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When being asked, what's the most harmless way to address my past record of leaving Ph.D. program in a different field?
Background
As the title suggest, a year before I'm in the current program I'm in, I left another Ph.D. program in a different field and got a master.
Issues
As for now, I prefer not to talk about it if I don't need to. Most people don't ask and don't care. However sometime a conversation goes certain way where inevitably I have to mention something in the past. For example (X indicates the other person in the conversation),

X: So do you have a master?
fmlin: Um, yes, but in a different field.
X: What was it? Why didn't you continue Ph.D. in that?

or

X: Where did you go for undergraduate? Did you go to graduate school immediately after you finished undergraduate?
fmlin: [A short answer indicates I was once in another Ph.D. program but didn't finished]
X: [Many questions out of curiosity]

The reasons I don't like to discuss my past are
(a). It's a record of dropping out. It sounds bad despite I think I'm not morally wrong.
(b). I believe I was abused by my former advisor and was not treated properly (see my other answers on this site if you want to know some detail). I had confrontations with him, and some other faculties in the same department.
(c). It takes long time to explain (b). and incomplete information on (b). sometime causes people evaluate me negatively.
(d). Discussing these things in the past can never help what I'm doing now.
Questions
So far I only had similar conversations with some fellow students and it's not a big deal. However, sooner or later I'll start meeting potential advisors in my current department. I worry that, if they ask similar questions, these things in the past will make me look bad.
As the title suggest, my question is, if I have to, what's the most harmless way to address my past record of leaving Ph.D. program in a different field? The goal is to not make people suspect I'm a problematic student (and I'm indeed not!) that confronts supervisors for no reason.

Based on the information you provided in the question, I think you should focus on reason (b). You should probably avoid using words like "abuse" or "confrontation", at least in the beginning of the conversation, as they come off as really strong and thus tend to motivate people to question deeper. State that you have had problems with the previous environment (including the adviser and the department) and that it was in the mutual best interest that you continued your career somewhere else. Avoid blaming anyone. If the conversational partner seeks to question further, reveal details to what extent you deem best, but again it is good practice to avoid bad-mouthing your former environment. Stay as objective as possible.
Like you said, most people don't care that much. For those that do care, you can't really stop them from taking it negatively (much as you can't stop anyone from taking anything about you negatively), but you can stay true to yourself, by being honest and objective without bad-mouthing your previous adviser, department, etc.

I like this. In the professional world, you have to live by the fact that you can't change the past, only the future.

Also, there are rarely innocent victims in human relationships. If a potential future advisor probes (I would for sure) be ready to state what part you owned in the conflicts and what you learned about yourself.

Apart from the detailed answer provided by @user3209815, an alternative answer could be

"I felt that my previous environment was not suited for my research. Besides, after much progress I realised that I'd do better in field X within my current environment."

Switching fields isn't entirely uncommon, especially in PhD. The same also goes switching from one grad school to another. There's nothing to feel guilty about in this issue.

If it is a topic you just don't want to discuss, and your interlocutor shouldn't care about, you can just say that you discovered that topic wasn't your cup of tea. If they insist, say that [new topic] is much more interesting for [couple of reasons].
A more truthful answer is that you had disagreements with your advisor on the direction or purpose of the project. That doesn't mean that either of you was at fault, or that there was a culprit in the first place. Don't give much detail, and if they insist on asking, politely say you don't want to talk about it.
If they do have a reason for asking, you can elaborate saying that you found some flaws in the previous work that your professor and you disagreed on its importance and the necessary effort to fix it. But in any case, going from computational chemistry to pure mathematics is a big jump. A bad advisor would explain changing university, not field, and I think this is where you should focus. It is also what would strike people the most.

For those who want to know, simply tell your story, while leaving out as much drama as you can. Simply say while you were doing research in XXX, you became more excited about YYY and decided to continue pursuing that instead. If the topic of your advisor comes up, just say you weren't a good fit for each other.
It's common for students to change focus in graduate work, or for a student and advisor to not be a good match, so don't feel like you have something to hide when you answer.

You care far more than other people do about this reason.
People care about, "will you be able to commit to this program and succeed?" and past experience is an indication about that. Questions about this issue will almost always be indirectly a way to answer that question.
Something like:

"I was doing a PhD for X, but it really wasn't working out. I was having a really hard time being engaged with the program and it was hard for me to feel connected. I'm excited about this opportunity as my previous experience has helped clarify what I am looking for in a PhD program and I believe this program meets the needs."

Flattery (well, honest flattery) goes a long way and if the above is not actually true... they and you yourself probably SHOULD question your motivations for applying.


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Postdoctoral (or tenure-track) positions at ETH and knowledge of local language
At ETH Zurich only undergraduate courses are held in German (graduate courses are in English). There both postdoctoral positions and assistant professorships require a certain teaching load. The job descriptions are fairly detailed, but the following point doesn't seem to be addressed:

Does the postdoctoral positions (or assistant professorship positions)
  at ETH require knowledge of German to teach classes or carry out any other duty? Does English suffice?

The question can be generalized in the following way:

Do European universities with English courses normally require professors to
  know the native language of the country?

(Clearly, I realize that a basic knowledge of the local language may be useful for daily life.)

I have a personal friend who got a postdoc at ETH without any knowledge of German, so I don't think that not knowing German should put you off from applying.

@Flounderer Thanks a lot for the remark. Do you know (or could you ask) more details about your friend's situation (e.g. is he required to learn the basics of German within a certain deadline?) and if your statement applies to professorships too?

my friend was Indian. I think he went there for one or two years and was not required to learn German. He now appears to be in the US. For a professorship, I think you would be required to learn German as per the answer below.

I can tell from my experience as a former Master student of ETH that a lot of the postdocs and PhD students there don't speak German at all.

For postdocs @ ETH:
If this is not said specifically in the job text, you can safely assume that no knowledge of German will be required, although it may or may not count as a plus depending on the PI. There will almost certainly be no statement in your contract that you will need to learn German within a time frame, as postdocs are not "career" positions in the first place (and neither are they particularly teaching oriented, which is the only place where ETH potentially cares about you speaking German).
For professors @ ETH:
Unlike most other European universities, ETH is actually fairly international. I would be surprised if all of the faculty from around the world teaching there speaks German, although many that I know do (as you say, learning the local language is generally helpful if you stay in a foreign country for a longer period of time). German language skills will almost certainly not be required at time of appointment, but it may become part of your contract that you are obliged to be able to teach in German within a given number of years. This requirement may be negotiable, with the main concern from ETH's side being that this would limit what courses you will be able to teach. However, honestly, I would not worry about this too much at this stage.
For other European universities:
As usual, customs vary a lot across other European universities. For instance, I have seen announcements for German universities where PhD students were required to be able to speak German. That being said, the rules from above are good guesses in the absence of contradicting further information - don't worry about it for postdocs (unless the announcement specifically says that you need to speak the local language), and don't worry too much for faculty positions, but be prepared that you may be obliged to learn the local language.

The general rule is that you need to be willing to learn the language within a certain period of time, such as 2 years. (Short-term) postdoctoral positions with teaching responsibilities may be exceptions, depending on local custom (e.g. if undergraduates can be assumed to understand English).

