text:
Tell supervisor I am unhappy with grading even though grades won't change
I have been working in a group project of six people at university.
I think I made an substantial effort, and would consider me among the two best performers in the group (please accept this as a fact for answering the question). I do not bear grudges against my group, I think we worked well together and I liked working with all of them. I just put more effort in the project, and I am proud of my contribution.
Now the grades have been published, and I have been graded worse than two other students, because of things which were not communicated to be part of the grading process:
We finished the project mid of July. Recently, there has been a presentation of parts of our results, which required some extra work. I am currently abroad in an internship. The two students did some additional experiments for the presentation. I was not aware of these additional experiments, because there was no communication about that on our mailing list, basically the two students just happened to be around. I communicated my internship early, and this was accepted by the supervisor. I think the additional experiments do not outweigh my previous contributions by far. Also, I would have helped with the experiments from abroad (which would have been easily possible, because it's computer science), if I would have known.
I am unhappy with this distinction, because I think it is not fair and does not represent my performance, which is also admitted by the two students with the better grades. For me, it would have been ok, if we all got the same grade.
However, the grades are already published, and there is no good way of changing the grades now (pushing the entire team to the better grade is not an option because of politics; I do not want the two to get a worse grade; I would feel unhappy with only me being upgraded). I know this and I accept this.
Now, should I tell my supervisor, that I am unhappy with the grading and explain my reasons why, even though I know it will change nothing in the grades? I do not want to make accusations or anything, just express my problems with the grading.
I do not want to burn any bridges, and might want to work with this supervisor again in the future.
I would see this as
(i) feedback for my supervisor for the grading process
(ii) a way for me to finish the project and get over the frustration (again, I do not intend to make accusations, just lay out why I am unhappy).
Should I do this or should I just swallow my pride and deal with it?

Presenting and communicating any work is part of the work. You did not do this part and they did. Hence, the better grade. This "things which were not communicated" excuse is lame. Don't you have email where you are? Should not you communicate with the rest of the group about the presentation? Have you (the whole group) prepared the presentation before leaving? If not, you should have asked to help with the presentation, while you were away.

We prepared the presentation as a group over two Skype meetings, starting 10 days before presentation date. That's when I was told that the supervisor wanted some other experiments, which were already finished. I did help with building the structure and slides of the presentation. Furthermore, I already held a presentation with another team member before in the project. The two just presented to "catch up", so that everyone presented at-least once.
Again, I did above-group-average performance during the project.

In the skype meeting they told me, that the supervisor asked them in person for some extra experiments, that are needed. By the time we had the skype call for presentation preparation, these experiments had been done. I do not think it is unreasonable to expect such announcements to be made over the mailing list, especially when 4 out of 6 group members are not in town anymore and the project already ended in mid-july except for this one presentation.

Unless this decision is somehow going to jeopardize your whole future and not just this one grade then I would suggest to "swallow your pride." You mentioned that you are interested in working with this supervisor in the future. That would certainly be great networking which could bring you a number of opportunities and I wouldn't say risking all of that is worth contesting this one grade (which you may still not be in the right). Leave your pride at the door and reach for your goals only until sometime truly disrespects you. Otherwise try to focus on the positives.

It is certainly possible for a student to have a talk with the supervisor about dissatisfaction with a grade. In fact, we professors sometimes want to know these things (though I admit that there are nicer conversations to have). To give an example: Some months ago, I received an email from a student who asked politely for an appointment to have some additional feedback about her thesis grade.
During our talk, she said that she was okay with her grade, but not with the fact that others got higher grades, although she worked harder.
In fact, she was right in some way. She decided to use an extremely complicated approach, that took a lot of time, which is why she lacked that time for improving other parts of the thesis. Others used a simpler approach and had plenty of time to get everything perfect.
I was happy to explain to her that I shared her discomfort, but that the grading scheme (which she was familiar with) awarded only very few points for the complexity of the method she used. Having such a talk is way better than having rumours circling around that grading at the Department is unfair.
To make a long story short: You can always mail to ask for 'feedback about the work/grade'. But you should indicate whether you actually intent to have the grade changed (which you probably do not want to do, for various reasons) or not. As a professor, these later type is a good feedback opportunity. In fact, after the episode described above, I discussed with colleagues the possibility of changing the grading scheme in the future.


text:
Should I be careful who I share my unpublished results with?
If I have a very good result, should I share it with an academic (Professor) from another part of the world who is an expert in the subject, but whom I have never met?
I’m interested in collaboration, but then again I don’t want to let the cat out of the bag and then have nothing come of it, especially before I’ve published anything. On the other hand as a professional, the other party should stick to their academic code of practice and I should have nothing to worry about, right?
This is work I’ve done in my spare time outside of my other academic duties. Work I do in my paid roles I would just publish myself and wouldn’t feel the need to seek collaboration in this way.

If you have the result, why look for a collaborator?

Upload on arxiv (since it sounds to be in maths), submit to a good journal, mention this professor as a potential reviewer.

Thanks all - I really wasn't quite sure what to do, but your comments have helped me to decide.

In science, just as in most areas of human activity, most people try to behave ethically but some have skewed views of ethics and some are just plain nasty.
Good ways to protect yourself are:

Asking somebody you trust who knows about the ethical character of the person you are looking to contact.
Putting a draft of your work up online, e.g., arXiv, that can clearly provide a time-stamp on your work.

Collaboration is essential in an academic environment but I suggest you to research the ethical stance of the person you choose to share your ideas with. If you can get a satisfactory answer without having to explain your work in general, then there is no problem. But if you have to explain your work in detail then it becomes a little risky if the other person has a low ethical standards. However if the professor that you're talking about is a well published academic with lots of citations I don't think he\she needs anyone's idea to steal.

"The general guideline is: Don't share your work with anyone." - I just cannot agree with this statement in the current general form. Sharing and discussing ideas with other researchers is the basis for getting any contacts that might lead to collaborations, and especially if a work is not yet far enough evolved to be publishable, the synergies with other people's work might be what is missing to make it publishable. While some precautions against plagiarism may be taken, academic research in general is not a place for isolationism, secret projects, or avoiding communication.

@O.R.Mapper Here is the link of a study on geography of plagiarism published by Science magazine.
http://news.sciencemag.org/scientific-community/2014/12/study-massive-preprint-archive-hints-geography-plagiarism
I know the essence of scientific development is collaboration however you'd better be careful who you are sharing your ideas with.

I do not doubt that a lot of plagiarism happens. Nonetheless, I believe that treating academic research as a secret akin to commercial developments, suspecting other researchers, departments, and institutions of being plagiarizing adversaries and consequently treating them like competition rather than possibly-collaborating-peers, and relying on secrecy and working within a small team rather than searching opportunities for frequent discussion and critique with as many researchers, domain experts, etc. as possible are bad habits for conducting academic research and stifling for its quality.

You are absolutely right. Let me edit my answer.

I definitely second @O.R.Mapper point of view. I work in a quite collaborative environment, but I've met people who had to work with peers unwilling to share ideas and data. and they told me that the collaboration was simply a nightmare.

No.  I would recommend against this.  If you have a good result, write it up and submit it (at least to ArXiV while you work on a stronger publication, if necessary).  It is too easy to get burned. Whether it was paid as part of an academic position or not shouldn't matter, you want the publication so you can strengthen your academic record.  Collaborations are great of course, and you shouldn't be secretive about everything you are working on.  But to be cautious, if you already have a nice result, it should be something you have presented at conferences in front of other people, or that you have posted to ArXiV in a preliminary form, before you share it with someone that you don't know.
It doesn't matter who the other person is, what their academic position, or how many publications they have.  None of this seems to really be a predictor of whether someone will scoop your idea or not, unfortunately.

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text:
Acknowledge receipt of email or answer it?
My professor sent me an email. At the end of the email he asked for receipt acknowledgement.
Please should I send the receipt acknowledgement separately and then answer the email or just answer the email, giving that I will do it instantly?

If you can answer immediately, do so. Else, acknowledge with a estimated date for an answer.

Probably best to acknowledge first anyway, since there is inevitably some risk that "instantly" becomes less instant...

"I have received your email and will respond to it shortly."

If you can reply instantly, that covers the request for an acknowledgement and you don't need to send two separate messages.

