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Where to start - writing up a PhD thesis
I am 2 1/2 years in a a part time PhD and really struggling to know where to start with the writing up phase. I have enough research, although this is obviously subject to change, but really don't know where to start...it feels completely overwhelming. Additionally I had to change supervisor recently and my new one is very hands off and always too busy helping people get through their submissions. I am considering that I am not independent enough but I also feel very isolated and unsupported. I have Read many things on "how to write a thesis" but they have not been very useful to me, this may be because my subject areas are cross disciplinary art/science/humanities? Any help or advice gratefully received...

This comment may be deleted as promotion, but I think you should check out my wife Joan Bolker's Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day. Lots of reviews on Amazon.

Step one should definitely be attempting to vitalize your relation with your supervisor.

@EthanBolker It's a relevant resource, and you've disclosed your affiliation. I don't think you're violating the site's self-promotion rules here.

Also, anything written down is better than nothing; you can't edit a blank page.

TLDR:

write one sentence with the main point that you plan to prove beyond reasonable doubt in your dissertation.
Write a list of bullet points and sub-points which are indispensable for you to prove your main point.
Then go through each point and force yourself to write at least 200 words every day within 20-30 minutes. Do not be concerned with pretty words, that is utterly irrelevant at this stage: brainstorm and write anything that comes to mind during this period. Usually the best time to write is to wake up early, turn off phone notifications and write before most of your close ones start waking up. Once you reach the end of the list, start from the beginning, refining, adding and changing what you've already written. Rinse up and repeat.

Note: starting from a table of contents is also fine, as suggested by the previous poster. Just start writing somewhere, and make it a daily indispensable routine. 200 words per day starts to add up very quickly after a few months, even if you will end up rejecting at least 1/3 of what you originally wrote. Use the table of contents, and discuss it with your supervisor in a meeting, then proceed from there.)

There is no way to "efficiently" write a PhD thesis. You are presenting one research result that no one has ever found out before, and there is inevitably going to be some trial and error, failures and successes, until you get it done properly. It is self-defeating to think about "writing smart" or writing only "fully-matured ideas". You cannot actually start to think about your work until you've put your rough ideas on paper, and look at them again a few days later with fresh eyes, or show them to someone else for feedback. Don't rely only on your supervisor for help; try to get your colleagues to read each other's rough work. By talking to them, many times you will find out that an idea, or line of reasoning that you thought was crystal-clear is actually quite fuzzy and messy; at the very least, your colleagues can help you to clarify your arguments (even if they are not experts), and thus their input is often invaluable.
To state the obvious, it is pointless to wait for some magic moment when you can start writing. You should be writing a little bit every single day, at least 200 words, even if it seems like nonsense, or poorly written. That's what later revisions are for. No excuses, no procrastinations, no notifications, no distractions. Secure a daily slot of time only for yourself.
Anything beyond 200 words in 30 minutes per day is a bonus. If you run out of time, write a quick note for yourself to remember what you should write about in tomorrow's slot. Be sure to sleep well every day, go to sleep and wake up at the same time every day, eat properly and do some exercise as well. This will be indispensable to help you psychologically overcome the repetitiveness of writing a dissertation.
You were not particularly specific about your fields of study, but here are some bullet points that would help guide you:

What is the key point (thesis) that you intend to argue/prove beyond reasonable doubt in this dissertation? Write a short "Twitter-length" version, then a longer one.

What are the key sub-points (evidence/arguments) that you need to present in order to prove your thesis? Include only the indispensable ones. Later on, you might be able to add a few non-essential ones, but keep it simple.

What are the key points that previous researchers have argued regarding your topic, and how is your work going to improve upon their work? Which of their points do you agree, disagree and why?

What is the basic background information that you must add to each key point, so that all of the final judges can understand all of your arguments clearly? Since you are doing interdisciplinary work, it is likely that each of the professors will come from a different field. What is obvious for one person is completely unknown to another. Never assume that some background info is "too obvious" to write. Be concise and direct, make sure that all of your readers have the necessary background information at hand to understand the gist of your arguments. Footnotes can help to accommodate some of that info without breaking the flow of your argument.

What are the scientific techniques/methods that you will rely on to prove each argument? Present each of them concisely, and state how reliable they are. What are their advantages and limitations? What is their margin of error?

What are the historical/primary materials that you will rely on to prove your thesis? Who produced/compiled them, when? And how reliable are these sources? On which aspects are we likely to find lies and exaggerations, and on which aspects are we likely to find reliable information? If you are analysing a historical (art) object, how has it been transformed over time until the present?

For each of your arguments, are there alternative explanations? If you are trying to prove something, show not only the evidence that agrees with your hypothesis, but also the evidence that goes against it. If there are two or more possible explanations for a given phenomenon, present all of them to the reader, and then use your best judgement to select one of them, presenting it as a hypothesis (note however that at the very least, your key thesis point should be proved beyond reasonable doubt).

When presenting your arguments, always show how you combine techniques from different disciplines in order to support your reasoning. See if you can use images instead of words to make a certain point clearer, or to make a certain technique easier to understand for a non-expert. Use clear language at all times, so that even non-experts can understand the majority of your arguments. Use difficult terminology only when it is absolutely indispensable.

Make an excel list of all of the quotations/citations that are indispensable for proving your point. Make sure that for each quotation, you have another cell with the detailed bibliographical reference and page number, and add another cell with your comments regarding the quotation (ex: what is this quotation trying to say, and why does it matter for your final arguments?) In fact, you can start writing the dissertation just by writing such "comment" cells, and use them to start building up the main dissertation text.

As you expand and revise the text (and expect to fully revise your whole text a few times if you want to have anything of decent quality!), do not hesitate to remove things that might be interesting, curious, but are not particularly relevant to prove your point; It's alright to add a few extra bits of information here and there, but don't get carried away. If those "bits" start getting too long and are disrupting the flow of your arguments, you must be merciless: cut those parts, and put them in a separate word file, in a folder called "scrapbook". You will have the chance to reuse those ideas for future papers or a full-length book.

At the end, write a text reviewing all of the information that you previously presented, and explain how it all comes together to prove your thesis. Be implacably rigorous in your citations, references and bibliography. Make use of tools such as Zotero to carefully prepare such things.

If there are appendixes that are too lengthy to fit into the main text, or key images that are indispensable for proving a point, it is perhaps best to get them fully finished, organized and prepared before writing the final text.

