that it will harm other people (and society) if you act dishonestly. Trying to justify it with "the same thing might happen anyway" is missing the point by a gargantuan distance.

One more thing: I know some people in academia who have behaved precisely according to the principles you espouse here. Very capable people, they have achieved some minor position, but they ended up completely isolated, and their career, which should be stellar, stagnates at a level far below their scientific skills. Word gets around.

I would say it depends on in what country and with what conditions the European offer comes.
In Germany for example you're usually simply hired as an employee of the university, with a very standardised payroll. Employment contracts take a few weeks to draft, so hiring a replacement for you takes almost no time. And employers regularly hand out very short term contracts that need to be extended half way during your PhD. In this situation I wouldn't hesitate a second to quit and move to the US.
If instead the position comes with a stipend, a grant or something else that required your future supervisor to put in some work that would now be wasted, I would be more hesitant to just pack up and move.
But I think academia is quite an un-empathetic environment. If you quit because of personal issues or mental health, nobody really bats an eye. This is without question a very sad situation that's the reason for a lot of personal suffering, and that I would like see change. But don't think you are required to show some special loyalty just because somebody decided to hire you for a few years.

"Employment contracts take a week to draft" I am curious where in Germany that is. My experience is that universities need between 4 and 8 weeks to make a contract... And of course, finding a suitable candidate also takes time, maybe even longer.

You're right, maybe I was exaggerating a bit and I'll change it. The point was that it takes almost no time and work. :-)

If you ask me I'd say asking people for morally right decisions will never "work out", since you'll scarcely find a truely honest person to answer your question.
I do understand how you stand between the chairs and appreciate your struggles. I totally do not understand how people want to scold you for that, you show very high morality by asking.
You might consider being honest to your European supervisor about your intents. If I was a supervisor, I'd rather chose some honest guy that speaks true and follows his aims, which by the way is a great sign of ambition and emotional involvement in the topic or carrier, than some guy that just "swims in the masses" (guess at least you, having a german nickname, will get what I say by that ;D), like most do.
I don't know it that's an overall problem at German universities, but here I see that a lot of PhD-students got to work far more in their proposed freetime than they should, as the work load is chosen far to heavy for one position. Which I'd call exploitation. People still accept these positions for their rarity. There of course are lucky PhD-students which do not have that work load and can truely focus on their research, but at least at the university I am this does not seem to be the case with the PhD-students I asked or told me unasked for.
So, this is why I'd say, you can consider any PhD-position as a normal job, as long as this positions often give less money for far more time and so on. I don't see why a PhD-student should see more in it as long as so many of them get exploited so often.
If this is not true for your position, then this might change considerations significantly.
Still, you are given an 'impossible' choice. You are right, that, by declining the European offer, you might lose your chance to ever again get an offer for a PhD. This is not your fault though, and this again tells me you are in full right to see for your own wants and accept the European offer, even if that means you will cancel it later on. That's an organisational problem which is to be solved by other people.
Having worked for some years before going to some university, I do not see any difference in academical jobs vs regular jobs in economy. Why should you plan to stay somewhere for years? What makes the difference? There are lots of jobs outside academia, which are even scarcer, and where your boss wants to plan for years either, and still noone would blame persons for cancelling for lesser reasons.
Don't become one of the guys that think their supervisors and academia sacred. They are not. They are normal jobs, just that people somehow make religion of it. Asking me, as an absolute atheist even in the fields of academia (I observed that some atheists seem to find their religion in academia...), say: Follow your heart and do what is good for you (since other won't but just exploit you in most cases), I truelly believe that you are of high moral and will know better than everyone else how you want to live your life.

Thank you for your answer, I really can relate to it, specially in the last part talking about religion. We tend to forget that at the bottom of things, they are people too, struggling to achieve something better for their careers. In terms of morality, that's why I'm asking: not only because I'm thinking the consequences, but because I would never want to irritate my peers in some way, and that's something that really concerns me. But when it comes to your very personal interest, I think that making some people unhappy is sometimes inevitable.

I'm also pretty sure that many people concerned too much about morality, would also switch Universities if they would benefit from it. Overskurkens moral... In terms of the comparison between industry and academia, yes, there are many regular jobs, even scarcer, where you are supposed to carry on a long-term project, let's say, build from the ground up a whole new extraordinary department of a certain company. If you receive a better offer after some time from another company, would you be considered as dishonest? I don't think so.