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text:
How to create an environment in which students can report teacher-student sexual harassment?
I teach physics at a community college in California. A series of female students have told me about sexual harassment by the same tenured male math instructor. Two such incidents went like this.
one incident:
"Professor, I'm having trouble with my homework. Could you give me some help?"
"Sure, let's go have drinks and talk about it."
another incident:
"Professor, can I come to your office hours for help?"
"Sure. You know, my office is soundproof."
I reported the problem to the vice president who handles Title IX. She told me she needed the students to file formal complaints. In one of these incidents, the student was still enrolled in the guy's class. The VP said they could transfer her to another math class to protect her from retribution. I gave the students this information and suggested that they file complaints. A year later, it turns out that they haven't.
I suspect that almost no students at my school know how to go about reporting sexual harassment by a professor, and that almost none know that any measures could be taken to prevent retribution. My school is about to institute a mandatory online orientation, which will cover sexual harassment, but it treats sexual harassment as a general phenomenon and doesn't deal with any of the specific concerns, such as retribution, that arise when it's teacher-on-student harassment. I tried to convince the VP that we should do better outreach on this specific type of sexual harassment, e.g., with posters, including information about how students can be shielded against retribution. This seemed to make her very uncomfortable. I suspect that such a thing would upset interest groups such as the teachers' union.
A related aspect of the problem is that this is a community college, and it's a commuter school, so many students have weak ties to the institution and do not think of themselves primarily as students. The psychology is probably very different from what you see at elite four-year schools where you see this kind of thing.
How do schools create an environment in which students can and do report teacher-student sexual harassment? Are there best practices at other schools (possibly schools similar to mine) that should be emulated?

I refer you to the Student Conduct Administration & Title IX:
Gold Standard Practices for Resolution of Allegations
of Sexual Misconduct on College Campuses report from the Association for Student Conduct Administration. While this report is specifically about responding to complaints about student-on-student sexual harassment, many of the "best practices" described there apply more generally.
Some specifics from that document:

To better understand the climate on your campus, there is a list of "Questions to Ask Your Campus" on page 19 of the document mentioned above. These questions may help you identify the problems and a way forward for your specific college. (There is no one-size-fits all resolution to this problem.)

Find out if it is possible (e.g. for your Office of Institutional Research, if you have one) to conduct campus-wide climate surveys to understand whether existing efforts to inform students of sexual harassment policies and procedures are effective. If (as you suspect) they are not, this survey will serve as a baseline against which to judge the effectiveness of changes in how you present and disseminate these policies.

How comprehensible are your policies to your student body? Would your students feel the need to involve a attorney or a parent in order to understand the policies and procedures related to filing a sexual harassment claim?

Make it easy to report sexual harassment. A campus should have several avenues through which students can report (phone, in-person, email, and online form, for example).
To reduce the barrier to making a "formal complaint," make the student's first interaction as simple as possible:

For example, if the first conversation includes something like, “You’re not going to want to go before a hearing board of three
older faculty members that you might later have as instructors and discuss intimate details of your sex life,” that student is not likely to file a formal complaint.

Help students understand that even if they are not prepared to make a formal complaint, they can still get some relief from the situation (with "supportive measures" as they are known in Title IX). For example, in your scenario, the student should be allowed to change classes (and she should understand that she can transfer to another class) even if she is not ready to proceed with a formal complaint.

According to the April 2014 Q&A Guidance on Title IX from the OCR, the school's written Title IX grievance procedures should explicitly include "sources of counseling, advocacy, and support" for students. Does your school's policies include these? Are they adequate?

Another useful document is How to Protect Students from Sexual Harassment: A Primer for Schools, from the National Women's Law Center.

This is very helpful, thanks. For example, in your scenario, the student should be allowed to change classes (and she should understand that she can transfer to another class) even if she is not ready to proceed with a formal complaint. This is certainly not being offered to our students. The ability to transfer is not being publicized, and is being offered only as a sort of trade, in return for a formal complaint by the student.

We are also definitely not doing what the National Women's Law Center document suggests here: Once your school has notice of possible sexual harassment of students –– whether carried out by employees, other students, or third parties –– you should take immediate and appropriate steps to investigate or otherwise determine what occurred, regardless of whether the student who was harassed decides to file a formal complaint. Nothing is being done unless the student takes the initiative to make a formal complaint.

Put up a modern-day "complaint box" online for anonymous but moderated complaints.  (You can delete anything that's spam.)
Display the collected results on the site.
The site should also explain students' rights and colleges' legal obligations, with links.
Include instructions for making a formal complaint.
Put flyers on bulletin boards to direct students to the site.
Your target audience is the whole student body at your community college.
You can pay $10 extra per year for privacy on the url, so that it cannot be traced to you.
Students will become indignant when they see how widespread the problem is.  This will help them gain courage.
The administrator must be forced into action by student activism.
Find some women's organizations on campus to ally with.  They can help get the word out about the site.
Don't tell anyone you are the creator and the maintainer of the site.
Compare your college's policy and practice with those of a sampling of other community colleges.  Here's a randomly chosen example: http://www.mc3.edu/about-us/misconduct
This reading will help you get a clearer idea of what needs to happen (form a task force?  define a policy?  designate an administrator to receive complaints? etc.).
Once there are some effective anonymous complaints on the site, and you have a clear set of demands, it's time to create a petition.  You can do this with a google form.
Ideally the petition would be launched by a campus organization, not by you as an individual.  But you can do any or all of the legwork.  You can go with the organization's representatives to present the petition and signatures to a top banana.
Include some quotes from the Clarence Thomas - Anita Hill story.  You've got to get people fired up!

Edit:
After reading How to Protect Students from Sexual Harassment: A Primer for Schools (pdf), from the National Women's Law Center (mentioned at the end of the answer written by @ff524 -- thank you!), I now think you may be able to use this document to pressure your college to do more than it has been doing.  Here are some excerpts:

In addition to but not in lieu of a formal grievance procedure, you
  may want to facilitate informal actions in less serious cases of
  sexual harassment by providing a mediation process or by speaking
  directly to the accused harasser. Remember, however, that your
  obligation is to do what is necessary to stop the harassment, prevent
  its recurrence and effectively address its impact on the victim; if
  informal steps are insufficient to resolve the problem, you must take
  additional action.
Posters about the [anti-discrimination] policy and sexual harassment
  should be placed in hallways, locker rooms, classrooms,
  administrators’ offices, student activity areas, or other public
  places.
Once your school has notice of possible sexual harassment of students
  –– whether carried out by employees, other students, or third parties
  –– you should take immediate and appropriate steps to investigate or
  otherwise determine what occurred, regardless of whether the student
  who was harassed decides to file a formal complaint.
A student who has been targeted by harassment should not have not to
  change his/her activities or move out of his/her classes in order to
  avoid further harassment. Follow up with the student to make certain
  the harassment has stopped and that no retaliation has occurred.
[To ensure that its anti-discrimination policy is effective, the
  school might conduct a survey of students, teachers, staff and
  parents.]
A description or summary of the policy, with names of persons to
  contact for more information, should be included in all major school
  publications such as handbooks, course catalogs, or orientation
  materials.

If you feel you've hit a brick wall with the person in charge of implementing the school's anti-discrimination policy, it might be time for a petition, built around the NWLC document, and a meeting with a higher college authority.
I hope you can find a couple of allies.  I get the impression your college could do with some sort of oversight committee of teachers, students and parents.

The administrator must be forced into action by student activism. I think you may have misunderstood the problem. It's not that the administration is ignoring student complaints; it's that the students are not actually making any actionable complaints, and the administration cannot do much on hearsay. Your approach seems to be to generate more hearsay; I'm not sure how that will help, and there are a LOT of problems with this suggestion.

@ff524 - It's all about building a groundswell.  A person who has been subjected to sexual harassment but is not pursuing a formal complaint is likely to feel less hesitant to come forward if she feels (a) motivated, noticing that other people are getting hurt too, and (b) supported. / Can you be specific about what harm my proposal might cause?  / Also, I'm interested to hear your ideas about what you think would help.  Clearly, the OP is motivated to do something!  Let's offer some constructive suggestions for him!

@ff524 - "I tried to convince the VP that we should do better outreach... seemed to make her very uncomfortable" seems to suggest that the OP feels the administrator is not doing all it could.  Ostriches with their heads in the sand tend to say "I can't do anything".  People with a can-do attitude who want to make a change think more creatively.  This administrator is clearly not the creative type.  I have advised the OP not to lock horns with her, but to build a movement that she will have to respond to.

I agree that constructive suggestions would be good; I feel that dangerous suggestions are worse than no suggestions, which is why I feel a responsibility to point out dangerous answers when I see them. (Even if I don't have a good answer to the question myself.)

Some specific harm: The OP can moderate spam and blatantly racist accusations, for example, but cannot identify bad-faith accusations, and so may end up inadvertently hosting extremely damaging false statements. There's a reason OCR guidelines specifically advise against this in most cases: "a school should be aware of the confidentiality concerns of an accused employee or student. Publicized accusations of sexual harassment, if ultimately found to be false, may nevertheless irreparably damage the reputation of the accused."

Another example of specific harm: If the school decides to sue for defamation or related charges (which they are well within their rights to do), the resulting subpoena will uncover the OP's identity despite the private domain name registration. (Even if they lose the defamation lawsuit, they are almost certainly going to be granted the subpoena to identify the person responsible for the site.)

@ff524 - I'm sorry to hear you don't have any constructive suggestions, but I will keep my fingers crossed that something comes to you subsequently. / I trust the OP to keep the online complaint box from degenerating into the  scenario you described. / If the OP wants to protect himself (although frankly, I think the likelihood of his identity being exposed the way you described is incredibly low), I suppose he could suggest that the online complainers do the complaining on some existing site such as ratemyprofessor.com.