There is nothing glamorous about writing a PhD. It is a "dirty", repetitive and sometimes tedious job. The point of getting a PhD is not to have some diploma to brag about (although it doesn't hurt); it is to prove to others that you capable of overcoming the mindless daily routine of getting basic research done, and proving your key arguments to people who are not familiar with you or your work.
I hope these points can serve as inspiration to get you to commit to a daily routine. Good luck and work hard (or more importantly, work consistently!).
Note: If you are not sure whether you have enough evidence to prove your points, make a pdf with a concise bullet list of your arguments, send it in advance to your supervisor(s) and request a 15-30 minute meeting with them. Since they are so busy, make it as easy as possible for them to understand your work quickly and provide quick feedback, so that they have time to move to other tasks. Consider rehearsing your main points in advance, so that you don't enter the meeting and start talking about random stuff, which will just be frustrating for everyone and waste precious time. Take detailed notes of the supervisor's/colleagues feedback.

Excellent. Lots of detail. It reminds me of another book: "Write No Matter What: Advice for Academics" (no affiliation, but I did enjoy it) which says some very similar things.

Without plagiarizing, look at the efforts of prior students.  What was their thesis like?  Think of replacing their research with what you have to say.  If they had 7 chapters, try 7 chapters, etc.  Some basics will be in all of your advisor's students dissertation work, for example, all my advisor's students of the time would need to establish what a correlation matrix was and so forth .... So set up the basic structure related to your field.
There are a lot of things that can then be put into that basic structure.  So, write an outline of what you are going to do, with chapter titles and possibly subheadings.
For my field (electrical engineering) there were several scientific / mathematical figures that I needed to have, so start working on those and arranging them if need be.  Adding good captions, and text that describes them, can take one a long way in writing a dissertation.
Keep  your goals in mind:  Make a circle representing the whole thesis, and start filling it in as you complete it, sort of like the thermometer used in some fund-raising efforts.
For a thesis, you both need original work and related it to past work done by others.  So, for the latter, you will need dozens of references, so start writing them out, and that too is an accomplishment.
My thesis was 200 pages long (which was long for the time in my field), some liberal arts ones can be much longer.  Even if it is 500 pages long, if you average one page of work per day, you will be done in less than two years.

Everyone has their own approach. I am a skilled procrastinator, but realize that "tomorrow" is the place where lays 90% of human plans and work. My PhD was in France in the late 90's in applied physics.
I started my PhD by the acknowledgments section. That was an easy 1 page.
After taking some rest, I jumped to the parts I liked the most, the technical and scientific "meat" of my thesis. In practical terms, this meant taking my papers and nicely merging them together.
We are now at at least 10-20 pages - a very good start.
I then did the conclusion section, basically congratulating myself for the great discoveries. We should be at 20 or 25 pages by now.
This was followed by a section my advisor almost fainted at - the discussion of how it could have been better, what is wrong with the thesis, etc. This is normally the work of the reviewers but I wanted to be honest and not hide some issues. Out of the five reviewers, one said that this was unacceptable and wrote more or less the same text I did, and two thanked me for improved vacation time (they were reviewing the thesis in the summer).
We are now at 40 pages or so, time to wrap up.
The introduction was 1 page long - after announcing the general topic (an extension of the title of sorts) I wrote that if one needs some introduction, it is best to read this and that book and come back to the thesis later.
This brings us to about 45 pages total and this is, tadaam, my PhD.
You may have noticed two irritating problems with this approach:

the smart-assness of the author who believes that 45 pages are enough when 150 is expected of such a pit of wisdom (my good friend wrote two tomes). My beloved doctoral advisor (I really, really liked him) told me that thankfully this is my thesis and that I will have to do the belly dancing.
the complete lack of plan when writing the thesis: yes. I was afraid that if I start with a plan (say, the table of contents) I will be scared and leave that to tomorrow.

Writing my thesis was surprisingly fun and rather quick.

which year? which country? which topic? Otherwise it is just a number.
I am rather sure that if academia was full of people like you and your advisor it would be a much better place. Unfortunately, not.

@EarlGrey: I updated the info - you are right, it may be wildly different across areas.

It is always a good idea to start at the beginning, that is the title and the table of contents. This should give you a pretty good idea of what you want to say. Papers you have written can often be added as separate chapters without excessive massaging.

I'm in a similar position - about to start writing just less than 6 months before funding runs out.  I guess the advice would differ depending on your discipline, the expectations from your adviser or institution, your personality and preferences.
Things that might work:

Have a discussion with your adviser and set a deadline for handing something in, e.g. a particular chapter.  Having this commitment might help to focus the mind and get something down, even if it's not great.  Then you review and re-visit the strategy from there.

Work top-down.  What is the overall story or set of contributions?  How will you develop these through your dissertation?  As Oбжорoв says, you could literally start out by putting section titles in and seeing the table of contents grow into a structure that makes sense.  Then you'd break it down into subsections, figures, tables, case-studies etc.

Work bottom-up.  Maybe you've written a conference paper, or produced a particularly interesting result, or you have some notes about a paper you've reviwed and used which could form one subsection of your lit review.  Get these into a document and be prepared to re-write, chop, re-order.  Having something there feels like an achievement and you can keep throwing a few building blocks in there until you step back and start thinking a bit more about the big picture.

Join a writing group.  Many universities have a zoom meeting (or a physical room) set up for 2-3 hrs on a weekly basis where people commit to come and work quietly on a defined writing task - no mobiles, no social media, etc.

Set targets or record progress as a way to motivate yourself.  I made a silly thing to help me keep tack of progress: https://github.com/felixvuo/tex-words-worm.  There are many apps or websites which will help you set a goal and record progress towards it.

Keep speaking to experienced and helpful people.  If your adviser is not very helpful, your uni might have a dedicated writing support facility or some other mentoring opportunity aimed at PhD students.

Look at recent theses accepted by your institution in your field. Hopefully they are openly accessible online - they might give you some inspiration for what you're aiming at.

Good luck in getting started.