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What is the role of a teacher (of mathematics) at university?
Until now I've been completely focussed on research. I did serve as teaching assistant on some occasions, but I must honestly admit that I didn't give it much thought and my only concerns have been:

being clear and detailed (and slightly slow) in explanations;
being available for further clarifications;
being fair (and not particularly harsh) in evaluations.

These are, I guess, the characteristics that I value the most in a teacher. However, now, teaching will be a more prominent part of my career (although not at all the most prominent) and I will be assumed to have a sound "teaching philosophy". So I'd like to ask to experienced faculty (and also to students):

What is the role of a teacher of mathematics at university level?
What are the traits that are most commonly associated to good teachers? Should I read some research papers on pedagogy to find answers the question above and prepare myself to be a better teacher (and in the future also a good advisor and mentor)? Which ones do you suggest?
What research papers on pedagogy can I read in order to develop a "scientifically sound" point of view when it comes to grading, course design, presenting to students, solving exercises in class, and other aspects of a teacher's life?

I prefer to post this question here rather than on Mathematics Educators Stack Exchange because I really welcome remarks and answers from scholars (and students) working in other fieds too.

Not sure if this is more suitable for math educators stack exchange.

@fmlin I prefer to post it here because I'd like to have some opinions from scholars in other fieds too. And that's why I used brackets in the title of the question.

If you're looking for research then Math Educators is exactly the place you should ask - such research is what they do for a living. Here I suspect you will mainly get opinion and anecdote.

@NateEldredge Indeed, I welcome personal opinions and anecdotes. If you can suggest some research papers to back them up, that's a plus. I'll probably ask a different (more "reference-request-oriented") question on Math Educators in the future.

Unfortunately, most students only expect a good grade like a high-distinction from a teacher. A good teacher would be the one who gives our marks easily.

@StudentT, I hope those students will realize that "easy marks" aren't what they should look for.

Like you describe, I spent my time through to the end of my post-doc position focusing heavily on reseach, and in teaching thinking about the sorts of things you list. I have spent the year-and-a-half since then looking for answers to your question. I don't think I have learned everything I need to yet, but unless you are teaching top students I believe that the things you list are really not sufficient to teach mathematics well at undergraduate level, if you want to achieve anything beyond rote memorization.
One good source I suggest for starting to understand relevant issues is Ideas from mathematics Education by Alcock and Simpson (it's based on UK teaching, but the concepts are pretty applicable anywhere). It helps to describe something of how undergraduate mathematics look to students, which is very different to how you are likely to see it as a research mathematician.
Another book I have been finding helpful is Mathematics Teaching Practice by John Mason. It has lots of specific ideas for different aspects of mathematics teaching, as well as more general theory.
Although education literature for other disciplines can be helpful, I would advise focusing on the mathematics literature first, as many of the things considered good practice in other subjects do not translate well to mathematics.
In terms of what things you need to think about, here are a couple of ideas I've come across so far:

definitions:

Students generally do not understand the role of definitions in mathematics because it differs from how definitions function in society. Many will focus on their intuitive idea of an object, thinking this is enough to get by, without noticing when they are likely to fall into traps. However, they are on the whole not very good at building this intuition themselves, so need you to guide them through concrete examples. They are also likely to not identify what aspects of examples are general and which are specific to the case at hand.
Others will work just from the string of mathematical symbols in a definition. This means they don't necessarily have the understanding needed to identify when they have written the definition down wrong.
The students who do best are those who manage to link the intuition with the formal definition and combine the advantages of each.

reading:

Initially students are very poor at reading mathematics. They tend to focus on the mathematical symbols, and ignore the logic. They are also prone to thinking that being able to read something is the same as understanding it, and so will often prefer to read the answer rather than work at finding it themselves.

the nature of mathematics:

Many students who arrive at university, at least in the UK, are used to mathematics as the practice of applying prescribed algorithms to numbers, resulting in the correct answer. The change in aim at university can come as a(n unwelcome) shock, or can pass them by so that they are trying to achieve something very different to what you are trying to teach them.

methods of learning:

What students like best and what helps students learn do not always coincide.

Thank you! I find your remarks very useful; also, I've skimmed the books you cited, and they seem quite interesting.

I'm a student. I have always wanted to be a researcher/scientist cum professor all my life. The following are the qualities I would like to be instilled in me (and a few which didn't turn out the way I expected from a teacher) as a teacher at a university level. Note that some of the points are applicable for teachers in general and some specifically for math teachers.
(The following are in no order of preference)

One of the most important things that a teacher must do is to use the blackboard and more than you use a powerpoint. There is some kind of magic related to using the board for math. One of my professors used to use powerpoints for his classes, and most of the time students (including me) fell asleep.
If in case you do want or have to use powerpoints, then make sure to create animations like the ones here. One of the fascinating things about those animations is how perfectly it fits to capture a person's attention.
Encourage students to use online resources like OCW MIT. When I was in my university (graduated this year), neither did I have internet connection, nor was I aware of such a resource online. Encourage and suggest MOOCs from Coursera, edX, etc. which might be relevant to your course. It is not necessary that they should register/complete every single course or resource. Give them two or three options and ask them to pick one.
Make it an active class. And make it fun too. I learnt a lot from Gilbert Strang and Mehran Sahami. Be enthusiastic in class, that will help students get out of their tiredness. You can also toss out chocolates like Sahami does when students answer/ask questions.
Solve problems in class - either all types of the same level (easy/medium/hard) or one type with all the levels, going from the easiest to the hardest. The point is to make sure they understand the problem solving process. In addition, solve example problems from the textbook or handout and for every example problem, give them a problem to solve either in class or as an ungraded homework. This makes sure they are actually doing something in a math class rather than just trying to consume the knowledge passively.
Make sure the subject you're taking can be related to other majors and fields. Most of the technical subjects have some variation of mathematics being used in them. Take Calculus. It is used everywhere, even when we think we don't need it. I always thought it was used only in continuous domains, mostly in physics and not at all in any other fields. I was mistaken. You don't have to make this a mainstream for your class. Maybe as an ungraded homework or just a casual mention when the relevant topic comes up is enough to keep the spark up.
Go a bit beyond the syllabus. I know this will be hard, but, just a bit will be enough. It may involve deeper concepts, real world applications, etc. That is up to you to choose. Personally, I have always found it beneficial for me to learn a bit more than what is needed so that I won't be caught off guard during exams. This also helps students if they wished to pursue higher levels of the course possibly leading to research.
Have a review class before exams. Walter Lewin's lectures had reviews for midterm and the finals. It sort of helps to review everything in class rather than spending extra time apart from the newer material to be learnt the day before exams.
Inform students exactly how many hours they'd need to spend on an avg outside class. I wound up with terrible time management because I had no idea how to allot the required time for each course. This led me to focus on subjects I loved and got better grades and subjects I didn't find interesting for which I didn't spend time - and I flunked in them. Huge mistake.
Use standard textbooks, especially the ones which have 4 and above ratings on amazon. Ask students if they liked a different textbook, and if it is a better suited one, then switch. Don't use textbooks which you find personally attractive.
If it is not a problem with your university rules, make sure attendance isn't compulsory. There will be at least one or two students who might find attending lectures boring. To counter that effect, make sure you deliver incredible lectures that makes students feel want to attend rather than have to attend. In my university 80% was mandatory and I found it a huge waste of time for most of my classes.
Make sure problem sets contain all levels of problems. It helps students to practice properly. This increases confidence. In addition, don't pick problems from the prescribed textbook. Just pick another textbook and give them the problems to solve. For math, I'm sure there are numerous books and resources online.
Identify the distribution of students in your class. There will be one/two/a few gifted students in your class. Maybe conduct a simple quiz at the end of week 1 or 2 to find out who they are. (I find it hard to explain it in words) As a teacher, you will know who these people are. Now, chances are that they might be bored if the class feels too easy. In this case, add extension problems which are very very challenging. These can be ungraded, but interesting to solve. These gifted students will always go out of their way to solve them. This ensures that their skills don't rust away with time. Another horrible experience of mine.
Rehearse for every class you take, fully. Practice. If it is a 50 min lecture, give a 50 min lecture to the empty hall. Walter Lewin used to do this for every lecture he gave (he quoted in an interview somewhere on OCW or YouTube, not sure where).