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text:
Would the announcement of penalty for blank answers in a test improve the global results of the class?
In a multiple-choice test evaluation, normally (as far as I know) the wrong answers are penalized, but blank answers not.
This makes some students afraid to answer given questions, prefering to leave them blank, even if they can more or less guess the correct answer.
On the other hand, it can also happen that students intentionally do not study a part of the contents, since they know that a lack of knowledge of that part will not be penalized.
So, taking into account these two circumstances, would the global results of a test improve if the teacher announces penalty for blank answers?

How would you handle a student who missed the test?  Would they get a negative score?  If you want to discourage blank answers you could give partial credit for incorrect answers instead of a penalty for blank answers.  I don't think it's a good idea though.

"In a multiple-choice test evaluation, normally (as far as I know) the wrong answers are penalized, but blank answers not." That is rare but not unknown in the circles I travel in (US, physical sciences). Mostly all kinds of failure to get the correct answer are treated the same.

@James: Your comment is only meaningful under the condition that the total result of the test (or exercise in the test, unless it is really the entire test that is multiple choice) can somehow be negative, which is not specified in the question.

It might be worth clarifying the "penalty" you're asking about. Typically, penalties for wrong answers are designed to ~exactly offset the reward from random guesses that happen to be correct -- so, it is no penalty at all, students who leave everything blank and those who randomly guess can expect the same score. (Of course, many students do not understand this and consequently choose poor strategies).

Usually the system goes like this: Good answer = get some points, no answer = no points, wrong answer = negative points.
Note that by this system, students who don't study a part of the material do get penalized by not getting any points, is just that the penalty is not as big as by guessing the wrong answer.
I do believe that this system works well as it is and would be wrong to penalize blank answers. The catch is that the system has to be designed in such a way that the expected value for random guessing should be lower than the expected value for no answers.
Here is why I think why negative blanks would be wrong:
In theory, the goal of the tests is to test what the students know and what they don't know. By encouraging them to leave blanks when they don't know the answer it becomes clear even to them what they do not know and what they know.
Also, by forcing them to answer at random the grade of average and weak students becomes more a measure of luck than of knowledge. A weak student who guesses by luck 7 out of 12 answers will get more points than a student who doesn't know 6 answers but misses all 6 of them.
And if you think that this is not relevant, ask yourself the following question: would you trust your doctor if he passed his classes by guessing the answers? Would you trust him if he diagnoses by randomly guessing?
P.S. Just to clarify, the answer to your question depends by what you understand by "improved test results". For me the relevance of a test is to test the actual knowledge of the students, and a test result is good if there is a strong correlation between the knowledge and the result. In this sense, the test results would definitely not improve.
If by test results you understand the average score, then the scores would improve. But then, instead of doing this just give each student 100%, that would be the best test ever right? But then, the score of the "best test ever" would be completely irrelevant, and most likely useless (especially in the cases where the score is used for ranking i.e. admission, scholarships,..)

I completely agree with you. However, to answer the question in the title, penalizing blanks and not penalizing wrong answers would (at least if kept secret from students before the test, so that they would not use the handicap as an excuse to not study) most certainly improve the test results.

@tomasz I disagree. Yes, by doing this the percentages would be higher, but the test results would be less relevant. In my opinion this is not an improvement of test result. Case and point, if every single student gets 100% is that an improved test score? Or just a completely irrelevant test?

Both, of course. Which was my point.

You write it "would be wrong to penalize wrong answers", but "wrong answer = negative points". How does this go together?

@tomasz, keeping the grading structure secret isn't very honest in my opinion. And it will be known you use that formula at the latest when you give back grades. Don't expose yourself to this.

@O.R.Mapper Meant blanks in the first situation.

I do believe that this system works well as it is It has been shown that this system does not work well, in fact, it penalizes students who are underconfident, and this tends to decrease scores of female students significantly, because they are equally often correct, but more likely to be underconfident about their guess. I think this answer fails to address the real issue, instead suggesting that it is just a matter of expected value calculation when in reality it is more about student confidence and the behavior you are encouraging.

@vonbrand: I only wrote that it would certainly improve the test results. So would giving everyone the maximum score. I wrote it a while ago, but I don't think I ever thought it was a good idea.

I think the accepted answer by Nick S is basically right, but I'd just add that answering the question requires deciding what one means by improving the global results of a test.
Grading policies imply academic priorities. Penalizing blank answers more than wrong answers implies that saying anything at all, right or wrong, is preferable to silence. I cannot think of a situation where this is an appropriate lesson.
(The converse---that it is better to know that you don't know than to put down a wild guess---is a defensible position, and some tests are graded with this policy.)

The answer really depends on what you want to measure, and can even vary from one question to another.
On the one hand, we should take seriously the answers pointing out that negative points for wrong answers penalize insecure students, among which minorities and women are over-represented because of the bias of our societies, which is an important problem.
On the other hand, we also have to take seriously the fact that if guessing provides a better average score than only answering the questions one knows the answer to, the test encourages guessing randomly, which is usually a bad idea. That said, there are several ways to accommodate this issue.
Here are a few possible grading scheme, each of which can be useful in some situation and terrible in others. You can use a different scheme for each question in some cases, but it should then be clear how each one is graded.

+1 for a right answer, 0 for a blank, -1/(n-1) for a wrong anwser (where n is the number of proposed answers, assuming exactly one is right). This is certainly the most standard scheme among those giving the same average to no answer and random guessing. Note that a student able to rule out even only one answer gets a positive average by randomly guessing among the others (which can be considered a bug or a feature).
+1 for a right answer, -1 for a blank, -3 for a wrong answer (or other variations). For a true/false question, this gives the same average score to not answering and guessing. This is a very harsh scheme, designed for questions whose answer must be known to the student (e.g. recognizing a paracetamol intoxication for a pharmacologist, or know what a plea bargain is for a wannabe attorney, you see my point). It basically achieves the same thing as the standard scheme with a higher passing bar, but makes clear that the question is a core one.
+1 for a right answer, 0 for a blank, very small or no penalty for a wrong answer. This makes random guessing scoring above zero in average; it can be used in several situations: for difficult questions on non-mandatory parts of the curriculum; when there is a wrong answer which is very often believed to be true by students (so that most of them will do worse than a random-guessing monkey, a compelling point to make if you have the opportunity to debrief the test), or when the passing bar is high enough that random guessing still needs to be improved by true knowledge in order to have a decent probability to pass.
Zero points for wrong answers and partial credit for blank answers, possibly starting from a negative total. This is basically the same as any of the above, depending on the weights, except that psychologically it may lower the pressure on insecure students. I confess I did not use it, and have no research to cite, so this is merely a tentative idea. More generally, there is always a bunch of formally different grading schemes which do absolutely the same thing, but may be perceived differently. Use this possibility if it feels useful, you have very little to loose.
Many proposed answers, with possibly no one or several of them right, and 0 credit for anything but exactly the right one ticked. This gives a small positive average to random guessing, but so small it does not matter. If n answers are proposed, there are 2^n possibilities, so for example if you take 8 proposed answer and really randomly draw for each of them if it will be true or false (then choosing the answer accordingly), the average score of a random guesser will be 1/256 partial credit.

I dispute that awarding -1/(n-1) is "the standard scheme": that's very much culture-dependent. All the multiple-choice exams I sat in the UK were scored at +1 for a correct answer and zero otherwise.

My standard rubric for multiple choice questions (typically with 4 or 5 options) is +1 for choosing the correct answer, -1/2 for choosing any incorrect answer, +1/4 for choosing "I don't know", and 0 for no answer.

@DavidRicherby: point taken, I edited my answer accordingly.

Any of the above can be adjusted by adding points, so that all wrong = 0. And with penalties, what to do with the genius who got -70 out of 100?

I personally feel that's just adding insult to injury. If someone doesn't know the answer, they're missing out on the points for it anyways, why compound that? I'd focus more on overall test structure, and weighting certain questions. Odds are if you're even considering this, you're not much of a multiple choice test giver anyways, and those would be the only case I can think of where docking for not guessing could be justified because odds of success are so much higher as it is.
That being said, writing a short test with a handful of questions forcing a student to write a paragraph explaining a concept is all you truly need to weed out those who care and deserve to succeed from those who do not. If you weight those questions (5-20 points a piece), anyone who did not study will fail, and those who had to attempt to write a few vague sentences to get any of the possible points and a desperate shot at passing will do the "walk of shame" out of your class knowing you'll see through their poorly thought out response, and if they care about their education, this will motivate them to try harder next time. If they don't, well, that's an entirely different problem.

I disagree with the top answer; it is not evidence-based, as in fact the evidence shows that penalizing wrong answers harms students who are underconfident, and in particular this statistically affects women more often than men.

Usually the system goes like this: Good answer = get some points, no answer = no points, wrong answer = negative points.
... I do believe that this system works well as it is and would be wrong to penalize wrongblank answers. The catch is that the system has to be designed in such a way that the expected value for random guessing should be lower than the expected value for no answers.