Many good answers on writing from scratch. I infer from the question that OP has already some research done and some papers published.
So, step one: Combine the papers together, one paper is one chapter. You might or might not want to use all the papers. On one hand, the more, the better. On the other, if they do not "fit" each other it might be easier to find some common ground, the inherent research question you were actually trying to answer with those papers. (Even if you do not have such a question in mind, your supervisor probably had.)
Step two: Fix the writing, for example, if a single related work chapter is required, pull out the corresponding parts of the papers.
Step three: Think hard. Everything about research question, the actual "hypothesis", etc. from the other answers applies here. (Actually, this should have been step zero.)
Step four: Produce some kind of a plan, how did you answer this question with what you now have in the theses. Write introduction and conclusions based on this understanding.
Step five: Revise. Revise. Revise until you are happy with the whole content. The whole process might take half a year.

A notice on properly conducted research: You should have started with the research question, at the beginning of your PhD. But if you did some research, produced some results, have some papers, but have no idea how to begin a thesis, then use the steps from above.
So, for the completeness, here are the steps the way it should have been done:

Identify research hypothesis.
Plan out the research to be done, put meaningful parts of it into research projects (corresponding to papers). This is the actual table of contents of the main part of your future thesis.
Get the work done, get the papers published, one after another.
Each paper is now a chapter of the thesis.
General formatting adjustments, such as one central related work.
Write introduction and conclusions.
Revise until happy.

Oh, and do yourself a favour. If you are in maths, computer science, physics, probably even chemistry or biology, use LaTeX. There are some tricks to use, so you don't need to learn all the syntax (keyword: markdown). LaTeX is ugly to deal with, at first. During first two weeks you probably won't be able to write a single word, because you are fighting with the layout and the formatting syntax.
But in the end, it will pay up. Firstly, it looks much nicer. Secondly, writing a large, 100+ pages document in Word is a pain. You can write 1000 pages in LaTeX quite in the same manner you write 100. You can also use version control (keyword: git) to track the revisions of your document. In this way, you can go back to a better wording you deleted two weeks ago due to an oversight. You can easily track your progress. You see what has changed between the versions. And, of course, you can use GitHub or GitLab to store the current state somewhere else. Which might be useful if your laptop self-ignites or gets stollen.

Lots of great advice already. I'd like to add that formatting can quickly become very time consuming on a large document like a dissertation. It might pay to learn some of the finer points of your preferred document processor (e.g. Word, LibreOffice Writer, LaTeX, etc) now.
Your university probably has a template for your document processor. Get a copy of that and start messing with it.
Some things you should know how to do (in no particular order). Many or most of these things will be useful even if you leave academia forever:

Use Styles. Most of your text will be in Normal or Default style. But Chapters and Sections should use Chapter and Heading Styles
Use Autonumbering. Chapters, Sections, Equations, Figures can (and should!!) all be autonumbered and if you know how to use these features it will save you a lot of heartache later. Autonumbering for chapter/sections can be especially maddening, but is really helpful.
Learn how to Insert Cross References. Say you want to refer to a Figure number in Chapter 7. You could do it by hand, but that would be a grave mistake. Because there is a 100% chance that your numbers will change and it will be very difficult to go back by hand and accurately change all of your references.
Figure out a system for References/Endnotes. A million years ago when I wrote my dissertation, EndNote( see here and here) was a popular app. These days there are more options, including Zotero (see here and here). Wikipedia has a page on reference managers.

Make backups. If you can buy a bunch of cheap USB sticks, get a 10 pack and give copies to friends, families, partners for safekeeping.
Good luck and keep your chin up. You can do this.

Where to start - writing up a PhD thesis

I am 2 1/2 years in a a part time PhD and really struggling to know where to start with the writing up phase.

I have enough research, although this is obviously subject to change, but really don't know where to start...it feels completely overwhelming.

It sounds to me like you are wanting to start earlier than necessary, and there's nothing wrong with that.
One of the pitfalls many thesis-writers fall into is simply writing too much; too many background chapters or too much literature review (every paper I've ever read that's somewhat related) making their thesis too front-end heavy.
This costs valuable time and may lead to some committee members to simply skim or completely skip reading big chunks of your thesis.
So I always recommend students to build their thesis like a house.

Start with the structure. An outline with enumerated chapters and descriptive chapter titles. If you think each chapter will take two weeks to write, multiply that by 2 and then again by pi. Write those numbers down on your outline and add them up. Ouch! This prevents you from suddenly adding spurious or notional chapters without thinking about the consequences.
Now add descriptive subsection titles to each chapter.
Under each subsection, add notes for what figures (if any) you plan on putting there, and start adding the references you're likely to cite there.

Now you have a structure, a framework, a "map of work" and its associated estimate of how long it will take.
Then do your "interior decoration" one room at a time
You will see that for some parts you are pretty clear what is needed to say, and to include (figures, references) and you can probably start roughing out some text today.
And for others, it's still murky or unclear because the research is incomplete or things may change. Decide on a date when you'll start working on those.
Of course this is a "living document" and will evolve as your research and understanding of the work evolves. But try to be very careful not to add anything to it without taking away something else, because it's so easy to end up with a runaway thesis or "never ending story".

Everyone has a different approach to this, and you must find your own. My own approach tends to be to start at the beginning and keep writing till I get to the end; then go back to the beginning and revise. I will have an outline plan, but it won't be much more than a list of chapter headings and perhaps a paragraph saying what goes in each chapter. I might change the writing order if I can reuse material for some of the content; or I might leave the introduction till last, when I know more clearly what I'm introducing. If I get stuck during the first pass, because I don't know what to say, I'll leave a "TODO" in the text, for example "[TODO: explain here why approach X wasn't feasible]", or "[TODO: citation needed]", or "[TODO: this should probably have been covered in Chap 3]" - the general idea is that by the time you're in the writing phase, everything you want to write should be in your head, and you shouldn't interrupt the flow of the writing process to do more research. The thing I find important is to maintain momentum: once you've started, keep pressing on, don't go back to revise the text, and don't stop to gather information, until you've got to the end.

This is sort of a "bottom-up" approach, as opposed to "top-down".

