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Interactive poll during the presentation - worth the hassle?
I recently attended a lecture where the speaker used piece of software to add interactive results to poll audience. As a presenter and/or audience - what is your opinion on added value of such exercise? Worth the hassle?
What are the benefits? What problems can it get you into?
In my particular case for example - you could answer via smartphone (app or website) or laptop (website), both of these had to of course be connected to Internet. So automatically - the poll excluded all those who didn't have this option.

The impression I get is that when we see this kind of thing these days, it's a watered down descendant of Eric Mazur's "peer instruction" method: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer_instruction . Peer Instruction (PI) was a radically different, student-centered mode of instruction that was shown empirically to do better than traditional lecturing. Mazur did it with low-tech cardboard rather than cell phones or expensive clickers, and that's how I still do it when I use the technique. Clickers took over because they were profitable, and many people now use them to give a veneer of interactivity.

When you say "lecture", I'm not sure whether you're talking about a one-shot talk (e.g., a conference presentation, an invited seminar), or about an ongoing series in a class.
While I personally have not taught this way, I know that there has been a lot of experimentation with having students answer questions during lectures with software in the way that you describe.  There, the idea is to have the students actually working problem as part of the lecture---essentially, a hybrid between normal and flipped classroom.  In at least some cases, this seems to work very well.
For a one-shot talk, on the other hand, I have a hard time coming up with non-contrived scenarios where I think this would be worth it.  Why would anybody be willing to install some random app for just one talk, and won't you lose time to getting them set up with it? What could you gain from an online poll that you couldn't get through a quick show of hands?  Once people have switched their attention from you to their screens, aren't you just encouraging them to check out and read their email / browse the web?  To me at least, the negatives seem to far outweigh the benefits.

Thanks for your input. Sorry for not being clear enough - in my case it was one-off invited seminar (which I believe, as a speaker you could reuse if necessary?). The question was a yes-no type and refereed to the main topic (and title) of the talk.. App was not requirement and you could simply open a webpage with a short link to answer the question.

@radek Even without the app, what does it gain beyond a show of hands, and why would you want to encourage people to pay attention to their screens?

I didn't think about the distinction between series of talks and one-off lecture - that indeed might offer better return on investment.. Also - very much like the comment about distracting the audience right at the beginning of your talk and encouraging email browsing while pretending to be answering! ;)

I agree with jakebeal that it matters a lot whether you're doing this for one isolated lecture or as part of a class.
As I see it, the main advantage of this is as a pedagogical tool.  It's most useful when you're teaching a class, because then you can give small "quiz" questions as interactive polls, and from the pattern of student responses you can get an idea of whether they're understanding the material.  I used this technique in a class I taught and found it quite useful.  If most of the class was quickly getting the right answer, I knew I could move ahead speedily; if many students got the answer wrong, I could slow down to go over stuff more slowly.
I think these advantages are much reduced in a single-lecture situation.  For one thing, at least in my experience, the proportion of standalone lectures that are pedagogical in nature is fairly small.  Second, for pedagogical standalone lectures, you typically have a preplanned talk that you're going to give, with little room to adjust the pace based on audience responses.  For a class, you can use results from a poll one day to plan and adjust what you talk about at the next class session, but there's no way to do that if the entire thing is just one lecture.  Finally, to get at your main question, I just don't think it's worth the hassle for a single lecture.  People have to install an app or go to a website.  If technical difficulties prevent them from doing so, you have to either use up precious time from your single lecture, or ignore the problems, which makes the poll results less representative.  For a class, it can make sense to spend the time resolving technical issues because the polling mechanism can be used again and again over a period of weeks; for a single lecture, any time spent dealing with that is just cutting into the substance of the talk.
If the talk is not pedagogical, I think there's little point to these polls.  You don't really need audience feedback (at least not until after the talk) if you're not trying to teach them something and make sure they understand it as you go along.
I personally used the iClicker device and software, because that was provided by the institution where I was teaching.  This is nice because it doesn't require anyone to install anything or look at a screen; they just use the device, which is like a remote control, to respond to polls you show in your slides.  Again, though, in a single-lecture setting, it's unlikely to be worth it to pass out iClickers for everyone and then collect them at the end.  The only way I could see this being practical is if your talk, although standalone, was one of many such talks at a conference or something, and the conference provided the iClicker or other poll infrastructure.  Then the economies of scale could make sense, because people could participate in polls across many talks.  For this to be worth it, though, you'd have to have substantial interest from the speakers, or else they might not bother to include polls in their talks.


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Has anyone failed coursework requirement and got terminated from PhD program?
I'm doing a PhD in Economics, a 3-year program. I am required to do 4 coursework and receive a grade of B+. The thing is I didn't meet the grade requirement of all four courses, although I didn't fail the courses. I have a very good research proposal (in my opinion). I've got all the data on hand. I have discussed about this with my supervisor and he said I might get terminated; it depends on the research committee after I defend my proposal. I think it would be very unfair if I've got a justifiable proposal but still got terminated because I didn't meet the coursework requirement. The university regulation does not say clearly what would happen if someone fails the coursework requirement.
So, I was wondering if there is anyone out there who is/was in my position. Did you get terminated from the school?

So there's a clear requirement that you did not meet and you feel it's unfair if you are not allowed to continue?

The thing is, in a phD study, isn't research more important than coursework?

I suspect a program requires what it thinks is important.

Yes indeed. A requirement is a requirement. If they want you for other reasons, they might bend the rule a bit to keep you, but if they don't want you in program they can use this as a valid reason to kick you. Both options happened to colleagues of mine. One failed and was the "straw that broke the back" and got kicked, while another failed a course and they kept him because they liked him otherwise.

I should say that in most US graduate schools getting a  B in a course is a warning sign, and getting B in four courses is a real red flag. The breadth requirement is taken just as seriously as depth.

@SashoNikolov - Bingo! My advisor's grading guildlines for his courses list a B as pretty shoddy performance and a B- as "Don't you dare...".  Grade expectations in most graduate work is higher than you might naively expect.

I have been the evil professor who gave the student a grade that was too low to let them continue in the PhD program.  So, yes, it does happen.

@JeffE: as much as I'd like to think your comment is funny. May I ask why you do that, professor?

I was not trying to be funny. If you mean "Wh did you gve the student a low grade when you knew they would have to leave the program as a result?", the answer is that I assigned the grade I thought the student deserved.

Yes, it happens. And it has to be this way.
We've had students who do not do sufficiently well in the coursework, but do so well in other regards that they are allowed to continue on to their Phd: the research committee is there to weigh up the positive and negative signs, within the regulations set out for them. Occasionally, we have students who pass the coursework and then struggle with self-guided research. So now we have two gateways: the coursework, and then a year later an upgrade report and seminar, which is their formal transition from an MPhil programme to a DPhil programme.
A department may not get many opportunities to formally remove a failing student. This will vary by institution and discipline, but it can be the case that there are not many opportunities within the trajectory of a single PhD to terminate cleanly and indisputably.
We never like to do it. It's the worst thing we can do. Apart from the alternative, when the alternative is letting a candidate go forwards into a drawn-out and ultimately unsuccessful attempt at completing the PhD. This is exacerbated if they might make increasing demands on staff, and/or might become increasingly disruptive to other students.
If the supply of good potential candidates is greater than the number of available places; or there are financial penalties when students fail later rather than earlier in the process; then the imperative to filter out weak candidates becomes stronger.
Coursework, research proposals, upgrade seminars and upgrade reports, are some of the small selection of tools we have to help us identify weak candidates. Writing a PhD thesis is indeed completely different to doing coursework. And there are candidates that excel at coursework, but could not write a doctoral thesis; and maybe there are candidates where the reverse is true. Nevertheless, the coursework gives us an opportunity to assess a candidate's skills and domain knowledge.
So that's why a justifiable proposal is not in and of itself sufficient (even when it's a self-funded candidate). If successful coursework is specified as a requirement, then the regulation doesn't need to say what happens if a student fails the coursework: if any requirement isn't met, then the candidacy doesn't have a right to proceed - that's the essence of a requirement. There might be alternatives to some requirements: these should be in the regulations somewhere. Your supervisors, or the faculty's graduate tutor, or the university's graduate school, should be able to advise.