It's not just about expected value. The problem is that when you penalize wrong answers, you require a student to not just be good at figuring out the answer; they also have to be good at figuring out how likely their own answer is to be correct, which is not what you really want to be testing. You are testing students both on their knowledge, and on whether their confidence matches their knowledge.
In light of this perspective, let me then answer your question with a perhaps unpopular opinion:

So, taking into account these two circumstances, would the global results of a test improve if the teacher announces penalty for blank answers?

Although I don't think it has a huge impact over simply scoring blank answers the same as incorrect answers, I think this would be a reasonable idea. When there is no penalty for guessing, teachers usually stress that students should answer all questions, even if it's just a guess. This would be a way of further incentivizing that rational behavior, and thus ensuring that students are judged on the merits of their answers, rather than on their confidence.
Since it is an unconventional testing scheme, my guess is that there is no research explicitly investigating this type of test scoring system.

Figuring out how likely an answer is to be correct might also be part of learning goals - metacognition and learning to learn and all that. If you know when you are wrong, you can at least check the right answer (in many real life situations) or ask for advice, whereas if you think you are right but are wrong, you will make a mistake.

@Tommi Yes, if you want to test for that, it makes sense (see the credence callibration game). Personally I am uneasy with it. It doesn't seem fair to penalize underconfident students; I want to know whether the students know the material, not whether they are confident or not.

First, in my experience in Brazilian institutions, penalizing a wrong answer is not common. Actually, this practice is extremely rare here, an in my entire life I only took part in a handful of such tests.
One of these was an entrance exam for an university. It was mostly a True/False exam, with a few questions with five options each. Getting one wrong would nullify one of your correct ones, but leaving it blank would give you no penalty. Although I do not have the statistics here, back then it was visible and documented that this format lowered the grades, and it actually turned the exam into a psychological test of sorts. You were not so much answering to the best of your abilities as you were fighting against your own insecurities.
The majority of the academic community of that city was opposed to this format, because it was evident that the students that got the higher grades were not the ones who "knew the most," but the ones who had a balance between knowing the answers and having confidence.
My belief is that this adds an unnecessary layer of complexity to the examination. And this, statistically, led to worse results, as far as my experience goes.

Note that worse scores don't mean worse education or evaluation. If in a test all students score 100% that's a horrible result... Second, I disagree that this is a psychological test, usually being unsure about something is a good sign that you don't know well that thing [there are few people for which this is an exception, but for most people insecurities come from lack of knowledge].

I agree with Oliver. It is a psychological test to penalize for wrong, but not blank answers. Most people answering on this SE have succeeded in school. For minorities, women, economically-disadvantaged students who often have to deal with "am I really capable?", I think they will second-guess themselves and not answer questions that they could answer correctly. Sorry, no research to back up this claim.

@mkennedy You're claiming that women and minorities are bad at multiple choice tests. I'm sorry but, if you're going to make that kind of claim, you absolutely need research to back it up.

Any such scheme can be gamed. When preparing for the PAA (the entrance exam here in Chile back in '72, each question had 5 alternatives, and each wrong answer had 1/4 penalty). it was remarked that if you could discard one alternative outright and doubted which of the others was the right one, you should guess.

@DavidRicherby If you are still interested in the research, see this article:
https://wappp.hks.harvard.edu/files/wappp/files/gender_differences_in_willingness_to_guess.pdf. I don't have a reference for minorities, but it's generally well-established that controlling for level of skill, women students tend to be less confident than men in their answers.

Goodhart's law is named after the economist who originated it, Charles
  Goodhart. Its most popular formulation is: "When a measure becomes a
  target, it ceases to be a good measure." (Wikipedia)

I would argue that looking at test scores in this way ("would the global results of a test improve if the teacher announces penalty for blank answers?") is fundamentally backwards.
As others have pointed out, an essential question is "What are tests good for?", and what they should be for is clarifying to both student and teacher what has been learned, and what needs improvement. In this regard it would be better to have data about what the student knows they don't know, versus what the student has broken knowledge about.
The proposal to penalize blanks essentially corrupts this. It removes the possibility of another channel of information (via "no answer" responses). Now wrong responses may be either unknown or broken knowledge, and you can't distinguish between them.
Traditionally in expert testing (as others have pointed out), the opposite approach was taken, wherein wrong answer were penalized more severely than blank answers for just this purpose. For example, here's the traditional scoring system for the SAT. However: While that has been used throughout the existence of the SAT to this point, College Board has announced they will stop using that with the 2016 SAT (link), as the general trend to make everything easier -- and yes, inflate scores -- continues.

The grade is a summary. Nothing prohibits taking a closer look: Which questions were left blank most often? (Gaps in coverage of that subject? Unclear question?) Which were the most common wrong answers? (Misunderstanding the material, using "common sense reasoning" that doesn't apply?) I take a look at the grades for each question in more traditional exams exactly to see if the exam/classes are flawed/what to reinforce.

"Inflating scores" doesn't work, really... at least the national exams here in Chile are graded to a curve, so as to give a fixed average and standard deviation. If raw scores go up, the final scores will end up the same. Wouldn't even affect the distribution of corrected scores.

So as a teacher, you want to penalize students who are often right, but often underconfident in their answers? I think that is not what a test should do. See the evidence on gender differences, where women in this case are the more underconfident group controlling for the same level of knowledge: https://wappp.hks.harvard.edu/files/wappp/files/gender_differences_in_willingness_to_guess.pdf

Penalizing guesses also doesn't tell the teacher, as you suggested, what the student knows they don't know, versus what the student has broken knowledge about. Instead, it tells you when they think they don't know, but that doesn't usually correspond to what they actually don't know.


text:
Business card for Ph.D. student - what should be included?
I'm a Ph.D. student considering getting business cards printed to facilitate follow-ups after conferences, etc. I am barely in touch with industry but I'm in a field where business cards are common.
My university has a set layout, but we have quite some freedom on what to include. There are some questions on whether we actually need a business card as a graduate student, but here I'm more interested on what to include on them.
I'm thinking at least:

Name
Title
E-mail (as it is the primary form of communication for academics)
Post address of university

And maybe:

LinkedIn
Personal page

I'm hesitant to include:

Room number (we occasionally switch; updated room number is found on personal page)
Telephone (same as above; could include cell number)

Not including telephone may be a bit harsh, but I'm curious whether you have some input in these matters. What should be included and what is less important?

Name, institution and email sound like they'd be sufficient

What field are you in? Do people use business cards in that field? I've been in theoretical computer science for over 15 years and haven't seen a single business card in the whole time. The answer may well be "Don't bother getting them at all: nobody uses them."

I have the department administrator's office (instead of my own) on my business card, since as a graduate teaching assistant my particular office space is likely to change year-to-year.

@DavidRicherby: I'm in applied computer science, and I have given out and received a few business cards on every conference I have attended so far. Fields differ, and maybe so does the selective perception of people who have business cards ready for distribution and those who do not ;)

In my field I have received several business cards at conferences too and could unfortunately not exchange. Also, I probably would be more proactive in handing them out in case the parties desire to follow up.

@O.R.Mapper Sure. It's just that before asking "What should go on my business card?", one should ask "Do I need one at all?" It wasn't clear from the question that the asker had considered that but, from their later comment, it's now clear that they have.

@menzenski So your response to "If I put my office number on my business card, it will go out of date and direct somebody to the wrong place" was, "I'll put somebody else's office number,  which is guaranteed to direct them to the wrong place!" I'm not seeing the logic, there. My solution would be to not put any office number on the card.

Possible dupe: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/24088/is-a-business-card-necessary-for-a-graduate-student

Possible dupe: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/9857/what-title-to-put-on-a-professional-business-card

@JimRaynor: If you have more information than you want to deal with, you could always add a QR-code/barcode to your card and have that link to your webpage (presumably you have one through your university).

@DavidRicherby I see your point, and probably should have specified that my department is very small (~14 graduate students), and all the offices are in the same hallway as the departmental administrator's. If someone's going to arrive at (or send something to) the wrong office, better that they arrive at the office of someone whose job responsibilities include showing people around.

My experience of business cards in academia is that they are mostly just an easier way to share contact information than scribbling it on a napkin.
As such, the only things that are really important are institution, name, title (because everybody will expect it), and sets of preferred contact information.
As such, if you want people calling you, put down your phone number; if you don't want people calling you, don't put it down.  Likewise for all of the other standard aspects.  You probably should have a web page that you want people to visit.
As for social media sites like LinkedIn: I'm rather dubious about them, simply because there are potentially so many.  I think one wouldn't be a problem, but the extrapolator in my mind goes to a ridiculous image of somebody handing me a card with their LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, ResearchGate, Facebook, etc.  Don't be that person, or else if I meet you at a conference and you hand me your card, I may have a difficult time avoiding laughter.

no linkedin no please!

Social networks within academia seem largely to be a huge failure...

