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In a formal paper, should I censor "brainf**k", the name of a programming language?

I'm working on a formal paper about programming languages. I am going to talk about two intentionally difficult languages, brainfuck and JSFuck. Should I leave the names as they are, or censor the names? (e.g. brainf**k, JSF**k)

@vickyace No, brain means nothing in programming languages, and js refers to another language entirely.

Unless this is the first paper on that programming language in that publication, you should have precedence to draw on. Failing that, ask the editor.

This really isn't a question about English usage, but about decorum.  If you're writing a formal paper, presumably in an academic institution or for an academic publication, and I'd expect such an institution or publication to want the facts reported as they are.  But ask your advisor or editor how they want the names reported.

You need to be clear about whether this is a journal paper, in which case ask the editor (similarly for trade publications) or an internal paper, in which case it's a matter for internal guidelines. As a very broad assumption, gratuitous use of swear words is bad form at best, but it's bad form to change someone else's wording.

(This was going to be an answer but I realized that the question is not about the English language) If you are writing about these two languages you  have to provide their full names.  You were not the creator of the said languages nor of their trademarks: Brainfuck and JSFuck.  The readers of your paper will probably be very familiar with these programmes and should not think any less of you. If the rest of the paper is professional-looking, it will be clear you are not acting churlishly.

Unless you need those particular languages, you could just use the generic term like "Turing Tarpit" or "Esoteric Languages"

A quick Web of Science search returns no (zero, nada, zip) hits for Brainfuck in Title or Topic. Somewhat odd, frankly. On the other hand, since the language is almost an inside joke it is unlikely that much serious research is performed using it.

You might just want to add a small warning at the start of your paper about harsh language, like some TV or radio shows do.

just as an interesting reference, there is an article out there which manages to include the word "bullshit" 56 times: http://journal.sjdm.org/15/15923a/jdm15923a.pdf

One interesting thing is that the censorship has basically become part of the name (at least a common variant of the name).

A lot of comment on the matter in this old Meta StackExchange question.

Why are the names censored in the title of this question?

Censor JS please. It's terrible.

For what it's worth there are 97 search results for '"brainfuck" programming language' on google scholar, but only 4 results for '"brainf--k" programming language'.

Is there some reason that you cannot rename the languages, and on the first instance of the new name, provide a citation going to your endnotes stating the real name of the language and the reason that you gave them new names in your paper?

I don't know for the English speaking world, but the German translation of the F-word is a regular (though rare) family name. I have yet to see a physics text that only speaks of F###'s law of diffusion. I'd say the same applies to the proper names of these two programming languages.

A word's meaning depends highly of its context. In your context [programming langage, and publication about it], it has no offensive meaning whatsoever, and therefore I can't see why it would need to be censored

These are the Registered names of sanctioned programs in your industry.  Their developers chose those names not for their prurient value but for their impact value.  "Brainfuck" sends an INSTANT message that something like "Cerebral Challenge"  could never pull off.  You show your professionalism when you structure the "Brainfuck" section of your paper with the same care you show in other sections, mentioning the singularity of its name only if it's relevant to the paper. Let 'them' come to you, if they feel they must (and I doubt it).  Your responsibility is to the quality--which includes the Integrity-- of your paper.

I really like your thoughtfulness... but it's unclear what you are advocating. Who is "them" who "come to you" and what does it mean for them to "come to you?"

Registered, as in, having a trademark? I don't think so. Sanctioned? By whom?

@Matt Seemed pretty obvious: anyone with an issue (editors, reviewers, advisors)

"Registered" simply means people in the industry will know what you are talking about, and not think you are swearing.  However, the advice is to use it once, and avoid repeating it like a child saying "poop".

@Matt Mia: "Who told you this?" Vincent: "They." Mia: "They talk a lot don't they..." Vincent:* "They certainly do."

Are the sanctions multilateral?  Seriously, avoid auto-antonyms in answers.  Unless you're trying to be ambiguous.

@corsiKa I'm not sure what to think about that...
I see two interpretations of your answer. One is, "structure your paper with care" means, don't make unnecessary concessions, use the words that are relevant to your research and if someone dislikes the names of these programs, let them bring it up with you.
The other is, "structure your paper with care" means don't be unnecessarily inflammatory, use acronyms and shorthand the same way you would with other terminology, and if someone thinks that your acronyms constitute censorship, let them bring it up with you.
Do you see my confusion?

It's also important to clarify who "they" is and what "come to you" means. There are some "they" that are a random guy on the street whose opinion has no impact on your project. Him "coming to you" is little more than an interesting conversation about censorship in research. There are other "they" that are deciding how well or poorly your research is accepted... and that "they" can "come to you" by instructing you to spend extra time restructuring your paper... maybe your project. And every "they" in between. Some "they" have impact, others don't. Clarifying who those "they" are matters.

I think this is a good answer but svick is right.  It's really dubious and borderline fraudulent (although I think you were just saying this to exaggerate) to make up a sanctioning body within the industry to make your point.

Just wanted to give a +1 for being the only answer to consider the integrity of the paper. It's not censorship, it's changing the name of the tool in question-- if someone published a language literally called "Brainf@@k" the OP's paper would very explicitly be referring to the wrong tool. Modifying test results in a lab because they yielded the letter sequence F, U, C, K, the number 666 or the acronym SATAN would be no less unethical/invalidating. Citing a swear word in an essay might have gotten you in trouble in third grade but academics are supposed to handle that maturely.

I think you have a duty to use the correct names for these languages. Please do not self-censor. The more people do that, the less room there will be to manoeuvre for the others. By self-censoring you are basically taking a stand pro-censorship as it is clearly helpful to the anti-free speech people and hurtful to the pro free speechers. However by not censoring you are not taking a position. Not everyone needs to take a stand in Political Correctness, but academica should protect their own freedoms to write about what they want to write about without being censored, even by themselves.

I am not upvoting this answer because I share Matt and svick's objections

I would suggest leaving the names as they are and letting the editor(s) deal with it. If the editor (or journal policy) has an issue, they will tell you what to do. If you have a personal issue with the names, then you probably would have been better served by not using the languages.

OK, but last point is dubious. It's fortunate even more vulgar/sexist/what-have-you words were not chosen for what has become an objectively important language.

@djechlin I am not sure what you mean. If you have personal objections to animal testing, it is probably better not to do research that is best done with animal testing. If you have personal objections against a particular language (e.g., due to its name), it is better not to ask questions that require that language to be used.

@StrongBad I think what he means is, sometimes you just can't ignore a language because it is interesting for other theoretical reasons. E.g. if Turing Machine had a vulgar name, CS professors would still find the concept useful, and would need to refer to it somehow; changing the name is generally not an option once it is widely accepted.

@StrongBad The situations are incomparable, since you could here research a totally different language (without any potential personal/ethical issues) but still need to refer to this one in order to e.g. avoid plagiarism or not miss an important reference.

Swearing in the paper is improper, citing swearwords is not. How would  ethymologists write their papers if they weren't allowed to use all the words they talk about?
Here is a thesis with fuck in it, and its use is totally legitimate.

It seems that its author taught me English. The world is small :-)

Actually, the thesis you refer to explicitly mentions "fuck" as problematic and an "especially offensive" word, and has decided to censor his own usage of it but keeps the uncensored version in citations.

It would also be inappropriate for etymologists to include long sections of code in their paper instead of referring the reader elsewhere.

Name the programming languages in the abstract, and use initialisms† like BF and JSF thereafter:

Abstract: The two languages under consideration are Brainfuck (BF) and JSFuck (JSF), both of which are yadda yadda yadda...  The results show that some tasks are performed faster using BF than JSF, while other tasks are handled equally well.
...
Introduction: We set up two computer clusters, executing the latest version of BF on one and JSF on the other.  We compiled JSF from source code hosted on the developer's website using an Intel 4004...

In this way, you are referring to the language names professionally and consistently, but have no need to plaster your paper with instances of *fuck or BrainF#@%.
† You have precedence since other terms in programming are commonly referred to by initialisms in this way, e.g., RoR and JS, for readability.

JSF stands for JavaServer Faces -- another programming framework. I don't think you could redefine it here.

RoR is a framework, not a language. The only language I can think of which is commonly known by an initialism is JS, and even there the full javascript is more common. (I'm not counting PHP, as there the initialism is the name.)

@ÉbeIsaac, The initalism I used was a suggestion.  JsF, JSFu, or any of a myriad of others would work equally well.

@TRiG - Really?  LOTS of languages are known by their initials.  Technically C (and thus its derivatives C++, C#, Objective C, etc.) is an initialism, being originally part of BCPL.  If you want one that's more well-known as being an acronym, there's always AS3 (ActionScript 3).  COBOL is an acronym, as is BASIC.  I would guess that there are more languages with acronyms for names than without.  This list for example looks like a pile of alphabet soup.

I'd put them in the same category as PHP, @DarrelHoffman: the initialism is the name.

@ÉbeIsaac, Ugh.  I made it more technically correct for you.  Also, recall Visual Basic (VB), assembly language (asm), ECMAScript (ES), PostScript(PS) are all commonly referred to by initalisms.  Darrel Hoffman already linked you to a list chock-full of languages that mainly go by their acronyms.