This derives from the hindmost human urge, I think. At the end of the day, what matters both for the employee and the employer is what he has achieved and how does it translate into his life. Be it of recognition, of publications, of zeros into a bank account or of food on his table. Maybe this sounds too bad, but it is what it is. Again, I'm not a selfish carpetbagger. I just believe that stepping down of your personal goals for the sake of not annoying other people is foolish.

Truely spoken, you'll always irritate someone no matter what you do. So the best thing you can do is stay true and follow your personal beliefs, as so many people cowardly follow other people's beliefs as they don't have the self conciousness to carry the burden of responsibility for their own actions.
Carry the burden and stand up for your beliefs, and never forget you and only you are the one responsible for your own happiness. And if that means, you've got to disappoint people that set up conditions in such an unflexible way that it sometimes is impossible to fit in, then be it.

Meaning by the way I do not recommend at all one or the other way as I really do not care how you decide. I just care about how you make up the decision about your actions, and whatever the decision is, I'd accept it, as I do value personal freedom above most.

"If I was a supervisor, I'd rather chose some honest guy that speaks true and follows his aims…" If you were a supervisor, no, you would never invest time and energy in a PhD candidate who honestly admits that they have no commitment to the project or to your student-supervisor relationship. You seem to forget that other people are involved in this arrangement, and that supervisors are not there purely for the benefit of students. We get to pick and choose too.

Dear Michael, you shouldn't judge about what I'd rather do or not as you surely are not capable of doing so. And no, I clearly do not forget the different sides. In my job before studying, forgetting one of the sides may easily kill me or someone else, so I am used to trying to look at all sides. Also, the thread starter never said a word about his commitment to the European project as far as I read, so we cannot judge how much commitment there'd be.

This is not immoral because you have the right to quit the PhD at any moment. However, beware of possible consequences of that like subscribed conditions at the first university or pay back. Inside academia morally questionable decisions are commonly taken, and yours is perfectly acceptable. Deception is a common practice in academia.

It is true that one has a basic right to quit a PhD, but your answer doesn't seem to address the issue identified in Chris H's answer above:
"Quitting a PhD because you realise afterwards that it's not the right path for you is fine... Quitting because you only accepted the position as an insurance policy is a very different matter... Even more so if anybody finds out that you were hoping to do it before you even started."

@George, Could you please explain in more detail what do you mean by "Deception is a common practice in academia"?

I am referring in general to manipulation, distortion of evidence, gaslighting, dishonesty in the workplace, playing politics among co-workers in academia.

Regarding these negative aspects of academia, what's your sample size from which you infer these things are "common"? In any case, I don't think these negative aspects, which sadly do indeed happen, are very relevant to the particular decision which the OP must make according to his or her own goals/beliefs

It is perfectly fine. The best option for you will be to accept an offer now. And in case you get an offer for a Ph.D. in the USA next year, decide then.  You'll in great shape to make that decision. By that time you will have more information and understanding to make an optimal decision for yourself. You may really like your European group/advisor and choose to stay in Europe. You may decide to quit Ph.D. altogether. In case you are unable to get the US to offer the world remain in balance and no question of choice arise.
Edit: In case you get an offer (only in case) from USA next year. Consult your current advisor. He/She is really the correct (and the best) person that you should really listen for advice.
Rebutting @Matias_Andina: "This is unfair to another Ph.D. prospect": The person which is supposed to be hired if you leave this position is actually not capable enough to get hired. Else they'll be asking this question, not @teufel.
"you shouldn't accept a position unless you intend to stick with it...": Every hiring takes into account that things may not work due to thousands of reasons and people leave companies for their own goods all the time. This is a market place.
Accept the offer. Good Luck.

+1 yes, this is all correct. PhD studies are market place. that itis

The answer is actually grossly misleading: "Every hiring takes into account that things may not work due to thousands of reasons and people leave companies for their own goods all the time. This is a market place." - yes, perhaps. But OP knows they are going to leave, ahead of time. Academic positions are rare, especially in small fields. OP is taking away a post for a more interested student (they may have been only marginally weaker and far from "not capable enough to be hired" - #2s can turn out to be better than the original #1).