@Moriarty Not always --- one of my communities seems to get a lot of value out of Twitter.

Oh, well, not everybody expects the title (in fact, I removed it from my business card). Out of curiosity I had a look at emails from around twenty European and Asian colleagues and only a few of them, mostly from Germany, reported their title in the email signature.

@user4050 Why? What's wrong with it?

@user4050 I find LinkedIn very useful for finding information about people who don't maintain well-developed personal / institutional web-pages.  The fact that is prompts people to fill in particular bits of "vital statistics" information is really useful (e.g., is this person a grad student or a postdoc?  Well, their personal page is useless and the group page is broken, but LinkedIn says they got a PhD two years ago, so they must be a postdoc...)

@Moriarty All top conferences in Software Engineering, e.g. ICSE, ASE, CAV, etc, have facebook page.

I'd refine this suggestion: don't put links to any social-media or stuff, just put in your site. And in your site, you may link whatever you wish (and you may also change idea later!). Please use a qrcode: if I see an URL and I have to manually type it by hand, I'll hate you dearly.

@jakebeal I find linkedin to be an incredibly intrusive company and I will always advice against it.

While all answers are excellent, I found this one the most clear and helpful , I'm accepting this. Thanks so much.

The point of a business card is to provide contact details. Even though some people might consider it to be outdated, it still has uses; for instance during the poster sessions some people hang envelopes to which you can drop your card for more information or a pdf of the poster.
As such the absolute essentials are your name and department/university, as well as different ways of contacting you. Mine includes:

telephone number
postal address
email

To that list you could add a homepage iff you have one that is in connection with work. I think it's rather annoying to find someone's personal homepage with blog posts about irrelevant stuff or wedding photos, when I was trying to reach their slides or publications.
Regarding your comment about phone numbers, I'd say if someone who receives the card today won't be able to reach you from that number in a year or so, then there's no reason to include it. Again, the idea is to give people different ways of contacting you.
Don't be too alarmed about empty space on your card, it's actually quite useful to scribble down your cell number, Skype username or small notes when you are exchanging cards.
Finally, my card has a QR-code in the back that encodes the same information on the card into an electronic business card. So if someone has a smart phone, they can convert the physical card to a contact on their phone/tablet by scanning it.
Hope this helps

As you will be giving the card to people that you want to remember you.
I would include a photo, name, email address and short list of your research interests.   If you have a useful webpage about your research include it as well.
There is nothing worse than having lots of cards you have been given and not being able to remember why you were interested in the person.

+1 for adding research interests and a personal photo on the visit card...

A business card should include some basic information that people can remember you by, as well as your preferred methods of being contacted.
I would recommend:

Name
Degree Program
University
College/Department
Mailing Address
Email
Phone number

For example:

You can't separate "PhD" from "student" in that way.  What is the year supposed to mean, expected graduation?


text:
Is it possible to make a decision upon a manuscript just within a month?
I am the author of a 12-page double-column manuscript submitted to IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics. Here is the record of the updates within the journal online system, corresponding to the aforementioned manuscript:

Submission Finalization: 7th Aug. 2015
Under Review: 11th Aug. 2015
Awaiting EIC Decision: 16th Sep. 2015

The journal has declared that the authors might expect the result between 8 up to 10 weeks after the submission. But how is it possible to review a 12-page manuscript with a 6-page supplementary material just within one month?
With a full sense of anxiety, I might think that it would be a sinister sign for the early rejection of the manuscript.
Does anybody have any experience with this journal or similar transaction ones, with such very short review-to-result time interval, to evaluate my situation?

This is highly field-dependent, but just to give you one extreme: The standard time given to reviewers to review a manuscript for a certain high-profile biology journal is 10 days.

I just finished reviewing a 12 page (single column) article. My thorough 5 page review took me 5 hours (including typing). The paper was in a sub-sub-sub-field in exactly what I study however...

How much time do you expect a reviewer to spend reviewing your paper? (How much time do you spend on a paper that comes to you for review?)

I cannot make any statement about this journal and this may depend somewhat on the field, but so far I never spent more than a day’s work on any review. The main problem why reviews take so long is not that the review itself actually takes that long, but that reviewers need to find time for the review given their numerous other duties.
Therefore it’s entirely possible that a referee reviews a paper within a day – maybe somewhat more, depending on the field – if they have time at hand. This needs not have to do anything with the review being sloppy or the paper being bad; it’s just a question of luck. I know of one example where a paper for Physical Review Letters (a high-level physics journal) went from submission to publication in something around ten days. Also, one of my papers once received a positive review within four days.
If the journal expects the review process to take eight to ten weeks, then a month sounds entirely plausible. It’s not even outstandingly short.

It is for this reason that some journals ask for reviews in a quite short time: one journal that I often review for always asks for reviews within 14 days.  They've got a pretty good pool of reviewers in the community, so if you don't have a good time for it in that window, they'll just ask somebody else instead.

I've been tapped to do emergency reviews for papers whose initially-chosen reviewers flaked out. "By tomorrow? Please? Pretty please?" "Sure."

I don't know that specific journal but, for instance, the IEEE Transaction on Instrumentation and Measurements ask the reviewers to complete their reviews in one month (reviewers can ask for a few weeks' extension). So, typically, you can expect the reviews to arrive within 4-6 weeks, even in case of long papers.

You'd have to ask the journal how they do it.
Think how long you'd take to review such a paper on a subject you know intimately. Note that "review" doesn't necessarily mean "read with utmost care, check each statement/proof/program carefully", it will lean more to "check if this seems to make overall sense, has the author shown knowledge of the techniques in use, does this look too simple or is it perhaps something well-known", i.e., is it a worthwhile step forward, plain nonsense, or just a rehash.

Actually from my (very limited) experience I would say that the time-consuming bit is often the novelty check/missed references.  Though there is a sort of sour spot in writing quality where it's not bad enough to say "bin it" but is bad enough to make it hard work.


text:
How to find graduate programs in chemistry based on my research interests
I am final year Chemistry undergraduate. I have worked in areas of laser spectroscopy and astrochemistry. I would like to apply to grad schools along this line especially spectroscopy. However, I know that my specific research interests may make this question not extendable to what others may want.

The best answer to this question is one that explain how you can search for graduate programs in chemistry where there are professors that are doing certain kinds of research, whatever that research might be.

Another option is to solicit help from users in the Academia chat room.

I suggested you look at places like findaphd.com, etc.
Alternatively, look at the authors of papers in the field you're interested in. Check their faculty pages, see if they're recruiting grad students, contact them. Attend conferences & chat to people.

Maybe you should think twice about overspecialization too early in your career. Choosing program based on broad interest is good, but you should find a balance here, and open to other directions, too

One approach would be to look up interesting papers in spectroscopy or whatever you want to study and then identify what research groups they are coming out of. That is, figure out who is the senior author on the paper (often the last author) and then look at their website and see what else they are working on. Get a list of at least three maybe more like five different people doing research that you think sounds cool and who are at universities where you wouldn't mind working and check to make sure they are the kind of people who actually take graduate student.
Send each one of those professors an email outlining who you are, your research interests, and why you think you would be a good fit for their lab. Attach a copy of your CV.
Some of them will probably be interested in having you apply to their university's graduate program with the idea of taking you into their research group once you are admitted.


text:
Do not have the right tools for my thesis problem
I am pursuing a PhD in analysis and partial differential equations. My advisor has given me a problem which actually turns out to have a very large algebraic geometry requirement. Although my analysis is very good, my geometry and algebra have always been a little weak. I find the problem very fascinating and, surprisingly, the problem can even be stated in a way that even a first year undergraduate could understand it.
Now, I'm essentially stuck. I do not know if learning all the geometry that I never learned before would help me out. In fact, I doubt it. The other thing is that I feel that for a problem that can be stated in simple linear algebra / calculus terms, such weighty tools might not even be required and some kind of partial results should be obtainable with whatever knowledge I have.
The fact that I am not making any real progress is making me feel very insecure and making me question whether I can become a mathematician. I need some advice.
Should I set myself a time frame and bundle up things as well as they can be bundled up?
Should I set myself the challenge of learning all the geometry that may/may not work?
Should I quit?

What do your advisor think about the situation?

My advisor wants me to finish up this work by the end of the year(although I am not sure what kind of results he expects.) and then look for a new problem to work on. I do not know how my advisor decides whether a piece of mathematics is worthy or not. He tends to look down upon the kind of results that I think might be obtainable.

Does your PhD program require qualifying exam? If so, have you passed it yet?

@scaaahu yes, I did.

Thanks for responding. But does he know the new situation? I mean the unexpected lack of necessary knowledge. The course of action you should take will greatly depend on how your advisor estimates how this new geometric knowledge will help the project, and how fast you supposed to get it. Also, he probably solved or read papers about similar problems to the one you are working on and would know if bringing material from another area is totally unheard of or if has already been done with success in the past.