These are the ones off the top of my head. Hopefully, these are enough.

Thanks for taking the time to write out your answer. There are many good points worth considering in it.

However, I'd like to share some personal opinions on some remarks you made:

(1) "Be enthusiastic in class, that will help students get out of their tiredness. You can also toss out chocolates like Sahami does when students answer/ask questions." -- I try my best to pass on a deep interest in learning and doing research in mathematics; personally, I love chocolate, but I don't think this kind of attention-grabbing techniques would be very useful in this setting. After all, I'm teaching at graduate school, not grade school.

(2) "Use standard textbooks, especially the ones which have 4 and above ratings on amazon. Ask students if they liked a different textbook, and if it is a better suited one, then switch. Don't use textbooks which you find personally attractive." -- Indeed, I really love when students show proactivity and try to find good material on their own to further their knowledge; and I surely take such material into consideration (if I didn't already). However, I think the teacher should be the one to select the book best suited for the course based on different criteria from Amazon ratings.

@Akio Of course. I completely agree with your perspective too.
(1) It depends from person to person. You are free to do whichever you feel is proper for the graduate school setting.
(2) Yes. When it comes to content, please do select the book best suited. No questions asked. At the same time, students must be able to grasp from the textbook in case they miss a lecture for some reason. It shouldn't be the case where one is exclusive of the other. Both textbook and the lectures must be complementary.
I'm still a student, you're a teacher at grad school. These are just suggestions...

... You'll have more experience than I have (obviously) in teaching and research. Its easier if you could put yourself in the students' shoes and see what they expect. And you know what you have to give. Ultimately, it'll come down to what is needed.

Use standard textbooks — What's a "textbook"?

Bravo.  A wonderful answer to a much too broad question.

@JeffE The opposite of a picture book.

There are some good points made in this answer (+1). Having said that ... — Its easier if you could put yourself in the students' shoes and see what they expect. And you know what you have to give. Ultimately, it'll come down to what is needed. — The only problem is that instructors are not obligated to give students what they expect; some students expect ridiculous things. And, yes, it boils down to what is needed, but students don't always know what they need, either.

While your suggestions are (mostly) laudable, if you were actually trying to teach a course along with all the other work you have to do, I think you'd find this is unmanageable. For example, you might only be given an hour to prepare for a 50 min lecture. It is not possible to do that in 10 mins to give you 50 mins left to 'rehearse'. Simply writing the lectures and the assessments will often take at least as much time as you have available.

Also, it is not true that there are lots of questions out there you can steal, once you get past the lower level courses, particularly in pure maths. The ones you can look up are usually prone to being solved by Wolfram Alpha, so are also not great. It's also not at all easy to tell what 'level' some questions are, unless you construct them yourself.

As a student (of courses in mathematics) I really most enjoyed when the teacher had good pedagogical skills - being able to give "Ahaa" moments in their explanations when stuck on a problem and actually "see the connections" between the theory from the lectures and the workbook problems to solve. This can of course be achieved in several ways - drawing good parallels, by showing other well-chosen examples which aid the bottom-line understanding. I have not taken any courses on pedagogy but perhaps try to find out how countries with working educational systems do. Finland is one example of such.
A pedagogue should know and have true interest in optimizing the exchange of knowledge and understanding from lectures/classes to students. I am sure there are tons of material on techniques for memorization/understanding/maintaining or planting seeds of enthusiasm and learning interest/cognitive theories etc. Sometimes the solutions are simple, sometimes not, but let me bring an example:
The brain (especially a tired student's one) needs to be activated to actually learn/understand and create new neuron connections). There are many ways this can be achieved, but keep in mind /why/ I remembered the following:
We had a lecturer who, when some really important concept to understand and remember was about to be explained, brought out an arsenal of different tricks. One time he had a bike with the steering wheel connected to the back wheel which everyone who dared could try during the break and which the lecturer himself tried out several times. Yes, people sat up straight, started laughing and they immediately had the focus on the lecturer and the bike. That focus then remained for 10-15min, enough time for him to present the very important concept he had in mind. And I had no trouble remembering or understanding it, because the brain is associative and every event and data which is presented before us while something out-of-the-ordinary happens will have /much/ greater chances to be remembered - that info might be important, so that's why the brain tries to suck it up and absorb like a sponge.
Do not make the classes too monotonic. People cannot keep their concentration for too long anyway (there is much research done at this point too) and it is very enjoyable for the brain to alternate the way it learns. Like, reading theory for a while, then watching a video clip where more is explained and shown in a multi-media fashion, then the teacher may continue on the problem on the board etc.
The bottom line: Just sitting in the same way doing math is great at some times (like when at home in the kitchen with a large cup of tea, with no crowds of people walking about etc so that you can really concentrate for hours) but at the University class where you actually have access to a teacher for help, that time should be used with care to address the ways people learn and avoid the pitfalls which make their brains ignore new incoming information.
Most importantly I think that teachers and lecturers should have a deeper level of communication and both should be well-informed of what was said and done on teh lecture as well as the mathematics class afterwards. This is something I really missed when studying (not too many years ago, got my degree in 2011). It really seemed that way too often "the left hand/right part of brain did not know what the right hand/left part of brain was up to" at the University. Poor intercommunication between lecturers/teachers/students, low level of feedback possibilities from students and student rarely had any non-imaginary possibility to influence the course - it was always like "thanks for your feedback (if any), we will try to address this for the upcoming years.." Yay :/
Another problem that I often scratched my head about was that every lecturer/teacher (especially lecturer) always thought that their course /was the most important course and the only course (worth to concentrate on) for the students. While in fact as a student you probably have three or four simultaneous courses and all are equally important. Basically, attitude. Attitude does a whole lot!
When I had to go to the lecture where I knew that the lecturer enjoyed tormenting the students instead of working /with/ them, I had a completely negative setting in the brain even before the class/lecture...affecting the knowledge exchange very negatively of course.
The above are just feedback, "a student's diary" if you will, from IRL and not anything I have looked up officially or anything like that.

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Will a spent criminal conviction affect my chances of getting a funded PhD position?
I am in my third year of a Mathematics degree (UK). Where a masters is concerned, It seems like I only have to declare unspent convictions. But it is not clear where research positions are concerned.
It is spent now, has been for 12 months. I had 50 hours community service for the crime (Not a custodial sentence).
The research I would be interested in doing would be in either Applied Mathematics(Physical fields) or Computer Science. I feel ill whenever I talk about it.
The offence was an assault. I pressed charges, so did he.
Also I am interested in UK/Euro universities, not America.
Could anyone shed some light on this? maybe someone who may have applied for research positions in these fields?
If this is the wrong place to ask this question then please say so I can remove it.