A more nasty mind than me might even suggest that OP wants to spy on lab #1 and then transfer some ideas to the more powerful lab #2 to carry them out. I myself do not think this is the case, but depending on how similar the projects are, this could easily be a possible perception.

Strongly disagree with this answer and the comment by its author, not least because of their seeming lack of ability to communicate in a civilised way. Downvoted and wish I could do so multiple times.

@Captain Emacs, this is an off-scope and unverifiable scenario. How could a PhD student during his first 3 months steal scientific ideas anyway? But in any case, the same principle, if true, would apply to industry as well. Switching jobs could be seen as transferring ideas between industrial departments. But we are not talking about espionage or something. Anyway, sensitive positions involve some kind of security clearance. Not the case here.

@teufel Of course, I do not really believe you intend do so. On the other hand, despite Pushpa thinking people who would believe this are stupid, I have actually seen far crazier things which even my most paranoid colleagues wouldn't have dreamt up. If one looks for extreme cases, one will always find one that's even more so.

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text:
Which license should be chosen in arXiv for reports and preprints to be published in Elsevier?
First, imagine the following scenario: A "report" is first archived in arXiv as version one (v1). From that report, a "preprint" manuscript (with the same title as the report, but probably shorter than the report, in order to comply with the number of pages required by the journal) is prepared, archived in arXiv as v2 and later sent to Elsevier. After acceptance, the "postprint" (version improved with the comments suggested by the reviewers) is archived in arXiv as v3.
Here we consider only the case of green open-access (the copyrights are transfered from the authors to Elsevier), and not the case of gold open-access (the copyright still belongs to the authors), since in the later case it is clear that any license that the authors wish can be applied to the report, preprint and postprint.
Said that, the more detailed questions are the following:

Is the "preprint" considered a derivative work of the "report"? Is the "postprint" considered a derivative work of the "preprint"?
Do the authors of the "report" and "preprint" still hold copyright on each of them (despite the copyrights of the postprint have been transfered to Elsevier)? See a sample of the publishing agreement and Elsevier's sharing policy FAQ (where the issue is not completely clear, at least to me)

Are you asserting copyright over preprints?
No, preprints can be used anytime anywhere by authors. We encourage authors seeking to publish in Cell Press, The Lancet, and some society owned titles to check the author section on the journal homepage for additional information.

In case of yes, does it mean that ANY creative commons (CC) license (CC:BY/4.0, CC:BY-SA/4.0 or CC:BY-NC-SA/4.0) can be applied to the "report" and the "preprint"? See Elsevier's sharing policy (the issue is again not clear to me)

Preprint

Authors can share their preprint anywhere at any time.
If accepted for publication, we encourage authors to link from the preprint to their formal publication via its Digital Object Identifier (DOI). Millions of researchers have access to the formal publications on ScienceDirect, and so links will help your users to find, access, cite, and use the best available version.
Authors can update their preprints on arXiv or RePEc with their accepted manuscript .

In case of no, what open-access license could have been applied to both the "report" and the "preprint"?

It is clear from a previous post that the "postprint" should have a CC:BY-NC-ND license in the .pdf file and uploaded to arXiv under "arXiv's non-exclusive license" since both are compatible and satisfy the requirements of both Elsevier and arXiv.
Also SHERPA/RoMEO doesn't mention what kind of license can be applied to the "preprint".
Thank you for your help

Are you sure about your definitions of green and gold open access? I hadn't heard that the difference had anything to do with who holds the copyright.

Thanks for the comment. Inside the parenthesis are not the definitions of green or gold open access, but the conditions under which you get them in Elsevier. You can pay a fee to Elsevier to publish your article under gold open access: The article is released under a CC license and the authors keep their copyrights. In case you don't pay the fee, you have to transfer the rights to Elsevier, but they still allow green open access: Postprint can be archived with a non-comercial CC license. See their copyright policy.

Is the "preprint" considered a derivative work of the "report"? Is the "postprint" considered a derivative work of the "preprint"?