Based on your comment you already passed your qualifying exam, my guts feeling is that you might have Impostor syndrome

Given your username and @scaaahu's comment, I feel obligated to point out (moderators, forgive me): ask yourself, what would Ash Ketchum do?  Answer: he'd train his hardest, to be the very best, like no one ever was.  You can do this OP!

The title reminds of something a speaker said during a talk.  I can't guarantee this is verbatim accurate--as I can't really remember his name, I just know he is a big name in number theory--, but here's the gist: "One of my students had solved a problem, and wondered now that he had these neat new tools, what problems he could solve with them.  I told him that's the wrong way to do math.  You can do that, and sometimes you will get lucky, but if you want to do math properly then you have to find the problem first and then invent the tools you need to deal with it."

As with everything else about being a graduate student, the correct answer is always: Talk to your adviser. She will likely have a much better overview about the field, the techniques needed, what you probably will need to make progress with your research, and many other things. Discuss with her your thoughts about your uncertainty where the right direction lies, what this means for your career, whether you're qualified, etc. Communicate!

I had exact same problem in a different domain. I think this little story of mine will help you:
6 Months Before Thesis Submission: I was almost done with the whole thesis, then suddenly the supervisor decided to force me into adding another aspect of my work to my thesis. Basically another chapter on the whole matter that I already solved and concluded, but with a different tone (as it was another domain parallel to the domain that I solved).
Panicking Period (1 month): I panicked like hell. The whole thing was done and she wanted me to go to a domain that I ignored since I put my foot at a university.
Exit Strategy (1 month): The time was running out, I said to myself, well I will find 'easy references' that tackled this issue in a very simple way, will learn them, then write the chapter about it and then I will cite them. I found around 20 references on the subject matter.
Gold mining (1 month): It was one the most fun period of my PhD!. I narrowed these 20 references into 1 (thats right!), and then learned its related references.
Writing Period (2 months): Wrote around a 35 pages based on that reference and my work. It actually gave depth to my thesis, as I explained and tackled the same problem using a different method.
Putting my foot down and submission (1 month): Let the game of cat and mouse begin!. Supervisor did not liked the approach I was taking. I did explain that it is actually a very good and important reference, and this chapter is enough on the matter. She disagreed and I did not gave up.
Defence: Fortunately or unfortunately, one of my examiners where a master in the field I tackled and wrote a chapter about. He loved it. In fact 70% of the defence time was about the material I wrote on that chapter.
Conclusion: Be honest with yourself. At the end of the day, if you can defend what you wrote and contributed, then well, you be fine in defending your thesis and your whole PhD.

Well done, but I don't really feel the OP can extrapolate from the fact that it worked out for you, and it doesn't feel like exactly the same situation (OP is starting out, you already had decent thesis material).

My experience in the matter (computer science): never be afraid to learn.
Every new concept opens a lot of new possibilities. Try to see the problem from different points of view, you will often find that there are similar problems and this change will almost always help you develop a solution.
Of course, it wouldn't be wise to charge full time into each possibility... hedge your bets... you might want to focus on the pragmatic approach first, separating a few hours a week to study new stuff.
Just to join the chorus "talk to your advisor". They usually know what is best for you.

Almost no branch of knowledge is without value - I have no doubt learning the geometry would be of use, the only question is whether it is the most effective use of time to tackle the current problem.  This is exactly the sort of situation that advisors are for.

It wouldn't be a bad thing for you, if we take the long view, for you to learn at least some of the "geometry you never learned before".  So even if the geometrical approach doesn't yield anything useful for your current research problem, you'll still have become a better-rounded mathematician.
Research often involves building a rope ladder into the nothingness, not knowing how long the ladder needs to be to reach the other side, not knowing whether your type of ladder will even be able to hook onto the other side once you get there.
Try to relax and enjoy this period of your life, in which you have the freedom to spend some months learning about something, trying something out, out of intellectual curiosity.  Will it prove helpful?  Will it prove to be a waste of time (in terms of your original research problem)?  Will it turn up some little, or big, surprises?  Will it turn out to be helpful for something else you're doing 10 years from now?  Who knows.  Enjoy the fact that no one is breathing down your neck saying, on a weekly basis, Did you solve it?  Did you solve it?


text:
Applying for a Physics Masters as an international student
I am a citizen of Bangladesh, an underdeveloped country in South East Asia.
I would like to apply to universities in Canada for a Masters degree. In particular, I would love to secure an admission to York University or the University of Waterloo. However, I've learnt that students coming from the Indian sub-continent must have already done a Masters to apply for a Masters degree. How true is this?

I have edited your question to focus on the main question.  Please feel free to ask the additional questions separately, if they are not already answered elsewhere.

You can pose these questions to the institution you are most interested in applying to.
I doubt you need a Masters in order to apply for a Masters.
In general, I recommend applying for a PhD.  If you decide to stop with a Masters, that's okay.  Check this with the particular institution, of course -- but in general, I think that applying for the PhD program would give you the best chance of financial support (research assistantship or teaching assistantship).


text:
What is the correct way to cite the theorems which grew out of your personal discussions with someone else?
Sometimes it happens to me that I have a discussion with someone and he presents part of his unpublished works to me that help improving parts of my research.
Sometimes I use them in a paper in the way that after informing the person, I cite the results in my papers often by attaching that person’s name to his theorems and bringing them as unpublished notes or personal communication at the references. But I’m not sure whether the way that I cite such results is really correct or not.

this pretty much depends on where you submit your work.

@Math-fun How? Please explain more.

As I saw commonly in papers: you may write as a foot-note "in communication with ...." or in the acknowledgement, you can mentions "..I thank him for useful discussion on theorem ...".

@Researcher: I saw in some books "R. Researcher, personal communication, 2015", say.

It's also reasonable to include an explicit acknowledgement in the text.  "The following proof is due to Nicolai Bourbaki (personal communication) and is included here with their permission."

In this case, if you wish to include a content originated from your peer in your manuscript, you ought to first get his consent. Since you may not be able to cite this in the References section as you cannot cite conversations, you may attribute the originator in the Acknowledgments section regarding this fact.

In mathematics you can cite conversations (as "personal communications") as well as unpublished documents.  Of course this is inferior to a published source, because it's harder for readers to access and it's not permanently archived, but it's acceptable when necessary.

@Anonymous: Certainly you can reference "personal communications" and you should if you've used them.  It is not unheard of for these personal communications to appear in the bibliography of a paper....but isn't that a bit silly?  The point of a bibliography is to point the reader to the place where they can access the referenced information.  If no additional information is provided, I'm not sure I understand what is gained by putting it in the bibliography.

@PeteL.Clark: One issue with personal communications is that ephemerality forms a spectrum, roughly from hallway conversation to letter to uncirculated manuscript to preprint to published paper, with various stages in between.  The accessibility of the material varies as well: even if a letter is unpublished, I may be willing to share a copy informally, and it may eventually end up as part of the scholarly record if the writer or recipient is famous enough or decides to publish the material.

One purpose to citing a personal communication in the bibliography is to hint that more details may be available to those who ask (without promising anything one doesn't have the legal right to distribute publicly).  Published sources are generally the best, but I don't see any absolute dividing line regarding accessibility or permanence.

I agree that citing conversations is not useful for future reference, since they are completely ephemeral.  However, this can still send a signal about the importance or future publishability of the contribution.  Referring to a personal communication without formally citing it may indicate that it's a less significant contribution, while citing it may be a sign that future readers should check to see whether this person published it later.  That can be a worthwhile distinction to make.


text:
Asking for "more" during office hours?
In some good classes I've had, I've gone to office hours not because I'm confused, but because I just want "more". I like the teacher and just want to listen to them talk about whatever, even if it's not necessarily about the class. I can usually come up with a couple questions for an excuse to come by, but I wish I could just say "please teach me more".
How do you do that? I don't know how to ask that, or how to instigate it. I usually just try to ask questions but sometimes I honestly don't have many, or at least ones that couldn't be solved by using a book. Usually these classes are ones I like, and thus I try to keep on top of things.

More is a very generic term. You might be more successful by asking focused questions on topics that are interesting to both you and the teacher. You might even get a chance to work together on some of those topics.

If your sex is different than that of the teacher (or even the same sex in some cases), liking the teacher, wanting "more" and "want to listen to them talk about whatever" is a bad recipe for everyone involved.

@Alexandros Not necessarily. It might be true that using those words exactly in front of the teacher might make him/her uncomfortable, but I'm very familiar with such feelings which rise purely out of eagerness to learn and professional admiration, without involving any personal feelings.