What kind of offense are we talking about? There have been several similar previous questions (e.g. this one and a few others in the [tag:legal-issues] tag.) Please read them and then [edit] your post to highlight what (if anything) makes your situation substantially different.

I have edited, the offence was assault. A little more serious and relevant than a petty possession charge. Also I am interested in UK/Euro universities.

There was a similar question here about a marijuana arrest in the US, and the answer was that there's no general rule, and it often requires advice from a lawyer. I expect UK/EU to be more uniform, but still I think this requires consulting a lawyer.

I have a friend who's wrapping up a STEM PhD at a reputable program in the US who has a felony DUI from his undergrad days. In his case, he turned his life around after the address, with tangible evidence to support that. Nevertheless, he said it was a conversation with all of the programs to which he applied. Moral of the story: it definitely doesn't help, but being forthcoming about, so long as you frame it correctly, shouldn't prevent you from being judged on your other merits.

Thats for the comments guys!

Yes, as a criminal you should never be allowed to come back to the society.

I shall keep that in mind!

It appears that in the UK, they must state on the application form that they are exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, if they are; if they are exempt, you have to declare the conviction, and otherwise you don't. The probability that a PhD position would be exempt is low. This document provides extensive discussion of "spent" convictions under Irish law, indicating that if asked, you must tell (Ireland appears to be the only member of the EU without some analog of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act).

"The probability that a PhD position would be exempt is low." Things are looking up. I just want to move on now. Thanks for the answer.

I do not know about the legal situation, but from my experience from hiring and scholarship committees I would say that everything not affecting your work at university has little influence on your chances. So a pub fight gotten out of control or an excessive reaction to some perceived provocation would be no problem, theft of university equipment or sexual harassment would be a problem. In any case, not being open about whatever you did will bring you into trouble. Academia is a small world, chances are that I meet someone who knows you next time I come to England. Rumors do spread, and are usually far worse than the truth.


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My work was submitted by collaborators without my name, and the university supports them. What are my options?
I have collaborated and written several research papers where my co-authors withheld the final draft and submitted the paper without my name as co-author. Two papers have single authors (not me) and a third paper has three authors (one of whom was not even on the research team when I conceptualised the research and analysed the data). The explanation for excluding me as author is that I did not meet the third criterion of the Vancouver protocol (final approval of the version to be published).  The university supported this cheating because it follows the letter of the law.  I have analysed data for a fourth paper which my collaborator has not yet published as her own.  However, she is one of the single authors mentioned above, so my guess is that she will publish this as her work too.  I no longer work at that department. What should I do?
I was never given a chance to review the final drafts of the manuscripts.  They were submitted behind my back.

It's not clear what you're asking for. Do you want to retroactively be named as author on the already published papers? Do you want to ensure that this fourth paper isn't published without you? Something else?

Have you read these other posts and their answers: My research work stolen and published as his own by the co-author without my consent, My work was published and my name was nowhere to be found: how should I handle this?,

(continued) What to do when principal investigator publishes your work without putting you down as a coauthor? - even if not exactly the same situation, I suspect any of the possible actions you might take will already be enumerated among the answers to those.

Thank you for these very quick replies and links.  My problem is a bit different because I have gone to the university and they say I don't have a leg to stand on because I did not approve the final draft (criterion 3).  This is correct.  I did not approve the final draft.  Is having it withheld from me sufficient reason to go to a journal and get a notation put on the paper?  Do I send drafts to the journals to support my case and leave it to them to decide?  Is it appropriate to write to the author of my 4th manuscript and remind her to include me?  What tone is appropriate?

You might want to consider this discussion of authorship by ICMJE, the statement of interest being that

The criteria are not intended for use as a means to disqualify
  colleagues from authorship who otherwise meet authorship criteria by
  denying them the opportunity to meet criterion #s 2 or 3. Therefore,
  all individuals who meet the first criterion should have the
  opportunity to participate in the review, drafting, and final approval
  of the manuscript.

So if you made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work, then you should have been given the opportunity to meet the third criterion. If indeed your colleagues just hijacked the work, there is a clear argument to be made that this is a violation of an ethical principle (depending on whether there are other material details that we don't know of).

I know a PhD candidate that had the same issue with one co-author (the supervisor). Right after the paper was submitted without consent, the candidate sent an email to the journal editors and they rejected the paper based on evidence and for the sake of doubt. They asked the supervisor to re-submit the paper with signed declarations by all the authors and contribution declarations. At the end, the supervisor recognized that the paper was submitted without consent and the paper re-submitted with a new approved version.

It is not clear from your question whether you were denied the chance to review and potentially approve the manuscript for submission, or you did review the manuscript but did not approve of the decision to submit the paper. If it is the second case, then there is, in my understanding, very little chance for you to make a case for your authorship, since you voluntarily gave up your authorship right. Depending on the particulars of your case, it may be argued that the collaborator should have delayed publication until a consensus has been reached after additional revision. But again, it is unclear from your question whether this option has been explored appropriately. However, if it is the first case, the reason given by your collaborator sounds dubious - if you do not have a chance to review the manuscript, how can you possibly approve the manuscript? In this case you should consult the previous questions and answers suggested by @ff524.

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


text:
Is a Polish PhD degree in engineering equally respected in North America?
Is a Polish PhD degree in engineering equally revered as a North American degree (i.e., from Canada or USA) in the area of academia and job-market?

In the job market, depending on the engineering specialty, you may have difficulty getting a license to practice, for instance, as a civil engineer. Each state will have different licensing requirements.

In academia, in addition to the degree they will consider your thesis (and other publications) and your recommendations.  They will not care where your PhD was obtained.

No, it generally wouldn't be as revered. If you look at the university ranking systems, Polish institutions are generally not as  well ranked, or regarded as North American institutions. This is also true if you look at the specific rating given for the quality of engineering education within these universities. For example, see:
http://www.topuniversities.com/qs-world-university-rankings
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings

But would it be as well regarded as an equivalently ranked North American institution?

Yes probably - if the person in question already knows the ranking of both the Polish institution and North American Institution. However, outside of Poland and eastern Europe people will generally be more familiar with North American institutions than Polish institutions. If I get a degree in Yale then I can probably get by with that degree anywhere in the world as the reputation is global. On the other-hand, if I have the same degree from Poland university (which is actually equally well ranked but no-one knows) it will be quite a lot hard for me to get the same benefit from it.

It is equivalent, in the sense that a PhD from Yale and MIT are "equivalent" (but, depending on department, not equivalently revered).

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text:
Someone plagiarised my entire paper. What should I do now?
I am a high school student who published some academic. Today, I saw a paper which looked quite similar to a paper that I published back in May. I was shocked to notice that the author of that paper had plagiarised my entire paper verbatim. He went as far as saying that his results were novel and found out all by him and his co-author.
Now, this paper was published in a junk journal. I am worried because, although I do not want to pursue a career in academia, these papers mean a lot to me as I have worked so hard on them. Moreover, I believe that they can play a major role in securing me admissions at graduate college in the years to come.
I have already notified the journal but I doubt that I will get a reply. Could you please let me know the further steps to be taken too?
Thank you for your time.