Story time!
At one point in my past life, I was in a graduate program for a certain subject which has nothing to do with computers. Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, I was not cut out for such work. I ended up missing the cut severely on two courses, and was told I was withdrawn from that graduate program. So, that was it. Just one day, I stopped going to classes, and I was no longer a graduate student.
So, yes, if you don't meet grade requirements, you can get terminated in some programs. This is a very real outcome that you need to consider, if you've been told it is a possible outcome.
Depending on your grade layout, you may get by, you might not. If you needed a B+ in 4 classes and ended up getting a B or a B- in a single class, I don't think the research committee would be out to kick you out. If, however, your performance was sub-par based on their requirements repeatedly, such as a pair of Cs, they may be wary as to keeping you on board if their requirements were B+s.
That being said, you should probably talk to your adviser about how to proceed. If the research committee is willing to work on a case by case basis, you might be able to work something out. Either way, your end performance has to be stellar from now on, as anything you do poorly will make it harder to support your case.
Unfortunately, the harsh reality is that no one here can guarantee success. You should, at the very least, consider what will happen if you are terminated from the program, as a safety measure.
Epilogue - I ended up getting a Master's in Computer Science and found a happy career.

+1 Thanks for sharing your story. Glad it worked out for you

I almost didn't compose an answer because others have covered almost all the ground, but I do have this to add:

I think it would be very unfair...

If you whine complain about fairness, it will work against you.  You presumably knew the requirements going in, and you didn't meet them.

The university regulation does not say clearly what would happen

If you try to "lawyer" the regulations, it will work against you.  Others have already explained that "requirement" means requirement.
Talk to your proposed supervisor, ask what, if anything, you can do to remedy the situation, and do what the supervisor says.   They are giving you a chance to redeem yourself; don't blow it.

Hi Bob. First, thanks for the comment. I feel like I'd like to make it clear about what I meant. The thing is the university regulation only states that I need to present a viable research proposal in order to pass on to full registration; it does not say whether one would be terminated if s/he did not meet other requirement so I think it would be unfair if the school does otherwise although I'm fully aware that they are capable of doing so.

For what it's worth, what you think or feel doesn't matter in this situation; what your advisor tells you to do matters.  Listen to what your advisor says.

@lovemelovemydog: in this comment you say all that's required by regulation is to present viable research. In the question you say "I am required to do 4 coursework and receive a grade of B+". So, what requires you to do the coursework at a grade of B+, if not some kind of regulation or other university authority?

@SteveJessop: the research proposal is required by the university and is applied to all students across any discipline.The grade requirement was imposed by the school (my school). The uni says the school can impose other regulations during the first year, but it does not say what would happen if the student does not meet the other requirements.

@lovemelovemydog: I would assume that means the school gets to set its own consequences for its own requirements.

@BrenBarn: I assume the same thing. That's why I set out asking this question to see how other schools have made decisions to other students under similar circumstance.

Universities will impose some minimum course work (credit) requirement on the students. For example: in my institute I need to take 2 course work and a seminar with a CGPA of 6.0. This rule is strict. Suppose, a student gets CGPA less than 6, he/she should take an extra course and make up for the CGPA 6.0.
In my institute, course credits cannot be compensated by research proposal or a conference/Journal paper.
What I suggest you is, go to acad section of your university and meet Dean/registrar (acad). There will be a committee in every university to take care of all such type of problems. Explain your problem and I hope it gets solved.
All the very best.
Even if it doesn't get solved, don't worry. This is not the end of the road. PhD is not life.

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Are bibliographies/reference lists generally included in page/word counts?
I regularly assign my undergraduate students papers with a range of expected page/word length (e.g. 10-12 pages or 2500-3000 words). Is there any sort of rule as to whether or not to count a works cited page(s0 (and its equivalent in the other citation styles) in determining if a paper meets this limit? I've discussed this with colleagues and heard varying answers.

The general rule I have always seen is only intro+body+conclusion counts.  Appendixes, reference lists, tables of contents/figures/etc. do not count.

I don't understand what sort of rule you mean.  If you are setting the assignment, you can choose whether to count the references towards the page limit.  It really doesn't matter whether you make the same choice as others, as long as you make it clear to the students (which you should do anyway, since they won't necessarily know what's common).  Are you asking instead which choice is better educationally?  For example, regarding incentives to pad the bibliography.  If so, it would help to clarify the question.

Agreed, it's your call.  If you have your own expectations then just be as specific as possible in the assignment as to whether or not the bibliography counts towards the page count.  It's also a good idea to be clear about how many sources you expect them to cite, and where you expect the source material to come from (e. g. "...at least ten sources and no more than three of them can be Web sites...").

In the scientific world, whether citations count against length limits or not varies wildly by publication, including hybrid models like AAAI which allows six pages text and up to one page of citations.
I think that which way you go depends on what you want the students to learn.  Some examples that would push you one way or another:

If you want them to focus on prose, don't count citations in the length.
If you want them to learn to express complicated thoughts concisely, use a short page limit and count citations (e.g., the IEEE six-page format)
If you want them to focus on referencing, count citations and text separately.

Either way it shouldn't matter too much, because you're using a range and probably have some flexibility in how you apply your rubric, so you can adjust for common sense.

Should not count.
A six-line main text can pack more convincing arguments compared to a one-line main text. That's why it's important to make sure all students have an equal share of area or real property to build upon.
A six-line citation does not necessarily bring any advantage compared to a one-line citation. For that reason, I don't see why we should penalize students who had identified some information with more authors or a longer title; that is not how we teach them to examine the credibility of a paper.
If you're concerned about them citing too many things or citing mindlessly, you may put a limit on the number of citations like some journals do. However, I wouldn't include them in the word count.

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What path should I take to make my vision a reality?
I love German literature, but I am not interested in literary criticism/theory; just in close-reading, by which I mean, "reading while analyzing the grammar, syntax, usages of words, etc."
As my future goal as a researcher, I am thinking of compiling some sort of detailed guidebooks that will help the reader understand how the sentences parse in a systematic fashion; for no one has ever done that, at least not in a detailed, fool-proof kind of way, as far as I know after much research, both in the university library and on the Internet.
What sort of path should I set myself upon to pursue that kind of vision?
Is it even a legitimate research goal?
Thank you in advance.

If I were you, the first step I would take is to ask my (prospective) advisor, professors teaching/researching relevant courses at my school, and other experts I had found on the internet.

"for no one has ever done that, at least not in a detailed, fool-proof kind of way" I am rather convinced that this is not true. This seems pretty much exactly what the field of linguistics deals with.

@xLeitix I'm no linguist. But does linguistics publish a guidebook of a particular German literature work as research? Maybe this is not what OP meant, but I took it this way. This might be one of many things linguistics typically deals with, though...

Let's say I want to publish a guidebook for Kafka's "The Castle." Here, I am talking about line-by-line analysis, every grammatical, semantic pitfall perspicuously elucidated; not just frangments attracting major academic interest.

As a rule of thumb, you cannot possibly know what has and has not been done in a scientific area if you are not part of this scientific area. @xLeitix offered his suggestion about linguistics and his suggestion is good. So, search there, ask specific people about this, read the accompanying textbooks first and then focus on recent papers. It is very hard for an amateur researcher to think of something that has not been done before. It might happen occasionally but it is not that common.
Also you need to consider, that if there is not a scientific area about what you want to research, it might mean (again it is not 100% sure) that what you are suggesting is not that interesting after all. Why e.g., focus on a specific book for example and not on all books written by the same author? What are you hoping to achieve and why does it matter? These are questions that need to be answered before starting the actual research.
So, initially I would try to identify and align my research agenda according to the greater scientific area most close to my scientific interests. Once, you get a good grasp and knowledge of this specific area, you could then try to form your individual research and find what differentiates your work from the rest of the bunch. Identifying the area is a very major step, because otherwise even if your work is seminal you still need to find a journal that would publish your work. And without knowing where to publish it would be very hard to disseminate any scientific work.

detailed guidebooks that will help the reader understand how the sentences parse in a systematic fashion

Detailed guidebooks may be hard to follow unless someone is really motivated to do so. So along with its accuracy and novelty it is good to know if there is anyone in actually interested in reading or using it.
Plus, the problem is general, it is unlikely that no-one have tackled a similar approach before (did you talk to local experts in this field?).
If it is a very systematic thing, you can try to write a computer program doing it - which may, or may not, be useful or insightful contribution.


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When a PhD program asks for academic transcripts, are they referring to university-level transcripts only or also earlier transcripts?
I have some questions regarding graduate admission (PHD) in us university.   The guidelines  stated  on the maximum university websites   are  that they require  academic transcripts.  My question is that, are the Bachelor of Science (BSc) and Masters of Science (MSc ) transcripts only?
or I will have to send all the academic records(verified) from the childhoods?

Probably the best course of action is to email the admissions committee well in advance of the application deadline and ask.

It refers only to BSc and MSc scores.

This is right, though there are some edge cases that can be confusing. Some people take classes at a college during high school, often through a continuing education or similar program. If you have transcripts from the college for those classes, some schools take them and some don't. Others take classes at a college after graduating, but not for a degree (again, usually through continuing ed programs). It's also up in the air whether schools will want these transcripts.

