text:
My peers think I slept with my overly friendly TA - what do I do?
I am a female undergraduate student and in a bit of a situation here.
Last semester, I had a male graduate teaching assistant for one of my classes, and I got the very strong impression for months that this TA was romantically interested in me because of his behavior. He'd turn others away from office hours if it was just the two of us, often brush up against me or touch my arm when there was no need, offer unprompted help to me with things outside of class, and generally pay me more mind than other students in the class either by calling on me more or conversing with me more than others. Other people also got that idea and I was recently asked by a former classmate if we were sleeping together because of his perceived preferential treatment of me.
So I had to explain that no, we weren't, which was very awkward and humiliating (my peers think I slept with him for an A - that's a gross feeling). And I sorta flipped out on the TA and sent him an email essentially calling him out for those behaviors. I also figured it would be best to create some distance between us so as not to feed the rumor mill. I didn't want to cut ties with him because I did like him as a person and a friend; losing that has been really devastating, but I thought that was the most practical response since I didn't know how serious that kind of rumor was or if it could hurt either of us professionally.
The TA hates me now, my peers still think I slept my way to an A, and I feel in over my head. None of that really feels dealt with or better.
Do I need to be worried about a rumor like that? Might there ever be a way to salvage the relationship with the TA someday? Should I do anything else?

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

If the way your peers are treating you amounts to more than a passing question about whether you slept with your TA, consider the possibility that this treatment is a form of bullying. It may make sense to seek out resources at your school that exist to deal with this phenomenon.

It sounds like this incident has run its course and there's not a whole lot left to be done. This can be hard to accept: we as humans have a real need for closure, and we like everything to be resolved fairly and on good terms. But not all things work out so well.
With respect to your relationship with your TA: it sounds like the way he treated you was so over-the-top that your entire class suspected that you were sleeping together. This suggests major boundary violations on his part, which he has not even acknowledged. Do you really want to be friends, given this? Perhaps you could have handled the situation more calmly, but he was in the position of authority, so this is really on him -- he "should have known better." Absent some recognition of wrongdoing from his part, it is difficult to imagine that a friendship could continue.
In any case, being accused of sexual misconduct is incredibly serious these days, and so he is probably terrified that you will cause major problems for his career. Regardless of guilt or innocence, accusing an instructor of sexual misconduct will almost certainly immediately and permanently end the relationship. And in this case, it sounds like that's a good thing for you, though losing a friend is never easy.
With respect to your relationship with your peers: I agree with the other answers that you should just deny it when asked. There is not much you can do to clear your name, and trying to fight the rumor mill is a losing battle. It is highly unlikely that vague rumors at such an early stage of your career will have any lasting impact. Good luck.

Re: the last paragraph... I think I'd also consider that "monster slept their way to an A" could be an unfair way of expressing "I'm disappointed/embarrassed by my own grade". They may not even really believe it to be true, but saying it somehow makes them feel temporarily better. Arguing against it with more than a simple denial gives more weight to it when the people involved may not even need convincing. College aged students aren't so far matured from their high school years to extinguish high-school behaviors (unfortunately that is sometimes not even true of those much older).

I put it as respectfully as I could to him by saying it was just a discussion and not an accusation, and it would stay between us to avoid causing more trouble. Just that I'd felt things had crossed into a territory where they needed to be addressed and a firm boundary needed to be established. I guess it's on him if he can't admit any wrongdoing, and maybe that's why it doesn't feel resolved. He put the onus on me for misinterpreting and not on the fact that those behaviors could easily BE misinterpreted.

"This suggests major boundary violations on his part" - alternatively, it might suggest students being immature and teasing the OP with it blowing way out of proportion.

I’ve gotta say I don’t think they’re blowing it out of proportion. Sitting so close we’d be touching, turning other students away when it was just us in office hours even though office hours were for the whole class, offering me help unprompted with things outside/unrelated to class, always picking on me in class, openly staring at me, etc. has a way of giving off that idea. I’d have been confused if I were seeing that from the outside too. I was confused on the inside of it!!

@Lodinn it's a boundary violation as soon as monster established where her boundary is, regardless of where it is.

@monsterdynamite In particular, turning other students away from office hours in your favor is not just flirting in an inappropriate setting, but actively refusing to do his job. There’s no excuse for that and if he can’t recognize that it was way over the line, I agree with cag51 that you’d do best to stay away.

@cag51 paragraph 3 suggests that you think it is more serious to report sexual harassment than it is to commit it. He should be less concerned with his career being ruined and more concerned with doing his job effectively. Academia is competitive and there are many deserving individuals, there is no reason to preserve the place of someone who sexually harasses one student while denying others access to academic guidance. She should absolutely report and he should absolutely not be in a position of power over students now or ever.

It is unclear from the third paragraph whether or not you are advising OP to make an allegation of sexual harassment, or whether you think such an allegation would be justified in this situation. I recommend omitting or clarifying this paragraph.

Only OP can decide whether a formal allegation would be justified in this case; I offer no advice there. The third paragraph merely states that since OP has already accused the TA of sexual misconduct (albeit in a kind, discrete manner), it is highly likely that the TA will permanently cut all ties.

Echoing @Buffy's advice: no, don't attempt to "take action", just respond to questions or accusations with "no, it didn't happen".
This sort of thing all too easily arises... even with innocent intentions, etc. That's why the advice I give TAs (=teaching assistants) and other people is to avoid even/especially the appearance of impropriety.
When the less-powerful person is not actively soliciting a "special relationship", but/and the more-powerful person seems to be hinting at it, intentionally or not, but for public view, it is a bad thing. All the worse because the less-powerful person can't do much about it in any direct way. One of these "when did you stop beating your wife" sort of questions.
There is also the unfortunate tendency of many human beings to find interest in gossip and scandal, so often finding something where there's nothing. (Not to mention conspiracy theories... sigh).
In summary: a very unfortunate situation, but probably best dealt with by leaving it alone. I hesitate to recommend anything like "in the future be really cold and standoffish to everyone..." to pretend to avoid such situations...

I probably didn't help things much by getting upset with the TA, then, especially since I did still hope we could be friends. Oh well. Thanks for the input!

@monsterdynamite, ah, yeah, in particular, try to avoid giving legitimacy to bogus things by inadvertently engaging with them as though they were real. Crazy stuff. My sympathies and best wishes.

I did still think it was important to draw a line with him, though. If multiple people in the class thought we were hooking up because of how he was acting with me, then those were behaviors that needed addressing. Though, I probably could have handled it better. It's stuff that needed saying, but maybe it needed saying in a better way.

The more-powerful person in such a situation has vastly more responsibility for propriety (and, in real life, a definite-positive obligation to tactfully make this clear...) than a less-powerful person. The less-powerful person can all too often drive themselves crazy trying to think how to "solve a problem" that is ... oop... beyond their power. And not created by them. Yes, good to be a responsible person, but some things are ... out-of-balance.

@monsterdynamite Stop blaming yourself. You did what you did because in an awkward and uncomfortable situation. He should have known better as Paul Garret clearly describes in the comment above.

@paul's last comment really sums up where the fault lies here, and monsterdynamite's mention of "sitting so close as to be touching" means that the TA had already crossed a line. My position is that students should be completely off limits to TAs who have any academic responsibility to them, but if that's not the case, any approach really has to be gentle and verbal - as it should be between friends if he sees that as a starting point.  Then he could have been refused in a similar way rather than having to be called out for bad behaviour which he seems to have thought he could get away with.

To anyone who asks or implies an improper relationship, just deny it. "Nope, didn't happen."
It is unlikely that there would be any ill effects unless the TA starts lying. If that happens and the instructor gets involved, you may have to make a more formal appeal, but you don't suggest it is going that way.
It seems the other person behaved badly, but you can't change that. If you have a safe opportunity to ask the other person, perhaps they will do the same, but you need to analyze the situation before trying that. "Nope, didn't happen."
If your closest friends are aware of the truth, perhaps that truth will spread.

I think I might have done the wrong thing by confronting the TA then. I don't think I went about it as delicately as I hoped to, and as a result he now seems to hate me. Honestly, I just wanted to do the thing that would lead to the least amount of hurt/complication in the long run, I just didn't know what that was. Oof. Thank you for the advice, though.

@monsterdynamite: It doesn't sound like you did the wrong thing here-you confronted the TA by email, and that they responded badly was more on them than anything.Had their behavior continued from that point, you would have been even more justified with escalating it the instructor or,as they mention, a formal appeal.Escalating it to the instructor or a formal appeal may have had one benefit in anonymizing the complaint to the TA,had they been doing this to a few other students as well,but it sounds like this was more clearly focused,so that may had just escalated it if they could identify you.