Where was your paper plagiarized from? Did you publish it in a journal? On arXiv? Somewhere else? In order to answer your question it's important to know whether and how you can establish that it was you who wrote the paper and the other person who plagiarized it, rather than the other way around.

Dan, it was published on Arxiv. Rest assured, I can fully establish the fact that I was the one who was the original author. I'm looking for advice regarding the steps to be taken now, as I only found out about it today and to be honest, I never really thought that something like this could happen.

When you published your paper did the process include some transfer of your copyright to the publisher? If it did you might find that your publisher wants to actively persue this without much input needed from you.

This matter is serious, but you should not be too worried to be harmed for college admission. I don't even see why the colleges would notice the plagiarizing paper, and if they did they would certainly understand what happened given the respective dates of publication. You may want to mention your arXiv preprint to ensure there cannot be any doubt on your priority, without even having to mention the plagiarism.

The authors admitted to plagiarizing my paper and the journal will be taking the paper down in a while (or so I have been told). I will also be contacting their institution tomorrow and informing about this. But I am glad that this situation was resolved swiftly. Thank you all for your help

Many problems described on this site don't have such happy endings, so hearing your update makes me really happy. Thanks for sharing.

@Mega_Noob Sorry, I may have come across more rudely than intended. I meant to say, you are past the point of worrying about ethics at this point: they are clearly in the wrong. Decisive action is indicated now -- but then, you are past that as well!

@Raphael No issues! I'm always open to constructive criticism. I have already edited the tags. I hope that there is nothing wrong now

What great news! I would also suggest that your mature and respectful approach also played a part in this successful resolution - this has made my day to read about this resolution!

You may also want to contact the original publishers of your paper to let them know the situation.  Technically, they are also damaged by this plagiarism (and possible copyright infringement) and they have a bigger club than you do.

@RBarryYoung Except the paper was only published on ArXiv, so the author doesn't have the weight of a publisher behind him.

"I would want to stay away from taking legal action [...] and use it only as a last resort." Legal action is almost certainly infeasible. I'm assuming the plagiarists and their publisher are in a different country to you. In that case, suing them will be infeasibly expensive.

Could you post the arxiv link to your papers? I would be interested in reading them!

@1110101001 I do not want to reveal my identity on this website. Sorry, but If there's any other way of contacting you,I might send you the links to my papers.

If you have a reddit account you can pm me there reddit.com/user/1110101001 (or if you would rather not use your personal reddit account, you could create a new one as I did)

@1110101001 I'll let you know by PM should I decide to share the papers. Thank you for showing interest in my work.

A final update. They removed the paper. I'm glad that the issue was resolved swiftly. Thank you all for your help

I am a high school student who has worked on multiple (well, 4 to be
  exact) pure math and CS papers. All of them deal with fairly
  significant problems, so some of them have been published by now too.

Wow. That's awesome!

Today, I saw a paper which looked quite similar to a paper that I
  published back in May. I was shocked to notice that the author of that
  paper had plagiarised my entire paper verbatim. [...] I am worried because [...] these papers
  mean a lot to me as I have worked so hard on them.

Yes, of course. Trust me, there is no one who has ever written a serious paper who isn't just as emotionally invested in it as you are in your own papers, so we understand. I personally discovered only a few weeks ago that some loser plagiarized some of my work and submitted it as his own (not to a journal but as a final project for a university class, fortunately), so I know quite what an annoying and hurtful feeling it is, even though in my particular case this action does not threaten me in any way.

I have already notified the journal but I doubt that I will get a
  reply. Could you please let me know the further steps to be taken too?

I agree with your assessment. Junk journals, like the people who publish in them, have no ethics, they are predatory entities usually based in corrupt and lawless countries. The "editor" is most likely a nephew of someone at the criminal or semi-legal enterprise that set up this journal.
As for what you should do, there aren't that many options that do not involve legal action of some sort. Basically, you should try to discredit the journal and the plagiarist (who are both complicit in this misconduct), and shame them into removing the plagiarized paper from the web, by contacting:

The department chair and other administrators (dean, ethics committee, ombudsperson) at the plagiarist's institution. Note that chances are this institution may itself be a very low-quality, poorly ranked and possibly corrupt institution in a less-than-developed country, so it is just as uncertain that your complaint will lead somewhere as in the case of complaining to the journal; but regardless, it certainly won't hurt to try.
Any journal indexing service or other similar entity that gives credibility to academic journals by including them on lists it compiles, and may not be aware of the scamminess of the journal in question. Here is an example of such a service that I found through Google (which also has a list of excluded journals that apparently it considers disreputable). I do not use such services myself so do not know which ones are important/credible and which ones aren't; perhaps others can comment on this.
Any news media in the country where the journal and/or plagiarist are based who may be interested in this story of academic fraud.
Western bloggers or journalists who are interested in dishonesty and fraud in academia. Again, I'm far from an expert on this so don't have too many specific suggestions, but Retraction Watch is a name that gets thrown around a lot.

At the end of the day, if all of those methods fail, your last resort would be legal action, since the journal and plagiarist author are committing an infringement of your copyright. Even if they are in far away countries, they are probably within the reach of the law, but it would likely be a long and costly battle, and I think you are right to want to avoid taking that route. Good luck, and keep up the good work! I'm sorry you are getting to experience the nasty part of academia at such an early stage before getting a chance to see all the good parts. I am sure this experience will not be representative and will be followed by many more positive ones.

Thank you for your elaborate answer. I wrote the editor an email and I also contacted the authors' institution. The plagiarisers are from my own country, and I have talked to my parents about this too. I'll keep you posted on what happens next

Regarding point #1, I think it could hurt to try, if the institution is in fact corrupt and/or the administrators have loose ethical standards. Especially as a high school student, it's much easier to deal with a single instance of being plagiarized than to deal with multiple tenured faculty holding a grudge against you! So I would have advised getting someone in the field on your side, to give you the go-ahead, before proceeding with step #1. That being said, @Mega_Noob, you probably won't have to worry about that.

Dan, please see the update to the situation in the comments section of the answer by @Ghost. Thank you for your help

Fantastic news, great to hear it (though I would make sure the journal follows up on its promise before popping the champagne...), and you're most welcome.

I would consider 3. and 4. to be a complete waste of time, and 2. to be a dubious use of one's time. If news media wanted to write a story 'Obscure researcher commits plagiarism in order to advance career at unprestigious institution' they could find hundreds of examples in a few minutes searching the web.

@DanRomik Depending on the OP's country of residence it's unlikely that a high-school student could legally pop champagne anyway.

@Daniel I was aware of that, I think I included the champagne comment as a veiled protest against this U.S. style of puritanism. From my point of view if OP is mature enough to write 4 math and CS papers he/she is more than welcome to celebrate in such a fashion.

@DanRomik you might also want to add a link to the Bael's list http://scholarlyoa.com/publishers/ to see if the journal in question is already in the list

@jwg at least in my area the local news people want to help people out with stuff like this.  They aren't going to google for such a low-impact story, but if you've been hurt by it and contact them, they are often willing to try and help you out for free.  News media people aren't necessarily devoid of ethics, you know.  And I've seen this method prove successful for a lot of people who wouldn't have had any other kind of recourse due to a lack of funds/knowledge.