Most of the time—and definitely in the United States and Canada—it refers to only the transcripts from post-secondary schools. In some European countries (such as Germany), they may want to see the secondary school transcripts (or at least proof of graduation from a secondary school). However, in such cases, they will usually state so explicitly.


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How can I politely explain to my students that the texts in my course are all in English and it is their duty to read it nonetheless?
Eventually I grew tired of having to explain over and over why all my class material is in English. It's a mandatory course in Art History. I want to put some warning in my syllabus to minimize any arguments. The problem is how to do it politely, yet clearly.
The reasons are clear: there is no material in their native language for the courses I teach; obviously I cannot and will not translate the material; and it is their duty to read in English. I guess I cannot tell them straight that if they do not read English well they will not even understand classes well and will get low grades. I don't want to sound rude.
Is there a way to explain the situation, or is it better not to include such a written statement in a syllabus and keep things as they are?

Can you elaborate on the fact that it is their duty to read in English? It is rather an interesting situation; in other countries (such as in Czech Republic) it is the other way around, with teaching in the native language being mandatory for a public school.

I do teach in their native language. It is mandatory that I do so. But all the texts are in English. There is simply no publication in my field in their native language.

Just for curiosity, is English an official requirement in their University? In mine, for example, we couldn't graduate before passing an English test

No, it's not an official requirement in the department I teach. But in the entrance exam, it is.

Why do you consider it rude to tell them up front that reading English is required?  It seems rude to not tell them up front.

Is this a normal situation in your institution? Are there other courses (other than foreign language, history ,and similar) that depend on foreign language texts?

Interesting discussion here. In Germany, there is a trend towards offering entire courses in English because of what jakebeal writes. I don't know whether there are legal requirements that a degree must be achievable with German-language courses. If so, this would be state law, since higher ed is the states' legal responsibility.

@PatriciaShanahan: in graduate math, much specialized literature only exists in English. For instance, I wouldn't know of a single German-language textbook on multiple complex variables or complex geometry. We used an English-language one that my (German) professor had written. Translations make little sense in such a specialized topic, where the worldwide market is already extremely small.

@StephanKolassa: My guess is that if anything, there is a legal requirement that a degree must be achievable without German-language courses, to allow for a flawless transition of European students across Bologna countries. (But, no, I don't really think such a legal requirement exists in Germany currently. Students are simply expected to be good enough at English to be able to attend any given course, no matter whether it's given in German or in English. At least, that is my impression from CS and probably all engineering disciplines.)

I'd think their grade on the first quiz on that material would explain it nicely.

@ChrisLively, actually it's not rude to tell them that; they just can't believe it when they see all readings are in English. Way into the semester, they still can't believe it.

@PatriciaShanahan, the normal situation in my institution is: even if there is a better text in another language, they use what is available. Even if what you have in the local language is mediocre. Sometimes this attitude even extends to graduate degrees.

@jeremyjjbrown, yes, the first exam really does make things clear for them, but alas, I have the impression that their thought is, "Why on Earth is this a mandatory course"?

Is this an undergraduate or a graduate level course?

@Szabolcs, it's an undergraduate course.

Does your university have any policies on this?  Where I did my undergraduate, it would have been unacceptable and unreasonable to require fluency in English for an undergraduate course.  Many of the students would not have been able to keep up.  There were optional courses on modern topics for which most of the material was only available in English, but the instructor did provide all the notes that we needed in the local language.  At the graduate level it was made clear from the beginning that English is a requirement, so those who can't keep up need not apply.

I'm trying to make two points: 1. this really depends on the local situation, more detail is needed (e.g. where you're teaching) 2. if it wasn't made clear to them at the time when they were admitted to the programme that English is a requirement, then it's not reasonable for you to ask this for a mandatory course

@Szabolcs, you're right. Even I don't require fluency -- just reading comprehension. Yes, all my notes and presentations are in the local language. And yet, many complain. The situation is odd because there's no material but in English. In the end, I don't require English, but if they want to read...

@Joseph: If they are required to take the course to graduate and they were not aware that they needed to know English in order to do so then they really have a point. If you're saying they don't need to do the English readings in order to do well in the class then explicitly tell them so.

"obviously I cannot and will not translate the material".  Depending on your institution or location, you may have to develop your own teaching material (summary and synthesis of the existing English litterature). Books on advanced topics in mathematics are almost all in English, so French lecturers usually develop their own lecture notes. Actually, except during the first class to give additional references, most of my lecturers didn't bother to bring a book during "lectures".

For Art History, it may be necessary to use the books for illustrations, but supported by instruction language notes. As far as not translating the material is concerned, you are, in effect, requiring each student who does not know any English to find some way of getting a translation.

Once I took a math course at the University of Minnesota where the textbook was in French, although I never heard anything but English in the classroom.  I think some of my classmates were a bit alarmed.

If you are teaching in a language other than english then surely it IS your reponsibility to ensure a reliable translation of the texts into that language is available?

@JamesRyan: As discussed in various other comments and answers here, this very much seems to depend on the place and also the field. In some places and fields, a student who doesn't know English is not considered fit for studying at a university, no matter what language (some of) the courses are taught in.

Germany: my bi-lingual (E/D) daughter is studying maths bilingual D/E at a German uni. They are obliged to do some courses in each language. For one course I suggested she would have an advantage because her English is so good, she replied that no, no-one was going to the course because the lecturer, who has no German whatsoever, speaks English so badly that they can't understand him.

@O.R.Mapper Of course, that is fine if it is made clear up front.  But if the course is mandatory and in a non-technical field, surely it should be passable in the taught language?

@JamesRyan: Again, that depends a lot on the context. Ability to read and write is not explicitly made clear up front, either, it is just assumed that students come with these skills. Likewise, while there are exceptions depending on the high school, in some places it is kind-of guaranteed that for almost every student, English is one of the foreign languages the student has learned at high school.

@O.R.Mapper If english was as common place as you suggest then there would be no reason for the course's official language not to be english.  If it is in another language because only most but not all students know english then it is entirely unreasonable and unprofessional to exclude them through laziness. If there is an additional requirement because of technical terms then that should be stated not assumed.

@JamesRyan: If English is a second language to the lecturer anyway, and everyone in the course understands , there is no reason not to give the course in , for the sake of convenience. Also, I find it peculiar how you see the "laziness" on the side of the lecturer when it's the students who do not learn English (or whatever non-local language might be suitable for the discipline in question). A part of university education means learning to gather knowledge autonomously, and relying on a lecturer spoon-feeding translated material is just the opposite of that.

@JamesRyan: Moreover, note that the respective students can always ask for a translation, if they really need one. It's not the lecturer's duty to foresee all exotic special cases that might arise.

Please take extended conversation to [chat].

I agree that it makes sense to set expectations as early as possible.
I'd just put

Note that all XXX for this course are in English.

in the syllabus. You should of course be specific as to what XXX is:

Class slides
Required reading
Supplemental reading
Lectures (you could have slides in English but speak the local language during the actual lecture)
Quizzes
Exams

If quizzes/exams are in English, you should also note whether students would be expected to answer in English.
Whether or not you also want to include the reasons for this is really up to how much space you have in the syllabus and whether there isn't anything more important to put there. I'd say that a warning might be a better use for the space:

If your English is not up to reading/understanding/writing technical documents, this course likely is not a good fit for you.

Stephan, your first suggestion is nice. I had thought of something like that. The latter warning, however, would be fine only in optional courses. Although I would think twice before putting it in print, fearful that it would invoke upon me the wrath of faculty and students alike.

@Joseph: in an ideal world, for a compulsory course this warning would be pushed away from the course notes to the point where the decision is made that makes your course inevitable: "if your English is not up to reading technical documents, this subject likely is not a good fit for you", or "this university likely is not a good fit for you because there are compulsory courses in which strong English is required" if the course is compulsory for all undergraduates. As you say, though, even those who privately admit it's true might not want to say so in public, for political reasons.

From the comments, it sounds like the issue is broader than this particular syllabus question.  If the level of English proficiency required to complete required courses for the program is higher than the level required (and advertised) as a prerequisite for entering the program (or obtained from classes during the program), then either the classes need to be changed or the program entry requirements need to be changed.  Eventually the department must face the issue somehow.

In many fields, you cannot be considered educated as an effective practitioner unless you know a particular language, because communications in that field are done in that language.
For example, once it was the case that one could not be a chemist without reading German, because all of the most critical work in chemistry was published in German.
Currently, it is extremely difficult to be a computer programmer without reading English: although interfaces and user documentation is often translated, the actual code and APIs for most programs is written in English.
Likewise, around the world all air traffic controllers are required to be proficient in English, as that is the agreed-upon fall-back language for air traffic control.
If the course you are teaching is in such a field, then explaining this fact can help students understand why it is important for them to read texts in English.  They may not be happy with this fact (and there may be good reasons to be unhappy about it), but understanding how language plays into their ability to put the material to use may be useful for getting them to accept its importance.