The way I wrote my thesis (and any associated publications during that time) was to slowly build up a very detailed outline.
This process is mostly relevant for introduction/discussion sections where you're trying to consolidate a lot of external information. In a nutshell:

I started this process very early on, maybe 1 year into my PhD, and each day I was contributing a little bit to the final thesis. That way I always felt like I was making a little bit of progress, without feeling overwhelmed with trying to write 100+ pages in a short amount of time
Whenever I read a research paper, I would write a 1 line summary of the main finding into my outline. This includes the citation to the paper (use a ref manager to help)
Over time, these 1 line summaries will naturally group into relevant/related topics, so I would create sub headers for them
As these sections fill out, it's also useful to write "connecting sentences" that explain how you would transition from one paper/summary/idea into the next. This is probably the most important part
Every few months, take a big picture view of the growing outline and add/remove/rearrange things to help tidy up the structure

After a couple of years of this process, where you're contributing just a little bit each day, you end up with a very detailed "outline" that contains all of your ideas, how they're related to each other, how you will transition from 1 idea to the next, and all of the relevant references. Over time my outline grew to about 25% the size of my final thesis.
The thesis almost writes itself at this point, because you just need to go in and add some proper grammar and flesh things out a bit. The final thesis itself only took about 1-2 weeks to put together, although technically I had been "writing" it for a few years

Many great points, though I'm going to offer something a little different: after you've set out an outline for the main points you need to cover, start with the part are you the most confident about/have you been working on most recently. When you're building that writing habit it will be hugely helpful if you can start with something you feel confident with. If that's the methodology or results chapters, start with those!
Also, starting is one of the hardest parts, but you can absolutely do this.


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Seeking Guidance on Revising a Retraction Decision to a Correction with COPE's Assistance
I recently faced a challenging situation regarding a paper that was retracted for not meeting the quality standards initially expected. However, after reviewing the concerns, I believe that the issues in the paper could have been appropriately addressed through a correction rather than a full retraction.
I'm considering reaching out to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) for support in revising the decision, but I'm unsure of the best approach. Has anyone here worked with COPE in similar circumstances? Would they be able to assist in this kind of situation where a correction might be more suitable than a retraction?
Any experiences, suggestions, or advice on how to proceed with COPE would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you in advance for your help!

What does "not meeting the quality standards initially expected" mean? I've seen plenty of authors who have made ridiculous claims about their papers deserving correction when they should be obviously retracted, so I admit to being quite skeptical when I hear of another...

Is this about Protzko et al.?

How big of a correction would have been needed? Would the main findings have to be corrected? Both aspects are important factors according to the COPE Guidelines for deciding on a retraction over a correction. And, presumably, there is some room for the journal to make a judgement call.

One would think editors would be really in to figuring out the quality of a submitted ms before accepting it.

@Anyon Main finding is same, the data in raw file is in agreement with the published ones however unintended a graphical presentation issue happens , i provided the raw data to confirm the data integrity and the corrected graph to avoid this appearance misleading. Journal said unable to verify the data integrity from raw provide file. I make then a video show that data was taken directly from the raw file not misleading to verify the data integrity however the journals ignore all materials

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what are the conditions that make the status changed from Reviewing Completed to Reviewers Assigned?
I got major revision and the status was under review for the 2 reviewers from 10/7/2024 and go Reviewing Completed in 26/7/2024 but the status become Reviewers Assigned after sometime.
Does that mean it will enter to the reviewing process again ?
Does any delay with the second reviewer so the editor will search for another one ?
I need to know form the experts the conditions that make the status changed from Reviewing Completed to Reviewers Assigned

For this and all such questions, see: https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/55665/75368

i hope to find the answer in the post but i have a specific question in this case and i searched for the answer in the post but couldn't find it

Since that is a canonical question, any answer to this question should be placed there, not here. I hesitate to vote to close as a duplicate as I have too much power in such matters. But, yes, the meaning of "reviewers assigned" is discussed in that question.

@prog: From the proposed duplicate: “Editorial decision: Based on the reviews, the editors decide whether: […] A decision requires further reviews.” This is the case that applies to you. Speculating about the details would be wild guessing and won’t help you. — I need to know […] the conditions that make the status changed from Reviewing Completed to Reviewers Assigned – In all seriousness: Why? How would it help you? Do you need to make a decision based on it? If you can specify that, we may have a useful question.

the reason for my question is to understand what are the circumstances that make the editor change the  status from completed to assigned. Does that mean one of the reviewer reject the paper after major revision or he excused that he couldn't revise it and if that yes how can the reviewing completed then. or does the editor might assign new reviewers to evaluate the revised manuscript.

@prog: the reason for my question is to understand what are the circumstances that make the editor change the status from completed to assigned. – That’s circular. There is a reason why you want to know. For example, you wand to predict the fate of your manuscript (which you cannot). Also that is answered by the duplicate: A decision requires further reviews. There are several reasons for this in turn, but we have no way of knowing, but you might learn them when you eventually receive the reviews.

Review completed means the review was completed. The reviewer finished it and submitted it. The status doesn't say what the recommendation was, but it does say it was finalized.
If your manuscript goes from "review completed" to "reviewers assigned", the most probable explanation is that the editor has decided to get more reviewers. In turn, the most probable reasons for getting more reviewers are 1) divergent reviews, and 2) review(s) submitted was not helpful.
Either way there's nothing to do except wait.

Will the new reviewer review the paper from scratch or will review the comments for the previous reviewers , please

It's usually from scratch. Reviewers don't usually see each other's reviews.

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Will the editor of the issue handle the paper?
I have a question about the handling process for submitting paper to an issue
Will the editor that handle the paper be the the editor of the journal or the issue ?
the statuses are

submitting the paper
got major revisions
submitting the revisions
but got Editor Assigned for two days then Editor invited

Do you mean a special issue, or a normal one?

yes , special issue

Usually for special issues the guest editor(s) of the special issue handles the paper.
Exceptions apply, e.g. if the guest editor submits a paper to their own special issue, then someone else (usually a member of the journal's editorial board) will take over.

I’ve been involved in organising special issues twice; once for a Wiley journal and once for an Elsevier journal. In both cases, there was a team of guest editors handling the issue, and a managing editor assigned to handle the special issue overall. In one case, the managing editor was one of the guest editors who proposed the special issue. In the other case, the managing editor was one of the journal’s regular Associate Editors who was assigned to work with the guest editors.
The steps in both cases were:

Authors submitted papers, tagging the paper as intended for the special issue.
Journal staff or the Chief Editor assigned the paper to the Managing Editor for the special issue (or to one of the other guest editors if there was a conflict of interest, such as a paper submitted from the managing editor’s own research group).
The Managing Editor read the paper and (unless she decided to desk-reject it) assigned the paper to a guest editor (or else handled it herself).
The guest editor or managing editor read the paper, found reviewers, read the reviews when they came in, and made a recommendation (accept, revise or reject).
The Managing Editor read the reviews and the guest editor’s comments, ratified the decision, and notified the authors.
When a revised version of the paper was submitted, the process was repeated, with the same guest editor selected to handle the revision unless unavailable.