And here am I, thinking that making these accusations, repeatedly, is actually harassment. So I wouldn't just deny it. I'd say, "This didn't happen, and if you bring it up ever again, we'll have a discussion about harassment of a fellow student.|

Last semester is very recent, and this situation is really very simple.
This is what sexual harassment looks like exactly. This may have been the first time you experienced it, but sadly, it is unlikely to be the last.
The best thing you can do is to report this person to the appropriate channels at your institution right away. This is important, because if they continue to be put in a position of authority (TA) there is substantial risk that the misconduct will continue in one form or another with other students, making further negative impact. Sexual harassment usually is related to a pattern of behavior with others.
One of the many reasons that sexual harassment is taken so seriously is that when it goes unreported, it is the victims who bear the consequences of the perpetrators actions. It is you who are currently in the position of explaining away the misconduct of this person while other students have been denied resources on account of it. They aren't your friend, because a friend would never compromise you the way they have. Reporting their behavior and disengaging from them is the best thing you can do for yourself and for others. This can be done anonymously.

+1. I'm surprised and a bit disappointed that the other answers shy away from calling it.

I am sorry you've had to deal with this so early in your academic career. Your predicament is a good illustration of why nowadays instructors, of any rank, are widely forbidden from pursuing relationships with their students. Your TA should have known better.
What to do? You did the right thing. If it makes you feel any better, consider that you did him and everyone else a favor by calling him out. It's better that he gets a reality check from a friendly, well intentioned victim such as yourself, before he does much worse to himself and others. If he is the nice and well-intentioned guy you believe him to be, it is understandable that he would be upset by your email but he should come around once he's had some time to reflect on it.
As for what to say to your peers? Consider venting your frustration at being put in this situation. It might remind your friends that you need them on your side, and if not, it still feels good to vent.

The thing is, I genuinely think he's good at heart, just not good with social cues. Hopefully, this will be a wake-up call for him to be a little less buddy-buddy with students. My current TAs drop off the face of the earth outside class and office hours, and that's exactly the way it should be.

@monsterdynamite you're being kind to him, and that reflects well on you. I could describe myself as "good at heart, just not good with social cues" and that's why boundaries are good for both the student and the TA. Being friendly, even being friends, is possible and may even be desirable, but touching and excluding others from academic meetings (office hours) are a different matter.

I'll offer a different viewpoint for your consideration, but it's just a theory and I don't necessarily advocate it.
I almost didn't write this after reading all of the comments, but as a Stack Exchange answer it may contain something helpful to future readers even if it doesn't apply in this specific case.

He'd turn others away from office hours if it was just the two of us, often brush up against me or touch my arm when there was no need, offer unprompted help to me with things outside of class, and generally pay me more mind than other students in the class either by calling on me more or conversing with me more than others.

You mentioned that you got an "A" in your class which means you're pretty good in this area!
It might be possible that the elevated attention was academic; intended at least to give a student with particular promise encouragement and support in a still-sexist academic world.
For this theory to work, the only thing that doesn't quite fit is the "brush(ing) up against me or touch(ing) my arm".
These days most people who are expressive physically know to "self-censor" and not touch someone else in an academic or any workplace situation.
Straight men will sometimes ignore that and touch other men because they feel it can't possibly be misinterpreted, gay men may tend to touch other men less for fear it might be misinterpreted as a sexual advance or "gratuitous groping". On the other hand gay men might feel more comfortable touching women the way two women colleagues sometimes touch because they think it's "understood" that it's not an advance.
Basically the politics of touching is complicated!
Perhaps the brushing and touching was not meant as a sexual advance, and all of the elevated attention was meant to encourage a promising student.
And perhaps he simply likes you as a friend, is lonely, and would like to be your friend outside of class in a nonsexual way. Men and women can be friends! It does happen.
That might help explain their strong reaction to your email.
And of course everything could be exactly as you suspect as well!

... - what do I do?

Much of the advice here is of the "leave it alone and move on" variety and that certainly could be seen as the prudent thing to do, and if there are personal safety issues it would be bad to advise to the contrary.
But if this misinterpretation theory feels like it might ring true then getting to the bottom of it might be something to consider. But that's really a secondary concern and depends on your judgement of the situation.

I could see your point (though I don't agree with its interpretation) until "That might help explain their strong reaction to your email."  If the TA wanted to be friends, his response to the email would be more likely to be apologetic and embarrassed than to act like he hates the OP

@ChrisH as I mention I don't necessarily advocate this either. This isn't Interpersonal  SE so we shouldn't dwell on this but the OP only says "The TA hates me now" and "and as a result he now seems to hate me" but doesn't seem to say anything about how the TA now actually acts. I think it's an expression that could include complete avoidance. Not everyone would jump to an apology; fear, sadness, confusion and compassion are all reasons that one might decide to simply withdraw. There's simply not enough information here to say what is more likely.

I interpret it slightly differently but suspect that personal experience and my own rather strict views on proper behaviour influence my reading.  While I don't agree enough to vote this up, I'm not voting down either - the system doesn't handle a sort of devil's advocate answer very well

@ChrisH firs sentence says I do not necessarily advocate this answer and it goes without saying that I never advocate evil. I'm only saying that one might consider alternative or non-mainstream interpretations.

yes, indeed thanks for posting it.  But appreciating your action isn't the same as endorsing the meat of the answer (even when introduced with a disclaimer).

@uhoh this response is making me cringe. Gaslighting the victim is really not a solution to what is clearly sexual harassment.

@psithurism I certainly understand your concern, and as I write in the answer I almost didn't post did. You can re-read the post to see why I eventually decided to add it to the mix of all the other good answers. This is still Stack Exchange.  I think you are mischaracterizing this answer as written, please take a moment to go through it carefully again.

@uhoh I went from a C- and fearing I'd fail earlier on in the semester to an A overall at the end, so his attention absolutely was not because I was some prodigy with the subject matter. I struggled a lot with it, which is why I was in office hours so frequently. Ofc, maybe he turned others away because I needed as much extra help as I did, but that's still not ok. They were enrolled in the class, same as I was.

@monsterdynamite thanks for your comment. That might have been better to put in the question so other readers and answer authors would have seen it; a question about disproportionate academic attention might have answers nuanced differently. A teacher’s limited attention resources will naturally gravitate to where it can have the best impact and lots of students may simply want things explained to save time studying or to argue grades. I can’t address the brushing/touching but the unequal attention by itself could be a good and dedicated teacher seeing an opportunity to make a difference.

@monsterdynamite but I don’t at all want to say there wasn’t (or was) harassment; that’s 100% your call.

"Basically the politics of touching is complicated!" No, it really isn't. This was harassment and the TA shouldn't have done it. There is nothing complicated here.

@Stef It's up to the OP to decide that, not you nor I. And if you take some time to read how my answer is written, you'll see that the quoted sentence is not about "here".

I did read your answer - I wouldn't have been able to comment on it otherwise. Have a good day.

Your relation with the TA or the lack thereof is simply none of anyone's business. If someone asks you about it, you should refrain from outright denying it, simply say that it's none of their business. If people think that you cheated with the help of the TA, then they are free to file a complaint based on evidence for the misconduct. But because you didn't do anything wrong, such evidence does not exist, so no complaint can be filed.
By explicitly denying that you had a relationship with the TA, you are taking a defensive position, giving up ground to people making unfounded accusations. By instead refusing to engage with people on this topic, you stand your ground which is psychologically a much healthier way to go about things. If people accuse you of having obtained an A from the TA in an inappropriate way, then tell them to file a complaint instead of bothering you with these accusations.

As pointed out in the comments, what I'm proposing seems to be problematic. But the goal should not be to try to communicate something about the relationship to the class, rather to firmly defend the red line about your private sex life.
People are free to believe anything they want, it's just that the details of the relationships are none of their business. Making that clear may be interpreted as admitting to having a sexual relationship, but that's what anyone is free to assume anyway.
Instead of saying "It's none of your business", one can also say: "Why are you asking me about this again? Are you going to disclose the details of your sex life to everyone? If it makes you feel better to assume that I have a sexual relationship with the TA, then why not assume that I did, and stop asking me about it?"
By being firm, what is going to happen is that people will stop harassing you about this issue. People may gossip, but on the longer term you'll gain respect from people for having been firm about this issue. No one wants their sex lives to become a public issue. But people do like to gossip about such things. The urge to gossip is a short term issue, on the longer term people will be able to see that they would not like to be in a situation where their sex lives become the subject of a public debate.
At heart this is really a case of sexual harassment. But it requires the student who is harassed to make it very clear that these questions are not appreciated, and if they persist that she will file a complaint. There exists a process for students to address cases of cheating. If they have any evidence of cheating, they should follow that process. Harassing someone they accuse of cheating is not the right thing to do.

As a counterpoint: saying "none of your business" could all too easily be construed as a tacit admission. Taking a defensive position could be appropriate when one is being attacked.

In logic, not saying anything provides less information than denying, and thus provides less information from which inferences can be made. In the real world, not saying anything is much more likely to be interpreted (by others, if not legally) as guilt than denying, and I suspect for most people empirical experience strongly supports this non-logical inference.

It is absolutely false that the onus is on the victim to "make it very clear" that sexual advances and misconduct are "unappreciated". The behavior described in the original post very clearly describes classic sexual harassment and there is plenty of legal precedent to underscore the gravity of those actions. She needs only report this and the university is obliged to investigate it pursuant to employment law. Remember, TAs are not just graduate students but institutional employees.