I once had a student in a summer prep class who wanted to study CompSci without knowing any English - he had had German, French, Latin and Spanish at school. I told him  he should use the time until the official start of the course to learn some basic english. He didn't, tried to start in summer, and sunk quickly, although his math grades were not bad and the bachelor course is taught in German. Everyone else dropped because of the math - he dropped because of the english...

@jakebeal, you are absolutely right. Every semester I try to do that, but after some years I came to terms with the fact that my arguments are not convincing. It's a mandatory course. They can't graduate without passing it. None of the other professors are like me. Some don't even speak English. The faculty voted for ending foreign language classes in the department. And yes, if I told what I teach, the need for foreign languages would be so obvious that most would comment that this situation is ridiculous: I teach History -- Art History and Middle East Studies.

@Joseph You should mention that you teach History in the question.  That put everything in a completely different perspective for me and I realize that some of the comments I wrote on your question don't apply.  I studied physics, meaning we had a smaller volume of material and could rely mostly on class notes.

I see a weakness in your argument: if English is an absolute necessity to work in a field, it means that English has to be learn somewhere before the graduation. It could be an independant English class, or a "English for Science/Engineer/History of Arts" class, or a class held in English. BUT it still need to be unambiguously agreed upon before registration in that class.

(-1) I think this is simply untrue. You need some English to do research in most fields but not merely to be an effective practitioner. Alexander's anecdote notwithstanding, there are in fact many computer programmers who know very little English.

@Relaxed: we see different anecdotes, but I've yet to meet competent programmers who can't read English (at least in Italy). So little technical documentation is translated decently (at least to Italian) that not reading English is a severe handicap (and Italians write mostly in English anyway, typically we aren't language nationalists). That might change depending on the national community in your subfield — say, Japan seems to have enough non-English-speaking Ruby programmers that I ran into Japanese-only information on internals.

@Blaisorblade Yes, there are obviously some languages in which no documentation is available (I would have thought Italian is not among them but I don't really know; I was thinking more about French and German) and it probably depends on the technology/area as well. And at least reading English is in any case an asset. But the claim that English is absolutely necessary is much more onerous. It's enough to note that some people manage without it to disprove it while the (undoubtedly large) number of people who can speak English and are computer programmers is hardly relevant.

@Relaxed My point is I've never met any non-English-reading competent programmer, at least for my definition of competent. I think, with Dijkstra, that programmers are like neurosurgeons, so I'm not sure they produce "value" unless they're very good. EDIT: but of course, that definition of competent is highly questionable, and I don't have the needed evidence to be 100% sure of it myself.

@Blaisorblade “Effective” or “competent” are doing all the work here but that's not a reasonable definition. It's simply a “no true scotsman” argument.

Could you clarify where you are teaching and at what level?
A young undergraduate student might consider it "unfair" if he or she fails your course because of insufficient English skills. A more mature student will understand that you're offering preparation for real life.
A professor of mine once told us halfway through the class that "the remainder would be held in the international language of science, broken American English." He expected us to get the technical terms right and the rest of our sentences understandable. Proper pronounciation was optional.
Back to your question, tell your students that you expect reading comprehension of technical literature. They don't have to speak English, and they don't have to write beautiful sentences.

Hopefully, nobody has failed my course because of  language skills -- many students just use it as an excuse. And you're absolutely right about the technical terms.

+1 for "the international language of science, broken American English"

If the course is mandatory I think, in fairness to the students, you should go one of two routes:

Make the English reading requirement formal and written. It should be included in the prospectus for any program that requires your course. There should be a suitable English course that can be taken before your course, and that course, or equivalent skill, should be a stated prerequisite.
Make it possible to get the top grade in your course without reading any English. That would mean including in the course notes material that an English-reading student could get from text books. The text books would be at the most optional extras for students who want to go beyond your course, not required material. Given the additional information that the subject is Art History, you could still require the text books for their illustrations, but write notes that tell the students what they are looking at.

Whether English-reading is required for the program seems to be a policy decision that should be made by the faculty as a whole.
=======================================================================
There is a third, intermediate, option. Campaign to make the course an option rather than mandatory. In that case, the English requirement would only need to be documented in materials the students use to make their optional course selections. It does not need to be part of the requirements for the program as a whole.

I think you can simply mention the main references and course materials at the beginning of the class.
On the other hand, I believe, it is the job of an instructor, to present the material in the official language of his/her institution is such a way that without additional materials, the students can well follow the course and to be able to successfully pass the exams.
André Weil once said
The student's note-book should be his principal text-book.

In Mathematics (and I believe in many other domains) there are still some domains in which one cannot really be an expert without knowing French and German. But just because the materials of my domain is not in the official language of my institution (for example they are in French or German), doesn't mean I can force the students to learn them. It is my job to teach them and present them in the official language of my institution.

I think you certainly need to make crystal clear at the very beginning of the class that a reading knowledge of English is required.  If possible, it should be clear even earlier than that - perhaps mentioned in the course description that students read when deciding to register for the class.  That way, students who do not have the necessary skills can sign up for some other class instead.  By the time the class starts, it may be more difficult for them to do so.
Another option may be to require an appropriate English class as a prerequisite (which can be waived for students who already have sufficient fluency).
If this is a mandatory course, then you need to have a discussion with your department as to whether your use of English materials is reasonable.  They have an interest in running a program which students can actually pass.  If your colleagues decide that this is not reasonable, then either you will have to change the way you teach it, or someone else will have to teach it instead of you.

I'd rather not deal with the faculty. Many things are not reasonable. For example, this semester "the faculty" have found a way to erase all fails from a course (Honors Thesis, which is required): school transcripts of all students who fail won't show that they have failed that course (some students 2 or even 3 times). That is their concept of "reasonable".

@Joseph: That sounds unpleasant, but to be honest, I don't think your idea of "do what I want without asking them" is really the answer.  It's unprofessional.  If you can't live with the decisions your colleagues make, then maybe you ought to consider looking for a different job.

@Joseph The only way to make the situation fair to the students that lies entirely in your own hands is to change your course to remove the need to read English. That may be a lot of work. You would have to write up in the language of instruction, and include in your course notes, all material that the students need to know to ace your course. Not just pass it. Ace it. Forcing a poor grade on someone because they lack an unstated prerequisite would be unfair.

Try something similar to the following:

This course, and all required reading, will be presented in English.  If you need assistance understanding any course materials, please see your counselor or [other university resources for ESL students].

This makes it clear that everything will be presented in a specific language, and indicates that the class and teacher are not the appropriate people to work with students lacking English proficiency.

Depending on the country/culture in which you teach, it might simply not be possible. It's easy to assume the “everybody speaks English” or that “students will need it anyway” to make your life easier but often it's not true.
Without starting a debate on language planning, it's not obvious to me why it should be impossible to learn art history and enter a career in teaching, become a museum curator or whatever it is your students could do after taking your course, certainly if they speak another major European language.
Personally, I speak several languages and would certainly recommend learning English to anybody who asks but I also know people doing decent work without knowing it, even in supposedly internationalized and English-dominated fields like computer science. It's useful and common to be sure but outside of academic research it's not vital and I don't think it would be fair for me to deny people an education and career (or, from another perspective, to limit the talent pool in the country) on that basis alone.
If you teach in a country where English is not a general requirement in higher education or there is an expectation that lecturers provide their own teaching material, then it is in fact your job to enable learning in the local language and there might be no way to prevent students from perceiving your not doing so as unfair, rude and lazy.

As for the "expectation that lecturers provide their own teaching material", there is none, except that the professor make available the readings, usually by photocopying the books and articles and leaving it in a "room" where students get a folder and pay on a page-by-page basis.

@Joseph I changed that to “or”. You still haven't provided many details so we all have to speculate a bit. But in any case my main point is that you can't assume that students will or ought to find this requirement reasonable or that finding a clever way to express it will put all arguments to rest.

You are asking how to explain things politely. I don't think it's that complicated. Simply state:
"All required reading for this course will be in English."
There's nothing rude about that in terms of voice.
However, you don't give us enough background information to understand the context. If this college doesn't teach all courses in English, and doesn't require proficiency in English, or anything similar, then no matter what your voice, students are going to see this as a rather rude obstruction in their curriculum. This would be a failing of the particular school you are teaching in. They need to make it clear to students that there may be classes requiring all reading in English prior to them committing to the program.