@ÉbeIsaac JSF also stands for "Joint Strike Fighter" - so what?  As long as the author defines the acronym explicitly then you can pretty much use it for whatever you want within the given scope of the paper.  This happens all the time; there is no shortage of usage overlap for common acronym combinations.

@J... : I've mentioned that JSF is already an existing abbreviation within the programming languages field and hence it would be inappropriate to redefine it to something else in the same domain.

@ÉbeIsaac I would consider that a valid argument if and only if the paper in question also needed to refer to JavaServer Faces.  If it did not, then acronym re-use is entirely acceptable (as long as explicitly defined by the author), even if there is overlap in a similar field or topic.

@TRiG JAVA is more commonly known by its initialism than by its full name - Just Another Vague Acronym.

@emory Did you mean JAVA: Archaic Verbose Acronym?

@TRiG Is Pre-HypertextProcessor's real name actually PHP? I thought it was HypertextPreProcessor, or maybe HypertextProcessorPre... is it noun_verb or verb_noun anyways? (answer: both)

@cat. It was originally Personal Home Page, meaning that "PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor" is a recursive backronym. ;) (So too is "YAML Ain't a Markup Language": it was originally "Yet Another Markup Language", till someone pointed out that it actually isn't.)

@TRiG Oh yeah, I keep forgetting it used to be Personal Home Page. Ah, well, I'm just happy I've never had to work with that monstrosity :P

@ÉbeIsaac Me being a person from Codegolf.SE (hi), I use BF and JSF all the time without ambiguity of context. Chances are, anyone who knows about JavaServer Faces will pick up on the fact that JSF is not their Face server.

@ÉbeIsaac In physics, math and many other sciences there is humongous ammount of meanings for E, a, etc. Even if you add superscripts, subscripts,... Sometimes the latin and greek alphabet are not enough and one must use hebrew symbols. And nobody cares. If you clearly distinguish JSFuck from Java Server Faces there's absolutely no doubt. You can help by referring Jsf and JSF.

@emory Not sure if you're joking, but Java isn't an initialism.

Please take extended discussion to [chat].

I've read many medical papers over the last several years, and many very long, hard-to-pronounce, or repetitive terms are initialized the first time they're used (e.g. in the paper I was just reading, "carbon monoxide-releasing molecules (CORMs)") and thereafter referred to almost exclusively by that initialism, unless a modification is made. It can result in confusion if you don't read end-to-end and miss the first usage, but it's quite standard, at least in that field.

As a linguist, I'd like to point out that using the word fuck is very different from using the name Brainfuck.
The name Brainfuck has a unique referent: it refers only to the programming language of that name. The word fuck does not have such a unique reference – it can be used to refer to all sorts of things, and while the associated concept may be considered to be a rather integral part of human existence, the connotations of that word make it inappropriate for formal discourse for many, if not most speakers.
The crucial point is, however, that there is no conceptual overlap between the two. Brainfuck, when used as the name of a programming language, means something totally different from fuck, and there is no overlap whatsoever in the potential sets of referents of the two words. At the same time, it is of course possible to use the word brainfuck with a meaning that is related more to fuck than to Brainfuck, as in Stop trying to brainfuck me. Here, the speaker is clearly evoking the meaning of fucking, and not
the meaning of "a programming language that is intentionally so strange that it brainfucks its users".
So, as an answer to your question: use by all means exactly those linguistic expressions that their inventors chose as names for their programming languages. The -fuck in Brainfuck does not mean fuck. Therefore, there is no need to censor it.
This is, unless the editor of the journal you're submitting your paper to explicitly refuses to publish it while the letter sequences fuck occur in the names.

“The -fuck in Brainfuck does not mean fuck. Therefore, there is no need to censor it.”  This isn’t how either academia or linguistic taboos work, though.  On the one hand, most people who consider fuck unacceptable will also consider compounds of it it unacceptable, whatever their meaning (unless they’re independently established as less taboo).  Conversely, the academic argument for it is just a matter of accuracy to the facts: if you write a critical analysis of Larkin’s This be the verse, then the fuck in the first line really means fuck, but you’d still quote it as such.

@PLL cf. the Scunthorpe problem.

Brainfuck absolutely is used to refer to things beyond this programming language. Cf. Wiktionary article on the word.

Brainfuck is named that specifically in reference to mess-up meaning of fuck--the idea being that it fucks with your brain.  This there most certainly is a conceptual overlap.  This isn't inadvertent profanity like the Scunthorpe problem.

I disagree with your analysis. The name is a known vulgarism. It is a compound word in which the meaning of the vulgar component is integral to the meaning of the whole.

To add to what @PLL said, I had a colleague in grad school whose native language was Greek and who found the English compound "polygamy" offensive. ;-) Being offensive wasn't a problem to him, though.

And OP is writing an academic paper about a language called brainfuck... So maybe it's just me but it seems he has a choice between science and rationality on the one hand and political ideology and self-censorship on the other hand. The choice should be simple. "unless the editor of the journal you're submitting your paper to explicitly refuses to publish it " .. in which case of course we toss any integrity out the window and just write what they want us to write...

Lawrence put it best in their comment:

Unless this is the first paper on that programming language in that publication, you should have precedence to draw on. Failing that, ask the editor.

But there's a reason he wrote it as a comment, not an answer.

I'm not sure what that reason was. It's a complete and helpful answer.

We agree to disagree.

@OrangeDog I often see people responding with a comment in situations where they might not feel they deserved the reputation points that would come from a correct answer (in this case, you might not want to be rewarded for correctly answering "these are the people you should be asking:…")

A (sic) after the names on first mention might suffice.

I am pretty sure that is not how "sic" is used. From my understanding "sic" is used in quotes to denote that a mistake was in the original source.

From wikipedia -  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sic   The Latin adverb sic ("thus"; in full: sic erat scriptum, "thus was it written")[1] inserted after a quoted word or passage, indicates that the quoted matter has been transcribed exactly as found in the source text, complete with any erroneous or archaic spelling, surprising assertion, faulty reasoning, or other matter that might otherwise be taken as an error of transcription.

That's @StrongBad's point, though: there is no error in the use of the full name, and thus usage of "sic" is not strictly correct.

@Brian Our gentle readers assume that the authors of BrainFuck were good people who would never use foul language and the vile OP made a transcription error when he wrote BrainFuck instead of BrainFudge.  The sic advises the gentle reader that there was no transcription error.

@emory that is a pretty abstract way of using sic

This is a technically correct use of sic, but may not be correctly understood.

In practice I mostly see "(sic)" used when the author want to 'bash' the author he is quoting... Then again it may be that Reddit is not the best place to read :)

Depends on your audience.  If you're publishing at U. C. Berkeley they may hang you out for giving in to censorship.  If you're at BYU they might expel you for an honor code violation if you don't censor.  On the other hand someone at Berkeley may decide that sexualizing a programming language is offensive and demeaning to women.
The very nature of a controversy is that there is no clear answer that is guaranteed to make everyone happy.  However, discretion can diffuse a lot of tension.  If you want to avoid f**k censorship you could simply leave the names of the languages out of the papers title so they don't appear in large print.
That said, I'm proud that even growing up in a small conservative town I could still find these words defined in the school library's dictionary.

Are these really the standards in Berkeley and BYU?

@WillHunting I'm using them as examples at either end of the political spectrum.  Both have the sensitivities of their culture to account to.  Protests have been held at both schools over smaller things.  The point is to know your audience.  Ignoring something your audience is sensitive to is a good way to have them ignore the rest of your message.

-1 Do you have any evidence for either of your examples?

@Strongbad the evidence of the potential issue is in the links I provided.  Are you asking me to quote them?

No, I can read what the policies say. What I am interested in is evidence that supports your interpretation of the policy.

@Strongbad I don't want to pick on any one school so here's a story from LSU about a tenured professor getting fired for swearing.

See the miller, his son, and the donkey. To avoid giving in to censorship one way or the other make up your mind whether you wish to write the word or not, and stick to it.

@CandiedOrange, Regarding the LSU story. It sounds bad, but something tells me there is more to the story. "Additionally, she was asked not to return to more than one elementary school in the Baton Rouge area within the last three years because of her inappropriate behavior." In any case, regarding UC Berkeley, don't confuse their computer science department with their liberal arts departments. There is a clear cultural academic divide between them.

@stephanbranczyk  It's rare for anyone to be fired for just one reason.  If you'll recall my point was that it's wise to know your audiance.  I think I've provided evidence that the trouble swearing can cause at least rises to the level of being potentially distracting.

@CandiedOrange, I agree completely, but I'd also like to point out a comment made by John Russell at the bottom of the following page. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/01/lsu-fired-professor_n_7707226.html Now, I don't know if his comment is true, so that's why I am not repeating what he said here, for all I know he could just be a troll, but if it is, that would be one reason not to jump to conclusions about LSU's action.

@StephanBranczyk I've read, scrolled, searched, and googled and I can't find John Russell on this page or any page mentioning  LSU, him, and this issue.   Did they delete the troll?

@CandiedOrange, It's a facebook comment. it loads 5 seconds after the page loads. Not sure if you need a facebook account to see it, but may be you do.

the examples given, i think, are reasonable in that the reader would understand the intent of the writer, even if, say, BYU does not actually have a policy like that. the intended meaning is what matters, and candiedorange did a good job here. pedants need not weigh in.