@Trunk there are many reasons why someone might not feel comfortable and confident to call out being sexually harassed in the moment it is happening. Either way, the point of my comment was that her response to being harassed isn't the issue here. The issue is the harassment from her academic superior, full stop. IOW sexual harassment has a legal definition which is very much rooted in "reality" and that definition is not dependent on what the victim says in the moment. The rhetoric on this post is eerily close to "she wanted it". Silence doesn't equate to consent for the behavior described.

@trunk I really didn't want to create conflict between myself and the person directly responsible for my grade by offending him, especially when the subject was niche (so I didn't have many places to receive help) and I needed a lot of help.

@Trunk That applies to the TA, because the TA is in a position of authority and should have been instructed before he took on teaching duties that the sort of behavior described by the OP is inappropriate. So, the OP can indeed complain about the OP on these grounds. But people asking her about her relationship with the TA is not a clear-cut case of sexual harassment. If the OP tells people asking such questions that she does not appreciate such questions and they persist over her objection then that also becomes sexual harassment.

@Trunk, Indeed! I guess they don't have these sorts of problems here.


text:
How do I answer a question on the ethical implications of my work at PhD viva?
I am defending my PhD thesis soon and have been told to practice some questions that I should expect, one of which is:
What are the ethical implications of your work?
How should I go about answering this?
My field is ocean physics, and my thesis has focused on investigating the causes of high temporal resolution variability in ocean temperature. How could I tackle this question in the defense?

Practicing questions is very good: you might ask a friend to help you practice dealing with unscripted questions, particularly 'unfair' questions.  Who suggested the ethics question?

The ethics question was shown here: http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/ResearchEssentials/?p=156. Q19 of this list.

Ethics questions are a staple in research involving studies on human subjects, and they are also relevant if your work might be relevant for policy recommendations or business decisions.  It's not obviously relevant for ocean physics, but it is good to practice unexpected qns.

@CharlesStewart I'm not so sure I agree with that. I don't think it's useful to practice handling completely unexpected questions, because with high probability the only reason you would be asked such a question is if the examiner is trying to trip you up, and in that case there is no way you could possibly be prepared for everything they may ask. Your time is better spent preparing for the expected or likely questions. (Example: for my own thesis, in high-energy physics, it would have made no sense to prepare an answer to "What are the ethical implications of your work?")

@DavidZ: The aim is to learn to stay cool under pressure, not to prepare useless answers.  I use the technique in coaching - it works.

@CharlesStewart Ah, I see your point. Still, staying cool under pressure is not what the original post is about, unless you're challenging Emma's assertion that this question is to be expected at the defense. And in that case I think my reasoning does apply: there'd be no point in preparing an answer to this particular question. For purposes of learning how to handle unexpected questions, any irrelevant question is as good as any other.

@DavidZ - Emma says she got the qn from a list of common questions, not from an adviser.  I don't think it is likely to come up in an ocean physics defence, unless there are policy implications of her work.

Not the answer to your question, but I presented my dissertation defense as a colloquium to faculty at a different institution before the actual defense.  I recorded myself and their questions.  It helped a lot.

I'm not an ocean physicist, or anywhere qualified in oceanography, nor do I have a slight idea of what your topic is on.
That being said, research involving water, and any political ramifications that may impact it, typically will impact commerce related to the oceans.
In this case, theoretical commercial impacts:

Fishing. Your research may potentially result in a ban on fishing, or make it harder to obtain fishing licenses.
Trade commerce. Ships are still used to transport goods around the world, including oil. As above, any sort of research that indicates that the oceans may be unsafe or bars certain trade routes will result in economical impacts down the line.
National borders. Traditionally, countries own a specific amount of shoreline before international waters. A shifting shoreline may result in a changing border and or possible border disputes.
Tourism. Obviously, effects of the water, even perceived, may impact tourism.
Insurance. Rising tides = rising premiums.

Whether or not these apply to your topic, I can't really tell, but it's better to start with a list of things and then check them off as irrelevant gives the no ethical impact argument more weight.

My knowledge of Oceanography stops at "there is an awful lot of water", so I don't know for sure, but if I was asked this question, I will flatly say there are none. Maybe you would like to justify it a bit, but don't get lost; if asked, it is a mean question.
On a related note, I do have an answer in case someone, specially when talking to a general audience, tries to make political comments.

Stars [or proteins, oceans, particles...] don't care about politics.

And move on. I only had to use it once during a class, but having it in the reserve did gave me peace of mind when I was interviewed by a politically loaded radio station.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
How many major revisions are allowed when publishing with Elsevier?
I submitted my paper to one of the Elsevier journals in the field of molecular biology and evolution, I've got one major revision back; I fixed the comments, and sent it back to the journal.
It is still "under review" for 1.5 months.
What I want to know is

Is it possible that this review comes out with another major revision?
how many major revisions can I get?
what are usually the time frames for the second round of reviews?

Several rounds of major revisions are certainly possible.

It's completely up to the editor. The publisher is irrelevant.

To give this an answer:

Yes, it is posisble that you are again asked to make major revisions.
It's completely up to the editor to decide how many rounds of revisions are appropriate.  There's not a fixed number for all the publisher's journals.
You'll have to ask someone in your field, ideally someone who's published in that journal before.  But it also depends a lot on how speedy the reviewer is, and how long the editor gives them.

Although I believe @Nate Eldredge is right, in that it's up to the editor, I do believe myself that the editor should have a very good reason to require more than one major revision - I've had a few cases where I felt that multiple 'major revision' steps were actually a mechanism for delay.

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


text:
How can I find out when an Editor intends to publish my paper?
My manuscript was accepted in an ISI journal 6 months ago, but it is not published online yet. I found that the journal published online some manuscripts that were accepted after my acceptance date. Therefore, I sent several emails to the journal Editor but, I did not receive any answer.
How can I find when the journal aim to publish my manuscript?

Are you comfortable saying what journal it is? I am curious. Also, some journals will accept papers and have them on a back "backlog". They will publish the backlog journals when they feel like they don't have any newer and more "worthy" articles to publish.

Typically, a publisher uses an online system that allows authors to track the status of their paper. Double-check your inbox (particularly Spam folder) for a automatic email from such system (search the journal name for example).
If you are sure that you did not hear from the publisher and the journal editor within 6 months, I would say, it becomes worrying. The academic publishing was never a particularly fast process, but this situation probably oversteps the limits. Consider writing to the support team of your publisher and to Editor-in-Chief of your journal with inquiry. Also, consider sharing the name of the journal with your peers to prevent future misuse of anyone's precious time.

Thank you Dmitry, to tell the truth, I am worrying why they keep my manuscript, but I have no other choice except waiting.I tried to find the Associate Editor Email, however I was not successful....

With publication in dead-tree format, journals occasionally shoot themselves in the foot by accepting more papers than they can publish in a single issue (and if the editor is not serious about it, this problem can snowball very quickly). Online publication is a totally different game, as your paper can be made downloadable the moment you submit the corrected proofs. As Dmitry said, six months is way way excessive. Keep pestering the editor and consider threatening the journal with a retraction if they don't take action soon.


text:
What is a reasonable time to resubmit revised papers after they have been peer reviewed?
I'm pondering on how much time I should plan to finalize a paper that has received a 'revise and resubmit' letter from the journal editor.
I know that I should return it as soon as possible. However, given that I have other work to do I would like to know if there's an unwritten rule on how long should I take to resubmit.

Times vary. In my field three weeks for minor and six weeks for major revisions seems common. If the journal does not provide any general guidelines on this one would hope that the editor would do so. From your question, I take it neither has occurred. You can then approach the problem by trying to assess how much time you need (given other chores etc.) and then contact the editor asking if your estimated time plus a week or some smaller buffer would be acceptable. That way you gain a deadline against which to work and remove possibly annoying reminders.
So I will not attempt to provide a fixed time for your specific case since what is customary varies both between disciplines and between journals but trying to  get a reasonable time frame to which you can commit should be a good step to take.


text:
Not waiving the right to see letter of recommendation
I would like to know is it bad and unethical if I do not waive my right to see the letter of recommendation written by the professors?
Should I talk to the professor before to see whether they are OK with that?

Tiny point of information: you waive a right; you wave a magic wand. (I edited.)


text:
Joint papers as PhD student
During PhD studies (math/applied math) is it considered ok to have mainly or solely joint papers with other authors? For example three-author papers, me, supervisor and another author.
Can such papers form the basis of the PhD thesis? My concern is whether if only first-author or single author papers are considered useful for PhD studies.

Does the notion of first author exist in math?

@PsySp Once you go far enough towards the applied side, sometimes.