This is essentially the same process as for regular issues, but with a Managing Editor in place of a senior Editor and a Guest Editor in place of an Associate Editor.
I’ve also been asked to edit special issues for MDPI journals, who proposed a different approach: in this case, the guest editor’s main role was to propose a theme and solicit papers for a special issue, while journal staff would find reviewers and make recommendations. (I declined these requests).


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Is it ok to mention a research interest with professors outside of your department in a letter of intent?
I am planning on pursuing a ph.d. in mathematics, however, really my research interests often lie in the intersection of mathematics, logic, and theoretical computer science. Thus, in many of the universities I would like to apply to, I do not have very many common research interests with the mathematics faculty, but instead with the computer science or philosophy faculty.
Is it fine to mention that my primary research interests are actually outside the mathematics department in my letters of intent, should I try to word it to sound more like I am simply interested in interdisciplinary collaboration with other departments, or would even that harm my chances of getting accepted?
I suppose another question I have implicitly is: "...Or would it be better for me to apply for a ph.d. in Computer Science instead if the person at the university who most matches my research interests is in the computer science department?", or at least, what other factors should I consider to determine which way I should go (Math, or Computer Science) for a given university?
For what it's worth, my undergraduate degree is in mathematics with a minor in computer science.

I think you've answered your own question.  Other research interests and cross-disciplinary pursuits can be fine (as in, here's my work in math, but I've also done some things in computer science), but if they make it seem like you would be better off in another department... maybe that's the department you should be applying to.

Have you checked whether any of the faculty have more than one appointment, or if they already mentor students from other departments? Depending on the university and subject, the lines between departments and between graduate programs may not be the same.

@BryanKrause, in some cases I have found universities that specifically pride themselves on such interdisciplinary research opportunities, so I'm not as concerned there, but for the other schools I think that's a good idea, thanks!

Do you think it would be appropriate for me to contact a professor before applying to inquire about the possibility of doing interdisciplinary research?

I think if there is a particular professor you are interested in working with, it is totally appropriate to contact them ahead of time (see previous Academia.SE questions if you need guidance). It would be appropriate to ask what types of graduate students they mentored in the past (e.g., to a CS professor: "have you mentioned math PhD students in the past") and if so, which program they think is a better fit for you if you came to their lab - maybe they would see your math background and suggest the coursework of the CS PhD would be a better addition to your training, for example.

"Interdisciplinary" is one thing.  "Not really interested in working with any of the faculty in this department" is quite another.

You don't need to contact the other professors right away, but you could do it now, and at some point before deciding where you're going to go, yes, good idea.
Yes, do check for cross-department affiliation.  Careful with this -- sometimes a department will list Prof. Other-Department on their list of faculty members, but later will hedge that if you try to have Prof. O-D be your official advisor.  If it was just done to inflate your department's faculty list, things could get a little challenging.  This is not necessarily an unresolvable problem, but it could be helpful to ask the department about this sooner rather than later.  Also see if there are one or two faculty members in your target department who could be natural committee members for your thesis committee.
Should you skip all of that and apply to a computer science department instead?  To decide this, consider:

What the PhD exams cover in each department
What teaching assistantships each department has, and what your duties would be
Are there other courses in the target department you'd be interested in taking
Where do you think you'd feel most at home

At the end of this process, you may end up applying for a couple of math or applied math programs and a couple of CS programs.
I looked at your profile and have an additional comment.  A long time ago I was familiar with CS at UW-Madison, which was, and probably still is, strong in theoretical CS, and had lots of TA-ships.  Such a program would have been a reasonable choice, but you would have had to choose one or two additional areas of CS to do an exam in.  That might have been an argument for choosing the math program as your home department.  I'm just mentioning this one as an example of how you might apply the considerations in my proposed list.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


text:
Does applying for FAFSA make a school less likely to offer you funding?
I have applied to a number of Ph.D. programs in mathematics, keeping in mind up until this point that the generally accepted wisdom is: "If you aren't fully funded, don't go."
Now, luckily, I have received full funding (TA position and full tuition waiver) from one university, and I still have five more places I'm waiting to hear back from, but the one funding offer I've gotten so far is from one of my safety schools.
I got accepted into another university that I would much better prefer attending, but without much of a chance of a full funding offer.
Now, I have already taken out significant (~40,000$) student loans for my undergraduate degree, and by no means plan on significantly increasing that to get my Ph.D, but I came to thinking: "What if I got accepted into a really good school, got decent, but not 100% funding, and decided to take out a small loan to attend?" and so I decided I should fill out FAFSA "just in case".
However, now that I am filling out the form, given that it requires you give a list of universities to send your information to before you receive information on how much funding you are eligible for, I wanted to know whether or not supplying this information to the schools I haven't heard back from decreases my chances of getting a tuition waiver or TA position from them, since they see that I already have funding? (which of course I don't want)
So is this a legitimate concern? Or should I go ahead and fill out the FAFSA?

Also, most schools now base their decision on a "need-blind" basis. Which means your ability to pay doesn't influence your ability to be admitted.

In addition to the other posts here that I agree with, if an institution does have any funding that is based on need, they would probably require you to fill out the FAFSA to show your eligibility and need for funds. I am not aware of this coming into play for graduate school, but it is used for undergraduates.

You should not worry about this. First of all you have already applied and usually you are not supposed to add any additional documents to your application. Secondly these information are separate so I doubt one will influence the other. And I wouldn't want to go to a program where they make you pay more to save money.

Let's imagine you attend a program that has offered full funding.  They may not require you to fill out the FAFSA, but if there is any chance you'd be eligible for any external funding of any kind, that would require you to fill out some form or other, you can depend upon it, the department will ask you to fill out the appropriate form.
If you have not been asked to fill out the FAFSA by a particular school, you may omit that school's name from the list.  You can always have a copy sent to an additional school later.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


text:
How much freedom do mathematics ph.d. students usually have in choosing a topic for their thesis in the U.S?
I'm in a bit of a conundrum at the moment, since my real research interests (constructive type theory, proof theory, categorical logic) are only actively studied at a handful of places in the U.S, and for the most part those tend to be top schools.
Thus, I'm wondering if I don't get into one of said schools, would it still be possible for me to write my thesis in one of my areas of interest even if it is not directly related to any of the faculty's research interests? How much leeway do you have there?
For example, if I get into a school that has a good logic group, even if the research interests of the professors there is, say, more in set theory, would I still likely be able to do my thesis on type theory? What about at a school that doesn't even have a solid logic program?