This probably needs a lawyer to answer definitively. Needless to say, I am not one and cannot give an authoritative answer to this question.
My experience suggests that academics and publishers often treat the preprint and "postprint" - or, in general, different versions of the manuscript - as effectively the same work for copyright purposes (e.g. copyright transfer agreements make a point of addressing what the authors are allowed to do with preprints), even though, strictly speaking, I don't believe this is supported by US copyright law.
If one is to consider the preprint and postprint and other versions as separate works, it seems much more plausible that the postprint would be considered a derivative work of the preprint, rather than the other way around. The argument that a derivative work could be created before the work it is derived from is questionable, although I suppose some odd things of this sort are legally valid, so I can't say for sure.

Do the authors of the "report" and "preprint" still hold copyright on each of them (despite the copyrights of the postprint have been transfered to Elsevier)?

I suppose this depends on the legal interpretation of the copyright transfer agreement.
The passage you quote, which answers the question "Are you asserting copyright over preprints?" with "No....", suggests that, as Elsevier sees it, the authors retain ownership of copyright in the report and preprint.

In case of yes, does it means that ANY creative commons (CC) license (CC:BY/4.0, CC:BY-SA/4.0 or CC:BY-NC-SA/4.0) can be applied to the "report" and the "preprint"?

Well, at the time the report and preprint are uploaded to arXiv, the authors are indisputably the copyright owners and there are no other legal conditions that might interfere with applying a CC license to the preprint. So of course the authors can choose to apply a CC license. If they do, in principle, Elsevier could refuse to accept the manuscript for publication; or, if they do accept the manuscript and later find out that a preprint had been uploaded to arXiv, they could argue that the author executed a copyright transfer agreement under false pretenses and the agreement should be voided, or something of that nature. I can't say whether they would actually do this in practice.
Elsevier's sharing policy says

Authors can share their preprint anywhere at any time.

That means that authors can upload their preprints to a server, and one would hope it implies authors can also grant the server operator the rights to further share the preprint with readers. It's not clear whether Elsevier's policy allows the author to grant others the right to prepare derivative works, which would be (legally) required to upload it to a site like arXiv which distributes preprints under a Creative Commons license.

Personally, I think that what Elsevier's policy says is not "less restrictive" but "more ambiguous" than a CC license (Authors can share their preprint anywhere any time), because it is not clear what do they mean by share. If they mean distribute only, then it would be more restrictive than some CC licenses that allow also re-use of material or creation of derivatives besides distribution.

Yes, and Creative Commons licenses also allow anyone (not just the author) to share the preprint, so they are more permissive in that sense than Elsevier's sharing policy.

True, let me edit.

An interesting new development: the Plan S coalition (comprising several European research funding agencies) encourage their researchers to license their submissions and accepted author versions under CC-BY, and nevertheless sign the exclusive transfer paperwork of publishers, considering that it applies only to the publisher version, and that any publisher restrictions on the accepted author version (embargos, etc.) do not apply because of the preexisting CC-BY license. https://www.coalition-s.org/rights-retention-strategy/


text:
Changing supervisors in graduate program
Suppose that a student joins a graduate program with supervisor A. The supervisor has a bad reputation in the research group with a history of not caring for his students, e.g. professor goes to sabbatical on a regular basis and does not skype with his students, replies to emails from students in 5 minutes, does not help students with their coursework, expects students to comment on his research work, expects students to be independent, etc.
Incidentally, after a few months, he becomes more interested in the research interests of supervisor B in the same research group.
In this case, it is standard procedure for the student to be officially co-supervised by both supervisors A and B even though the student's projects are all supervised by supervisor B.
Now consider an alternative scenario. The student becomes more interested in the research interests of supervisors B and C.
In this case, is it standard procedure for the student to be officially co-supervised by supervisors B and C? In other words, does the student leave supervisor A completely?
How common is the second scenario in graduate programs?
Does the switch leave a bad impression of professors (in the research group) on the student?

Don't worry about this, I have a peer who has changed two supervisors. At the end, at the third supervisor,  he found his way into an experimental physics group, and has enough strong publications(Physical Review Letters) to defend the thesis and to advance his career.

professor goes to sabbatical on a regular basis and does not skype with his students -- Bad. -- replies to emails from students in 5 minutes -- So he needs a life. -- does not help students with their coursework -- Good! --  expects students to comment on his research work -- Good! -- expects students to be independent -- Excellent! What is this about not caring for his students?

There is no standard operating procedure for the group set-up you described.  Why don't you have a chat with B?  B is the element in common here between (A, B) and (B, C).  As Nicole said, don't complain or refer to rumors or reputation, just show an interest in a specific project or set of projects.