@TobiasKildetoft OK, i got confused by the "math/applied math" sentence. In this case "applied" math should be really something really applied. Maybe the OP should clarify that in her/his field, authorship order_matters_ (unlike most math subjects)

This is pretty common in my department (also applied math). I'm not sure about the author position issue, though. Surely, you couldn't form a thesis composed of papers with you all as 3rd author, for example. Ultimately, do the works form a cohesive body of work that illustrates your contribution to the field? That's for you, your advisor, and committee to decide, of course.

The more publications the better! Coauthorship where appropriate for your field. Contribution to a joint paper is better than no paper. Although I'm in math and biology so I'll have to admit it would very unusual for a biologist to not include supervisors. However we indicate contributions with author order. You're best to discuss this with others in your field, although you're unlikely to be able to exclude authors who've already contributed. It's more a matter of communicating your contribution to joint with to your examiners.


text:
Name of current institution in a paper
I'm about to publish a paper with my previous group.
I'm not in a permanent position, and my boss doesn't care if I mention or if I don't mention my current institution in the paper.
For me, a researcher who wishes to have a permanent faculty position, would it be helpful or not at all to do that?

In physics, you would be with your old affiliation at the top of the paper, with a footnote to your 'current address'.

Yeah. I understand that. But is that something really important? Or no one really cares.

It is important to give the old affiliation as mentioned by @Jon Custer. But, the readers may like to reach you in future. So, it is wise to give the current one with a footnote saying that present address

Add a personal email address and URL, then readers can reach you, regardless of where you are.

The work should be credited to the institute at which it was done - this is important for citation and publication metrics, and will be pulled out of the metadata of the publication by several services. The author is a separate entity to the institute which employed or supported the author. A subsequent change in affiliation - for contact details, e.g. - should be taken care of in a footnote in the front matter.


text:
Is there a recommended font and size for a job application?
Is there a recommended font and size for academic job application? Usually I see Times New Roman being used with a 10 point font size for research papers, but I don't think that it is the best font and size for reading.  Can I pick a font that I prefer, or is there some "best practices" that people expect and I should follow?

I'd go for a sans serif font. There's a good chance it will be read on screen, and going sans will make it much easier for the reader. Just no Arial or Helvetica, make it something a bit more elegant.

Well, what do you think is the best font and size?  See this question for a discussion on font size/margins.

Vote to close, I think this is a case of boat programming (or boat academics).

I think this question should be ask in Graphic Design

@Michael: depending on the field, a sans serif font may stand out. The vast majority of applications I have seen in math used a serif font, usually Computer Modern, Times New Roman, or Palatino.

I tend to disagree with the point of this topic being an opinion. There should be a reason why most applications are using Times New Roman. However, would using something else like Arial, Calibiri etc, considered not professional?

I have fixed the question to not be the opinion-based "What is?" but instead the "Is there a right choice?" matching the accepted answer ("no"), and am voting to reopen.

It really doesn't matter what font you choose, as long as it's not unprofessional.  You can safely choose any font you might use for a research paper, 10 to 12 points in size (preferably 11 or 12, for the benefit of those with poor eyesight, but 10 is OK).  It's not worth worrying about this too much.  You can't help your chances through elegant typography, and the only way you can hurt them is if you do something ridiculous.  Any effects on readability are probably small, and I don't think most hiring committee members have strong opinions on the matter (while the ones who do don't always agree).

Though mathematics hiring committees might be thrown off if yours is the one application that isn't in Computer Modern :-)

@NateEldredge: But that may also be a positive effect as well, as it makes your application a bit more individual, less boring and better looking (given an appropriate font choice) than the others. There are some problems with Computer Modern, you know.

I would always go with at least 11 point type. "Bad eyesight" is an extremely common problem, and it only gets worse when someone has to read hundreds of job applications. Moreover, electronic job applications are  often printed on cheap laser printers by the receiving departments, which are particularly bad at small fonts.

What about Verdana or Calibri?

To me, a sans serif font would come across as a slightly unusual choice, but it wouldn't bother me (and I don't think either Verdana or Calibri would be a problem).


text:
Should Ph.D. students interested with research remain as research assistant until they find a research position or just find any job?
As faculty or postdoc positions at top schools are getting hard to land, should Ph.D. students interested with research continue to work as research assistants and publish more, or try to get a teaching position or work in industry and then try to move to a research position?

What do you mean by "continue to work as research assistants"?  The term research assistant is generally used for graduate students.  Are you talking about remaining in grad school longer to try to build up a better track record before graduating, or are you talking about jobs after grad school (such as postdoctoral positions, in which case "research assistant" is not a good description)?

About "remaining in grad school longer to try to build up a better track record before graduating"

You're not going to have any luck trying to go back into academia from industry. Stay in grad school until you have a way of exiting it that will further your career.

@anomaly some jobs asks specifically for industry experience

@AnonymousMathematician, in the last two countries where I lived, a research assistant was a paid position for people who were a bit beyond bachelor's studies, i.e. who have some research experience, but not much. It can be combined with master's studies, but can be a full-time job as well.

@Ana: here in Australia it's often after a PhD and often involves much more research than the assistantship you refer to (I know your referred RA exist in other countries too)

I have seen some cases where PhD students remain for 7, 10 and 12 years, and it seems that they are cheaper labor than postdocs, so advisers in general would like students to stay as long as they have enough funds to pay their tuition. Would long period in a PhD program and good publication record be a positive or negative for a hiring committee?

How long it's appropriate to stay in graduate school depends on the field and the country.  For mathematics in the U.S., staying too long quickly becomes a bad idea.  (I'm counting time spent actually working, not time off with a good excuse.)  Five years is considered a reasonable and normal amount of time to take.  Seven years looks too long, and it will give hiring committees the impression that something went wrong and you were unable to graduate in the usual timeframe.  Ten years is a major problem: I don't think most math grad schools would even allow ten years of full-time enrollment, and it would look terrible if someone spent ten years in grad school, even if they accomplished a lot along the way.  The best-case scenario is that it would look really eccentric, and people aren't likely to look at it so charitably.
I imagine that most academic fields work similarly, but with different timeframes.  To estimate how it works in your case, you could look at how long other students in your department spend in grad school and what becomes of them afterwards.

As faculty or postdoc positions at top schools are getting hard to land, should Ph.D. students interested with research continue to work as research assistants and publish more, or try to get a teaching position or work in industry and then try to move to a research position?

It's occasionally a good idea to spend another year in grad school even when you could already graduate.  For example, if you have almost completed a particularly exciting project, your advisor may recommend that you'd do much better applying for jobs after it's complete rather than before.  However, these sorts of situations are uncommon.  At least in math in the U.S., things typically work roughly as follows:
If you've spent a normal amount of time in grad school and are ready to graduate, but you don't feel you're competitive for a top postdoc, then your chances of getting such a postdoc probably won't go up much next year and they might go down.  You're generally better off taking the best postdoc you can get and then trying to do your best work in that postdoc, rather than sitting in a holding pattern in grad school.
Getting a teaching position could be a good career move in itself, but it's not the best way to position yourself for a research-oriented job in the future.  Whether an industrial job is depends heavily on your field and on what sort of industrial job you have in mind.
If you can't get a research postdoc at all, and your only options are a teaching job or a non-research-related industrial job, then you should keep in mind that moving to a research university later may be very difficult.  I wouldn't go so far as to say it's impossible, but it will be an uphill battle that is unlikely to be successful.  It could still be worth trying if it really matters to you, but you shouldn't view this as a routine or straightforward path to a job in a research university.

There is a delicate balance here: in certain situations, it may make sense to be strategic about your graduation date, especially in order to align yourself better with hiring cycles.  If you start stretching out your thesis work significantly, however, it will likely be noticeable and not to your benefit.
More to the point, any such delaying tactic will almost certainly require the consent and participation of your advisor in order to be effective: otherwise, you are likely to be pissing them off and making your chances worse rather than better.  Have a discussion with your advisor to see what their assessment of the tactical situation is, and their recommendation.
Finally, with your advisor's consent there is another option worth considering: a "transitional postdoc" in your current location.  In many institutions and/or fields (especially private institutions or expensive lab fields), the cost of a postdoc is not significantly different than a graduate student, since the higher salary is offset by the lack of tuition or made less significant by laboratory materials costs.  For a transitional postdoc, you graduate but you stay briefly as a postdoc (no more than a year or so) while you continuing working in your more independent role to increase your profile and position yourself for an external postdoc or long-term hire elsewhere.

I have seen some cases where PhD students remain for 7, 10 and 12 years, and it seems that they are cheaper labor than postdocs, so advisers in general would like students to stay as long as they have enough funds to pay their tuition. Would long period in a PhD program and good publication record be a positive or negative for a hiring committee?

@ThomasLee Hard to say without a specific case: if you're generally doing well and it just takes a long time, I'd see the positive publication record as a good thing.  If you seem to be just postponing graduation, I'd have questions about why.

In certain locations extending it is impossible. Australia requires one to finish after 4 years max, and PhD candidates have to pay a tuition fee (provided they don't have scholarships). So any 'extension' would cost the candidate dearly, which is why the question might refer to RA instead of extensions.