@CandiedOrange : My problem with the Academia.StackExchange.com comment is that it doesn't identify which of John Russell's comments is being referred to (the "Nov 30, 2015 4:57am one", or the "Jul 5, 2015 5:41am" edit of the comment made one minute earlier).  I'm not sure why you see neither.

@toogam likely because I'm not on facebook

@sgroves: On academia.stackexchange.com, you shouldn't post misinformation about the policies of academic institutions, even if that misinformation is incidental to the point you're actually trying to make. In this case, CandiedOrange could accomplish the same purpose by saying "a very liberal school" and "a very conservative school", rather than making false claims about specific institutions.

@ruakh Your right, I could do that. but then people would insist that I cite policies and I'm back to naming schools.  You might note the claims are qualified with may.  Any school with a "clean language" or "sexual harassment" policy MAY receive complaints and MAY choose to act on them.  Even if this had never happened the claim that this can distract from your point has been firmly established since the only protection you have is prosecutorial discretion.  1st amendment only protects you from the government.  Not prudes in academia.

@ruakh if you wish to dispute claims of possible outcomes, especially after the mechanism for those outcomes has been cited, understand that the burden of proof lies with you.  Show me the protections that guarantee that this couldn't happen.  I would be glad to know them.

@ruakh i disagree. sorry. that's how language works.

There are numerous acceptable ways to refer to the language. The page about it at esolangs.org says this:

Due to the fact that the last half of its name is often considered one
  of the most offensive words in the English language, it is sometimes
  referred to as brainf***, brainf*ck, brainfsck, b****fuck, brainf**k
  or BF. This can make it a bit difficult to search for information
  regarding brainfuck on the web, as the proper name might not be used
  at all in some articles.

It seems that would be an important consideration when you decide.

I kind of like "b****fuck" myself.

Consider avoiding the problem entirely, by not providing these languages with the honor of being on your paper.  The namers of these languages chose something that they realized would cause problems.  Don't glorify such a mis-decision by unnecessarily polluting your good research work.
You will likely elicit scorn, and compulsions to roll eyes, even if many people have sufficient restraint to communicate their disapproval.  Some people are likely to see this as a clear mark of unprofessionalism.  Even if you don't get formal feedback, this may impact people's appreciation, and may affect subjective scoring.  All in alll, why unnecessary embrace such negativity that will provide you with no benefit?
Seek out alternative solutions, and use them.  Those who are aware of the entire scenario may have a high appreciation of your successful endeavor.
The most common abbreviation I have found for the first language is "bf".  e.g., searching for "bf language" on Google will show foul language in the results.  Esolangs.org page on this language provides some other abbreviations, noting, "This can make it a bit difficult to search for information regarding brainfuck on the web, as the proper name might not be used at all in some articles."  That's a downside of this language's name.
Or, instead, consider avoiding the problem entirely by using an alternative.  I propose that you consider using Ook! Ook!, which is directly convertible to the bf language that you mention.  If you're interested in language features, this ought to be a direct substitute that will serve you well.  (The only really significant downside I am aware of is just that it is less well-known, so if you're wishing to discuss a community, then it may not have the same effect.  Oh, and I do know of one other technical disadvantage: the source code may be a bit larger, even though the interpreted meaning ends up being the exact same.)
Regarding the other language you mention, I notice that for the JS one, many of the top sites use its full (spelled-out) name and also use the term JSF*ck.  Searching for JSF*ck on Google does manage to pull up the sites.  So, that does appear to be a name that is heavily accepted by the community surrounding that language.

glorify a mis-decision? what? this seems like an awfully judgmental answer. the name of the language is brainfuck, period. calling it anything else could potentially be inaccurate or misleading. if the reader takes offense to the name of that programming language, that's not the fault of the author of the paper, and the author should not worry about it. whether you personally think the name is a "mis-decision" is completely irrelevant.

I'm tempted to create a handful of languages literally called BF, Brainf**k, Brainf*ck, Brainfick, etc, just to make it more confusing. It should be referred to by its proper name.

@sgroves: This was not accidentally judgmental. Not long ago, many mothers punished children for uttering such language, by having them put a bar of soap in their mouth. Whether you deem such penalties as well-justified or feel such rules were silly, the namers of the language created a situation where people cannot easily discuss the language without inciting controversy and worrying about bureaucracy and reception by clashing cultures. This distracts from being able to focus on other unique, interesting aspects of the language. They disrespected formality, upon which much of academia depends

Introducing deliberate spelling mistakes just because you dislike some word is silly.

@toogam on the contrary: not using correct names for things in a formal paper is surely a disrespect of formality. the author of the paper didn't choose the name brainfuck. you seem to be suggesting that the audience may not be mature enough to handle seeing this name in a formal paper. now that is disrespectful. we punish children for such language because they are children; we expect adults to be mature. they are just words, after all.

What about git? "git" is slang for "stupid", and the name of that version control system was chosen for exactly this meaning. The "git" command manual describes itself as a "stupid content tracker". Should you avoid referencing the most used VCS in the industry because its name is inappropriate?

@Hay That's interesting. I always thought git = get. Cause you're getting the code.

@Hay: Nice attempt at an analogy.  (I find it flawed because the levels of inappropriateness are not equal.  Still, I appreciate the point's validity.)  How many inappropriate things do you think should be in a formal paper?

@sgroves: "we punish children for [an action] because they are children".  You should punish children for doing something wrong.  Doing otherwise is just mean and cruel. "we expect adults to be mature": then I hope they'd find alternative ways to communicate, without requiring such inappropriate utterances (whether verbal or in writing).    In high school I thought such language rules were rather silly.  Now I'm grieved at how the war has turned out, namely due to the pitiful method of victory; having youthful society shamefully lack respect.  How is that strategy worthy of formal writing?

@CodesInChaos Who said anything about introducing deliberate mistakes?  Wikipedia's page on the language has 4 occurrences of "BF".  These are established names.

@sgroves, you said, "we punish children for such language because they are children; we expect adults to be mature. they are just words, after all." Yet, many college "speech codes" censor exactly that... just words. I'm no fan of censorship under the politically correct banner of banning so-called "hate-speech", but so long as such things exists, "they are just words" doesn't seem to be a sufficient defense. Words have meanings. The question arises simply because the language's authors deliberately decided to tweak others by making their language's name offensive.

@sgroves : Max's question originated at English.SE before Brian migrated.  OP's question wasn't whether the word's usage violates law, or a specific college's published guidelines.  max asked, "should" he?  The question begs for a judgement call.  Even the topic choice is tenuous, requiring OP to tread carefully to handle, including avoiding forbidden speech.  American culture raised me to disagree with the 4 words you most recently said before "in a paper".  "It's a formal paper" does not justify the faux pas of inexcusably using either of those names.

@TerryLewis Chiming you in, because it looks like sgroves was asking a question regarding your comment, not mine.

TOOGAM-Tks. @sgroves, you said, "they are just words, after all". And personally, I agree. But, I've heard of too many cases where persons get in trouble for using the correct word in the correct way, with no offense intended. In an age where one can be sued for using the wrong gender pronoun, "just words" doesn't mean much! No, it's not the same setting... but logically, which seems less offensive... referring to a biological male as "he", or explicitly citing the name of a language? Point being, it's an unnecessary risk (see answer by Octopus)  that I would think is unwise to take.

@sgroves, I started programming when I was 14. Even now at 48, if I told my mother that I was programming in that language without censoring myself, she'd slap me silly... name of the language or not! You don't talk like that around mama! Yes, that's the name of the language. Yes, IMHO, it could be cited in formal papers uncensored. But it's not something I would do. BF's creators decided to be provocative; that is their right. That doesn't mean that I must do the same. If my name is on the paper, it will reflect me, and I would choose a less (potentially) offensive approach.

@TerryLewis YOU might not talk that way around your mama, but that's just your personal culture. don't speak for me. i don't care about people trying to get me in trouble when i haven't done anything wrong. if you're afraid of that, fine. but don't try and tell me i shouldn't write the proper names of languages in formal papers like functioning adults should be able to do. upvotes seem to agree with me.

Unrelated, but we have an ID generator that generates IDs in base36. And incidentally, fuck is a perfectly valid base36 number. As are ass and boob and what not. We actually discussed algorithms to 'sanitize' the generated ID but ultimately decided agains it... We support over a dozen languages... Do we have to sanitize all words that could be offensive in any of those languages?? Saying the author of brainfuck is causing problems is short-sighted. The more cultures mix, the more impossible it will become to keep this up. It is the over-sensitivity that is causing the problems.

@sgroves, that's not my point. The point is a) that word is a known offensive term, b) the author has a choice between a known offensive term, and other terms that correctly identify the language, and c) the OP asked what he should do. IMHO, today's culture is such that you take a risk with almost ANYTHING you say. If this formal paper is important (for school or work), I would take the least offensive approach. My mother was just an example of one who would find ANY usage of the term offensive; do you want to risk your career by assuming that my mother is not the recipient of this paper?

@StijndeWitt, you said, "It is the over-sensitivity that is causing the problems." This actually most-correctly reflects my view. If one of my coworkers sent me an email with the term, I wouldn't complain. Others, however, would take it to HR. The defense of  "but that's actually the name of the language" might make logical sense, but HR often will err on the side of caution, especially when any hint of sexuality exists. Sexual harassment is now defined by the perception of the alleged victim. I don't fully agree with this, but it's today's reality.