First, I'm a little confused by some of the complaints about supervisor A, such as "replies to emails from students in 5 minutes," "expects students to comment on his research work"...maybe I'm missing context?
Anyway, students often change supervisors for various reasons. The key is to be professional about it. To change supervisors and offer basic complaints as a reason will not be helpful in working relationships with professors A, B, or C. I think you need to make a case to the department that your current interests lie more with professor B (and/or C) and ask for a change in supervisor. This gives more professional reasons for the change and also makes professor B (and/or C) feel that you are very interested in their work, rather than just trying to get away from Professor A. It seems like now you have a choice whether you would like to hold onto professor A or make a complete change to B and C. Good luck!

The idea of a graduate (or PhD) program is to form the student into an independent researcher. This normally includes the liberty of the student to choose his own projects and research. On the other hand, the student also has to learn about funding, e.g. it might be that he only gets money if he works in As lab at least XX hours a week. This also counts as learning experience: If the student wants to work elsewhere, he might need to acquire new funds for it.
Regarding your question what of it is standard or not, that highly depends on field, country, university, even institution. Thus it would be best to ask your advisor, other students,... about how it is handled.


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Typical assistant vs. associate professor startup packages
In the United States, are the startup packages offered for tenure-track positions at research universities typically significantly different for the assistant and associate professor levels?
Background: I am a researcher in computer science considering moving from an industrial position to a university tenure track position. I have recently received an offer for a tenure-track position at the associate professor level (expected, given my career position).
The startup package being offered seems rather weak to me, however, particularly comparing it against a startup package that I know was offered to another person who recently entered this department in a similar position but at the assistant professor level.
Is it typical for a new associate professor to be offered a much smaller startup package than a new assistant professor (perhaps on the theory that they are already established in their career), or is the university giving me a weak offer?

The startup package is usually determined by what your dept. chair can convince the dean to go along with. If they just got a large startup package for another hire then the admin might just be tightening the belt, or they might just have different expectations. If you think the startup package is insufficient for what they/you would like to accomplish then talk to the chair or search committee. "I don't see how I can do XYZ without two grad students for 4 years." Give the chair/committee good reasons to go ask the dean for more and see what they say.

You should negotiate.  Usually the chair can help you negotiate.

If you want to hear actual numbers, those are very much dependent on your field, too.

I have clarified that my field is computer science. I also recognize that I should negotiate, and am planning to do so. My question is specifically about the baseline, in order to help formulate my arguments in negotiation: is it typical for associate professor offers to have smaller, larger, or the same size startup packages as assistant professor offers?

Please specify what sorts of features you were hoping to see in the startup package.

Your explicit question
Your question is about the statistics of startup offers to Associate versus Assistant Professors. I don't know if there's a resource that's able to answer that in detail, in general, across universities. The only Associate Professor startup package that I know of was indeed lower than most Assistant Professor packages, but I'm not in computer science, this Associate was bringing their own grant money, and N=1!
Your implicit question
However, it sounds like you're trying to use this data to make inferences about whether or not the university is giving you a "weak offer", and to use that information to set your negotiating strategy.
Don't.
This is a bad idea, for a couple of reasons.
A "weak offer" is not interpretable.
Let's say the university is making you a weak offer. Normally they'd offer $X, but for you, they're offering $2/3X. Uh oh! What does this mean?

They're not really all that excited about you. Sure, they'll hire you, but you were the best of a bad bunch. Not worth throwing money at.
These are hard financial times. The new budget is much tighter than previous years, and there are hard limits on what they can afford.
They don't understand your needs. Of course their previous hire, the robotics specialist, needed a lot of startup. But you, you work on computability theory, all you need is a pencil and a notebook, no problem!
It is a lowball offer, but it's flexible if you negotiate hard. The other hires were given similar offers, but negotiated hard and raised it fine.
Any combination of the above.