I wouldn't want to see you treading water for several years.  How about a postdoc at a medium-level institution?
Also, what are your feelings about academia?  Could you see yourself happy doing R&D for a company long term, if it came to that?  What I mean is, going to industry might mean staying in industry.  Would that be an acceptable outcome for you?

This does not provide an answer to the question. To critique or request clarification from an author, leave a comment below their post.


text:
How to quote a non-English quotation in dissertation?
I am writing my math PhD in Berlin (Germany) in the English language.
I would like to cite a German quotation from a famous mathematician as a start of my first chapter.
Should I quote it in the original language and make a footnote of what it means in English, or should I freely translate it into English without a footnote? Or is there simply no standard for this kind of fancy quotations?

You can also keep it in German only. It's a quote, it's probably there just for colour and it is not strictly necessary to understand the following content. Many of your readers will understand it, and the other ones can just check on Google Translate. (This assuming that the quote is an epigraph and is not part of the actual chapter text.)

There is no standard, one can easily find instances of all three cases (original only, original and translation, and translation only) in the literature.

The quotation is really more for fun than for substance, so you've got a lot of leeway, and even more so because this is in a Ph.D. thesis.  So really, it's up to you whether you translate it at all.
That said, I would suggest approaching it based on the degree to which you like the prosody and meter of the quotation.  If the sound of the words themselves is a significant part of what makes you enjoy the quote, then by all means keep it in the original language, where it will be well appreciated by some readers and challenge the rest.  If the substance is more important than the sound, then it may be better to translate.
For example, I don't know much of German quotations, but if I were using a French quotation, then I would not translate "Ceci n'est pas une pipe," but I would definitely translate "Les grandes personnes ne comprennent jamais rien toutes seules, et c'est fatigant, pour les enfants, de toujours et toujours leur donner des explications."

Je suis d'accord. If it is necessary to translate the quotation for the substance of the text, do so. But in general, translation (from Latin translatus, approx. "that which is carried across") is necessarily imprecise, and the real context of the original language is very difficult to retain in that carrying across.


text:
Are there graduate programs available specific to one programming language?
I am a Java enthusiast.  I only know Java and its frameworks (like struts2, spring), and would like to pursue a graduate degree in only Java. Are there any graduate programs that are specific to a single programming language, such as this?

I am no computer scientist, but this sounds to me like somebody asking about getting a medicine-related degree without ever having to deal with something other than noses.

If you know Java well, you should be able to pick up a new language within a year. Find a major project, like maintaining a friend or organization's website or an internship in a language other than Java, and you'll pick up the new language and frameworks pretty quickly.

I am also a Java enthusiast. In the late 1960's, when I started learning to program, I was a Fortran enthusiast. If I had only learned Fortran, without acquiring the tools and mental flexibility to learn programming languages as needed, I would not have had the option of learning Java. For the sake of your long term career, learn at least one other language before you become too locked in, and cannot wrap your mind around anything other than Java.

Two words: Smart Grid

Even if there are graduate programs focused specifically on Java (I'd assume there aren't), I can't believe this would be a sensible criterion to filter on as anything but a tie breaker.  Surely it's much more important to do work you are excited by, in a location you like, with a great peer group and advisor.

I have generalized this question, such that the main reason for closure no longer might no longer apply.

@Wrzlprmft It's even worse, it's like somebody asking about getting a medicine degree using only stethoscopes. In (most of) computer science, programming languages are a tool, and the real focus is on algorithms or higher abstractions.

why the downvotes?

@FedericoPoloni: I agree with this analogy, more than with the noses one. As opposed to what some tv shows and movies would have us believe, medical doctors typically do specialize on some comparably narrow field like "noses" (or, in other words, I know why I typically have to go to three different places if I want to get a treatment for my teeth, my eyes, and my throat, not just to one "head doctor").

@O.R.Mapper: Not that I claim that my analogy is perfect or better than the stethoscope analogy, but medical doctors have to do a lot of basic medical training before they eventually specialise on noses or whatever (at least where I am from), which is a very good thing, since the human body is not modular.

In the early 20th century, MIT faced a crisis: it's graduates, though well trained, were rapidly becoming obsolete.  In response, the university launched a long-running series of curriculum reforms that changed it from essentially a training school that taught the practices of engineering to instead focus on teaching the scientific principles underlying those practices, with knowledge about the specific practices of the day as a byproduct.
I bring this up because there is a close parallel to your question: you ask whether there are any graduate programs dedicated specifically to Java.  Maybe there are, but they would be a waste of time and money.  If you want vocational training in specific things about Java, there are lots of free resources online.  If you want an education that will let you use Java at a deeper level, you want a curriculum that is not dedicated to a particular technology du jour.  The foundations of computer science cut across programming languages and platforms.  Maybe you will happen to find a graduate program where most of the classes happen to use Java, but it might well change tomorrow.
Moreover, you may find it difficult to be taken seriously in either the corporate or academic world if you declare an unwavering loyalty to a single programming language or other technology.  There are lots of Java shops out there who will be happy to have people experienced in the language, but when somebody says they know only a single programming language, that is typically a major red flag.  Most good programmers have had cause or curiosity enough to at least dabble in many languages, and people who claim to be experts limited to precisely one programming language typically turn out to be Dunning-Kruger victims.  Maybe you're different, but you'll likely have quite a bit of well-justified skepticism to overcome.


text:
How to write a good paper review?
I just started my Masters in computer science, and I started working on a research project with one of my professors last term as a part of a class project for his class. In relation to that project, he has asked me to help him review a paper that is being reviewed to determine whether it will be accepted or rejected for a conference. I have agreed to review the paper. However, I have never written this type of paper review before. What are the steps you go through in reviewing a paper to determine if it should be accepted or rejected?

possible duplicate of How can I be a good reviewer?, also Scope for the role of peer reviewer


text:
Why are some professors critical of even casual use of Wikipedia?
Many of the professors and lecturers I come across are very critical of Wikipedia, but they never give proper support for their claims of "Wikipedia is bullshit!". And they threaten "Do not use Wikipedia if you want to pass!", and they mean it seriously.
It is true that "any Tom, Dick and Harry can edit it", but it is also true that Wikipedia takes a lot of effort to add in citations.
I do understand why we should not cite Wikipedia directly, instead go for the primary sources, but many do not even allow Wikipedia as a introduction to a subject matter. If I tell them "I read from Wikipedia that..." I get dismissed immediately, yet in online forums we use it like a Bible.
What is the real reason Wikipedia is perceived negatively among many professors, even for informal use (e.g. as an introduction to a subject)?

Related: Are there instances where citing Wikipedia is allowed?

One possible reason is that Wikipedia is not peer-reviewed. That is to say, the contents of the articles are not systematically reviewed, critiqued, and approved by any experts on the subject matter. This is the exact opposite of how scientists get their results published and how scientific knowledge is accumulated.

@Drecate This is the exact opposite of how scientists get their results published and how scientific knowledge is accumulated.  That's not strictly relevant, because Wikipedia is not meant to serve the same purpose as the scientific literature - Wikipedia is not for original research. Original research obviously needs peer review in a way that a compilation of existing sources does not.

@ff524 I guess you have a point. Wikipedia is not for original research. However, things like review articles and meta-analysis are also peer-reviewed, even though they are not technically original research. That is to say, you can argue that there are more rigorous ways to compile existing sources than that adopted by Wikipedia, and some may prefer one standard over the other.

@Drecate I disagree with your "peer review" explanation. Most textbooks are not peer reviewed. But, professors (almost all) allow you to reference them.

@scaaahu: then again, for textbooks you at least know the author, unlike for Wikipedia.

One more possible reason is "edit wars" though that happens for a small handful of articles only.

"we use it like a Bible" - I think that quote sums up very well why students are warned off using it.

"Academics have also criticized Wikipedia for its perceived failure as a reliable source, and because Wikipedia editors may have no expertise, competence or credentials in the topic". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia :)

Not clear from your question, but perhaps your prof wants to protect you from the bad decision of trying to learn new concepts from Wikipedia instead of a good textbook.  Wikipedia is woefully unsuitable for learning new material.  Most math articles are not very coherent, don't have a clearly structured line of thought behind them, and don't (can't) have a clear target audience (e.g. the same math concept should be introduced very differently for undergrad physics majors vs. for graduate math students).  It's a result of many people editing short sections each.

I think the title is a little misleading. The professor cannot fail you for casual use of Wikipedia. What you described as casual use isn't casual at all, if you are planning to cite information found on it in a research paper. Casual use is going on the site and reading articles which should be perfectly fine for your professor. They can't fail you for reading articles on it anymore than they can fail you for reading The New York Times.

Protecting this question because it's featured in "Hot Network Questions" and because it seems like the type to get a lot of non-helpful answers.

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

Obligatory XKCD

When my professor said this, I countered with the argument that you can follow the linked sources. He seemed positively surprised that I knew this, and began to explain to everyone that following the links is OK and even useful. It seems to me that professors are worried that students base a lot of knowledge directly on Wikipedia (which in my experience, they do) and won't follow sources and research properly. So I guess the tone is: outright banning is easier than a massive grey area that requires an extensive explanation.