Firstly, congratulations on being able to publish before college - that is a significant achievement.
In regards to your plagiarised paper, I would contact the editor of the journal that you published your article in (not the junk journal), inform them of what you have found and supply the evidence that you have found.

+1. The publisher of the journal in which your paper appeared probably has more resources and incentive than you do to follow up on the matter.

@DanRomik The suggestion was to contact the editor of the journal where the OP published, not the plagiarist.

Thank you for answering. I did that as soon as I found out about it today morning

Do followup here about how your case progressed.

Absolutely, I would be very interested to hear how this works out

Important answer, as such plagiarism issues are the main reason given by (most) publishers to have authors sign a copyright transfer agreement. I would be interested in discovering whether they are up to their claims in such cases.

The authors admitted to plagiarizing my paper and the journal will be taking the paper down in a while (or so I have been told). I will also be contacting their institution tomorrow and informing about this. But I am glad that this situation was resolved swiftly. Thank you all for your help

You are most welcome! and this is great news that this issue is going to be resolved - and well done to you for approaching the issue in a mature manner!

@Mega_Noob If the paper is due to be taken down but it hasn't yet, you should ensure now that you have appropriate screenshots of the journal webpage and that it is saved into the Wayback Machine. These are useful to have around in case anything comes up, or you later on decide to take further action.

@E.P. Thank you for your suggestion. I will do that right away

@Mega_Noob As far as I know, in some countries, a public notary can verify the contents of a webpage. Check the status in your country. The extra bucks for public notary work can be worth it. (They basically take screenshots of the webpage and put their stamps on in.)

@yo' Thank you for your suggestion. I will check out whether that is offered in my country

As Dan Romik notes in a comment, you need to be able document clearly that you have been plagiarized rather than the other way around.
Assuming that you can do so, contacting the journal is a good first step. If your case is well documented, you could also contact the university of those who plagiarized you. You could begin with a letter to the chairman of the department in which the plagiarizing authors are employed.

Great. Let us know what happens...

@Mega_Noob wait a minute.  I thought they plagiarized your entire paper.  Now you are saying there are errors in the plagiarized paper.  Either they were errors in your paper that were plagiarized or they are original errors (or possibly the errors were plagiarized from another paper).

@emory They plagiarized my entire paper (which does not contain errors). I know this because everything is copied verbatim. I'm sorry if you misunderstood something that I wrote above. I probably wrote the errors part in a haste, I know why you seem to have the misunderstanding. Apologies for the same

The authors admitted to plagiarizing my paper and the journal will be taking the paper down in a while (or so I have been told). I will also be contacting their institution tomorrow and informing about this. But I am glad that this situation was resolved swiftly. Thank you all for your help.

@Mega_Noob I am not understanding.  If they copied verbatim from you, then they copied your errors.  Unless they incorporated your work verbatim into a larger piece that contained errors.

@emory errors was a typo in the comment above. My paper did not contain any errors and so didn't theirs, because they copied verbatim from my paper

First of all you have priority. The date of your publication is earlier. Even if the later paper was identical by pure coincidence (however unlikely that is) you still got there first.  Anyone now or in the future who conducts serious research in the area will discover that.
From a peace-of-mind point of view, I suggest you decide precisely what it is that worries you from a practical standpoint. Are you worried that the other person will receive a Fields Medal in your place?  Are you concerned that it will affect your chances of being accepted at the college of your choice?  Whatever the case, avoid being bitter and twisted about it -- that would only make you an unattractive prospect to work with. Always look forward not back. Only when you are very old should you look back with satisfaction at a successful and productive career.

Fields medal

If you build a reputation as a trailblazing mathematician with many results to your name, then that in itself will make people tend to believe you rather than this other person. In any case there will be thorough checks before presenting any awards. If they discover that someone has plagiarised you then this will lower their opinions of the other person and of the other journal.

College admissions

(a) The people examining your application will see that you have several published papers--not just one. (b) They will be aware of the difference between a prestigious journal and a junk one. (c) If they read your paper they will see what others led up to it and, if they are thorough, they will see if anyone has cited your results in later papers. They are less likely to pursue a thorough survey of the field unless they give that task to a grad student. If they do and discover the other paper they will clearly see that your publication date comes first. If they have the slightest thoughts of plagiarism then the dates of publication will clear that up. If they still suspect you then they will quiz you at interview to make sure you understand your own paper. Obviously you will understand it and be able to expand on it if necessary. If the subject of the other paper comes up, you can casually say you saw it and mention the flaws. There's no need to throw accusations around. Simply say "It must have been a coincidence. I was disappointed they didn't find my paper when they did their literature search. I notice they missed a few points that I covered in my paper and there were a few errors, for example ..."  Allow them to draw their own conclusions. If you display a calm forgiving attitude, they will see you as a mature individual who doesn't get snarky around other people's work and therefore someone they want to have around.

Sample conversation (substitute your own words)
Interviewer: Are you aware that #### published a very similar paper on
  the same subject?
You: Yes, I saw that. It was in the xyx journal I believe. I have to
  admit I was a little disappointed they didn't find my work when they did their literature search.
Interviewer: What did you think of the other paper?
You: Well I noticed that they missed the result that ######  implies %%%%%%%.  Also there seemed to be a couple of errors, for example they said that aaaaaaaaaaaaaa whereas I think I can show that bbbbbbbbbbb. Apart from that it covered pretty much the same ground.

P.S.
Before interview, thoroughly review your own paper as well as prior and subsequent papers in the same field  and of course the paper you are complaining about. If they have even the slightest suspicion of you then they will test your knowledge -- that is guaranteed. If you have done this review, all the facts will be at your fingertips and they will see you as someone on top of their game. Avoid criticising the other author -- it makes you look petty. Remember to acknowledge the contributions of the other good authors. That way you will come across as thoughtful, generous and a generally good egg.

Thank you for your valuable advice. The author of the other paper did admit to blatantly copying everything from my paper and they are in the process of taking down the paper. I might have overreacted because it is not something that I have thought about even the slightest, let alone experience it. Apologies for the same.

I'd be surprised if 2b were true for undergraduate admission. They might have a rough idea of the very best journals (e.g., Science) but I'd be surprised if they could distinguish between middling/typical journals and pure junk. However, faculty often review the files for graduate admission and they would probably know.

It would be more important to notify the editor of the journal in which your paper was plagiarized than just the editor of your journal publication (which would also be useful). It is their negligence that lead to the publication of a plagiarized article. The journal authorities should be obliged to do what's necessary as this would risk their reputation.
Date of manuscript submission is the key element to be compared here. Apart from which if your matter involves simulation, you would be having the original codes to reproduce the matter which would also serve as evidence.

The OP stated that the journal that published the plagiarized paper is a junk journal, so it may not have much of a reputation to hurt, and if so will probably not care very much about the complaint.

@DanRomik: Even a 'junk' journal would require some reputation to build or at least to work on. I doubt any editor would happily welcome the legal consequences associated with it.

@ÉbeIsaac (1) Incorporate (2) Publish Junk (3) When Negative Reputation or Legal Consequences Too High, Bankruptcy = Legal Death of Corporation (4) Repeat

Other suggestions have been made that I agree with (notably contact the journal you published in and the journal and publisher the plagiarized paper was published by), but you can also turn to the ethics committee of the EMS (even if you are not an EMS member nor a European resident). In particular, if your first move don't give you the expected result, you should appeal to the ethics committee ; they don't have much legal power (if any at all), but they can have some influence on journals. Ultimately, by issuing statements about such cases they can help clarify which publishers and journal can be called junk -- a good thing and something that can hurt them.