@TerryLewis Sad, but true.


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How to prepare for attending first conference as an undergraduate?
I'm an undergraduate about to finish my first year of undergraduate research in CS. This past year has been mostly engineering-based as I learned how things worked in terms of implementation.
I expressed a desire to my advisor about (for next year) moving from engineering / implementation of others' ideas into creating my own novel ideas and research, and how to appropriately bridge this gap. He suggested that I attend a conference in my field to learn more and get a better idea of the sort of problems out there.
My question is -- how should I go about preparing for attending a conference? Should I read all the accepted papers, and read the papers that have background information that they use that I'm not familiar with? Or is there some other better method?
I know that this question is similar, but I'm more interested in finding out how can I learn the most from this experience as an attendee vs a presenter.

Welcome to Academia.SE. One question per post, please :)

ah sorry, i'll wait to post the second question as a separate post. sorry for my oversight!

I wish I had the benefit of this hindsight when I was an undergrad or even a master's student. It took a while for me to understand how conferences (at least in theoretical computer science) work. I speak from my experiences in attending top-tier theoretical conferences. It may vary in your case. But in short: most of what you'll learn will be outside of the talks.
To set your expectations right:

Don't expect to understand a lot from the talks. Reading those papers in advance might be even more boring unless you are already familiar with the background, or at least the starting assumptions, of the presented works. Seasoned researchers have a good idea of results being presented, i.e. the exact formal claim, and they attend the talks just to get a rough picture of the proof and techniques involved. It's like intellectual networking. Get an idea of who has done what and how. Maybe it's useful later.
Asking questions during the talks will be intimidating. As a rule, I always hold my questions for until a couple of slides later. It is always good keep abstracting the ideas presented, and not worry about the details. Details often don't get in the way of getting a rough picture, which is essentially what the talks are for.

Now, ideas for making the most from your attendance. In short: you are charting the territory of your future research, and getting to know the leaders and active researchers in that field.

There are always researchers who have a reputation for nice talks. Make sure you attend their talks. Sometimes, all you learn is how to give a good talk. Which is not to be underestimated.
Go with at least some interest area in mind. Make a rough plan of talks you'll go to. Reach out to presenters during coffee and lunch breaks. Just chat them up. Really. Everyone is waiting to distribute pearls of their wisdom and are happy for dedicated audience. Even better if your professor can help you identify his peers or their students in advance. Go up to them and convey your prof's greetings. Ask how they got to doing what they're doing.
Make friends among other research groups. Hang out with other (also senior) students. Learn about their work. Grab a few drinks together. It's quite likely you'll see them again and even collaborate.

I don't think you first conference would be about gaining deep technical understanding about anything. You would have succeeded if you could remember at least as much as you do after a visit to a museum. This visit will be about learning how the community works, who's who, and what beer tastes like in that city.

Last two points closely resemble with my first experience.

Start by checking the program. Conferences in computer science are often organized into sessions, with all papers presented in a session having a common theme. Find the sessions that cover topics of interest to you. If the conference has multiple parallel sessions (tracks), make a plan of which sessions you'll attend.
For sessions you plan to attend,

Read up on the general topic of the session, to get a sense of what the important problems are in that area.
Skim the papers that will be presented in the session, with the goal of understanding what kind of work is being presented in the session. Try to extract the main idea from each paper, and understand why it is an interesting and worthwhile contribution to the literature. (Don't worry about not understanding a lot of it.)

Does the conference have any panels scheduled? These are a good way to find out about interesting topics in a more informal and interactive way.
Plan to be an active participant, not just a passive listener. Is there a poster session? Poster sessions are great because they're designed for attendees to talk to participants about their research. Go to coffee breaks and lunches, and find some nice grad students (or other researchers) to chat with about their work. If you are having an interesting conversation and the coffee break ends, don't worry about missing a talk you were planning on attending - the ideas shared in hallway conversations are much more useful than the actual talks at the conference.

Thanks for your detailed response! As a follow up question: how should I stay in touch with people I meet (I'd imagine there's some sort of etiquette)? Please let me know if i should open this as a separate question.

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Transitioning from engineering to research as an undergraduate RA
I'm an undergraduate about to finish my first year of undergraduate research in CS. This past year has been mostly engineering-based as I learned how things worked in terms of implementation.
I'm looking to move from engineering / implementation of others' ideas into creating my own novel ideas and research, but I'm not sure how to best bridge this gap. I'm going to be attending a conference in my field soon, but I'm sure there are other things that I can do to help me along this transition.
I'd imagine its beneficial to read papers, but one of the issues that I am facing is that I'm not really sure what problems I want to work on, and thus don't know what area of research publications to focus on. Additionally, I'm finding it difficult to find the "core papers" of a problem, e.g. papers that present significant advances and are quite important. How would you make the transition between a more research engineer role to that of a research scientist?

Sounds like you could use a chat with a faculty mentor. (You do have a mentor, right?)

yup i do, i talked to him and he recommended that I go to a conference, but I wanted to hear some other opinions as well if possible.

Is it just me or is this question just too broad with too many good answers? I didn't flag it yet, but just curious.

Yeah, I agree it's a bit broad, but I'm not too sure on how to narrow it down. Could you give me some suggestions?

The "how to find core papers" part of your question has been answered here: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/51283/how-to-identify-top-researchers-and-landmark-papers-in-a-field

You make it sound like engineering and research are two contradicting things, but I think this view is falling short. Of course there are shallow implementation and verification jobs, but there are also plenty of engineering jobs about R&D fiddling and finding clever designs and solutions, and then there are also (purely) academic jobs in engineering fields. Note that the boundaries between all of these are very much blurred and there is a variety of people in engineering ranging from hands-on tinkerers to purist mathematicians with completely different mindsets. Therefore, people in engineering hardly ever agree on whether some job or result is just derivative craft lacking conceptual contribution, useful high-level research, or disconnected theoretical work with pretentious notation but possibly useless and not much behind it. Also, implementation jobs can require a lot of clever thinking too, e.g. in analog electronics or large system integration.
Since you're at the undergraduate level still, I'd say it's totally normal to learn and follow preexisting ideas before engaging in great abstraction and developing your own branches. It's hard to make strong and novel conceptual contributions to your field if you don't know its basics. Do not underestimate the work put in by many, many very intelligent people before you (one tends to forget about this at times, e.g. when reading a bad introductory book) and rather try to gather their insights and grow from them.
About your problem at hand: I guess the best thing you could do, as far as that is possible in your environment, is trying to steer your next career choices in the direction of institutions and companies that value conceptual thinking and smart solutions and not only dull implementation workforce. Aim for courses, texts, project topics, internships, and contacts that push you more and more in this direction.

I think the most important thing is to ask for help.
Which, I guess by asking this question, you did.
However, ask people for help that know about your field and know about YOU. They will be the the most helpful.

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How does academic hiring work in the humanities in Denmark?
I have applied for an academic job at a good university in Denmark, but as a non-Dane I've been trying to learn about how the hiring process works. Can someone explain to me the various steps in the process, and tell me about the timeline for the steps? More specific questions in bold below.
Here's my basic understanding so far:

Collecting applications.

They sent an email to the applicants saying that there were 70-ish applications for a very attractive junior position. That seemed like a very small pool of applicants to me, but the tone of the email suggested that the department took it to be an unusually large pool. How many applicants would an Assistant Professor position in the humanities usually get in Denmark?

Candidates vetted by an external panel.

When I applied, I was told the names of the three evaluators who would read the applications. The evaluators declared me "qualified" for the position. I'm having trouble now figuring out exactly what that means. Does the external panel rank applicants with two grades (qualified/unqualified) or three (best qualified/qualified/unqualified)? Further, on average, what proportion of applicants are judged "qualified"?

??

I'm not clear what comes next. The email from the university said someone from the Human Resources department would contact me. I'm curious whether there will be additional steps in the process, like a trial lecture or an interview with the faculty of the department I would be joining. Will the human resources department simply choose to hire someone on the basis of the external panel's report, or will the department make the choice? Either way, what criteria will be used to make the choice, since the external panel doesn't appear to rank the candidates in order.

I saw a pdf online (that I can't find again) which suggested that ~30% academic positions in Denmark in 2009 had only a single qualified candidate. I take it that that number must be artificially high because of senior positions that are "advertised" in order to promote someone to a full-professorship or something, right? I would think almost all junior level positions should have at least a dozen qualified candidates, even with fewer than a hundred applicants, right?

In my case it was expicitly stated that there can be more than one applicant who is found qualified, although I am not sure how many exactly are found qualified, and my field is not humanities.

Then came a letter from the Dean and another email from Human Resources.

From comments I heard about positions in Sweden, they tend to get many applications of people woefully under qualified (straight from PhD, low quality degrees, little research experience...). My guess is that the external panel is a first quick filter to get rid of these cases.

Disclaimer: I work as a postdoc in social sciences in a Danish university. I have seen parts of the process from the inside on a few occassions, once very closely.
In my experience, more than 20 applicants should be considered quite a few, and I suspect this is especially true in the Humanities, unless it is an extremely coveted area.
Applications are graded qualified/unqualified, usually along with a brief statement on the reasoning.
The dean may make a shortlist of favourite candidates as a recommendation, but it will usually be the department head making the decision. At my department, relevant senior researchers/associate profs get a say too, and the process is quite democratic.
I have never heard of anyone being hired without an interview. Test lectures are sometimes used, e.g for tenure-track positions.