So, even if you did have an answer to your initial question, then you are left with even more questions.
Your startup needs are independent
Your startup needs are not dictated by what other people have been offered. Whether or not you need item X or software Y to succeed in this position cannot be determined by comparing your number to other people's numbers. This is a common problem in startup considerations, where the thinking is backwards.
Start with what you will need (and be generous, it's always good to have a little wiggle room). Come up with a budget to calculate what you would need to succeed, obtain grants, and really flourish. Share that itemized budget with your university contact. If the number is way off the number they are offering you, reflect on what is needed and what is flexible, and reflect on what is your best alternative to a negotiated agreement. That is, are you able to say "no" to them and walk away? Do you have other options? Can you maybe get away with using some cheaper equipment? Can you be creative with the startup, for example having it spread over several years (that way the capital outlay for the university is lower)? There are lots of options. Remember, the university has made you an offer because they want you. It is in their interests for you to succeed at your job and to flourish, so it is in their interests to ensure that you receive an adequate startup package.
Good luck!

+1 for the startup needs being independent. This is not part of your salary. This is literally money to help you start. Do you need a lot for your research? Do you need a little? This will vary heavily by researcher - for example, in my field, whether or not you need a wet lab.

Your startup package is negotiable, to some extent.  In addition to the fine answers I'm sure you'll get, my advice would be to assess whether your startup offer is sufficient to launch a successful career.  If it flat-out isn't, you need to hold out for a package that is.  Don't accept a position where you don't see the resources you need to be successful, or at the very least, a good plan to get them.
If you don't see what you need, you can continue to negotiate for more.  There are sometimes more creative solutions available, such as talking to your prospective chair about common or shared resources that would be made available to you, pre-arranged collaborations that could help you get started quicker .....
If you can be successful with the offered package, but you still don't feel like its big enough, you've got some thinking to do, but it will come down to a decision you make using data we don't have access to, like how bad you want the job, what other possible offers are in the wings, opportunities for your spouse, and other squishier stuff.
As to associate vs assistant packages, that's tougher.  Recruited Associates often  may be coming in with some of their own resources, and aren't starting from scratch. They've also demonstrated that they're less of a risk on the way in, and might be worth an additional investment.

I am afraid that this does not really answer my question.  Only the last paragraph actually addresses my question, and it mostly just puts forth the same two possible arguments that I have identified.  Do you have any knowledge or experience regarding offers actually made to associate professors?

@AssociateProfessorCandidate In some ways, he is answering your question, which is "These packages aren't fixed in a meaningful way."


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Authorship of a student who published separately without permission
My co-authors and I are preparing to submit a manuscript and have a problem regarding authorship.
Several months ago, a grad student on the project became upset and quit. We just discovered that, after quitting, the student apparently decided to publish results from the project under their own name, without including or informing any of the other co-authors, without listing the funder, etc. What the student published is incorrect (decent journal, but peer review failed to catch the issues) and bears little relation to the final work, and obviously that journal is being informed about the need to withdraw that paper.
We now have a dilemma regarding the student's authorship on the intended publication.
The student is listed as a co-author because they did make contributions before quitting the project. Since they are a co-author, we had planned to send a copy of the draft to the student before submission. Now we do not want to do this, because we fear the student might decide to again inappropriately publish the work under their own name or otherwise foul the publication. The journal we are planning to submit to, however, requires that you indicate that all co-authors have given consent for a submission.
What is an ethical way to navigate this dilemma?

Have you had any contact with the student regarding these issues?

The student's former advisor had contact with the student about the inappropriate publication when the student first posted a draft on a preprint server. The student's submission for peer review came after that discussion, when the student had already been informed plainly that publishing these results solo was scientific misconduct.

I wonder about an acknowledgement section that says that John Doe was part of the initial research but disavowed the final manuscript... (assuming that actually happens)

How did the student contribute to the paper? Did they collect data, analyze it, prepare figures, write part of the text or come up with a key idea? The reason I'm asking is because if you want to minimize your future involvement with the student, it's probably best if you can reject and redo any work they did. (Not to mention that you probably should double-check it anyway just to make sure it's correct.) But the nature of their contributions makes a difference in how easy this is, if it's even possible at all.

@IlmariKaronen As it happens, that process has already occurred. The student's work had significant flaws, which is why what the student published is incorrect and why the final results that we produced are so different.

It seems that publishing the draft on a preprint server like ArXiv should be enough to prevent any unwanted action from the student. If he decides to publish the draft on its own, it's enough to prove its yours. And you can update the draft with his comments/his after he gives his consent. Furthermore, the new draft has very little to do with the first one, and if he refuses to be part of the new one, maybe mentioning him within the acknowledgments would be enough.