I think the problem is not so much one of lack of freedom in the sense that you will be forbidden to pursue interests outside those of the faculty in your department. It's more that your chances of success in pursuing such interests would be vanishingly small. Essentially it would be a terrible idea and very likely to lead to failure (unless you are super brilliant, but in that case why wouldn't you be accepted to one of the top programs you are actually interested in?), but if you really insist on trying then you'll probably have the "freedom" (of a rather dubious nature) to do so.

There's a good deal of variation.  Sometimes students are assigned a very specific problem ("try to prove this conjecture"), sometimes given a slightly less concrete direction in a narrow range of a field, and some students do pick topics basically on their own.
Some of the variation is based on the individual professor, and some on the student - many, maybe most advisors are willing to give a fair amount of leeway to an exceptionally strong student, and will push more structure on a student who seems slightly weaker (weaker being quite relative).  (For example, I did my thesis in proof theory on a series of problems suggested by my advisor directly extending some of his previous work; my academic twin did a much more independent thesis in model theory on a topic my advisor had never directly worked in.)
So the answer is that you definitely can't count on a set theorist, or especially a non-logician, being willing to supervise a thesis in type theory unless you've communicated about that in advance, but it is sometimes done.  Also, people do occasionally have informal advisors, or even official advisors or co-advisors at other institutions; the logic community is small, so it is conceivable that if you get into a school with a good logic program and are really interested in a different area of logic you could nonetheless be at least partially supervised by someone at a different institution.  But, again, it's risky to count on this happening.

It may be worth commenting that of all active users on this site, Henry is almost certainly the closest one to the question at hand: he is a faculty member working in mathematical logic.


text:
What should I do if my advisor is replacing me with younger, more energetic masters students?
I was working on a project with my PhD advisor that was going kind of slowly.  Now he has hired two masters students to "help" me.  They are better at coding than me and seem a lot more interested in and involved with the project than I am.  What should I do?  This is my only project with my advisor and I think he doesn't think I'm very smart.

Is your work clearly divided?

Step up to the plate and show that you can do it.

It's your only project (AKA PhD thesis) and you're not the most interested in it???

Kind of a fundamental question here: are you not interested in the project because it was assigned to you and it's not quite something in your area of interest, or is it general PhD ennui?

@Earthliŋ No I think he expects us to divide the work among ourselves.

@Broklynite It's partially because I'm taking a lot of classes and partially because I just don't like the project all that much and I'm skeptical of my advisor's approach to it.

It's your PhD.  You have to hunt it down and kill it.  If you don't like the project and/or you don't think the project will succeed, drop it and start another one.  If your advisor doesn't want you to "let" you drop it, find another advisor.

It is time to decide whether to lead or get out of the way. If you choose to get out of the way, you will need to either find a PhD project that does interest you or do something else.
The more interesting and constructive option is to decide to lead. You have presumably spent some time learning the background to the project. The new students do not have that background, but are interested in the project. You should do everything you can to help them succeed. Work with them on deciding what should be coded, bringing your background knowledge to the table. Work with them on turning results into papers. You don't have to code better than them, just make their coding more effective than it would have been without your efforts.

This is curious: how could you have answered given that the question has been put on hold two hours ago? Should we report a bug?

@MassimoOrtolano Maybe a bug. I started writing the answer several hours ago. I finished and posted it a few minutes ago, and forgot to recheck the question so I did not know it had been closed.

So probably if one drafts an answer before a question is put on hold, the system won't reject it. Good to know, let's call it a feature ;-)

I vaguely recall a similar issue on a meta somewhere - there is a window of time built in to the system to account for connectivity issues. Using it to 'get around' a hold was considered a small price to pay versus your half-finished answer disappearing when your wifi glitches.

I think he doesn't think I'm very smart.

More probaby, instead, he just thinks that you're not enough committed to your project. In fact, you write (bold mine):

They are better at coding than me and seem a lot more interested in and involved with the project than I am.

You are a PhD student and this is your project, and you should be the one who boosts the project with work, ideas and enthusiasm: how come that these two students seem a lot more interested in and involved with the project than you?!
So, take the bull by the horns and be the booster of your project. Otherwise, it's time you rethink about your motivation in doing a PhD, about your interest in this specific project, and about your future goals. And talk to your advisor.


text:
Have a job, but might not finish Ph.D. on time.
I have a few irons in the fire as far as jobs go. I have one offer so far and am waiting to hear on a few others. I am working hard to finish up my PhD, but might not have it completely finished by the time the Fall semester starts. That being said, I am optimistic about finishing and have heard encouraging things to that extent from my adviser and other faculty members. How should I broach this subject with schools after I get the job offer? I want to be honest and up front that there is a non-zero chance that I will not finish before the position starts, but I don't want people to second-guess me when I might finish on time. And all of these positions are adjunct/lecturer positions if that matters. I also didn't get a masters on the way to my (eventual) PhD. So when and how should I bring up this subject at least for the school I got the offer for?

Honest and upfront is the way to go. Something as simple as "what happens if I do not finish on time" should cover it.

For industry jobs, finishing writing up after starting work is not uncommon (but hard - you do a full day's work in an unfmailiar job, then go home a work some more). I've seen it happen in postdoc researcher situations as well.  Whether that would be an option in the jobs you're going for is another matter.

Generally, folks who hire PhDs understand that the grad students are, shall we say, optimistic. Certainly anybody who has hired for a post-doc position has seen the schedule slip. Industry may be a little less understanding.  Put, as StrongBad says, keep in close touch.

At my university, at least, there is a clause for the hiring contracts that stipulate that, in the event you don't finish your PhD, you're hired into a position (I forget the title) that basically gives you a year to finish up and then you continue on the tenure track as if you had completed it on time, or you're gone.