'Cause Wikipedia is not an authoritative source of information.

One of the primary points of college is to learn critical thinking, to discern authoritative sources from unreliable sources, criteria for a reliable source, get in the habit of using authoritative or primary sources, etc.  Universities also teach the importance of accuracy and reliability as much as humanly possible.  Although Wikipedia is excellent for casual conversation and exploration, it's unreliability, openness to editing by anyone, constant change, and many documented mistakes make it largely unsuited for academic work. http://goo.gl/DgwgkA http://goo.gl/EB0egb http://goo.gl/p3qObO

@nickalh, I've seen many college students unable to discern authoritative information from correct information (facts). One problem with college is that they train students to think that being authoritative is synonymous to being right.

I have to ask... if you are using wikipedia as an introduction to a subject, as a route to primary sources, how would a professor even know?

Replace "I read from Wikipedia that..." with "I read from Encyclopedia Britannica that..." -- I am 100% certain you will get the same reaction. It's not about the specific source, it's about the fact that you're talking about a general-purpose reference work, rather than a specialized source with in-depth coverage. I would write an answer to this effect, but it has already been written, and deserves more attention.

A small sidenote to start things off:

If I tell them "I read from Wikipedia that..." I get dismissed immediately, yet in online forums we use it like a Bible.

Well, one of the reasons for that is that "I read in Wikipedia" is almost synonymous with "I have exactly 5 minutes worth of knowledge on the topic". The problem here really isn't the fact that you read Wikipedia, but that citing from it implies that you have read nothing else on the topic. If I am an expert in whatever field, I would probably not take a concern from somebody who implies that all his knowledge comes from a few-minute Internet recherché very seriously, either (no matter what source (s)he actually found). Also, which online forums "use it like a Bible"? Most that I hang around at are very critical of Wikipedia quotes, mostly for the reason I stated above - arguing based on a Wikipedia entry does not exactly establish creds as a person knowledgeable about the subject.
Now, let's discuss the real question here:

What is the real reason Wikipedia is perceived negatively among many professors, even for informal use (e.g. as an introduction to a subject)?

(note that the question is specifically about using Wikipedia as an introduction to a subject, not as a primary, citable source)
Honestly? It is probably a combination of feeling threatened, reluctance to embrace change, and lack of knowledge how Wikipedia articles actually evolve over time.
"Feeling threatened" in the sense that Wikipedia is kind of decentralising knowledge compilation, which is of course not necessarily something that makes academics (the people that used to be more or less the definition of "compiled knowledge" in pre-internet times) very comfortable.
"Reluctance to embrace change" in the sense that Wikipedia is (in comparison to text books or lectures) a very new (and radically different) way to get an introduction to a topic, and most humans tend to be sceptical of this kind of disruptive technology.
"Lack of knowledge" in the sense that many critical academics simply have not taken the time to study how (especially popular) Wikipedia articles actually evolve over time. I am convinced many would be positively surprised if they knew how well quality control in Wikipedia actually works in practice. I remember that in 2004, c't (a well-known German magazine widely read by IT professionals) ran an experiment where they took random articles out of various encyclopaedias, anonymised them so that one could not tell the source anymore, and had domain experts compare them to anonymised Wikipedia articles for quality and technical errors. Wikipedia was consistently rated higher-quality than even well-respected standard encyclopaedias. That being said, I assume that the average quality of Wikipedia articles degrades a lot for entries on more esoteric topics, so I actually agree that for deeply scientific topics, one should be somewhat skeptical of Wikipedia, just as one would be about any other single source.
Finally, I have to say that I know many professors that don't have a problem with using Wikipedia as a starting point for your review of a subject. However, if you write, for instance, an seminar paper, you are expected to read the primary sources (and I fully agree with this).

I don't know if this is the same study you're referring to, but it's the same idea: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/EPIC_Oxford_report.pdf

@ff524 No, it's not the same, but the approach seems very similar. Have not looked through the results yet, but from their conclusions it seems they arrived at similar ones.

@xLeitix: I came across this C'T article, which sounds reminiscent of what you are describing, yet it does not seem to say anything about anonymizing the samples (on the contrary, it seems like the different user interfaces/search features were somehow given some minor consideration for the evaluation): http://www.personal.uni-jena.de/~xcr/v2/Dateien/File/WS2012-13/Wikipedia.pdf

It's precisely because I've watched how "quality control" in wikipedia actually "works" that I'm emphatic in steering students away from anything other than the references section of any wikipedia page.

I'm not sure about the "feeling threaten" part. The academics I know, even the more senior ones, are enthusiastic about the principle of Wikipedia and the like. The concerns are probably more on the quality of the contents.

I like your first point. If you are a university student, you're supposed to be in process of becoming an expert on a topic, and Wikipedia is what non-experts use to get a five minute overview on something. It's not enough.

Regarding deeply scientific topics: those esoteric Wikipedia articles often suffer from a lack of information (many short articles with few details), but the information that is there is generally very accurate, at least in math and the hard sciences. Wikipedia is my go-to reference for mathematical identities (above even Wolfram's MathWorld).

@EnergyNumbers: that seems a little like saying “I didn’t like what I saw of Jane’s sausage factory, so I steer people away from Jane’s sausages.”  If the alternatives they turn to are good-quality steaks (primary sources), that’s great.  But if they’re going to eat sausages anyway, from some other company that doesn’t let the public see their factory, then it’s likely to be worse, not better.  Warning them away from encyclopedias and other broad-coverage references in general — that makes sense.  But from Wikipedia specifically?

Unfortunately I can't find the article online - if somebody has a link, I would appreciate an edit!)
Did you mean: [citation needed]  ^^

Well, for one forum that cites wiki a lot: [Math.SE].SE

There was a famous Nature article comparing Wikipedia (very favorably) to Encyclopedia Britannica: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v438/n7070/full/438900a.html several years prior to the Oxford one.

+1, I also strongly agree with the "Finally ...". If you write a seminar paper you are expected to read the primary sources. Like the people that write on wikipedia.

@PLL In fairness, as an epidemiologist, if I don't like what I saw of Jane's sausage factory, I do indeed steer people away from Jane's sausages.

What's an "Internet recherché"?

I think the primary reason professors don't want students to use Wikipedia is because a lot of students only quote Wikipedia instead of actually researching a topic.
The great thing about Wikipedia is it can give you a general idea about a topic and offer a starting point to dig in deeper.  However, students can be lazy and instead of digging in themselves, they take the easy route and just reference Wikipedia.  This is obviously not the point of Wikipedia and research, and I can understand the need to announce on day one to not reference Wikipedia.
However, the reference and bibliography sections of Wikipedia is the real gold mine and could be a great starting point for any research topic.  This is what I see as a pure advantage of Wikipedia and what professors should also say on day one.
For example, suppose I'm interested in Financial Economies, so I do a quick google search.  First hit : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_economics
Great discussion of the discipline, vague descriptions of risk, graphs, and financial pricing theory.  But the real gold mine is in the reference and bibliographic section. There are references for financial economics, asset pricing, and corporate finance, which a great starting point for looking further into topics.  The links point me further into a direction I'm interested in from very famous authors.
I can understand the question as a student and I think it's the professors responsibility to explain how not to use Wikipedia and how to use Wikipedia.

I usually find the references sections of Wikipedia to be a crapshoot.

@Kimball Not entirely sure I agree with you without a stated example.  I feel like searching through a university search engine is more of a crap shoot than Wikipedia.  At least you get a direction with Wikipedia; whereas, library search engines give you a variant search.  I'm not stating Wikipedia is the be all end all for initial research topics, but it's a great starting point.

alot of students

Wasted alot of time on your link ...

@Amstell What's a "university search engine"??

@JeffE The library search engine

@Amstell, admittedly library search engines are pretty random.  Here's one example (sorry, I don't know any non-tecnical ones):  this page lists a bunch of books under references for an irreducible representation, but they're all basically books about quantum mechanics, not representation theory.  (There are representation theory books on the separate representation theory page, but even the items on that list are a bit incongruous with each other.)

@Kimball thats the very point im trying to get at.  The library search engines are awful and i feel Wikipedia is a good starting point for references.   People that say Wikipedia is worthless or bias dont offer any real argument.  Just statements of belief, which adds nothing.

OP is already aware of everything you stated. You just repeated the question. Flagged as "not an answer".