@AssociateProfessorCandidate It is hard to asses the student contribution from outside, but authorship is granted for the intellectual contributing to the final result (ie generating data etc does not count). If peaceful solution is not possible, a brief acknowledgment for performing some of the preliminary experiments might be a solution (I have seen examples for that)

I don't think the answer is as obvious as the other posters make it sound—I can't find any guidelines indicating an explicitly malicious coauthor should be enabled to tank a research study that they are no longer a part of. Imagine a scenario where six authors collaborate on a study that concludes guacamole causes oral cancer. A coauthor, who works for a guacamole company, refuses to participate in the publication process, in an attempt to suppress the results. They are breaking the agreement between authors, so your obligations to them change.
The coauthor has already committed scientific misconduct, with public evidence of their fraud, and has given you no reason to think they wouldn't do it again. Personally, I would absolutely not send the new manuscript to this person without getting a third party involved first. It's not necessary to allow yourself to be repeatedly defrauded by a bad actor while you hope—again, for no reason—that they suddenly begin to behave ethically.
Authorship disputes are common, though this one does seem exceptionally tricky. Is it possible to get your institution involved to settle this? If the coauthor quit the project but is still in school, I would hope there was an official mediation process for situations like this—I know of at least one person who was recommended for expulsion from undergraduate studies for more benign fraud than this. For what it's worth, Wiley, one of the largest academic publishers in the world, recommends "Authorship disputes will often need to be referred to institutions if the authors cannot resolve the dispute themselves," as does the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). I imagine this is usually regarding authors who want to be added to a publication, but it's still an authorship dispute.
One potential approach, particularly if your institution doesn't seem particularly interested in intervening, is to communicate (in writing!) with the coauthor about the situation and your desire to keep them as a coauthor. If they respond, great! Hopefully it will be a productive conversation, and they can offer you some reassurance that they won't steal your work. If they do not respond, and you're for some reason unable to contact them some other way, then your problem may actually become a little less tricky: Removing a coauthor who refuses to respond is a more common issue that journal editors may be more willing to deal with once the manuscript gets to them. If you submit the manuscript without them as a coauthor, the journal can then use this correspondence, and the retracted stolen results, to make a decision about the final author list.

But have you seen any guidelines that indicate that misconduct, however malicious, has any effect on authorship right? If not, then it is simple: a consent of a co-author is required, ergo they can tank the publication by refusing to consent.

Not indicating all authors, and not obtaining consent to publish from all authors, may lead to much more problems down the road than not confronting the problem now.

@Kostya_I You're right that I can't find any guidelines that indicate misconduct has an effect on authorship, but a lack of guidance for one solution doesn't necessarily support an argument for the opposite solution. I imagine exceptions are carved out all the time, it just happens without others finding out about it. More consistent, publicly available policy—in either direction—would be helpful.

Two things should be clear:

it is not ethical to publish without them on the list, and
it is not ethical to publish without obtaining all authors' positive consent.

So, the only possible course of action if you want to publish the results is to show them a draft and obtain such a consent.
I don't think there's real risk of the student trying to steal the draft. It's one thing what they did so far: the student can maintain plausible deniability that they honestly judged they were the only one who really merited co-authorship. Stealing someone else's draft is a different level of misconduct completely.
On top of that, the student knows that it will not work: you already started a process of retracting their paper, hopefully successfully, and with the new draft, your case would be bulletproof. If you wish, you can also make it harder for them by only providing the final PDF without Latex sources, pictures etc.
So, from rational point of view, the student has two option, either write "I agree", click "send", and have a publication out of that, or engage in a risky activity with unlikely benefit. Of course, not all people are rational, but if it has come to the point that they will obstruct publication even at a cost of self-harm, nothing can be done.

There's a third option: the student could refuse to reply to the request.

Expecting rational behaviour from someone who has already stormed off and unethically published the work without attribution seems unwise.

And a fourth option: "No, I do not agree".

@Schmuddi, sure, but then nothing changes for the OP compared to where they stand now.

Extracting pictures and text from a PDF is not a big challenge. I wouldn't consider it a safety measure when sending a document to someone you don't trust.