I second o.m.'s remark about the language of science being broken English -- and I would stress the advantage of this fact to the students (at least in the first lesson). Science isn't something that is done only in and for one country, e.g., German Science, or US Science, etc.
Sure, there are national organizations and differences in universities between countries, but the findings themselves are usually applicable and discussed internationally (with all intercultural differences, at least most of the work in psychology is widely applicable, probably all of the 'hard sciences', and I'm guessing that even if local art history is discussed, theories are probably internationally applicable).
So, being able to (at least) understand English allows a student to listen into that discussion.

I can't judge your colleagues just from your observations, but maybe I agree with you. Nonetheless, students are suffering (though not terribly) from this.
Since you wrote that you can't really discuss this with the faculty, I think the possible solutions are:

List the requirement anyway, if your colleagues won't bother you for that. Some students will be annoyed and in their right to be annoyed (at the situation, if not necessarily at you).
To improve things for students, if you can, get faculty to make your course optional, and possibly to accept at least an optional English course for credit in the degree.
That still implies discussion with colleagues, but it doesn't require
them to do extra work (say, learn English), so they might be more
willing to accept. Moreover, it's the easiest solution which is
actually fair to students. That might reduce your studentship to
people who care and accept the requirement. For you, that might be good (you'd get more motivated students) or not (if too few students pick your course and colleagues get nervous about it).
I don't know really enough to say this, but if it's reasonable for you, you might want to change to another department where you can work with your colleagues rather than against them. From your tone, it sounds like it would avoid you quite some annoyance and make both departments better for students. I've seen or suffered, as a students, enough departments where communication between professors was visibly dysfunctional. Of course, I don't think anybody can demand such an extreme solution from you.


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Where can I find good examples of personal statements [BSc, MSc, PhD]?
In my country, there is basically no culture of personal statements for university admission. However, now I find myself in the need of writing a convincing one (note: my field is mathematics). I've been searching the web for some examples to get to know what an academic personal statement looks like, but unfortunately I couldn't find any good example.
So my question is:

Could you point out where I can find some well-done personal
  statements from which I can really see what a good one is like?

I would appreciate if you could point out references to personal statements for admission to (a) bachelor degree, (b) master degree, and (c) PhD [indeed, I have to do mine for a quite peculiar purpose and for this reason I'd prefer to read examples from each of the above categories].

Have you looked around this site for previously-asked questions related to SOPs (such as this or this)? Also, why do you need examples for bachelor's, master's, and PhD degrees?

@MadJack "[indeed, I have to do mine for a quite peculiar purpose and for this reason I'd prefer to read examples from each of the above categories]"

@MadJack Thank you for the references. I'd actually prefer some examples, though.

I think you will be hard-pressed to find actual statement of purpose on the Internet. The one submitted to the departments are destroyed after the application process because of obvious privacy issues. Generally the applicants do not publish their own statements for several reasons. Your best bet is to ask some people you know that might have written one and can send it to you.
Another option is to have a professor or a postdoc help you with your draft because they have probably been in committees routing through these statements and will have a good idea if you are heading in the right direction. There are many ways to write a good statement, you should be able to write a statement from the general guidelines that you can find in the other  answers on this website. After all the statement is meant to test your capacity of developing your ideas and your writing style.

I did find a lot of statements actually. The problem is that they are badly written (as far as I understand).

@Dal sorry but why would anyone bother to post his/her SOP after winning a scholarship or being admitted to a program? The thought has never crossed my mind.

For instance, https://www.studential.com/personal-statement-examples/mathematics-personal-statements

Now I'm curious about why most people don't publish their SOPs.  (Mine is lying around on the Internet somewhere, along with my college application essays.)

@BenBitdiddle: SOP's are highly individual. What worked for you probably won't be of much use to someone else who's not in your field.


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Online venues that promote networking among scholars -- alternatives to Academia.edu and ResearchGate
Are there alternatives to Academia.edu and ResearchGate if one is searching for a venue that promotes "informal" (*) cooperation and networking among scholars (specifically, in mathematics and science)?
(*)  As far as I know, the aim of two sites mentioned above is mostly sharing papers rather than opinions, insights, and interesting material of various sorts related to research. I would like this alternative site to be more informal: a scholarly social network rather a mere preprints repository.

In mathematics, there is [relatively] a lot of people on G+. (My only reason to use G+ :)).

Mathoverflow has been used in this way somewhat, for math...

I have found a neat commented list of academic networking sites at the web site of Library Services -- Information Services at the University of Kent (UK) and an article reviewing a few academic networking web sites.
Another, shorter and comment-free list is here.
These lists mention, in addition to the sites from the other answers, the following sites (I list them in no particular order)

http://www.mynetresearch.com
http://www.methodspace.com/
https://www.epernicus.com/network
http://www.geazle.com/
https://www.mysciencework.com/

Also Zotero, just like Mendeley, offers some networking capabilities.
Finally, here is one more fairly new site which is not on the above three lists:
https://chroniclevitae.com/
A number of academic networking sites that existed in the past have already went out of business or became a kind of an archive and do not accept new posts and new members (e.g. the Nature Network). I have removed such sites from my list.

Quite impressive. I'll check them out. Have you tried any of them?

Not yet. I make do with RG so far.

Have you tried linkedIn? They have tons of mathematics groups on there you just have to use the search bar. Or have you tried joining a meetup group? You can go to www.meetup.com and find groups of you interest that are near you area. It is not solely online but it is a great way to meet different people who have the same interests as you.

I would probably try with some groups at Mendeley. It is both a social network and a place where you host, post, share papers and links.
Also, regarding mathematics, this question on MathOverflow seems to be helpful.


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Summer programs for European undergraduate mathematicians
There are many summer programs in the US, aimed at motivated undergraduate students of mathematics, that offer lectures and mini-courses on a variety of topics. However, as far as I know, most programs require that the applicant is American or a permenant resident in the US.
My question:

Are there any such summer programs in the US, Europe, Asia, South America,
  or Africa to which a European student can apply?

Just to note: similar questions regarding the REUs (rather than lecture courses) were discussed at math.SX and MO
http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/16254/summer-programs-to-gain-research-experience-as-an-undergraduate-outside-the-uni
http://mathoverflow.net/questions/13847/research-experience-for-undergraduates-summer-programs
Also while it is not exactly summer exchange, in Europe you may be eligible for Erasmus student exchanges (see e.g. http://www.esn.org/content/erasmus-programme )

@just-learning Thank you for pointing out those threads.

Are you sure this is required in the US? Of course, there are visa issues, but a polite email to check takes two minutes to write and can be sent out a hundred times ;)

Also, unless you are a first year, do not confine your interest to "undergraduate" programmes. There are a lot of introductory graduate programmes that actually would be fine for a bright undergraduate. I went on such a summer school before I applied for my PhD position and at a minimum it gave me something to talk about in the interview.

@Calchas A lot of things are funded by US government agencies, which often require you be a US citizen or permanent resident. So if you aren't, funding would have to come from elsewhere.

I don't know about Maths but I did a similar course in materials when I was an undergrad (in UK). I don't recall there being any nationality requirements so I expect they do exist.

@cpast, not true, I am neither, but a wedge of my funding for summer programmes used to come from NNSA in the DoE: exactly the kind of agency you would assume would have a pretty strict US citizen requirement. It is always worth checking because many people will make the same assumptions. There is always money swilling around somewhere, you just need to find it!

@Calchas "often"

Park City summer program organized by the IAS (Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton) is worth trying. In particular, they have Undergraduate Summer School. Here is their Application procedure.
However, non-US permenant resident/citizens may have to pay more as in their web page

Undergraduates funded by PCMI may receive lodging, travel, meals and a stipend (stipends are awarded to U.S. Citizens or U.S. permanent residents only).

Please note that the application deadline for 2015 is already passed (January 31, 2015).


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Is arXiv a good path for very young researchers?
I am 15 years of age and I have studied Computer Science.
This said, I normally read computer science papers on arXiv (cryptography and security, mainly), and I have noticed that some of the papers published are tutorials, basics of fundamental theories and analysis of the most basics topics or techniques. I still read it in hope of discovering something new.
However, I sometimes end up learning nothing new and so I am starting to think that these authors are just publishing these material for sake of it or to reach some sort of goal.
I would love to publish in peer-reviewed journals but I feel like my age may hold me back from my work getting accepted and my lack of connections with the academia again due to my age.
I have done a lot of research pertaining to the pros and cons of publishing in arXiv, I have noticed far too much negativity about it but since I am far younger than most researchers, would it actually raise my stature by showing my knowledge and interest at a young age and build my future opportunities in Academic grounds or is it more likely to tarnish it?
If it may tarnish opportunities, could you specify on how I could avoid this?

arXiv isn't a journal, it's a preprint repository.  Articles that appear there don't necessarily have to contain original research.  People can upload anything they've written, as long as it has some scientific relevance.  As you say, some people choose to upload tutorials, surveys of previous work, and such.  These may be helpful to some readers but generally do not contribute to the author's academic career.

