Dear Mehran:

I agree that quality is more important than quantity. However, the content of the paper needs to be checked .... is it relevant, vital, innovative, creative, clearly written? These factors lead to writing a professional, strong paper and are essential. ML

Dear Mehran, I have asked a question similar to yours but unfortunately have got few contributions from scholars in RG. I think quality talks more than quantity and numbers.

https://www.researchgate.net/post/How_many_publications_should_an_MA_students_have_to_begin_and_seek_his_her_PhD_studies_or_to_apply_for_scholarship

Dear Mehran:

I agree that quality is more important than quantity. However, the content of the paper needs to be checked .... is it relevant, vital, innovative, creative, clearly written? These factors lead to writing a professional, strong paper and are essential. ML

I am strongly agree with the statement of Dr.Mary Latela "The paper's quality is more important than quantity".

Quality is of course very important but depending on the field of study there would be an expectance of  a number of publications that varies.

But there are other important factors in selecting a phd candidate; his/her project management experience (multi-tasking, time keeping etc.), his/her adaptability to situations, problem solving, being able to work on their own initiative but also as part of a larger team/group, and some behaviourar characteristcs like patience, persistence etc.

Publications is just a part of the decision-making process in my view.

Dear Dr Moraru

Thank you so much for your response

Dear Dr.Latela

Thank you so much for your response

Dear Bahram

Thanks for your attention

Dear Dr. Gopinath

Thank you so much for your response

Dear Dr. Politis

Thank you so much for your response. I mean in the equal condition, one student have 1 or 2 valuable journal paper and another have 10 conference cheap paper. Which one pass the professors selection?

It would be nearly impossible to have everything that i mentioned equal between two candidates; therefore the whole CV would be looked at and compared. In the unlikely case that all is equal, i would personally go for quality.

And to answer another point of your original question, professors may be very busy but at the same time they generally do take the procedure of selecting a phd candidate seriously because they have their reputation to protect by having their name assocoated with a good project and a great researcher. There are of course exceptions to every rule

Thank you so much for your valuable responses.

It depends a lot on the field and on how well the student's papers fit into the professor's area. In some emerging areas, pretty much everything you produce is publishable; in others, you need to work for years to get some significant contribution that is worth publishing.

If the paper is in a different area than the professor's expertise, the paper would likely just count as proof that the student can complete a project and communicate it clearly. The closer the topic of the paper is to the professor's, the more the actual content will count for or against the student. Writing poor/incorrect papers to get a higher count is very risky, as it is likely that someone who is an expert in the field will notice and call them out for it.

In my field, conference papers and technical reports are considered secondary publications and don't count for that much on their own, regardless of the quality. Preprints of papers are quite a bit more valuable, but not as much as peer-reviewed journal papers. The exception is ASME/IEEE conferences and a few other specific ones, which can count as much as actual journal papers (if the conference papers are reviewed and have published proceedings). Many professors in my area don't even bother to attend conferences because it is usually not worth the cost and trouble unless its an ASME/IEEE conference. I've presented at a few non-ASME/IEEE conferences - the primary value was to put out some ideas, get feedback, and practice my public speaking.

You could make the case that students with many conference papers may be more organized and motivated, as well as more experienced with presenting ideas. Regardless of ideas in the papers, perhaps many professors who favor students with many conference papers see an opportunity to have a student with a smaller ramp-up time to producing publications for that professor.