If this were a full-time tenure-track position, the answer would likely be different, because in many fields (particularly STEM fields) you'd probably be able to request a "gap year" that you could use to finish up your work and do a short postdoc stint somewhere before beginning your full-time position.
However, as a lecturer or instructor, you don't have nearly enough leverage. You may ask if it's possible to start the position if, for instance, the thesis has been submitted but not defended by your planned start date. But I would get in touch with them as quickly as possible and ask what would be the latest you could get your degree before starting. Then, if you feel you can't make that deadline, try to negotiate (but be aware that it might not work!).


text:
How would you react if a reference book you're reading contains religious undertones?
One reference book I'm reading contains religious undertones in favor of Christianity. In one chapter, for example, the author quoted a biblical verse in support of her claim that the 21st century is the "Asian Century".

What is the question you want to answered?

What do you mean by "in support of"?  I find it hard to believe the book says something like "as predicted in biblical prophecy, the 21st century will be the Asian century."  By contrast, some bible verses have become proverbs in English (for example, a leopard changing his spots, or a house divided against itself) and no longer carry any significant religious baggage.  And of course there's a whole continuum between these extremes.

The same as you do (hopefully) with every other reference: be critical about it and only take it as serious as you think you can.
Or:
What would you do if the book writes "When I threw a coin, it was head, therefore the 21th century seems to be..." ?
Take the parts and conclusions which seem reasonable but, as always, be aware of bullshit.

It largely depends on the institution at which you are studying, and the topic you are studying. If you are studying Engineering at MIT, then I would have severe reservations at the content of the book, and the use of the references. If, however, you are studying theology at Oral Roberts, then there is a clear need to review the book it light of the subject matter.

The subject is History and the institution claims to be non-sectarian.

In that situation, and the book is a required reading, then I would read the book cover to cover. In any assignment based on the book, I would include a caveat, or critical observation, on the religious overtones. I would also report the book to your institutions standards and ethics committee, highlighting the issues, and concerns that you have regarding the text. Include quotations in context.


text:
What are typical examples of 'Reference Misuse' when defined as 'using references to support predetermined arguments rather than illuminate debate'?
A research ethics article recently appeared that described the results of a survey in which academics were asked whether they had participated in various forms of research misconduct. The responses were organized into specific research misconduct memes, such as 'Fabrication', 'Falsification', 'Authorship Abuse', and others. These all had a short generalized description that seemed typical.
However, there was one category whose description baffled me, meaning that I wasn't sure what they were implying (i.e., what is a typical example in general and would there be typical example in my field (physics).
The category was 'Reference misuse'. While I could think of some practices sleazy in physics that might be called reference misuse, I was otherwise feeling ignorant.
So, what standard example(s) should it conjure up in my mind when 'Reference Misuse' is defined  as 'using references to support predetermined arguments rather than illuminate debate'?
(The article that was being summarized the discussed in the blogs is  ”Academic Integrity: Exploring Tensions Between Perception and Practice in the Contemporary University” by Joanna Williams and Dave Roberts. It is published by the Society for Research into Higher Education on 30 June 2016). The authors and others report on it in Times Higher education which is where I was reading about it.

I suppose a simple example would be only include the references, which support what ever point you are trying to make. You simply omit the rest, I think this type of behaviour is more common than most people would like to admit.

The definition provided seems a little opaque to me, but I can think of a couple of situations to which it might apply.
Reference misdirection: I write a paper in which I include some assertion, perhaps only tangential to my main argument.  Maybe it's something that I remember hearing from someone at some point, but I can't quite remember who.  The referee or a co-author calls me out on it and says that I need to provide a reference.  I type a couple of keywords into Google Scholar and find a plausible-sounding reference.  It looks related to my assertion, but it doesn't actually prove it.  I cite it anyway knowing that the reviewer will probably not follow up on it.
Overstating the impact of a reference:  I write a paper that depends crucially on some Theory X.  There is a paper that provided some evidence in support of Theory X, but I cite the paper as claiming that it found "strong evidence in favor of Theory X".  Or perhaps the paper did indeed find strong evidence in favor of Theory X, but I state that it "proved" the validity of Theory X.  Moreover, perhaps the paper provided a number of qualifications to their claims (which maybe invalidate its application entirely to my case!), but I ignore these qualifications entirely.
Presenting a one-sided history: I write a paper in favor of Theory X (or maybe my paper depends on the validity of Theory X).  In my introduction, I provide an extensive survey of the field and cite dozens of papers that have found evidence in favor of Theory X.  However, there are just as many papers which have found strong evidence against Theory X, but I do not cite any of these.  Although there is clearly a lively scholarly debate surrounding Theory X, I present Theory X as though it is a settled fact.  While this won't fool anyone who does serious research on Theory X, it will be a source of confusion for those who work in other fields and are not aware of the controversy.
This last one is particularly common and isn't as egregious as the others since the reference is not fraudulent, just superfluous.
Scratching someone's back:  I've written a paper in a related field to a colleague.  I know that they would appreciate a citation to one or more of their papers.  Or perhaps I would like to cite them to help bring my work to their attention.  Their work is not directly related to mine, but I figure out a way to add a few sentences to the introduction that vaguely connect my paper to their work so that I can work a citation to them into the paper.
Since researchers are all human (and hence biased and involved in academic politics), it's impossible to be entirely immune from all of these.  If you do a lot of research on Theory X and believe it to be true in your heart of hearts, you will be more aware of the limitations of studies purporting to disprove Theory X and will be more easily able to justify omitting references to them in your work.  But the goal of research is to discover the truth and present it as clearly as possible, and part of that process is being as aware of one's own biases as one can.

I'm still having a bit of a hard time with this. The "presenting one-sided argument" doesn't seem to translate as well into the physical sciences except. My oversimplified view for most of the papers I read or review in materials physics, the authors data/derviation/theory discussion supports the authors argumemts, and the other stuff tends to be either 'fluff' or  'boilerplate' in the 4-6 page papers that are typical. I was hoping get better insight on this one from academics who are from fields where citing arguments from literature is the major 'data' used.

But - upon reflection, we are missing some examples under Reference misdirection. This category is the most likely to occur  (or at least it is the only that I remember encountering).
So if @Joe_Antognini would also include the following

Not citing ones own prior work to try to hide or obscure that similar results/figures/paper have been published by the authors.

The example in the answer is more clearly stated as  'not reading citations that you have put in your paper' which is very sloppy, but not necessarily fraudulent. (But still should stay in this example, of course)

And lets ignore pseudoscience papers, which tend to be obvious examples of presenting one-sided arguments and mis-citing arguments from literature as their major 'data' arguments.


text:
What is the meaning of an "award citation"?
In the details of an ACM conference, the following is mentioned:

The best paper in each track will receive an award citation.