@JoErNanO That's my question. What if I don't have focused questions?

avid19 - Then think about why it is that you want more.  Is it because you enjoy the prof's teaching style?  Is it because you enjoy the subject matter?  Is it because you just enjoy the act of learning?  In the first case - follow user1938107's answer below and ask about auditing their other classes.  In the second case - during the next lecture, think of at least one "what if...?" question (i.e., "what if you did x instead of y?").  Go to office hours and ask about it!  In the third case - Wikipedia is your best friend.  I'm full of random useless knowledge just b/c I love learning :)

I am not sure what you are looking for is possible. When I was first getting into research, there were plenty of people I thought just had amazing things to say, and great perspectives on so many topics.  Even after school and being in research, there are people I truly respect that have a unique perspective on much of academia.  The issue is, these people are usually respected by more than just one person, and as such, are extremely busy.  They are also the people who are invited as speakers to conferences, TED events, etc.
My suggestion is, if you are really interested in hearing more of their perspective regardless of it being a topic of your class, you can ask if they hold other classes in which they lecture.  Additionally, you can easily look their name on google to see if there are conferences they have given talks on (which is highly likely if they are a top academic).  If you can not find anything online, you could still ask them if they have talks available online in a respectable way, such as:

I really enjoyed your explanation of topic x, it was a way I had not
  heard it explained before, do you have any online resources in which I
  could hear more of your thoughts on this?

If you are not interested in watching recorded talks, and only interested in one-on-one communication, I think you need to think more about the comments to your question by seeking more specific questions, or your real issue with wanting to hear the person speak.

Fundamentally, there are two types of "more", with some overlap.
There's the specific person, and the specific topic.
With regard to the specific person, you have to respect that their time is short and you'll have to fit yourself into their existing schedule.  The question you will ask is "What courses are you teaching next year?"  Unless you are very early in undergraduate studies, You are helping the faculty member by asking this question.  Special topics courses get cancelled unless enough students enroll, and if you have the prerequisites, you'll get to hear more of the teaching style that works well for you and simultaneously help the professor keep his course on the schedule.
With regard to the specific topic, it's always appropriate to ask about practical applications to a theory course ("How would I use this?"), practical aspects of an applications course ("Can this fail?"), theory behind an applications course ("Is there a mathematical test to see whether it will be stable?"), what the professor would like to have included in the syllabus if the course were more hours, and whether the course material is applicable to the professor's own research.  You may get lucky and be given pointers to notes or recordings prepared by the professor, but most likely you'll be pointed to other resources.  Don't discount them when you back back out through the office door, this pays off proportionately to the effort you put in.  Likely there will be an opportunity to talk about what you discovered from the resources suggested (assuming you actually put in the time to study them) when you next see the faculty, but even if not, you still learned new things.
Finally, most faculty will take some time to answer general sorts of advising questions about the curriculum of the department and/or professional development and career paths.  Their research is always a possible topic for discussion... but unless you ask how it relates to the class and go out and learn more on your own, these are likely to be one-off conversations.

This probably goes without saying, but to be on the safe side... always cede the visitor's chair to a fellow student who is visiting office hours in need of help with the course.  Also, make sure that you don't neglect to do the assigned work.  Only go to have enrichment conversations when you are completely caught up with all your assigned work (in this and all your courses).  Finally, be sensitive to the professor's own work rhythm.  There will be some office hour days when your professor is working under a deadline, or is tired because his or her toddler couldn't sleep well the night before, or is jetlagged after going to a conference, etc.
Look at the professor's publication record; take a look at some of these publications.  Based on that, you can prepare some questions of this type: What led you to get interested in _____________?
Some conversation openers:

I'm taking such-and-so other course, and such-and-so is tying in very
  well to what I am learning in this course OR I don't yet see how that
  subject will tie into ____________.
You mentioned in class that such-and-so is beyond the scope of the
  course.  Are there courses offered here that would get into that in
  greater depth?
Can you recommend some enrichment reading that would give me a broader
  or deeper view of ____________ (name of area of study addressed in the
  course you're taking)?
I read such-and-so article about ___________ (some sub-topic that has
  come up in your course).  I found especially interesting
  _______________.


text:
Answering "Why are you applying to our university?"-type question in the statement of purpose
When applying to Masters programs, most institutions ask a "Why are you applying to our university?"-type question to be answered in the statement of purpose.
Let's assume that one applicant is really interested in one institution because it seems to have a great program (from the educational point of view), amazing structures and research centers, one specific research group made of a few strong professors with fascinating interests which are compatible with the ones of the applicant (although not perfectly the same), prestige, and also a nice location.

In such a situation, what points should one keep in mind when
  answering "Why are you applying to our university?"?

Indeed, many words of praise of the institution and the faculty -- although well-deserved -- might be seen (in my opinion) by some either as "just flatteries" in some sense or as "superfluous obviousness".

So what is actually expected from this question? And what is its main purpose?

For instance, is it actually  mostly a way to see if the applicant's research interests overlap with those of the faculty?

We want to know a) if you did your homework about us, much as you would for a job opportunity, and b) if you actually are a decent fit with our departmental culture as well as our academic specialties.
Not doing even the most cursory of homework (reading our website, looking at our faculty expertise, checking out a student group or two) suggests you just aren't that interested in us -- either you're flailing or you're spraying applications everywhere in sight. Neither of those suggests you will do particularly well here.
The academic matching isn't quite as critical for us (though this will vary quite a lot from department to department). In our discipline, it's quite common for learners to change niches during the program, and that's fine. We're mostly concerned about a severe mismatch, that is, you are strongly interested in something we have little or no strength in.
As for how much to say, this is where an admissions essay differs from a job cover letter. The essay is actually about you, not us! You can express sufficient and suitable interest in us in a sentence or two: "I look forward to studying X with Professor Y, who writes so well about Z" or "I appreciate your strong commitment to Q, a commitment I share and hope to expand upon" will do fine.
I'd lay off the "nice location" if I were you; it comes across as backhanded negging, as though the location were the only thing we have going for us. I won't say this would eliminate you from consideration (where I am, we really do have location going for us!), but it would raise a possibly-offended eyebrow or two. If, however, "nice location" means facilities the department has some control over or works hard to fund and maintain (such as excellent lab space or over-and-above digital capacity), that's fine to mention.

Agreed about the location -- except if some family situation is involved.  In that case (say you're a trailing spouse, for example), it's okay to mention this, but as D. Salo says, that would go briefly in the cover letter, not in the essay.

Oh, sure, that's fair.


text:
Answering "Why do you want to become a research mathematician?"-type questions in a statement of purpose
How should one address the classic "Why do you want to become a research mathematician?"-type question that is normally asked in the statement of purpose when applying to Masters (and also) programs?
I've read (and I bet so has any admission board) lots of statements beginning with

(*) "I've always loved numbers and solving problems, which is the
  most rewarding thing of my life"

(or variations thereof), which seems like a rather lame way to start off.
I do have an enthusiastic love for mathematics and the challenges of research work, and have some "philosophical" reasons to dedicate myself to it (I've been mostly inspired by Prof. Thurston's answer to this question which was asked on MathOverflow), and a somewhat defined (although broad) area that deeply arise my interest (which I surely should mention). However, I'd really like to avoid seeming unprofessional (or outright creepy) as in passage (*), and trying to convince anyone that I've always been in love with my field "ever since I could take my first trembling steps". So my question is:

What points should you keep in mind to address the question "Why do you want to become a research mathematician?" in a statement of purpose without seeming unprofessional but communicating your genuine and deep passion? And what is actually expected?

A related question is Choosing research ideas to include in a statement of purpose.

Haven't been on admissions committees before, but I recommend talking about particular math problems or subjects which you loved working on, and why they captured your attention.

Having been on the admissions committee before, my recommendation is to write what you believe in, and not care about what you think other applicants write. In general, your goal ought to be to get admitted to programs with which you are well-matched, rather than getting admitted to all the programs. Providing honest information to the admission committee will help you in this goal. Being direct and honest also saves time in preparing your application.

How should one address the classic "Why do you want to become a research mathematician?" — Honestly.

@JeffE I considered honesty the absolute basis; but thank you for making it explicit.

I can't speak for all mathematics graduate admissions everywhere, but when I was on the admissions committee for my department (UGA) we generally did not take the statements of purpose all that seriously.  Most statements of purpose are indeed a bit dull and similar to each other.  The particular question "Why do you want to become a research mathematician?" is certainly not explicitly asked across the board (somewhat crankily I could ask "Why are you asking that for a master's program?  The degree needed to become a research mathematician is a PhD.  Depending upon your local academic culture, getting a master's degree could either prepare you to enter a PhD program or it could be totally unnecessary for that.").
It's not a bad question, but to me a very acceptable answer -- really the best answer -- is because I really enjoy mathematics, I am good at it, and I am eager to learn and do more of it.  Not to brag too much, but I am in fact a research mathematician.  Why did I become one?  Please see the above bold-faced text: even with the benefit of many years of retrospective, I don't really see a better answer than that.  In fact, honestly I think the bold-faced answer is probably better than the wordier answers I gave in my early 20's: how mathematics is the best field because it has an amazing internal consistency and a level of rigor and certainty unmatched by any other intellectual endeavor, how mathematical theorems are eternal so proving them is a form of immortality, and so forth.  Yikes.  It's not so much that I don't believe these things anymore but rather that I don't find these beliefs very interesting or distinctive: I think they fall nicely under "because I really enjoy mathematics".
The problem with taking the personal statement too seriously is that the ability to write an excellent personal statement -- especially an unusually interesting or insightful one -- is only weakly correlated to success in a math PhD program.  I looked at personal statements to see whether they were adequate, e.g.:

Do they use flawlessly correct grammar, syntax and punctuation? Do they express their (not so complicated) ideas clearly?  Do they convince me that this student has strong enough writing skills not to be dragged down by this in the future?  (Many STEM-types have alarmingly weak writing skills, and for sure it drags them down.  I take the GRE Verbal score very seriously.)
Do they avoid gross misconceptions about what a math PhD program and a math research career will be like?  I don't expect an incoming math PhD student to really understand either one: most don't, but they learn eventually and adapt accordingly.  However some students are clueless so far beyond the norm that it becomes a risk that as soon as they arrive they'll think "Wait, what is all this??" and drop out in their first semester.
Do they seem like a responsible person and not a snowflake who thinks that graduate school is a summer camp that they get paid to attend?  (It happens...)
Do they avoid sounding too weird? Yes, mathematicians can be weird, like many people, and the amount of allowable weirdness in the mathematical profession is probably greater than most.  But it is still only a finite amount, and I know people who have the intellectual skills to be a mathematician but not the requisite level of socialization.  It's not pretty but it's true.