The very fact that you need to ask this question, in a way, provides its own answer.
One of the primary functions of academia is to teach the skills of research.  There are two aspects to this, both critical; first, being able to find what work has been done by others and, second, to do new work yourself.  Without the ability to effectively do the former you risk wasting time repeating pre-existing work when it comes to the latter.
Now, for non-academics, Wikipedia has rapidly become a catch-all, sole source, and generally fantastic one-stop shop for information.  While this is well and good for casual use, it nevertheless provides an enormous disincentive to acquiring and practicing those critical skills of research that you will need if you intend to continue to pursue a career in academia.
My feeling is that most professors are, even if subconsciously, objecting to Wikipedia for this reason above all others.  It feels wrong to them because it is a shortcut -- a cheat that puts a stop to a student's research effort before it even begins.  In their own careers they have a deep appreciation for the need of strong research skills and, likewise, an appreciation for the need to teach those skills to students.
If Wikipedia ceased to exist at this very moment, ask yourself the question - "Where would I find information, and how would I go about doing it?"
In the world of academic research, this is the situation you find yourself in - beyond a certain level, Wikipedia will not have the answers you are looking for and you will need to have developed more advanced research skills to find them.
By artificially outlawing Wikipedia, professors are attempting to simulate what the real academic world is like - one where the answers are not already known and easily accessed; one where you, the researcher, are tasked with needing to know how to effectively dig deeper to answer questions for yourself.
The critical thing to realize is that higher education is not like primary school anymore.  The error you are making is in thinking that an assignment about topic-X is chiefly intended to populate your brain with information about topic-X and that the most effective means of getting information about topic-X into your brain is the best solution to the problem.
This is wrong.
Topic-X is largely irrelevant.  The real task is to teach you the skills you require to find information about any topic.  Topic-X is simply a convenient and concrete sample of a topic on which to learn and practice those skills.  That the information on Topic-X is readily available on Wikipedia is merely a reflection of the fact that, as a junior academic and undergrad, you simply (at the moment) lack the technical education necessary to be given a more advanced "practice" topic to research - one that would not be so readily found on Wikipedia.
Nevertheless, the professor's objection to Wikipedia is for a very clear reason - it is entirely counterproductive to their primary (and probably unstated) objective of getting you to exercise and develop real research skills.
Consider the broader context.
From a slightly different perspective, in a lot of ways Wikipedia has really raised the bar.  If you are a university student and you are working towards a degree in a subject then it bears considering what that means.  If any joe public can look something up on Wikipedia with the most minimal amount of effort then what does that mean for you?
Surely an academic degree needs to be something much more than a certificate proving that you know how to type "X" into a wikipedia search box.  A child of 6 can do that these days - if you're looking to gain a serious academic qualification then you really need to be going above and beyond what has become this most basic level of ability to research information.

Then maybe the professors should design tasks that actually requires "real" research in the first place.

@Alex can you clarify what you mean by "real"? Perhaps give an example? I don't necessarily disagree but I'm unsure what you're saying specifically

@WizardOfOzzie Well, I perceived the main thesis of this answer to be that the usage of wikipedia can be considered a "cheat" and that the students don't get to practice the skill of research in situations where the information is not as easily accessible as on wikipedia. Thus my suggestion was that if this really is a problem, then one way to mitigate it would be to give students research tasks where they actually have no choice but to exercise more "advanced" research techniques.

@Alex I see. Yes, it's certainly the way to go in an ideal world. My time in pharmacological research (Honors degree) really was a big difference when compared to coursework assigned for undergraduate assignments. I couldn't have used Wikipedia if I wanted given to (the drugs used didn't even have stubs in Wikipedia). There's a huge gulf between post-grad and undergraduate work/assignments IME

@WizardOfOzzie, So where did you end up going to find sources? Google?

Being a Wikipedia contributor myself I would not like to see my students cite wikipedia, though I would not say that such citations should be forbidden. Here are a few reasons for this:

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, it does not contain original research and topics are not covered with great depth (for example in Wikipedia proofs for mathematical statements are not relevant in most cases). I would find it equally bizarre if students would cite the Encyclopedia Britannica.
Wikipedia article contain more errors than an average textbook. Especially articles of not so popular topics contain wrong statements. I discover this often (more on the German Wikipedia than on the English). Of course you might say that this is just my personal impression, but I would guess that the professors you mention had similar experiences.
At the university you should learn how to write about academic research. Honestly, I haven't seen a single scientific paper citing Wikipedia as a source.
Although everything that is written on Wikipedia should have a source - let's face it - many statements are just claims without a citation.
Wikipedia is dynamic - even more than other online sources. Pages can change dramatically over time, so if you cite you better add the access time.

Let me add that I think that Wikipedia is a great source of information for scientists. I just don't think it's the best source for citations.

This question isn't about citing Wikipedia. (We already have a question on citing Wikipedia here)

Wikipedia article contain more errors than an average textbook. - is there a research that can back up this claim? Because from personal experience, this is opposite of reality.

"Although everything that is written on Wikipedia should have a source - let's face it - many statements are just claims without a citation." [citation needed]

@ArtiePrendergast-Smith, But they are amazingly easy to spot since there would be either a [citation needed] at the end of it, or there would be clearly no citations. You could just filter out the paragraphs without citation or assign less "authority" and more "doubt" to it.

"I haven't seen a single scientific paper citing Wikipedia as a source." If even less academically accepted Wiki's also count: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1473309907702128

A little googling turns up this list of reasons. I think you don’t need to agree with the author’s obvious agenda to take it seriously. A selective citation of a couple of points I personally think are most valid:

You especially can’t rely on something when you don’t even know who wrote it.

The contributor with an agenda often prevails.

...
In March 2009, Irish student Shane Fitzgerald, who was conducting
research on the Internet and globalization of information, posted a
fake quotation on the Wikipedia article about recently deceased French
composer Maurice Jarre. Due to the fact that the quote was not
attributed to a reliable source, it was removed several times by
editors, but Fitzgerald continued re-posting it until it was allowed
to remain.
Fitzgerald was startled to learn that several major newspapers picked
up the quote and published it in obituaries...

Sometimes “vandals” create malicious entries that go uncorrected for months.

...
For example, John Seigenthaler, a former assistant to Robert Kennedy,
was falsely implicated in the assassinations of the Kennedy brothers
on his Wikipedia biography for a period of more than 100 days without
his knowledge.
And finally, the number one reason you can't cite or rely on
Wikipedia:

It says so on Wikipedia.

Wikipedia says, “We do not expect you to trust
us.”

Given the composition of academe, I wouldn’t say their point 5 (“There is little diversity among editors”) really is an argument against Wikipedia in a contest with “standard” academia.

While this may generally apply to citing or relying heavily on Wikipedia, it doesn't apply as well to the scenario the OP describes where Wikipedia is used as an introduction to a subject (which, let's be honest, serious academics do all the time) or to raise a point of interest.

The fake quotation is interesting. But as with all other articles, even published and peered reviewed ones, it is up to the reader to make an informed decision as to the validity and soundness of it all. I feel everything could just be an opinion, just some are backed by more people than others.

It's also very interesting that you consider "contributor[s] with an agenda" a major flaw in Wikipedia, and your source for this idea is an author with an "obvious agenda" :)

Only the first number in a numbered list counts. Subsequent numbers follow from that, no matter what number you give it. This is for ease of editing (i.e., if you add a new list item, you don't need to renumber the rest of the list).

"All Cretans are liars"? ;-) Maybe they do expect me to trust them!

@Stephan, The fact that the false claim is removed several times by Wikipedia editors actually supports the stand that Wikipedia is reliable. The fact that newspapers picked up the quote (which is then removed by Wikipedia editors) and publish it in obituaries actually shows that Wikipedia is more reliable than newspapers..........

There was a newly appointed German minister with an awful long list of first names. Which Wikipedia got wrong. And they refused to let the man himself who should know best what his name is change it (somehow that was original research). And then a German newspaper used the wrong name, and was promptly quoted in Wikipedia as a source. If this newspaper quoting incorrectly from Wikipedia prints it, then it must be true...

To be frank, I think that people who take that sort of hard-line stance against ever learning anything from Wikipedia have simply lost their heads.  I don't mean that they are crazy, just that they are making an irrational decision (although there may be understandable reasons why they make it).
In some cases it is a desperate, overcompensating attempt to get people to not use only Wikipedia (which, as you acknowledge, is a problematic practice).  Like a jilted lover who, to protect his fragile heart, vows never to date another artist no matter what, a weary professor may adopt a blanket anti-Wikipedia stance simply due to having their heart broken too many times by papers that are based solely on Wikipedia.
In some cases it stems from an ivory-tower mentality that rejects anything that is not a product of the academic in-crowd.  In some cases this is augmented by a generalized fear that things like Wikipedia will make original research (or perhaps highly paid tenure-track jobs) obsolete.  In some cases, perhaps related, it stems from an out-of-touch ignorance of what is actually available on Wikipedia; some people may have heard that Wikipedia has issues, and not want to put in the effort to actually check how accurate its information is in their field, so they just proscribe it altogether.
Whatever the reason, though, the solution is the same: keep reading Wikipedia, and learning what you can, and remaining alert enough to not accept it as gospel, because nothing is.  If your professor doesn't like it, just don't tell him you read it on Wikipedia.  (You can follow up on the sources in a Wikipedia article and then mention those instead.)  Academic journal articles are not unsullied by speculations, skewed viewpoints, and logical gaps.  Getting information anywhere is fine as long as you know the limitations of the source.  You can begin to learn great things from the back of a cereal box, if it happens to clue you into something you had no previous knowledge of.