+1, Thank you. Do you have any ideas about what percentage of candidates are judged qualified? or any idea where to look to find additional sources?

The grading is purely technical, as far as that is possible. As another comment to your OP suggested, it is to weed out the underqualified, which in some cases can be quite a few. If I were you, I would be glad to have passed that hurdle, but not get my hopes up based on that.

As for further information, the HR department should have that on their website - should being the imperative word here. I doubt there is any harm in contacting them. I would be hesitant about contacting the prof. though. Very hesitant.


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Difference between bursary, scholarship and fellowship
What is the difference between bursary, scholarship and fellowship funding?
Is a fellowship more prestigious than a scholarship which in turn is more prestigious than a bursary?

These three terms essentially mean the same thing. Bursary is the term for scholarship used in the UK. Normally, a bursary is given based on need which is not always the case with fellowships/scholarships.  In my personal experience in America, the term bursary is rarely used. Instead, we often use the term "grant", which is a synonym for bursary.
Fellowship is also another term for bursary/scholarship. However, fellowships are usually awarded at the graduate level whereas a scholarship can be awarded at either grad or undergrad level. In addition, fellowships are often considered a highly prestigious award.
As you can see, there are minor differences in these three terms. Determining which to use will mainly depend on the context of the situation

The words bursary and scholarship do NOT mean the same in the UK.

In the UK, a bursary refers to funding given on the basis of financial need, whereas a scholarship is given on the basis of academic merit (this distinction is currently important with regard to student finance).
I'm not sure on the distinction between scholarship and fellowship. However, my experience would be consistent with the interpretation that a scholarship typically provides funding for a position you already have, whereas a fellowship itself provides the position. I don't think I've come across 'fellowship' referring to a student position, only to employment.

aren't there needs based scholarships as well? And wouldn't a needs based scholarship basically fit the definition of a bursary?

@DarrinThomas I have never come across one. The government basically defines such a thing to be a bursary.

Ok in the US there are examples of needs based [scholarships] (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-sillerman-center/merit-or-need-based-scholarships_b_7835262.html). However, they are normally privately-funded and not by the goverment


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Advisor tries to reproduce my results to ensure my honesty. Is it the norm?
I am a M.Sc. student in Machine Learning, about to finish my thesis this month. My advisor wants me to meet him in person to reproduce my results under his control. It is obvious that the main reason for this action is to be confident that I didn't manipulate the diagrams, etc.
I didn't do any cheating and I have no problem with that. But it is a little annoying for me that my advisor doesn't trust me. I want to know whether this is the norm in academia or is my adviser just a little skeptical of me?
I should mention that I am the lone M.Sc. student in the lab and I am nearly sure that the advisor doesn't do that with PhD students in the lab.

Are your results strange or surprising?

Comments on this post were essentially mini-answers, whose point of view is now addressed in existing answers; this conversation has therefore been moved to chat. Please use comments for improving or clarifying the question, use that chatroom for discussion or other things you want to say that you don't feel like posting as an answer (further comments will be subject to deletion if they're not for improving or clarifying the question.)

When you say "obvious", can you say why it's obvious to you? Is there any specific facts or actions that lead you to that conclusion?

I am sure by now your supervisor has checked your work.  Are the answers below correct?

At some point in time someone is going to want to replicate your experiment in one way or another. Your supervisor is doing you a favour by checking over your work for you - I wish I got that kind of attention when I was doing my research work :D

As many have pointed out in the comments (Nate Eldredge, Dan Romik, Per Alexandersson, etc.), the point is not to catch you cheating (as if you were intentionally trying to manipulate your results), but rather to verify your process of obtaining such results. We all should be so lucky as to have an adviser take the time out of his/her schedule to verify our processes.
I would also like to add that -- and this assumes your thesis could/will lead to an academic publication at a journal or conference -- that your adviser's reputation is potentially on the line by attaching his/her name to such a document. In other words, by becoming a co-author on your [future] publication, your adviser is essentially saying, "Yes, I helped work on this, and I am sure of the methods and the results contained within."
The bottom line (tl;dr) is that you shouldn't take this as a personal attack. You should be thankful to have someone who can invest the amount of time necessary to ensure the correctness of the work you've done.

Beyond that, if the professor has the "If your name is on the paper, you should be able to explain what happened" philosophy, beyond verifying the professor may just want to see the implementation.

The advisor's reputation is always on the line when signing a thesis.  It doesn't matter whether there is also a journal article.

@DavidKetcheson I suppose in theory, but in practice the reputational risk it highly dependent on how visible the work is.

It's good to learn this early - that verification of your research is not a personal attack on your character. We're all humans and we all have biases. Even if we're not biased, our environments very well could be biased (there have been cases where experimental results change depending on the traffic outside the building.. most would not think it necessary to isolate against vibrations caused by cars or trucks or trains)

There may be another reason your advisor wants to do this: perhaps the work can be continued in the future by another of their students, and your advisor wants to be able to explain the details to that (potential) future student.
Regardless, I think it's praise that your advisor is giving you.

I will agree with Peter, this is indeed praise. Consider if you will how valuable your advisor's time is and how much he is allocating to work with you on this. If he really thought you were cheating then he would also think you were wasting his time and he would not be investing more time on you. That said, he may be concerned about the accuracy of your results and want to be sure you made no accidental mistakes that would hurt your reputation so again this is praise that he is looking out for your well being.

I tend to agree: another connected motivation could be knowledge transfer. Your adviser might want to be sure that he/she understands everything about your work, before you conclude your Ph.D., so if you'll leave for a post-doc, he will be able to resume the project him/herself (or with other Ph.D. students).

In the field of machine learning, there is a plenty of ways to mistakenly do things incorrectly that make your results look better than they really are. An easy example is cross validation: if you do model selection based on the results of your validation dataset, you are going to be downward biasing the error in your validation results.
In this light, your advisor is likely somewhat surprised at your results. Before just completely accepting what you've done, they want to verify this wasn't a result of a mix up. If your advisor watches what you do, and everything is correct, then that's great and you've probably got some great results on your hands. If you are doing something that's not quite right, then your advisor will presumably help fix the error.
You shouldn't take this as criticism, but rather as being critical. Being critical is what makes science reliable and is vital to the academic process.

If there are many things that could be done wrong however I wonder why the advisor steps in that late (final month of the thesis). Shouldn't he have supervised the whole process more closely then, e.g. checking the selected methods, the students implementation, potential alternatives and so on? Thing is, at this stage of the thesis there is little time left to work on any major changes should they prove necessary.

@Ghanima there is value in letting the students analyse critically their work by themselves, but now time is running out and verification is important.

@Ghanima: I agree with what Davidmh said (it's good to let students be independent) but also that often you don't have evidence of a potential problem until you actually have results.

Don't get me wrong. I don't want to dismiss your answer and neither the idea of having the student perform its work independently. Still as a master student he is supposed to work under supervision and profit from that - a fact that might be served better if the advisor provides guidance earlier than in the final month (the question make it seem like the advisor was not much interested in it before).

"Being critical is what makes science reliable and is vital to the academic process." <--- THIS!

I would say you are lucky!
The main goal of science is to deliver something insightful to others!
Therefore, when discovering something, make such results reproducible to them. Otherwise, it's "an accident" that happened only to them. Science is about understanding reason and the cause, therefore about reproducibility of processes. As the goal is to make it reproducible by others, the best test is to try out if others can reproduce it.
I am personally a great fan of "reproducible research" (there is a whole movement around this, just to mention: http://reproducibleresearch.net/ , https://reproduciblescience.org/ , and open science in general). Making sure that others can reproduce your effects, confirms that you've transmitted over paper all artifacts important to achieve your goal. Communication (also over papers), relies always on a big pile of assumptions. One might have to skip some details, steps, obvious to her/him in a paper, while actually not that obvious to others, then making whole work sadly lost and non useful to anyone else. Therefore, if someone with the skill/knowledge level of the desired audience is not able to reproduce it, maybe the paper should consist of more/better references, or more introduction to concepts/procedures/tools used. Again, all serves the purpose of transmitting over paper to others, to humanity, how to do something not done earlier, therefore to move the whole of humanity forward.  Checking if it's reproducible by others is the best way to check whether it is reproducible by others :).
After all, mentioning in a paper, or notes for reviewers, that results were successfully reproduced by others, could IMHO even increase the value of the paper. Making notes (even blog post) by those others, would be even better to confirm.

People willing to spend time on you is almost never bad. It proves that you or what you have done is important somehow. Try to unlearn that being checked is bad and try and view it as you are important enough for someone to care about. It is when no one cares any longer that you should be concerned, not the other way around ! This sure can be confusing for some personalities with high personal integrity.

In part, you are correct, but more than likely it's a lot of other factors. Once you leave the gates of college, whether it's your peers, your colleagues, or your professional community. If there is ever anything new or of significant value being claimed, than it MUST be reviewed. So definitely get used to people behaving skeptical initially.
In part it's to confirm your results. It can also be to potentially mimic results for future research or education. At the end of the day, his reputation lies on signing off on your work as "valid". Or at least to make sure that what you did is not mimicked work with minute, insufficient contributions to your field. Plus, if there's good stuff in your results, he might try and assist in finding you some serious grant funds or can help assist with private research funds.

downvoted for laziness.