The authors admitted to plagiarizing my paper and the journal will be taking the paper down in a while (or so I have been told). I will also be contacting their institution tomorrow and informing about this. But I am glad that this situation was resolved swiftly. Thank you for your help

Copying your paper without permission of the copyright holder is copyright infringement. If you are the copyright holder, that is if you didn't assign your copyright to the paper that published it legitimately, then all you have to do is to send a DMCA takedown notice to arxiv, and you can be quite sure that the paper will be removed.
However, it is essential that you are the copyright holder. Not the author, but the copyright holder. Which you are unless you signed over the copyright to someone else. You don't have to prove it at this point, but it must be true, because you have to state under penalty of perjury that you are or that you represent the copyright holder of the paper that you think has been copied. Of course if paper that published your paper is the copyright holder, you can just ask them to send this DMCA takedown notice, which they will most likely do, since they don't want papers that they use to sell their journal to be copied.
What will happen is that arXiv will remove the paper and inform the person who put it up there. That person can then give in, or they can inform arXiv that they are the copyright holder (which you know would be a lie). If that happens, you'll have to meet in court. But I doubt that anyone would be so stupid to go to court claiming that they have a copyright on a paper that they just copied.
BTW. That approach wouldn't work if someone truly plagiarises your paper. If I read your paper and then write my own paper copying ever single idea of yours, without any original thought of my own, but rewriting everything in my own words, that would be plagiarism but not copyright infringement.
BTW. If this paper is indeed a copy of yours (not just stealing your results, but stealing your words) then removing it "in a while" is absolutely unacceptable after they receive a DMCA takedown notice. The journal has to remove it immediately or you can sue them for copyright infringement.

The paper is exactly similar to mine (they did not even bother to change the words). I shall read up more about this and take further steps today. Thank you for your suggestion

Sorry but what is "exactly similar"? It's either exactly the same or it is (only) similar. If they didn't bother to change the words, then it is the same, and it is copyright infringement. If parts of your paper can be found unchanged, then it is a "derived work", which is still copyright infringement.

Sorry for the misunderstanding. In this case, it is the former. The paper is exactly similar i.e. they did not change the words too

It sounded to me like it's the original paper that was published on arXiv, not the copy.  So I don't think arXiv can help here.

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


text:
Is it ethical to request the advisor to share the registration fee for submitting a conference paper?
My advisor and I have decided to present some resent research results in a well-known conference, selected based on our discussions. Now the aforementioned joint paper has been accepted and the clock's ticking to consider the payment of the registration. We have never talked about the financial aspect of this process. The cost associated with registration and transportation is quite high, but my advisor has not yet told me anything about any plan to take that into account and there are just a couple of days left until the payment deadline. I am wondering if he assumes that I myself must pay the fee, but I cannot afford the whole cost . If he expects me to pay all of that registration fee, I have to get over finalizing the registration and the conference, at all. In my perspective, the 50-50 code of ethics sounds fair enough.
Is it ethical to talk about such a thing with the advisor?
If so, how would I supposed to explain and handle the case?

We have never talked about the financial aspect of this process - no time like the present.

@ff524: So, how such aspects would be handled, automatically?! How is the fee supposed to be paid?

@Matinking: Supposed to? Preferrably, the university fully pays for it as a part of the travel expenses for the business trip to the conference. But maybe some universities do not do this.

My point was that you should talk to your advisor about it as soon as possible. How else would you find out how financial aspects of publication are handled in your department, but by asking about it? "No time like the present" means something should be done as soon as possible.

I'm voting to close because your question is unclear as it stands.  I can understand your intention well enough to edit into clear, standard English except for your expression "get over".  What do you mean by that?

@aparente001: Am I really such confusing, as you read?! http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Get+over+it

I do understand the phrase "get over it," but I'm sorry, I don't understand your use of the expression.  Do you mean: I have to give up on attending the conference?  I have to finish, or decide about the conference (because of the looming deadline)?  //  By the way, I think you mean so confusing.  And yes, you are.  I frequently have trouble reading your posts.  I don't say this to hurt, but to motivate you to work on your English, because it can be a useful tool for you in many, many ways.

Talk to your advisor, now.  Dealing with funding and finances are a significant part of academic life; they aren't some shameful taboo thing.
Most academics don't pay for professional travel, including conferences, out of their own pockets; often funds are available from your institution, or from any grants that may be funding your project, or from the conference itself.  It's entirely reasonable to ask your advisor about funding sources that might be able to pay the cost for you attending this conference; you should also research possible funding sources yourself.
If funding isn't available, or can't cover the full cost, it's up to you to decide whether you want to spend your own money to go.  If you decide that you can't, that's okay; you just won't go.  I don't think people would see this as stinginess on your part, but rather a misfortune that no other funds were available.
However, by the same token, if your advisor tells you that he doesn't have any funds available to pay, you shouldn't expect him to dip into his own pocket.
Ideas like your  "50/50 split" don't usually come up, unless there are multiple outside funding sources that could pay, and the question is how to apportion the costs between them.

just to supplement the middle paragraph, another potential source of funding is a travel grant from the conference itself.

Strongly agree. Unless the costs for attending are quite low is very rare (in Math in the US) for any attendee or presenter or etc. to pay even a significant part of their expenses. Your area or country may have different customs, but this is normal for us, and you should find out.


text:
To what extent do academic promotions share similarities with promotions in industry?
My question is quite simple. In Industry, you get your job, be productive, get an MBA (in many cases), get into management, etc., etc.,
In academia, you are productive, get your research published, etc, etc.
To what extent are the promotional and "climbing the ladder" procedures similar? How can academics learn from this to get promoted faster?

Answer: Not at all.

The academic equivalent of management is becoming department head, dean, provost, and president of the university (and this is generally treated as a ladder.)

As one of the answers shows, you really need to specify what part of the world you're asking about.  If you do this, I will support the question being open.

They are really not very similar at all.
(This answer describes common structures at US universities.)
There are a number of very significant differences between "promotion" in academia and in industry.

The vast majority of faculty members will be promoted at most twice in their entire career.  Once from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor, and once from Associate Professor to Professor.
Promotions cannot be granted unilaterally by a single manager.  Either of the two promotions mentioned above typically requires something like: a majority (or supermajority) vote of the faculty in the department, the recommendation of the department chair, the approval of a dean and a provost (and maybe a Promotions Committee), and often the university president and the board of trustees.  All of these are required for the promotion to take place.
Promotions cannot be sped up.  University policies usually require a fixed minimum (and sometimes maximum) number of years of service at one rank before being eligible for promotion.  In some cases a candidate may be able to negotiate to adjust these timelines at  the time of hiring, but usually not afterward.
Entering management isn't the "normal" path.  The Professor ranks described above are not really management positions, and the duties of each rank are roughly the same: teach, do research, engage in institutional service.  The most common "management" position for a professor would be department chair, and in many cases this is a fixed-term position, after which the professor resumes their previous duties.  A professor could also try to become a dean; but since this typically means the effective end of their research and teaching career (or at least a drastic reduction or long hiatus), it's not something they do lightly.
Management structures in academia are relatively flat.  A department chair may supervise up to 40-50 tenure-line faculty members or more, and perhaps a larger number of non-tenure-line faculty, postdocs, etc.  A dean may supervise a similar number of departments.  At my medium-sized university, there are only three levels of "middle management" between an ordinary assistant professor and the university president.  As a result, there are relatively few "management" positions available, compared to the number of "rank-and-file" professors.
Universities are to some extent run from the bottom rather than the top.  Significant decisions are often made (or recommended) by vote of the rank-and-file faculty, rather than by an executive; this concept is called "shared governance".  As such, management has less power than they would in a company, and professors don't need to move into management to have some influence on the overall direction of the institution.