I think most people would say putting papers/notes on the arXiv is posting not publishing.  For non-research notes (at least in math), I would say something is appropriate for the arXiv if you think it will be of use to researchers.  If it's just material that can be found in a textbook, it's probably not appropriate.  One thing many students do is make a scientific blog, where they write up introductions or surveys to various topics.  Without knowing more about your situation, I think that may be a good thing to try first.

A good path to what?

Keep in mind that not all arXiv papers are good.  Some are brilliant, many are good but not brilliant, some are mediocre, and some are worthless garbage.  So you shouldn't use unknown papers on the arXiv to calibrate your standards of quality.  Instead of spending time reading more or less random papers on the arXiv, I'd try to seek out particularly good papers and learn from them.  (Seek out the famous papers lots of researchers talk about.  The more you read, the better a feeling you'll get for this, but citations and prizes can be an initial clue.)

If you reach the point where you can write papers as good as the excellent papers you are reading, you should certainly do so.  In the meantime, learning from the masters will be more productive than reading at random.

@AnonymousMathematician Thanks for your feedback! I suggest you add this as an answer. It is very good, thanks.

You are concerned that your age may hold you back in publishing.  Some journals and conferences do a double-blind review, which may ensure that you are not discriminated against, due to your age.

Reading just arXiv or even some top journal is not likely to be very helpful.
It used to be that subscribing to a journal (or ten) was the best way to keep up.
But the subscription model is dead, few academics subscribe to journals, few publisher retain print as their primary mode of distribution, and open access publications tend to get 5 or 6 times as many citations as papers that require purchase or subscription.  I presume you read arXiv primarily because it is free.
I presume you are still at high school but finding that not sufficiently challenging.
I presume you have read what you school library has to offer, and need to go beyond.
I presume you have looked at what's available from your local community/university.
Been there done that... I spent my high school years doing my own physics and chemistry experiments, extracting my own reagents and building my own equipment, building electronic devices and computers, programming unbeatable AI games/programs, programs to solve problems in mathematics, joining maths clubs and winning prizes in competitions, making use of university programs designed to encourage budding scientists and mathematicians... exploring my interests in the broadest possible way!
Contact the local university and talk to people there. E.g. I'm happy to take on high school students, and indeed at Flinders University we have the Australian Science and Mathematics School (years 10-12 only) on campus to facilitate just this encouragement of gifted students - but students need to be reasonably local.  Even without a formal program or relationship, academics are happy to talk to high school students, and I've run courses and competitions for high school students, given work experience opportunities and summer scholarships (not exactly restricted to local, but focussed in the state and the surrounding regions that the university draws from).  Sometimes I've just responded to high school kids contacting me out the blue, by working out a program for them. My university actually has a bit of a history of this, with Terry Tao being the most famous example.
What kind of program would I recommend for someone like you... I'd start out by recommending some of the classic papers, introducing you to the originators of the seminal ideas of the field, making sure you had the basics first hand - not via the Chinese whispers of arXiv, review papers or textbooks.  Review papers are often written by PhD students as part of the process of organizing their ideas - it gives them a free publication before they done any significant work on their own.  It also gets them lots of citations, and some people have an h-index that is mainly about their ability to write review papers or text books.  But yes, if there was a particularly good review paper or text book, I'd recommend it - unfortunately for my research area there are no good text books I can use, although I do encourage students to dip into some of those that are around - but my research oriented courses would have at least a dozen original sources of information, and perhaps half a dozen texts or reviews. This leads to an idea from Information Retrieval... Hubs and Authorities.
You've probably heard of Brin & Page's PageRank, which became the basis of Google's ranking based on how much pages linked to each other - it is closely related to singular values/vectors, looking at relatedness of pages in a symmetric way.  But an earlier approach (Kleinberger's HITS/CLEVER) developed around the same time distinguished between the source and target of links, distinguishing hubs (sources of lots of links) and authorities (targets of lots of links) - these relate to the left and right eigenvectors.
What you need to find for your field is the hubs and authorities.  A hub might be a review paper, or a website or society that coordinates the research area.  The authorities are the people/papers that developed the seminal ideas and everyone cites.  Always go to the source, cite the earliest and latest works in their developmental path.  Look for the citations of that work (on Google and Google scholar, concentrating on relevant papers with hints like filetype:pdf and/or site:edu.* | site:edu | site:ac.* to get the papers by academics and find where the open access versions are lurking).  A relationship with a university with relevant subscriptions would also allow you free access to IEEE, Springer etc. But all major publishers now allow people to archive preprints or postprints of their papers for free access - and this is what arXiv should be used for where allowed, but sometimes this permission is restricted to authors' own websites, or their employers'.
There are two ways to explore the field - and you can start from a single of interest.  You can try to go deep and specific (citations of and by that paper).  You can also go broad and applied (citations of the citations). Modern citation analysis is closely related to PageRank/HITS/CLEVER, and your library may have tools to help.

It's great to get involved in these types of things at a young age. Before I say anything else: don't stop - be curious, but don't be curious to impress people. I was exactly like you. But don't let that get in your head. There are literally students in their teens working to cure cancer and have had publications. That proves how smart they are. You need to do the same.
Actually I have indeed seen many people get "pre-print" published and not get it published anywhere else.
If you want to get published, Look for a journal/conference with a double-blind reviewer process (that way they won't know that you are from high school). Next, do a lot of readings in the area you wish to publish in. You need to understand the lingo of the field immensely before publishing in it (not just ten or a hundred; honestly, I would spend countless days reading papers - you MUST absorb everything in the field).
This is coming from a guy who worked as a research assistant while in high school. In fact, I know several friends who were in high school when they got their first publication; one was at an IEEE conference.
Another route, would be to look out for the Intel Science Fair or the Google Science Fair to show case your work. I'd highly recommend looking into those.
As one of the other posters said, professors usually love talking to bright students - But, they are looking for bright, humble students (not people who will waste their time) - So be careful!

No, it definitely isn't --- use the peer-review system, at least until you get good
You are correct to note that one of the frustrating aspects of open-access repositories like ArXiv is that they include many low-quality submissions, which makes it harder to find the good papers.  Consequently, the absolute last thing that academia needs is to have these repositories become even more clogged up with vanity papers written by fifteen year-olds.  Sorry if that sounds a bit harsh, but it is the reality of what you are proposing.
Since you are very young, a much better pathway is to try to master your field through coursework, self-study, etc., and then submit to peer-reviewed journals once you are ready to do so.  Ordinarily, students pursuing an academic path go through an undergraduate and graduate education, and they are usually in their mid-twenties or older when they are in grad-school and first start to publish papers.  There are many drawbacks on the traditional peer-reviewed academic journal system, but the great advantage is that these journals provide you with peer-review and a filtering mechanism.  This is especially useful for novice researchers, to help them develop up to a level where their papers are worth publishing.
You are not going to raise your academic stature in any serious way merely by demonstrating your interest in a field.  In terms of trying to demonstrate your knowledge, be careful what you wish for --- given your age, it is likely that your level of knowledge is extremely low compared to older researchers, so any work you publish is likely to exhibit your lack of knowledge.

I would love to publish in peer-reviewed journals but I feel like my age may hold me back from my work getting accepted and my lack of connections with the academia again due to my age.

Anyone can submit a paper to a peer-reviewed academic journal --- just hop onto their submission website and follow the submission procedure.  Most peer-reviewed journals use a blinded review system where the reviewers have no information on the identity of the author and no idea what "connections" they do or don't have.  Even in the ones that don't use blinded review, the paper will usually only contain your name and maybe your institution, but not your age.  So, unless there are some cues to infer your age from your writing, the referees reviewing your papers will have no idea whether you are 15 or 80.
The only thing that will hold you back from publishing in peer-reviewed journals is limitation on your ability to write a scholarly paper at the required standard.  Some recreational/college journals publish simple papers and have had some young authors in their teens, often co-authors working with an older established researcher (see e.g., the College Mathematics Journal).  Some conferences and their conference proceedings are also places where a very young researcher might be able to meet the requisite standard for publication.

Yes, perhaps the best feature of the peer-review system is the helpful (hopefully! but not dependably!) feedback it gives to novices. Certainly stylistic feedback, though, yes, to some degree, that's just about conformity. But, also, genuine content feedback. (As one moves forward, this system become less reliable and worthwhile to engage-with, but it is generally positive at the beginning.)

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


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How damaging are writing errors like typos in faculty application documents?
How damaging are writing errors like typos in faculty application documents?
Do search committees usually tolerate a couple of small errors in cover letter, sample publications, etc?