While I agree with other commenters that it might be for other reasons, we cannot invalidate that this person might just be checking that you did not cheat. Think about the recent Michael LaCour scandal: he falsified his data, and his senior co-author (Green) did not catch him; this obviously raised some eyebrows.
After that, I'm sure many senior academics have taken a closer look at their supervisees data/process.


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When citing an arXiv paper, what year should one write?
A paper on arXiv can have multiple versions. It is rather frequent (at least in math) that the first version and the latest version are even from different years. When citing such a paper, is it better to put in the year in which the paper was first published on arXiv, or the year of the latest version (and probably explicitly saying which version is cited then)?
Assume that neither the journal nor the publisher have any written guidelines about this particular scenario; for example, when one is themselves putting a paper on the arXiv.

Since you can always access past versions of a paper on the arxiv, why not cite a specific version? thus, write "arxiv:1010.1212v3".  Then there is no question about the year of publication.

That shouldn't be a big problem. Usually by the time your paper is accepted, the paper you cited are very likely published in another journal. Cite the journal then.

I would cite the exact version you are referring to in your work. Therefore the year should be the year of that version. You should also use the actual arxiv identifier in the citation. This is to minimise the effect of potential changes in the cited work on your paper. Moreover, your goal is to provide the reader with a precise pointer to the cited work so that they can easily find it.

I can't +1 this often enough...

In this case I would likely go with the date of the original posting, unless there are fairly significant differences between versions (a paper might have its title changed, or results noticeably broadened or restricted from the original posting, for any number of reasons).  One way or another, it is highly recommended to have an "accessed on" date in the bibliography entry for any citation of online materials, such as arxiv preprints.  It would be naturally assumed that you were consulting the most recent version of the posting available at that time, and not later or earlier ones, which is easily determined and accessed (at least in the case of the arxiv).  Without this the reference can otherwise be problematically ambiguous, as it is entirely possible that the cited preprint will get a new version at several stages during the process of getting your own published, and the cited article may get published and get new arxiv versions after your own has been published and given a "final" arxiv update.

Tiny comment: For arxiv, the 'accessed on' date is superfluous if you state the version number.  And if you don't state the version number, it's potentially not enough to say accessed on since you could access any existing version on that day.

"[I]t's potentially not enough to say accessed on since you could access any existing version on that day." Strictly speaking, yes. But there's a very strong implication that an access date with no specified version number means the most recent version available on that date.


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Should I do a post doc? Good thesis but no papers (yet)
I am finishing writing my thesis in physics, where I present a new kind of microscope. I think it's a good work but I have no papers out yet, also because of a perfectionist supervisor. I have been told two papers should be ready within a few months, but I don't really believe this and I don't know I will have the energy to work hard for them... I feel a bit worn out, and I know I need a break.
On the postdoc side, I got a few rejections, submitted a good application for a fellowship and I guess I could do a postdoc with a professor at my department, but I would prefer to move somewhere else. To put things in contest, I'm 30 and European.
With these premises (good work and no publications, while the other students I know have 3 papers out at least), do you think it would be a good idea to do a postdoc?

do you think it would be a good idea to do a postdoc? — As opposed to what? Do you want to stay in academia?

well, honestly I don't know! I guess I like most of it, except for some weird social/power dynamics ;) My alternative would be to develop algorithms for some private company, I guess

you can apply for postdoc without published paperes? how?

I just applied, putting the emphasis on my work

If your question is indeed "should I do a postdoc?" then this is entirely down to your personal values and goals, and something that can only be answered by yourself or those who know you. If the question is "do I have a chance of getting a postdoc position?" then you need to reword the question to reflect that.

First of all, I know you are tired (been there, done that), but those papers must be published. This might be different on your specific field, but usually the thesis itself doesn't have much use, apart from being a requisite for the defence. If you don't publish your results, properly, it would be almost like you never did it at all. Like I usually say to my students, "if you did the research/wrote the paper all alone in the forest and nobody saw it, did you actually do it?"...
Second, postdocs are pretty much mandatory. Again, this might be different for your field, but, in general, you are expected to do a few years as a postdoc, specially if you want to be a professor in a reasonable research university... It similar to the internship part of engineering degrees/accreditation, IMHO. This is even more true in Europe, with shorter phd durations (3-4 years X 5-6 years in the US)..


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Should a programming Instructor urge students to use more efficient practices?
I teach programming, and it is painful to watch my students slowly arrow around the screen, backspace over something, then retype it. It would take less than a second for him to have grabbed his mouse, double-clicked the word and started typing the new word, all without looking down.
I taught them about editing and keyboard shortcuts at the beginning of the curriculum, yet they do not all take everything on board (who does?). So now months later I am left with the question of whether to urge improvement on them like a mother bird, or just let it go. As programmers, their time will be valuable, and their enjoyment of work improved by the ease of getting work done. But is it up to me to reinforce this after having made it thoroughly clear early on? This is not just about editing, but all sorts of practices like naming conventions, coding standards and so on, which I did in fact present already and have said that the industry expects these things. Editing is simply one obvious example.
Addition: It is not for me to dictate how students should work, but I would be remiss if I did not point out better ways to accomplish things. The question is: to know if I have made the point or when to stop trying to make it. "A word to the wise is enough", but how many of us are wise, especially while learning many new things at once? An example of coding standards is a student who doesn't like Properties. Well... They are useful or they would not have been invented. I couldn't convince this person.

"naming conventions, coding standards and so on" are different because they affect the quality of the output.

@ff524 OK, but ease and comfort affect the quality of the output also. Speed of editing affects the amount of money needed to do the work, which can make or break a project as surely as bugs. If a student said they would rather use K&R C (over 40 years old) instead of C#, isn't that just as much of a problem as them editing as if they are using 'vi' instead of Visual Studio in Windows? Speed counts, too. Imagine "Pair Programming" if your partner acts like they only have 2 fingers and no mouse? I am trying to prepare them for work.

I tend to think a lot more than I type, especially when programming. I use many different editors, with different shortcuts. Learning them all would take time, and I can't make them habits because, for example, gvim is different from a Firefox text entry box. I agree with @ff524. Spend your classroom time on working with a set of naming and coding standards, and let them edit however they like. In the 32 years I spent in industry, I never had a manager complain about my editing speed.

@PatriciaShanahan I realize that speed is not the most important thing. I learned to touch type slowly, and am not the best at it, for example. But when I am actively writing, my skills improve and I get more done and am happier. I am just trying to determine the boundary of where my "advice" should stop. No one likes a nag for an instructor, either. Wouldn't you agree that basic Windows (as in GUI, not the brand-name) skills should be universal? Do you use non-Windowing editors? Why?

@nocomprende By "Windows" do you specifically mean "Microsoft Windows" or windows-based GUI's in general? The first editing system I learned was typing punch cards. I even learned to program an O29 Keypunch program drum. That skill is now totally useless, because it is decades since I've seen one outside a museum. By the time your students have been working for decade or so whatever editing you are teaching now will be as obsolete as punch cards. Program design skills are much, much more durable.

I one of my current projects is Apache OpenOffice. MS-Windows builds for it use Cygwin. I typically use Gvim as my Cygwin editor, along with sed, nawk, and perl for bulk operations. I use a similar mix on my Linux machines. I also use Eclipse, Netbeans,  Firefox text boxes (what I'm typing in right now), Thunderbird, OpenOffice, LibreOffice, the Python script editor in FreeCAD, and the Arduino API.

@PatriciaShanahan Right. I have used cards also. But long ago I learned skills like highlighting a block of lines with shift-arrows, then still holding shift, Delete (cut), still holding shift Insert (put it back), navigate elsewhere with arrows, Shift-Ins again to paste a copy. All very fast and using two hands on the keyboard and no mouse (didn't exist)... a skill I still use extensively when editing code and which I demonstrated. If it gets you around faster today it is useful, even if it won't be in a generation. Should we wait to be fast? Double-click should highlight a word everywhere.

Let us continue this discussion in chat.

"It would take less than a second to have grabbed the mouse..." - no matter what you measure, a keyboard shortcut in Emacs or vim can do it faster than if you grab the mouse. I'm not entirely sure what that means...

@StephanKolassa Sure, there are many ways to do things quickly, and some apply to some environments and not others. But, slow ways to do things are not helpful, no matter where we are or what we are doing. The point of the question is not what methods to teach, but should I reiterate something that mostly comes down to a preference and personal practice? People don't like to be micromanaged, but they also don't like to waste their own time, much less anyone else's. How do I decide what to point out again?

Its important not to program (or write) faster than you can think clearly (which is why I prefer a fountain pen),  Rather than trying to get them to edit code more efficiently, I'd say it is better to get them to spend more time thinking about the problem and how to structure the code, and how to test it as they go along.  In my experience, the main reason students take a long time to code things is because the program in too large chunks between compiling and testing (so they spend too much time debugging) and don't think about structure enough and stick with bad structures for too long.