As such, the sort of things that are commonly recommended when seeking promotion in business (showing value to the organization, currying favor with management, demonstrating ability to supervise others, etc) are not nearly as effective for advancement within academia.

It also depends a lot on the country and the academic community you're working in.
In the UK for example, once you hold a Lecturership, there are relatively clear criteria for promotion, usually entailing getting grants, publishing in decent journals, supervising PhD students, teaching, etc. The procedures for promotion are relatively transparent here.
In contrast, in Germany there is generally no such thing as a path for academic promotion. You can do a postdoc at a certain university and get stellar results, yet it is usually expected that you find your next higher-level appointment at another institution. Assistant Professor appointments ("Juniorprofessor") sometimes come with a tenure track option, with more or less well specified criteria that may get you a tenured position. But tenure track is still rather the exception than the rule in Germany. The only promotion can be obtained on the Full Professor level (from "W2" to "W3"), and is practically always a matter of negotiation (e.g., if you get an offer from another university).


text:
In what order to list potential future advisors?
In the department form I have to turn in each academic quarter (before I find a thesis advisor), there is a question:

Which faculty members do you consider to be your thesis advisor (in the future)?

Suppose my answer includes four different professors, what’s the right order to list them? Should I list them alphabetically by last name, list them by academic rank, or something else?

Order of preference, perhaps?

I second @BillBarth - order of preference. You could even write that in your answer "In order of preference: A, D, B, and C"

First the ones from Gryffindor; then Hufflepuff; then Ravenclaw. And you don't want to mention the ones from Slytherin.

@JonCuster Can you please turn this comment into an answer so that I can vote it up?

@Jeromy Anglim, thanks for editing the title. That wasn't what exactly I was trying to ask. I was trying to ask without context is there any general rule when I have to list several faculties in order. However I picked a bad example where there is a clear-cut answer.

@Don Romik I know these are from Harry Potter but I don't think I get any inherit message(if any) you want to convey.

@fmlin If you feel your question would be answered more precisely if you ask it differently, I encourage you to do so! (in a separate post, obviously)
That's what we're here for

@Bill Barth, @Jon Custer and @jakebeal said "Order of Preference" (subjective, of course), and requested their comments be written as an answer so that it could be upvoted. I'm happy to oblige!


text:
Etiquette for email asking graduate administrator to contact my reference regarding a deadline extension
I've applied to the University of ....... for fall 2016 graduate admission. The deadline for my references to submit the recommendation letters is December 01.
One of my references is currently extremely busy and has asked me to request the graduate administrator to contact him regarding the reference letter deadline.
I'm trying to think of some way to communicate this to the graduate administrator. Is the following e-mail alright?
Dear .......,
I am a Physics graduate applicant to the University of ....... for fall 2016
entry. My Application Number is ...........

One of my referees, Professor .......... from the University of ..........,
is currently under extenuating circumstances and will not be able to
complete my reference letter in time. He's asked me to contact you regarding
this urgent matter.

I would be grateful if you could contact him at his e-mail address
......@.......... , and also to kindly confirm if you have received this
e-mail.

Yours sincerely,
........

Does the e-mail look proper and ready to be sent?

Looks excellent.

For me, your professor's behavior is strange. Reference letters do not take more than 30 minutes to write even if the student is a very special case...

Are you sure you really mean "extenuating"?

The letter looks fine. However, it seems strange that the professor would involve you to intercede on his behalf in asking for an extension. Surely he can't be that busy! (I disagree with phys_chem_prof on the amount of time needed to write a reference letter. I would estimate writing a convincing letter to take the better part of an afternoon.) Unless this letter is crucial and the grace period asked for is not more than a few days, you may be better off approaching some one else, even at this late date.

He is my thesis advisor and also holds a highly reputable position in my country's physics community, so I think it would be prudent to not approach anyone else, wouldn't you think?

Also, if I may put it bluntly, he's got behavioural issues that are quite well known to all my peers. Would you consider this particular behaviour rude/offensive?

Also, I sent him the invitation first time round on november 15, i sent a reminder three days ago, and called him today again as a reminder. Might that have put him off? (The deadline is on December 01 anyway.)

@failexam. All the more reason to ask for a "fourth opinion" (or fifth or whatever). What are the chances that he will eventually come through for you? I don't know if you are familiar with the TV show "Big Bang Theory", but I would think the chances of getting a letter out of a Sheldon Cooper would be pretty small under the circumstances. Ask someone as a backup, but don't tell your thesis advisor you are cutting him out. That would be a bad idea.

Probably because I do not spend more than 30 minutes per letter, I always send them out on time. :-) Recommendation letters are quite a conventional writing assigment in academe. I do not honestly understand why certain people perceive writing a recommendation letter a serious job which requires much time. The time your professor spent asking for clarification about the deadline and the time he/she will spend reading the university response is enough to type a page of nice text.

To user3697176 and @phys_chem_prof , is reference letter the same as recommendation letter?

One of my references is currently extremely busy and has asked me to request the graduate administrator to contact him regarding the reference letter deadline.
Do not email the department you're applying to -- that would be a waste of time, and would not put you in a good light.
Speak to your advisor (or write to him), saying that you need his advice about something.
Intimate that you contacted the department and were told that the deadline is hard and unyielding, and that the letter has to be submitted by him to the department -- they will not contact him to request the letter.  Say that it's important to you to submit a complete application to this university, and that a recommendation from him would be the most meaningful letter that could be submitted, because he knows your work better than anyone else.  Ask his advice.  Should you write a rough draft for him, to enable him to submit the letter by the deadline?  Would it be better to approach someone else, given that any letter that is received late will not be taken into account?
In other words, politely put the thumbscrews on the guy.

Lying to a recommender (intimating that you contacted the department when you didn't) is just plain stupid. Professors talk with our colleagues all the time. It's very easy to imagine this lie being exposed, and it brings no benefit to lie in this way.

@TomChurch - Let me ask you this -- what do you predict will be the result if the OP writes to the department in the way that the advisor requested?  Do you think the department will contact the advisor?  Even if they do (and I personally give that a 0.01 % chance of occurring), will the advisor then submit the letter by the deadline?  Or let's suppose that what the advisor had in mind was for the department to bend the deadline for him.  What do you think are the chances of them doing that?  And do you think that this way of requesting they bend the deadline is likely to be successful?

@aparente001: What I imagine is that an administrative assistant will respond (to either the student or the recommender) with something like "Sorry, we can't offer an extended deadline, but we aren't likely to review this application immediately after the deadline.  Please send the letter as soon as possible.  If it arrives by the time we need it, that will be fine; otherwise it will hurt the applicant's chances."  Of course it's not clear whether this will help.