Is the application in a language other than your native language?

@GEdgar The application is in English which isn't my native language.

If you can't be bothered to give the application serious consideration, why should I bother giving your application serious consideration?

@paul: A fair point, but typos sometimes sneak in, despite the author's best efforts.

According to me:
Attitude matter's , nothing else

If your name makes it obvious english isn't your first language, and your not actually teaching english (of course) then you might get a little bit of leeway for minor errors simply due to the fact university equity policies tend to demand tolerance for varied capacities as long as they don't contradict the positions requirements. But don't rely on that fact! You'll find some institutions are more tolerant than others.

@GauravdadaPawar yes, it is obvious by your typo (matters, not matter's) :)

To me, typos in a faculty application suggest one or more of the following:

Detail - you do not pay enough attention to details.
Rigor - you were not rigorous enough to ensure the document is error free by double checking and letting other people check the document.
Importance - if the application was important enough you would have made sure it is error-free, therefore it may not be very important to you.
Culture - you come from a culture where typos are acceptable, and did not bother to adapt.

Having said all that, in the end it is just a tiny factor amongst many more important factors. If you are awesome, this probably won't matter.

I would add a note of caution to interpreting point #3. The more important something is to me, the more likely it is that I have mentally drafted and re-drafted it before I even sit down at my desk. This can occasionally have the effect that I do not read the text back when proof-reading, but rather remember what I had planned to write. If you have a good memory, then even writing your piece far in advance of submission may still not be enough. Ideally, pass anything vitally important to a proof-reader who was not involved in drafting it.

@imsotiredicantsleep hence point 2 ;)

absolutely, but you rightly separate points 2 and 3. A lack of rigour does not necessarily imply a lack of importance, and vice versa. Rigour is an acquired mentality, not something you can merely throw effort behind.

It's a minor factor, but certainly one that does influence my judgement of an applicant.  If I'm down to deciding between two candidates to interview and they otherwise look to be about equally good, this is something that could be a deciding factor.
Since you're likely to be in competition with many other applicants, it's in your interest to make sure that there aren't any typos in your application.

It varies enormously among the faculty evaluating candidates. There are faculty I've worked with who read applications extremely closely and point out the existence of typos, misspellings, and formatting errors in faculty meetings when we are discussing candidates. Some people are bothered by small errors and see them as a strong signal of a lack of professionalism, respect for the application process, attention to detail, and potentially as evidence of an inability to teach students how to write well.
Personally, I don't read application materials with an eye for these kinds of mistakes so only the most glaring and disruptive mistakes will even be noticed. When minor issues are pointed out (e.g., in a faculty meeting) I don't think it affects my feelings on candidates.
If the former type of person is a search committee chair or member, an applicant with typos in their material might be in big trouble. If the search committee is made up the latter type, it might not matter.
Since there are at least some of the type who care deeply, and since small mistakes really are evidence of a lack of attention to detail and time spent on the application process, take the time to carefully proofread your documents. If mistakes tend to slip past you, ask others (either friends or a professional proofreader or copyeditor) for help.

It depends on the conditions, for sure.
If there are a lot of applicants of your quality, then they should look for some criteria to eliminate people among applicants.
And that criteria, in your case, would be the grammar of the cover letter.
If your work is outstanding, then they probably would overlook a few typos.
However, keep in mind that there can always be a pair of grumpy(!) professors in the committee.

There is literally no good reasan for you to have typos of any kind in your application, whether it be for faculty or student positions.
While more difficult than simply running the text through a spellchecker, you should definitely go to some effort to find someone to proofread your application for spelling and grammatical issues.
Since there is a nonzero chance that at least one person in the application committee is a pedant for spelling/grammar (and such people are clearly overrepresented in the academic community), it would be rather risky to submit any piece of application without having it proofread by a native speaker first.

Actually, the typoed word might have a meaning e.g. effect/affect. Best way to avoid typos are proof-reading for sure.

Typos are not always (and these days, not usually) spelling errors. Your answer seems to assume that they are. For example, before I edited it, the original version of this question had several grammar errors.

Both good points, edited.

They happen. Rarely do I submit or review a manuscript that makes it through the review process (or the copy editing process) without at least one typo/minor grammatical mistake being fixed. This is in a field where 3-5 authors is not uncommon so the majority of manuscripts are read by multiple people.

Another example besides spelling and grammar errors is when people accidentally a word.

A common reason for errors is that the applicant is not a native speaker of the local language. It is almost impossible to write completely error free text in a second language, and it can be difficult to find someone able and disposed to carefully check one's documents. This difficulty is greater when the documents are technical.


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'Scholarly' alternatives to Goodreads
As you can read on Wikipedia,

Goodreads is an Amazon company and "social cataloging" website founded
  in December 2006 and launched in January 2007 by Otis Chandler, a
  software engineer and entrepreneur, and Elizabeth Chandler. The
  website allows individuals to freely search Goodreads' extensive
  user-populated database of books, annotations, and reviews. Users can
  sign up and register books to generate library catalogs and reading
  lists. [...] On the Goodreads website, users can add books to their
  personal bookshelves, rate and review books, see what their friends
  are reading, participate in discussion boards and groups on a variety
  of topics, and get suggestions for future reading choices based on
  their reviews of previously read books.

My question is:

Is there a scholarly alternative to Goodreads, that is, a website
  where you can shelf papers, journal articles, scholarly websites, and
  preprints as well as books?

There indeed is plenty of web sites where you can shelf articles, preprints, etc. (Mendeley, Zotero, CiteULike, and so on; a fairly comprehensive list is available on Wikipedia) but if you also would like to have the possibility of adding reviews like in GoodReads, the things are somewhat different.
One site that I know of that allows you to do this, in addition to merely bookmarking the items, is ResearchGate with its Open Review feature, but you can only bookmark and review items that already are in their database (you can add the articles that you (co-)authored but I doubt that reviewing them is your intention). Perhaps there are some other sites with a similar functionality: e.g. according to Wikipedia CiteULike has it too; on Mendeley you can share articles' annotations within private groups.
Also, there is a number of sites allowing you to bookmark and review arXiv preprints (e.g. SciRate) but not the other kinds of items like the books.

http://f1000.com/prime "is composed of 5,000 Faculty Members — senior scientists and leading experts in all areas of biology and medicine — plus their associates.
The Faculty recommends the
most important articles, rating them and providing short explanations for their selections.
"

While F1000 is a great website, there are several aspects in which it does not fulfill what OP is looking for. First, only F1000 Faculty can post reviews. Second, the site is based on recommendations, so no negative reviews. Third, I think it is restricted to journal papers, and does not cover books.


text:
Do I need research experience to be admitted to a highly ranked mathematical physics master's?
I am a third year student doing my bachelors in both physics and mathematics at a German university. Since I am really interested in theoretical physics and mathematics I am thinking about doing a masters degree in mathematical physics. I am very interested in Mathematical Quantum Mechanics and, even though I haven't had courses in it yet, in QFT and General Relativity.
I'm thinking about applying for Part III of the Mathematical Tripos in Cambridge. It's probably quite hard for a German student to get accepted in Cambridge, isn't it? So my question is:
Do I need research experience, papers or something like that? At German universities we don't really do research or write papers in the bachelor studies of theoretical physics or mathematics (apart from the bachelor thesis itself).

Hi, tagt. Welcome to Academia.SE. You're asking too many questions at once. Question #1 and #2 should be asked separately. Question #3 is off-topic here (asking for lists of programs constitutes a "shopping question").

Additionally, rather ask for “what are the pros and cons of …?” than “what you you think?” in question #2, otherwise this is too opinion-based.

@tagt: Yes, please post them as separate questions and then delete this question or edit this question such that only one question remains. Also note that you can comment on your own posts independently of your reputation, so make sure that you keep the account with which you asked the question.

I would edit this question to focus on #1, and have a look at this question on doing PhD's in new departments before deciding if you need a new one for your question on master's programs.

Hi and welcome to Academia.SE! You should be able to edit and comment on your own post regardless of reputation, but you can't because you created two accounts (one "real" account and one unregistered). You can ask the SE team to merge your accounts following the procedure here. Then you'll be able to [edit] the post directly to narrow it to one question per post, as suggested by the others.

Thanks for all of your helpful comments and links. I edited the question so that it hopefully isn't too broad anymore.

I've removed the last question, since it's already been answered (multiple times) on this site in various incarnations.