If you avoid these and similar negatives in a personal statement and mostly just evince a sincere, not terribly pretentious or twee "I really like math", then I suspect you'll do fine with this part of your application.  You would in my department, certainly.

Thanks for this insightful answer. By the way, it seems that, just like most of my current classmates, in your early 20's you were quite a bit inspired by A Mathematician's Apology :).

+1.  To the list of examples of unnecessarily wordy elaborations on "because I really enjoy mathematics" I'd add any anecdotes about a childhood role model who first turned you on to mathematics.

@Ryo: Aren't we all? :)

Of course it would be unreasonable to expect/demand a sophisticated (either technically or psychologically) answer to this question, from a relatively young and inexperienced person, so that cannot be the use of this question.
My own reading of "personal statements" is as a sort of Rorschach test... allowing a gauge of the writer's maturity, sensibilities, and accurate anticipation of what grad school will be like, sharply different from letters of recommendation, transcripts, and such. Fluidity (or not) of writing is also evident. If/when I can hear the writer's "voice" in the letter, I find this very helpful in trying to visualize their future.
Some letters are, or seem, obviously duplicates of things-on-the-internet, or so ill-thought out as to be worthless except as evidence of disinclination to think things through (!). Some seem deliberately uncommunicative, which gives a strange impression. Some are childish.
Probably "sincerity" and/or "honesty" are best... although, yes, it is hard to be entirely honest when one knows that one is being appraised, and that manipulation-of-self can have an impact on one's future. I guess a point is that unless one is very adroit at "faking sincerity", it's better to not try. :) An inadvertently clumsy attempt at faking something is not a pretty thing. :)
After all, admissions committees know that most applicants are in the usual age bracket, so a certain immaturity or inexperience is expected. It's in the subtler, secondary features that admissions committees may find reason to make distinctions, and it's probably somewhat harder to "arrange" these, even in good faith.

I think you made a very good point. Thank you.

We can't answer what amounts to a personal question here.
As @BorisBukh's comments, you have to answer with the kind of questions that interest you, and why you believe you will be able to provide (at least partial) answers to them.
You will obviously have better chances to be accepted if your questions are in line with the interests and expertise of the faculty where you are applying.
After question edit: What a commitee wants to know is if you already have some knowledge of the area, are really interested, and know what you are stepping into. They don't want people who find out halfway that they don't like research after all and drop out.

Thanks for your remark; but usually in the personal statement there is a specific question about the research interests; this one should be (as I understand it) about your general motivations to be a mathematician.

@Ryo - Since this essay is never going to appear in print, you may let go of your self-consciousness and write from the heart, without worrying about the risk of it sounding sappy.  Your Question mentioned some philosophical motivation -- that might be a good place to start writing.

@aparente001, if OP becomes famous, it might appear in print and be extensively discussed here

What points should you keep in mind to address the question "Why do you want to become a research mathematician?" in a statement of purpose without seeming unprofessional but communicating your genuine and deep passion? And what is actually expected?

What is expected is that you answer the question (honestly, as JeffE helpfully recommended). Nothing more, nothing less. We are not you and we do not know the answer. If the supposedly "creepy" (really? What makes it so?) passage (*) seems most correct to you, that's what you should write.
And if I may add a personal note, to me the fact that you are asking on Academia SE about how to address this question carries an unpleasant whiff of someone trying to game the system, i.e., trying to come up with some kind of "correct" answer to the question that would ostensibly be most pleasing to the admissions committee. Probably I am being a bit harsh on you in saying this -- I have no doubt you are sincere in your passion for math and just want to maximize your chances of acceptance -- but that's my gut reaction. If you ask me, I would much prefer an "unprofessional" answer from someone who actually gave the question proper consideration and wrote about their own feelings on the subject, to a polished and slick answer that feels "professional" because the writer received help from a committee of senior mathematicians on Academia SE.

I did not ask this question to craft some sort of unpersonal slick answer, but thanks for sharing your thoughts and for several insightful remarks.

@Ryo good to know, and thanks for your generous and positive attitude to my comment (which was perhaps a bit too critical of your intentions - if so, I apologize). Good luck with your applications!


text:
How to shut ears to office gossip?
Our institute has office spaces for the PhD students with a number of cubicles in the same room. I happen to be an introvert and dislike people talking to me when I am in the office space, or otherwise. But people just love to gossip. They will talk about how bad their supervisor is or how bad my supervisor is, and even though a lot of what they say might be true, it takes a lot of unnecessary toll on me. It makes me very unsettled about my future.
I simply do not understand why people love to talk so much. Are they trying to be helpful? Are the seniors among them trying to guide me? How do I make it happen that I keep going to the office space and not have to make small talk or gossip with other folks there?

Throw on a pair of headphones - most people usually get the idea and will only interrupt you with important questions.

That said - I think it entirely depends on what they're talking about.  If the students are making smalltalk about the adviser's latest proposal, then it might be worth listening to.  If it's gossip about one another's love lives - you can probably skip it.

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it's not specific to academia and might be better suited for Workspace.se (where it would most certainly be a duplicate).

The simplest solution I've found: Assume it's all wrong or irrelevant and ignore it. If they bring it to you, cut it off with "Sorry, not interested and busy." . If the problem is pure noise independent of context , tell them to take it elsewhere if you can and don headset or take yourself elsewhere if you can't.

I like the headphones idea, and perhaps a baseball cap, worn rather low, would help in a similar way.  Some more ideas:

You could put an embroidered sign on your cubicle wall (or a
calligraphy version) saying something like "If you can't say
something nice, don't say anything at all" or "If you can't say
something nice, say it in French."  If those are too blatant,
perhaps you could post the latter phrase in French.  Or choose one
of the many images available online that represent the concept.
I particularly liked "NO Trashing OR Bashing Zone."
When someone approaches you and starts yakking, there are two ways
of stopping them:
(a) Look interested, respond with a wide variety of facial
expressions, but without saying anything.
(b) Say, "I don't want to lose my train of thought, and I've got a deadline -- can you tell
me the rest tomorrow?"
Start coughing, grab an empty water bottle from your desk drawer, point at your throat, and walk quickly to the bathroom.  If the person is still in your visitor's chair when you come back, point at your throat and communicate nonverbally that you can't talk -- until he goes away.
For the really stubborn person who needs a more careful explanation -- just tell them the truth: "I'm the sensitive type, and when I hear negative remarks, I soak them up like a sponge, and they affect me way too much.  This is nothing against you -- but I have to protect myself.  So when I hear you starting to tell me something that's going to affect me this way, I'm going to say, "I'm sorry, Rafael, but I don't want to listen to this."  (And then if he tries again next week, say it.)

Or maybe instead of posting signs or dropping hints or play-acting, you could just be honest and direct. "I'm in the middle of something right now; let's talk later." or "Excuse me, but would you mind talking somewhere else? It's really distracting." Or if you're feeling particularly spiky: "Oh, just shut up already. If you hate your advisor that much, fire them." You do not need to apologize or explain further.

Why would something awful be less awful when said in French?

@DannyRuijters - I think that was sort of the point of the joke.  I came across it when I was looking for the correct wording of the standard form.

While it sometimes indeed can be annoying to have people talking when one has to concentrate (and for this, one indeed should have a pair of headphones ready), you could also think about changing your perspective. The point of having an office is also for social interaction and for exchanging ideas with co-workers. When I really have to concentrate, then I work a day from home or use a designated space we have for that, but in general, the reason that not everyone works from home but comes to the office is that academic work also is about teamwork, about social exchange, and about getting inspired by talking to others.

Just say "Sorry, I have to interrupt.  I'm working on X."  Perhaps the X will be interesting to them and you've found a new use of their logorrhea and can hone your dialectic skills or even learn something that has value to YOU.
It doesn't even matter if you working on it right then, because now you are.