I'm not a coder but I am familiar with learning something for the first time. As a teacher, you have reached a level of mastery that allows you to do things automatically. As such, you are able to monitor your learning and catch mistakes that you make.
Students on the other hand, are completely overwhelmed with learning the basics of your field. We all remember learning to tie our shoes and or driving a car. There were many things that were not done in the most efficient manner when we learned these skills. Now however, these skills come second nature and we all have are own shortcuts to do them that we expect are children to acquire the first time we teach them, which of course they don't to our frustration.
In short, your students are experiencing cognitive overload just learning the basics and cannot process doing more than what they are doing now. Once the learn it the hard way they will start looking for ways to be efficient and fast. At this point, you can stretch them by showing them the faster way. To expect industry standard from a rookie is perhaps asking for too much from cognitive perspective.

Mmkay, I agree about the cognitive overload. However, if my student has been using computers for a few decades and not learned something helpful about using a GUI generally, is that something I should reiterate? Surely there is not cognitive overload in the ability to just use a computer overall? If he hasn't picked up a useful technique on his own after so many years, maybe it is time to point it out? Or is once enough?

I'm not familiar with your students so I would not want to speculate. If you are emphasizing basic stuff for them that they learned the wrong way there probably is little excuse. If this is new for them perhaps patience is another option

Ah a fellow traveller! Welcome friend.
I agree it is so painful to watch, and there is such a professional dilemma on wether to grab the keyboard or not. I have developed my own attitude over the years, in that my time is sometimes precious and is spread thinly over many students. To remain polite I sometimes say "Do you mind if I quickly fix that for you?" and then just do the magic edits. Voila! I then move on to the next student.
Other times, when I am less short of time I let them work through it. Having me smiling and waiting patiently at their side is intimidating enough to remind them that they need to up their game. You have to do both as it can sometimes be demoralising if you always grab the keyboard. You want them to improve and not give up in despair!
One things I find is essential is not just to teach the quicker mechanisms, but to demonstrate them yourself. I sometimes "code live" in a lecture. I throw some code up that I know is bad and needs an edit, and pretend that I have to make some heavy changes. I use all the tools at my disposal like regular expression replacements, keyboard macros and IDE code re-factoring in a blur. Bish, Bash Bosh - loads-of-code. The smart ones get it when they actually visualise how long it would have taken them to do the same task. I also make (fantasy) hints that the faster you cut code the faster you can earn the dosh when a real coder. This annoys them because they all thought they were real coders before coming to class.....
Another tool I find useful are screen capture videos of me doing it. Helps the slower learners catch on, and is easier for them to emulate than some dry hints sheet. My stuff is on YouTube BTW (under my name).

Thank you, great suggestions. I can't seem to figure out the Chinese characters at the end of your name.

@nocomprende The Characters are my name. in Mandarin: tāng lái'ēn

Do you think the students can follow what happens on the screen when you use shortcuts? In my opinion, it is quite likely (for instance) that they miss the little visual cues that you saved a file when you press ctrl+s (or ctrl-x ctrl-s or :w or whatever you use).

@FedericoPoloni Good point. I verbalise what I am doing in a personalised situation and used verbal cues and subtitles in videos to help amplify some of the actions that are happening.

There is screen capture software that will subtitle your video with the hotkeys that you press while recording. I can't name any, but I've seen videos made with it. Look into that!

I strongly agree with Darrin: if you're teaching "Algorithms 101", the spend their time learning about algorithms, not IDE's, etc. If the students go on to become developers or researchers, trust me, they will pick this up along the way when it truly becomes useful to their everyday life. And with much less effort than when first being introduced to the core concepts of computer science.
My graduate school experience had a slight permutation of this issue. I was getting a statistics PhD and almost all of my classes used R, in a fairly intensive manner. At one point, I mentioned to my professor that it would be really helpful to myself and other graduate students to hold some sort of "R bootcamp"-like course. He said that they intentionally do not hold this course: it's part of their trial by fire plan. If you can't figure out R while learning about statistics, you probably won't do well as a statistician.
Fast forward 8 years (wow, seems like it was yesterday...), I guess I passed the trial and I consider myself a competent statistician and programmer. But I still strongly disagree with this approach! The extremely valuable skill I was developing at that time was understanding the fundamentals of statistical methodology. Sure programming in R's important, but it's not what I was in those classes for. I can't help but think that distracting us from the core of the course with the development of somewhat orthogonal skills was not the best structure.
It may well be helpful to expose them to various tools which they can pick up if they work out well for them if they like. But if you start insisting they use these tools, you start to water down your course.

OK, but this is not a trial, at my workplace we are not here to winnow people but to get adults making a career transition to have a new career: paid employment. Our goal is to get them to succeed. If I can point something out in a few seconds about what they are already doing that will save hours of this person's life, why would I not do that? Only a cruel person would function that way. I am asking about how far to take it and when to let it go, because they will not take it in right then.

@nocomprende Well there's clearly grey areas. On the two extremes, of course it's okay to tell them "You know you could do that faster with ctrl-C, ctrl-V" or "I like Eclipse". On the other extreme, putting material not related to the coursework (such as use of IDE's) on an exam, as homework, etc., seems pretty clearly not okay. I think a general rule of thumb is "if it's not related to the subject matter it shouldn't be required".


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Potential advisor does not seem willing to accept me into group. How do I approach others in the same field?
I have been trying to get into this professor's lab right from the time I joined my PhD program last Fall. We are in EE, and she does very theoretical work which is what I want to do.
She told me in our very first meeting that she wasn't sure of my mathematical abilities to cope with her research. I took all her recommended classes, and this quarter I took a project-based course with her. I chose a theory-heavy topic hoping to get good results in it and impress her with it.
However, I haven't got any results for the problem I chose. I have been working on the problem for a little more than a month, most of which time I took to just understand the existing literature.
The professor's senior students consoled me saying it's a hard problem, but regardless of that, it looks like the professor is not going to take me in her group (she hinted at this in a meeting last week).
So my question is: my university has lots of professors who work in this field, but only this one professor in my department who does this work. If I approach faculty in other departments, I am afraid that they'd just ask me to contact this particular professor, since she is known exactly for my area of interest, and is in my department. At that time, I'd feel very embarrassed to admit that I am going to them only because this professor rejected me.
What can I do about this? I am sure people get rejected getting into labs all the time. How do you approach alternate professors?
I also want to point out that though the professor doubted my abilities to do theory research, I do want to continue at least trying to work on my current project for a bit and do not wish to change my area of interest without even giving it a fair shot.

(1) are any of the other professors adjunct faculty in EE? (2) there are many interesting topics out there, most of which you have not encountered yet - something to think about.

One month for a problem is very little time. Some people try for decades problems without being able to answer them. However, when you are approaching a problem you see a direction and in short time you can see another ideas and directions in the field that are more reachable to you.

That is a tough situation. Any advice should depend on the specifics of your school. But I would advise to ask another professor to join their group, and when asked about going to the original professor simply say very briefly that she was not very interested in your idea (not in you personally, your idea) and so you wish to try with other professors. Don't give too much details.


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Phd in Mathematics (Analysis, Analytical Number Theory)
Does one have to study algebra at a graduate level (master's degree) in order to do a Phd related to complex analysis and analytical number theory, or functional analysis and PDE? Is a master's degree in analysis and PDE sufficient?

I'm not convinced this question is on topic here (it may be more about mathematics than academia in general), but I don't think it's a duplicate.  The proposed duplicate question deals with substantial changes of field, while moving between subfields can be rather different.  In U.S. mathematics departments, it's common to end up specializing in a subfield you have never studied at all before entering the graduate program.  Things may work differently in other countries, but this is in any case a very different situation from trying to get a Ph.D. in mathematics after studying, say, physics.

I agree it's not a duplicate, but I don't see any point in reopening it, just to close it as off-topic.


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On the ethics of continuing current project with another advisor
I have been trying to work with a certain professor for a year, since the time I joined PhD. I wasn't paid by her, rather, funded by TAships.
This past quarter, I did a project for a class I took with her. Her student, who was the TA for the course, was super super super helpful, and was basically the driving force for the project.
The thing is, I really like this topic and want to continue working on it. Unfortunately, this professor has still not warmed up to me. She still gives me a very unclear response of whether or not she wants to take me as a student and has told me she'll tell me in a couple of weeks. Since summer is approaching, I really want to finalize an advisor ASAP, or at least someone who would supervise at least one research project for me. I am sick of not having a supervisor for research, as despite having topics that interest me, I am unable to find specific problems to work on.
Anyway, my question is - I have given up on this professor saying yes to me at all, so I am writing to other professors; would it be ethical for me to continue my current project with whoever agrees to supervise me? I am, of course, assuming here that someone will agree to do that, but just in case that happens, is it okay for me to do this?
The project was for a class project, was not funded by this professor Iam trying to impress,but it was a very theoretical one, and the idea, the methods, everything was her student's (who was the TA for the class).

"the idea, the methods, everything was her student's" - seems like you should talk to the student about this.