Having research experience will certainly help your application to an elite program.  However, it is definitely not a necessity.  Moreover, the graduate faculty at top institutions are used to fielding applications from all over the globe; they should be reasonably familiar with what kind of preparation students from Germany will typically have.
However, if you are serious about pursuing graduate studies, only applying to a small number of top programs is not usually a good approach.  The top programs frequently need to reject a significant number of totally qualified applicants, simply because their space is limited.  I would suggest that you apply more broadly if you want to ensure that you can get into a top program.


text:
Lost Interest in Electrical Engineering. Still have a Math degree to complete. What to do?
I just finished my 5th semester of a compact, dual degree (MS in mathematics and BE in electrical and electronics engineering) course from BITS Pilani, India. It's hitting me really hard now that I just don't want to be an engineer at all. I was really enthusiastic about this programme when I joined it, but with 5 more semesters to go, I'm near clueless about what to do once I'm out of here.
I still like mathematics though and my grades in those courses have been fairly decent, but the university grades me for the entire course and so I'd barely make it a 2.7 or something like that on a scale of 4 at the end of it. If I keep going like I am, more or less.
I like statistics, probability and operations research but even though I can tolerate the mathematics degree which is a lot of pure mathematics, that part of it isn't something I want to pursue.
I have, however, recently developed interest in financial analysis. I have taken introductory courses in economics and management, to fill up the elective credits I had to and so I have a little bit of an idea about how this stuff works, and I'm really enjoying learning more of it. But I have no clue where to go, or what to do.
I want to be certain that I can make it to a decent program, preferably MSF or MBA Finance, in the US, UK or Germany (or any other place where financial markets are really intense and interesting) with those sort of grades and maybe a few projects (which I intend to take up in the next few semesters) related to financial analysis, but mostly math.
I would really appreciate if you could help me find a path to accomplish what I am setting out to, point me to alternative programs I can get in that can get me where I want to be or advise me on what the focus should be on right now, working on a few more projects, or improving my grade; or something else.

Your stated interest in financial analysis is based on very little experience in the field. Have you considered the possibility that you'll grow tired of finance after more experience?

Also worth noting: graduate admissions people will normally consider bachelor's and master's GPA's separately, and will ask you to report them accordingly. So you can "separate out" the two parts of your program, which may help you out a bit.

Statistics/probability/data analysis is also a reasonable path to consider, and is a good bit more general than financial math, which you might also decide you don't like down the road.
Paul Graham (of Lisp fame) says that you should try to stay "upstream" with regard to your choices. To put it more concretely, you should not specialise too quickly, and try to keep your options open.
Statistics/probability/data analysis is a very marketable choice these days, and will still leave the door open to financial math if you still want to pursue it a bit later.
However, aside from ISI there aren't really any good places in India to learn statistics. And I don't think India has much of a statistics research community. You'll have to go somewhere else.
An autobiographical snippet: I got a PhD from a Statistics Dept in applied probability. The degree was supposed to be in financial math, as it happens. I was trying to study it, but didn't really make any headway. So my degree wound up being about something that was originally supposed to assist with the financial math. As you can see, things don't always go the way one had planned. So, bear in mind, you might like the subject now, but whether it will like you and things will work out, that is a separate question. It's a question of commitment.

So what do you think would be the right thing to do, right now? I will be completing this course anyway because I have already invested a lot of my time and resources here and I don't feel I'm ready with a real world implementable skill yet, which I can do in the next 5 semesters here.
Should I attempt convincing an academic at ISI for a research project this summer, or attempt one at my own university the next semester; or should I try and polish my grades, keeping in mind, I do want to apply for a Masters in finance, or say, statistical mathematics post-graduation.

@ChiragShekhar just to be clear, did I understand your question correctly as saying that you don't like pure math so much, but are ok with more applied stuff, statistics, data analysis, operations research, that sort of thing?

Yes, that's what I meant.

There are a lot of things you could do. It's hard to make specific recommendations. It sounds like the pure/applied preference is real; people usually have a definite one way, and certainly a pure path is harder. If I were you in a similar position, I'd try to figure out what direction to go in. And yes, a research project (or two, or three) would help. Courses aren't very useful; they have little to do with what ends up working on in the real world. If you are thinking of the financial math direction, try to clarify that.

Try to get a sense of whether you can make progress with it in a reasonable time frame. There is no point pursuing an area you cannot get stuff done in.

It is important to understand the difference between professional masters degree programs like the MBA and academic/research oriented MS degrees.  Some newer programs such as masters programs in mathematical finance are somewhere in between.

@BrianBorcher, hello professor, I would like to know what your take is on the more popular programmes in the US. Like the MSF and MBA Finance, for a mathematician. Also,I know that quite a bit of math goes into the systems that run the industry, but as a professional would it really involve day to day implementations of the math I'll learn, or is it repetitive? And finally, what would you consider as the most important aspect of an application for a degree in financial mathematics? Grades (specific courses or the overall?), GMAT/GRE scores or research projects, generally, of course.


text:
Is it OK to start a PhD with a side project still running from your master's?
I just finished my master's and I am about to start my PhD studies. As I am very used to do many independent projects during my bachelor's and master's, I am willing to continue a side project on a fairly related topic. Actually, this is project is on a topic completely related to my potential PhD project and even during my job interview my supervisor said it is a plus for me to have experience with these kind of projects.
I have been working on this project from second year of my master's and I worked only about 3-4 hours per week on that, so I guess I can manage to keep it as a side project. The thing is it still needs some work to lead to some acceptable results, but I'm sure it will pay off, if I can make it. Yet, learning about the methods used in the project are really helpful for my PhD project as well. The problem comes where most professors want concentration from their students and this might not be Ok with working with another researchers. Besides, my collaboration in the side project seems not to be very efficient since it is a side project for my collaborators as well.
The question is should I discuss this with my professor even if I want to dedicate some of my free time to that?  Should I risk my relationship with him in the early stages of my PhD studies (in case he is not Ok with that?)? Do I look like some trouble maker if I ask him about this? Do you think I should continue this project or just simply drop it and concentrate on my PhD project?

If you ask him about this, then you would look like someone who has independent thoughts.

Let me answer in two parts:

With the right advisor, projects undertaken on your own initiative will be valued rather than seen as a problem.
You definitely need to talk to your advisor now to make sure you're with the right advisor.

Expanding on this a bit... one of the hardest things for many people to learn in a Ph.D. program is how to organize and initiate their own research portfolio.  You show signs of doing this right from the start, so as long as you are willing to accept feedback and guidance, this is potentially a really good thing.
Whether it is a good fit for your advisor, however, depends on what your advisor's needs are at their current stage in their career.  Some professors really need their students to be focusing on particular problems that the professor currently wants or needs to tackle.  Others are able to give their students more freedom to wander intellectually.  This is partly based on career stage (pre-tenure professors are likely to demand more focus), and partly on personality (a control freak or an empire-builder will not be mellowed by tenure; a highly confident professor may give much free rein even before tenure).
So: talk with your advisor about your desires and plans.  If your advisor is receptive to the idea, great: now you can sort out how to balance things and make sure you aren't neglecting any responsibilities or making strategic mistakes.  If your advisor is not receptive, you need a different advisor.

As an addition to jakebeal's answer:
I am sort of terrified of an advisor for which a side project of 3-4 hours / week, strongly related even, would be a dealbreaker. That being said, you need to make sure that the side project runs on the side. That is, don't let the 4 hours become 15 or 20 hours, and never, ever use the side project as a reason to justify why you can't achieve your goals in the main project.
This also means that there are side projects which are more suitable than others. It needs to be ok that there will be weeks where you spend a total of 0 hours on your side project, because there is e.g., a deadline in your main project. If there are hard deadlines in your side project as well, you may get into problems if the hard deadlines end up coming in at the same time.
For example, what is a notoriously bad side project for PhD students is any kind of light consulting work (as my students in applied Computer Science are sometimes prone to take on). Yes, helping some non-IT company with some technical issues now and then takes almost no time and pays quite well, but if there is a big problem at your customer's side at the week of the deadline of our major conference, we will get into arguments, even if you worked more than 40 hours per week (or whatever your nominal contractual workload is) despite being at the customer's site for a day.

It depends on how good you are at multitasking.  You don't want to neglect your advisor's projects because you're working on a side project.  At the same time, you don't want to neglect your side project because you're working on your advisor's projects.  (Your collaborators will probably be happier parting with you on good terms than collaborating with you on a project that you'll never actually work on.)
Keep in mind that you'll also have other side projects with more urgent and demanding deadlines, like classes or being a teaching assistant.  As a PhD student my attention is normally split between two or three tasks, even without external side projects.
If you want to continue your side project, you should definitely ask your advisor if you can keep working on it, so he knows about all your commitments (and is okay with them).  You might even be able to pull your advisor in as a collaborator, and then everyone's happy!

I believe it is more productive to pursue your work from Masters to PhD rather than having them running separately, as PhD requires a dedication and focus.