@Kostya_I: What I'm saying is: The other authors need to prepare themselves for a situation so messed up that they can't publish their work at all without a breach of ethics.

I think that by having engaged in unprofessional and fraudulent behavior as described, the student effectively forfeited their rights to be listed as a co-author and to have a say in the decision about whether to submit the manuscript. What would the alternative be? Should the co-authors risk letting the manuscript be held hostage by this vindictive former student just so they can say everything was fair? That's no longer fair to the other co-authors, whose progress could conceivably get delayed indefinitely and/or sabotaged. They were not the ones committing misconduct here, the student was.

@zunojeef, accepting, arguendo, that the student behaved badly, including by violating the rights of other participants in the project, that does not entitle the other participants to reciprocate in kind.  If the student's agreement to the new paper cannot be obtained then no journal is likely to accept it, lest they expose themselves to claims of misconduct and a possible lawsuit from the student.  Yes, people who flaunt the rules sometimes obtain an advantage thereby over those who comply, at least temporarily.  But at what cost?

This is not a full answer, but here's what I suggest you start by doing:
Try reaching out to that graduate student and asking them about the prospect of publication. That is, tell them that you plan on publishing the group's work, , and see how they react. If they don't burst out shouting, ask whether they are ok with it. If they don't specifically demand being listed as an author, propose  a "The authors would like to thank" note; if they do demand authorship, or do get into a shouting match, then you might want to either offer authorship or say you need to confer with the others about it.
It's best to let the author with the least history of animosity vis-a-vis the student make the call. Perhaps even sacrifice familiarity for non-animosity, since the grad student is less likely to feel the right to make demands and get angry at someone they don't really know (and who may be their senior academically).
PS - Try to have a voice conversation, not on-the-record exchange of letters or formal-sounding emails.

That's the only viable solution. Thanks for this non-confrontational approach!

@usr1234567: It is partly rooted in the fact that authorship is not a zero-sum game. Except perhaps in the case of single author vs 2 authors,, it usually does not detract from your "magical glory" benefit to recognize another author. So at worst OP will be repaying injury with kindness - but that will give OP the best chance of getting the groups' work published, which is really the important goal here.


text:
Is a high school diploma an academic degree?
In the USA, a high school diploma is often considered a different kind of qualification than a degree. This kind of idea is also expressed in the Academia.SE question Is it possible for a high school student with no academic qualifications to publish a research paper?, which seems to imply that a high school graduate currently enrolled in undergraduate studies at a university does not hold any academic credentials.
Is there any precedent for considering high school diplomas, similar non-US equivalents, or high school equivalency exams (e.g. the GED) as academic degrees? For example, if John Smith, a GED holder with no further education, needed to be referred to or addressed based on his academic credentials, would he be referred to as John Smith, GED or simply John Smith? Similarly, would (or could) it be proper to refer to credential holders such as "Ann Jones, Leaving Cert (Ireland)", "Hans Schmidt, Abitur", or William Robinson, NTCE, or would they simply be considered as persons lacking any academic credentials?

They would be credited as 'John Smith' - degree status is not listed on papers.

@JonCuster I updated the question to fix that. Thanks. The real question is whether a high school diploma is an academic degree, and that is independent of citation rules.

The exception seems to be medical papers, where they are sure to list "MD" after the names of the authors, as I recall.  I agree with Jon though: in the US there would usually be no reason ever to list academic qualifications at all.

@GEdgar thanks. I have been reading medical papers lately so that practice may have stuck in my mind.

Is a high school diploma an academic degree for what purpose?

Is this a question for academia?  Seems it might be more suited to English Usage and Grammar.

@JeffE from the perspective of academics and the academic field. Is someone whose highest qualification is a high school diploma generally considered worthy of being accepted socially as a degree holder? Was it more common in the past to do so?

Is someone whose highest qualification is a high school diploma generally considered worthy of being accepted socially as a degree holder? — That depends entirely on your social circles.  Obviously.

It seems that you can use https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_certificate, rather than academic degree.

The Wikipedia article Academic degree says,

An academic degree is a qualification awarded to students upon successful completion of a course of study in higher education, normally at a college or university.

and the linked article on Higher education says,

Higher education, post-secondary education, or third level education is an optional final stage of formal learning that occurs after completion of secondary education.

According to these definitions, a high school diploma is not an academic degree.