It's really not clear what you are asking. Here is what I understood from your question: You took a course from Professor X. Part of the course was a project, which you did with generous input from Professor X's TA. The course is finished, but somehow the project is not. Now you want to take this project and shop it around for supervision by one of Professor X's colleagues. You want to know whether this is OK.
This strikes me as a misguided approach on a number of levels. First, I don't quite understand how a course can be finished, when the project that was part of the course ("a course project") is still going on. (Did you decide to do some additional work on it?)
Second, how much of the work on the project was actually your own, as opposed to the TA's? Could you have done the project on your own? Could you do a similar project on your own going forward? That is what research is, and the supervisor's role is mainly to make sure you do not take too many side tours in your research, and do not waste time re-discovering known results.
I do worry a little bit about your statement "despite having topics that interest me, I am unable to find specific problems to work on". Admittedly this is often a daunting task, but taken everything you said together, I am wondering whether you are properly prepared to even start a PhD project. My diagnosis (from reading liberally between the lines) is that Professor X shares this concern, and this is the reason why she is not ready to commit.
You've been in your PhD for one year; depending on the field that may be a rather short period for finding a thesis topic. Did you finish all your courses? How did you do? In particular, how did you do in the course taught by Professor X?
I think, if you really would like to work with Professor X, and you are interested in the topic, it would be best for you to talk this over with her, in particular addressing the question of whether she feels you are ready. Shopping the project around to Professor X's colleagues is definitely not a good idea. You did not come up with the topic, and you needed generous help from the TA to do the work. You are not going to be able to rely on the TA's input going forward.

I want to extend the project. What I did was enough for the class. I had chosen a paper I found interesting and asked the TA for problem suggestions; he mentioned this problem because he had worked on it last summer. I worked through the paper and whenever I got stuck on a proof which the TA had already seen, he helped me out. He enabled me to understand the existing work at a much accelerated pace because of his a priori knowledge, but the results I derived were my own. I got an A+ in the pre-requisite for this class, also taught by this Prof, and the highest grade in homework for this class.


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Is this type of self-plagiarism wrong?
There is an article which contains a section describing preliminary materials, that is, results which have already been published elsewhere and on which the current work is based.
This section is not supposed to contain any new result.
It appears that part of this section (one to two pages) is, up to minor modifications, a copy-paste from another published article.
The other article is from a collaboration of the author of the present paper with other authors. It is cited somewhere in the current article but not as the source of the copied part.
The context and methods of the articles are very similar (hence the need for similar tools), but beside the copied part, the contents and results are different.
In particular, there does not seem to be any plagiarism in the actual novel part of the article in question.
Is this a case of acceptable self-plagiarism?
There are a lot of questions in academia.SE about self-plagiarism but I couldn't make my mind about this case from what I've read.
EDIT: Thank you for all this helpful contributions. As referee for this article, I've chosen the option to ask directly the editor's opinion.

Which area is this?

How much does this matter?

In some areas (Medicine?), duplicating a method section might be more acceptable. http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/29245/title/When-is-self-plagiarism-ok-/

What is opinion of Editor on this issue ?

After scrutiny, the article was discarded.

Lots of people would object to this. LOTS. I think somewhat differently. If this section doesn't cite the original, I think that's pretty bad. I don't think that it's career-ending, but I also don't think that we should be slavish to not copying ourselves when the material is rote or nearly so. Methodology sections that don't change much from paper to paper are places where I think reproducing text and saying so and citing yourself are particularly acceptable to me, but lots of people disagree vehemently with me. I'm aware of this propensity, so I don't copy text in my own papers as much as possible. I rewrite such sections and cite my old work for alternative descriptions.
In the case you mention, both articles appear to have been published, so unless you have a vendetta with this author and want to try to ruin their career, it's probably not worth saying anything to anyone about it. In other words, what would you do if we all said it was bad self-plagiarism? The only thing you can really do is tell the journal or their department chair and hope for a retraction or firing. If it doesn't change the result, then there's not much point in bringing it up. That being said, it's probably best if you don't follow their example. It's  also probably worth being wary of future articles from this group of authors since there might be other aspects that aren't exactly above board.

If I were to personally do something like this, I would simply note that this section was previously printed elsewhere. The easiest way to deflect any accusations of self-plagiarism is to call it out yourself. Given that the entire section is not meant to be new or novel, what would the writer lose by simply saying "this background information was also background information elsewhere?" In the specific case you mentioned, where you're not the author - I agree with Bill.

@Jake, some people are so adamant about not reusing text like this, that they will toss your article during review. Also, the author often doesn't own the copyright to the copied text, so some journals are too shy to let you get away with it. At the very least, you probably need to ask the first publisher for permission to reproduce.

@Jake: Why not just omit the background material entirely and say "the necessary background material can be found in section X of [Y]"?

@WillR: One reason could be to keep the work self-contained.

@JW: well yes, but if to that end you're perpetrating a deception on the journal, and in doing so tricking them into breaching the copyright of a competing journal, then quite aside from the academic ethics of it you're clearly jerking your editor around. If you do what Will says, then I suppose reviewers/editor could always ask you to quote the referenced material.

@SteveJessop: Good points. No matter what, proper citations should be in place so that no deception or trickery is involved.

I am one of those people that Bill Barth mentions that will object to this. I agree rewriting what essentially is the same thing is not the answer, but neither is copying the text verbatim. I think a much better approach is to summarize the content with a few sentences and say "for a much more detailed description, check ref. (my paper that I published last year)".
In terms of doing something, I agree with Bill Barth that it doesn't serve you much to challenge this.
Bottom-line, I would say this is not an acceptable form of self-plagiarism.

I would agree with you and say more: are you sure the same text is suitable for both? Unless both works have exactly the same objectives and development, the text should be written differently, to highlight these objectives or the involved methods...

Is the problem that the author is copying text from an earlier paper, or that the author is copying text from an earlier paper without admitting that fact to the reader?  "To keep this paper self-contained, we recall some relevant background from our earlier paper [42]."

"summarize the content with a few sentences and say (...)" - unfortunately, this opens your work up to the accusation that it is not sufficiently "self-contained".

@FábioDias I disagree with the point that text should be written differently depending on the paper itself. It's perfectly possible that preliminary information for two papers be identical - in paper A you attempt method A, and in paper B you attempt method B, but both methods work off of the same data previously generated and published and therefore the information regarding that data is identical. A separate section on methodologies would obviously be completely different in each paper.

I disagree with this, because access to research papers is an issue. If the material is important to understand the paper, then a reader with access to this paper should not need access to another paper to understand it, unless this is materially mandatory.


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Who to ask to proofread my MSc dissertation?
Who should I ask to proofread my MSc dissertation? Is proofreading required?

There's no formal process that you are required to use for proofreading, but it's certainly required in the sense that your dissertation should not be full of typos.
You are the most important proofreader.  You care the most and have special expertise on the specific topic you are writing about, and eliminating errors is your responsibility.  However, it's worth getting assistance from someone else, since some errors can be tough for the author to spot.
You should not expect your advisor to do proofreading.  It's possible that he/she will provide a list of typos, but that's really not the advisor's responsibility.  Ultimately you'll benefit far more from higher-level advice about content and writing, so it's in your interest to provide drafts that you have already checked carefully.
One good way to arrange proofreading is to swap dissertations with a friend, with each of you looking over the other's draft.  If you can't find anyone to do this, you could try asking friends or relatives to help you proofread, but you'll have to be careful not to let it become a burden for them.
I would not recommend trying to hire a proofreader, unless you have clear approval from your university for exactly what you plan to do.  (If I heard that a student had hired someone to help proofread, I would worry that "proofreading" might be a euphemism for an inappropriate level of writing assistance.)

Also I recommend reading the entire thing out loud (not all in one sitting, of course). You can catch a lot of mistakes this way. It's good to do this when you're nearly finished.

My advisor was the best proofer I ever worked with. He was exacting but not mean about it. He proofed for Master's and PhD students both.

"You are the most important proofreader." - for orthographical or similar mistakes, I disagree with this exactly because, as you write, "some errors can be tough for the author to spot". I usually go as far as telling my students that "You are the least suitable proofreader for your own document. An author never sees his or her own typos." This is an exaggeration, but it serves its purpose in getting students to make the effort and convince someone of proofreading for them.

I'm now reading the Msc dissertation of a friend but being brutally honest in my comments which she happens to like. It does help that I once was an archaeology student myself. But I think that the more people who read your dissertation before you hand it in, the better. The process of writing up a dissertation isn't just about writing it all up. It's also about being able to form up your own opinon, being critical, being able to work together with other folks and work on your own at the same time.

Easy and Rewarding Solution!: First, find a trust worthy class mate who DOES NOT do the simillar dissertation. Second, offer to read his/her dissetation, in exchange he/she read yours. Third, discuss each other dessertation after the reading is done. Fourth, fix your issues. Fifth: repeat if you have more time until you are confident with your dessertation.

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


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Do published papers have to contain original work?
Can I turn my MSc thesis into a paper and can the paper get published if it does not have original work?

Is your thesis not original work? Or are you asking if your published thesis can later be published in a journal?

The "mathematics" tag leads me to think that by "original work" you mean new theorems or at least new proofs of known theorems.  It's entirely possible to publish purely expository papers that do not contain original work in that sense.  Of course, such papers still have to make an intellectual contribution that is not already in the literature. That contribution might, for example,  be an improved arrangement of the material, highlighting connections that were not evident in earlier work.  Or it might be reformulating some known results in a way that facilitated applications.

It's entirely possible to publish purely expository papers... only in the very small number of journals that publish such papers. Also, it's important to note that expository papers will have almost no value to an academic career in math, except in very rare cases of a paper that makes some truly brilliant expository contribution (e.g. a very insightful expository account of Ramanujan's Lost Notebook); a master's thesis will usually not meet that high standard, so aside from the fun of publishing the paper, it will not help you as much as publishing a paper with original research.