+1 for defending the (proper use of) Wikipedia. Numerous times, we went through Wikipedia and other "unreliable" online sources with my colleagues (most of them full researchers, not stupid unexperienced PhD students like me), trying to figure out what the heck the authors of aricle [ABC123] had in mind when they wrote this or that. It's not about using Wikipedia is a reliable source of information, but using it to get the idea of what's going on without having to read hundreds of pages of (often unavailable) textbooks.

The question notes the difference between on-line use of Wikipedia and academic use. I think the two situations can be very different.
I do use Wikipedia links in answering questions on StackOverflow, but would not use it as a reference in an academic paper, even a coursework paper. I see two major differences:
When writing an academic paper I can assume my readers have just as good library access as I have, and have at least as good paper-reading skills. If I can access and understand a paper, they can also access and understand it. I don't make that assumption for people asking e.g. basic algorithm questions on SO.
A Wikipedia link in an SO answer is just background information that I could write out in the answer at the cost of making it too long. A reference in an academic paper may be general background, but is often intended to demonstrate peer-reviewed support for some statement.

Encyclopedia of any kind is not an appropriate learning material for a student as it is way too shallow.
Specialized literature (textbooks, review articles) usually contains much more information that may not be essential for minimal understanding but is supposed to be known by professionals.
This is not a criticism of Wikipedia. Wikipedia is actually very good. Good as it is, it is not sufficient to get a professional knowledge. There is probably no obvious harm from reading it, just not enough.
There is a certain type of the scientific literature - "scientific popular", educational material published in popular non-scientific journals, etc, to read by wide range of people, for entertainment. While such texts are generally correct (also professors frequently write them), they are not used in student education and also never cited in any serious scientific work. Too shallow.

The same can be said of many introductory texts in an advanced course. There are perfectly legitimate use cases, like a general overview of a topic you don't need to be an expert of.

Yes. It may be a very well written introduction, student still must read the rest of the book.

I think this answer expresses a valid point, but the first sentence is probably too harsh. Encyclopedias are fine as a jumping off point, a place to find a few relevant references, and a quick summary of a topic that should be vetted with further research. The trouble is students starting and ending with material from a single source with dubious reliability.

I'm shocked that this answer is so far down here. This is the answer -- the problem is not with Wikipedia in particular, but with the sheer fact that you are looking in a resource that is too broad and shallow for academic study. Certainly some well-made encyclopedias will have good citations that you can follow and profit from; Wikipedia may fall into that category (sometimes). But you won't be taken any more seriously if you say in class "I read in Encyclopedia Britannica that..."

Wikipedia is really crowd sourced knowledge. I learned much from looking things up on Wikipedia but it would be imprudent to rely on Wikipedia as THE  sole source of knowledge, just as in centuries past, it was imprudent to rely on the Bible as THE source of knowledge - You just don't want to depend upon a single source of information.
Professors may love references but these references may be biased themselves. I wouldn't be surprised that some of the emperors who have been recorded as evil may actually have been good people, and vice versa.
The blunt fact is that every source of information has its limitations and using it comes with its own liabilities.

Good professors just don't want you to be lazy. They'd like to see you push your 'research muscles' beyond the first google result.
Pre-wikipedia this was true as well. Rarely could you get away with citing Encyclopedia Britannica as your primary source--or citing Cliff's Notes in your english paper.
These days, if you treat wikipedia as your 'card catalog' you'll be better off. Use it as a jumping off point for your research.

"Casual use" of Wikipedia can mean any number of different things, for instance:

Scaffolding your understanding of a topic, while forming an idea of what authoritative sources to seek out
Correcting a typo
Creating & submitting a graphic to augment an article, as practice in creating graphics for academic texts
Seeking to remind oneself about a concept one already knows but has forgotten
etc. etc.
Some of those might be illegitimate (just as some uses of citations in highly respected peer reviewed journals can be illegitimate), but some are perfectly reasonable, and well-vetted in the academic world.

To be blunt, any professor who decries any casual use of Wikipedia is telling you more about their own biases, than they are telling you about Wikipedia.

Here's an example of somebody who simply "hates" Wikipedia, based on a single incident: [Why I hate Wikipedia] (http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/story/opinion/columnists/2017/01/05/why-hate-wikipedia/96196752/) I think this illustrates fairly clearly how such a position is highly subjective; Wikipedia is like air or water, or if that's a stretch, like a public utility; "hating" it makes little sense to me.

As an adjunct professor teaching a classroom-based introductory statistics course, I'm not critical of wikipedia at all.  You have to be careful, of course, and check the information on wikipedia against information in the textbook or other reliable sources.  But having said that, wikipedia can be very useful to clarify something that may be causing confusion, or provide a slightly different perspective that might help to increase understanding.  I'm in favor of anything that helps students learn the subject, and wikipedia can definitely be useful in that respect.
It would be different if I were teaching a graduate-level course that requires research and access to original work.  But for an introductory course, there's nothing wrong with wikipedia.

The question is "Why are some professors critical of Wikipedia?" not "Are you, as a professor, critical of Wikipedia?" It's not clear how this answers the question.

Okay, granted.  But it does give a data point.  If you consider this data point to be invalid, then the only acceptable way to answer the question is to identify exactly who are these professors that are critical of Wikipedia, and ask them.  Otherwise it's just speculation.  Interesting speculation, perhaps, but not necessarily well-informed.
My main point was that professors who teach introductory-level courses may not, in general, be that critical of wikipedia.  That leaves those who are teaching more advanced courses, who may have more legitimate reasons for disliking use of wikipedia.

I, as a lecturer, use Wikipedia often when I need a quick introduction to a certain topic. Mostly when I decide on which texts my students shall read for a seminar, I start on Wikipedia. There you have great summaries of many important works. A wiki research can, of course, also turn out to be completely useless - but in most cases I still saved time: Reading through hundreds of books and magazines again to find out that a certain text doesn't fit my needs, costs me much more time.
Anyway, I never would cite from there and neither would I let cite my students from there. But that also has to do with me generally being against online-citation. It's simply not reliable. Websites can disappear or be changed at any time without leaving a trace of the old state. Not so books and magazines: Older editions are still available when newer ones are printed, so you can always go back and, if the information was wrong, figure out how the mistake could have happened.

This kind of attitude match quite well the behaviour when a disruptive technology enters the scene and challenges old institutions: The role of the new technology is not completely clear, there is insecurity in how to handle it, it's misused and some people get defensive and aggressive while others have a more positive view, embrace the changing environment and tries to make things fit together.
It will gradually be resolved when a better understanding of the role of the new technology emerges: Exactly what its benefits and disadvantages are and how it can complement the current system.
In the case of academics and wikipedia, I place my money on a wider appreciation of the fact that there are several methods to acquire information, with their own benefits and disadvantages, and that wikipedia in reality has a high reliability for most topics on a basic level and that it's a very efficient way to traverse different subjects and to gain a good but basic birds-eye view of a subject.
And to clarify, of course wikipedia is not for original research (well, obviously except research about wikipedia itself). It's generally a good way (efficient: Time is capital) to traverse the crude domain of a subject (see the references to research about this in the other answers here), but less suitable for more in-depth research. Right tool for the right job.

Or maybe Wikipedia just isn't very good.

@JeffE Define "good".

Thorough, accurate, unbiased, concise, consistent, aimed at the correct audience — take your pick.

@JeffE That's a list of nice general qualities, but in assessing the "goodness" of something we need to take into account what we want to achieve. And since I already argued that there is different strategies for the parsing of information, each with their own benefits and disadvantages, I expected you to explain how the features of wikipedia is totally incompatible (...even for informal use (e.g. as an introduction to a subject)?...) with the academic world. That you just think it sucks fits well into my answer.

How does it fit well into your answer?  I'm not the least bit confused about the role of Wikipedia's technology, nor do I suffer from any insecurity about how to handle it, nor am I being either defensive or aggressive.  I wouldn't recommend using Encyclopedia Britannica either, for exactly the same reasons.

@JeffE Doh. My fault, now I gave you an excuse to move focus away from the main point in my previous comment.

On the one hand, Wikipedia is one of the greatest accomplishments of human civilization.  Never before has so much knowledge been so easily accessible to so many people.  It is one of the wonders of our world.  On the other hand, this means that if you want to do anything yourself you need to add value beyond what's in wikipedia which everyone else has access to anyway.  Wikipedia is the new bare minimum of common knowledge, and so you should assume your reader already has access to wikipedia and anything you write needs to say something that's not already available on wikipedia or else it is worthless (not because wikipedia is worthless, but because you haven't added any value beyond wikipedia so the reader might as well just read wikipedia instead).

How does this answer the question about the OP's professors?

-1 for "Wikipedia is one of the greatest accomplishments of human civilization". It really isn't.

@Moriarty I think Wikipedia is pretty fascinating, personally. I wouldn't exactly call it "one of the greatest accomplishments of human civilization", though. Also, -1 for the fact that this does not really answer the question.