I want to know, what they mean by "award citation" here and what winning the "best paper" award would entail in this case.

This is a different meaning of the word 'citation' to the one we're used to. Merriam-Webster (e.g.) gives an alternative definition:

3: MENTION: such as
a
: a formal statement of the achievements of a person receiving an academic honor

b
: specific reference in a military dispatch to meritorious performance of duty       a citation for bravery

So an "award citation" simply means that they publicly announce/advertise the name of the winner. Probably it implies that there will be no significant physical or monetary prize, other than (perhaps) a certificate.

From: ACM Website

Conferences Best Paper Awards
Best Paper Awards are presented at many ACM conferences to authors whose work represents groundbreaking research in their respective areas. By recognizing these select papers for their ingenuity and importance, ACM highlights some of the theoretical and practical innovations that are likely to shape the future of computing.

Being accepted for a "best paper" at an ACM conference is in layman's terms "really good."  (Caveat, this somewhat depends on the specific ACM conference)
From: Peer-Selected “Best Papers”—Are They Really That “Good”?

Results
The probability that a best paper will receive more citations than a non best paper is 0.72 (95% CI = 0.66, 0.77) for the Scopus data, and 0.78 (95% CI = 0.74, 0.81) for the Scholar data. There are no significant changes in the probabilities for different years. Also, 51% of the best papers are among the top 10% most cited papers in each conference/year, and 64% of them are among the top 20% most cited.
Discussion
There is strong evidence that the selection of best papers in Computer Science conferences is better than a random selection, and that a significant number of the best papers are among the top cited papers in the conference.

Per the first link, ACM also publishes lists of top papers.  Top papers are an "award" that can be put on resumes with varying levels of prestige based on the reviewer.  And, depending on the field of computation, ACM and its related publications / conferences are in the top 20, so good name / brand recognition.  All as of the time of this answer 1/8/2023:

Theoretical CS: Number 1, 2, 4, 8, 18
Data Mining: Number 1, 4, 12, 15
Software Systems: Number 1(with IEEE), 5, 7, 9(with IEEE), 10
Computer Graphics: Number 1, 7, 15
Security and Crypto: Number 1, 16
Game Theory: Number 2
Human Computer Interaction: Number 3, 4, 6(with IEEE), 7, 10, 16
Databases: Number 3, 6, 7, 8, 14, 20
Multimedia: Number 4, 9, 13, 16, 20
Hardware: Number 5, 12 (with IEEE)
Bioinformatics: Number 7(with IEEE), 18
Engineering and CS: Number 10
Signal Processing: Number 11(with IEEE)
Systems: Number 12(with IEEE), 16
Robotics: Number 12(with IEEE)
Networks and Wireless: Number 19(with IEEE)


text:
Where do we mention the definition of specific terms in IEEE style manuscript?
Should we give a superscript number to the term and mention the definition in the footer with that specific number?

Provide an example.  Your question is not clear.   All definitions are specified after or before a term, E.g., let X be a set.   The n-th item in set X corresponds to BLAH.

Editors frown upon footnotes because they cause layout problems. If you feel like writing a footnote, you should probably check whether a parenthetical remark or embedding the body of the footnote into the text would not work better. However, the IEEE guidelines tell you how to do footnotes, so they are not prohibited.
If the definition of a term is important, it is probably important enough to define the term in the text. IEEE places footnotes at the bottom of the page, which is the default for LaTeX.


text:
10 minute presentation for a scholarship PhD interview
I was selected for an interview for a PhD scholarship and asked to give a 10-minute presentation consisting of 10 slides including "summarising both your research experience and your research plan for the project".
How should I set up the PPT?

I briefly introduce myself
describe my master thesis as previous experience
outline my research plan for the project in which I would like to participate

Is this way ok?
How much detail should I go into when describing my thesis? Should I describe more the methodology which is more akin to what I am going to do or describe more the results?
How do I set up the research plan if it is something that is not yet defined and therefore without conclusions?

Given that you are being asked to talk about research, I suggest keeping the introduction to yourself very short. Hopefully they have read your file, but they may have read a lot of files. So maybe one slide about who you are and your prior experience just to refresh their minds about which applicant you are.
The main thing to show is that you think like a researcher. So for both your previous and your proposed research show an understanding of why the questions are interesting, why the methods are appropriate. For the previous research show not only the results but be clear about their strengths and limitations.
Above all, show that you are still open and eager to learn. One thing no one wants in a PhD student is someone who is sure they already know the answer to their topic question and just want to prove it.
And stick to time! One thing they are checking to see is whether you can be selective and clear in science communication.
Good luck with your presentation!

Thank you very much for your reply.
The point is that I don't know how to say everything in 10 minutes, my thesis is quite rich in content and although I have chosen the most important parts I still don't know whether to focus on the methodology or more on the results.
I will certainly add the strengths and weaknesses of the research as you suggested.
As for my research plan, I have researched and more or less framed a methodology. How can I make assumptions about conclusions on something I don't have enough knowledge or practice of?

As I said, they want to see how you THINK, not what you found. You should focus on *why you knew it was a good problem to work on and *your methods, and maybe a bit about *critique / future work. Don't focus on the results, do them quickly, also just one slide.


text:
Cite PowerPoint Icons
Microsoft PowerPoint provides a wide variety of icons. I want to use them in a graphic, but can't find any usage terms. Do I have to cite them? And if so, how?

The Microsoft site that you linked to says "These icons are free to use and there's no royalty or copyright to worry about". So, from a legal perspective, there is no need to provide any kind of attribution. From an academic perspective, you would generally not need to cite anything either, just like you do not need to provide a citation for the font used to typeset your document.
A possible exception would be if the icons were somehow relevant to the research conducted (for example, an experimental study on how humans percieve different styles of icons), in which case, you should provide a reference to the source of the icons.


text:
Industry's authenticated person could be contacted by admission committee like professors (who given me lor)
I have an industry 4 years industry experience after masters. Now I want to do PhD in USA.
My question is that PhD admission committee will cross verify my industry experience letter by contacting the industry's govern body(like GM, MD etc.) ?

That is unlikely in US, unless you give specific permission for it. Other than "Yes AM was employed here" they aren't likely to say much for various reasons including company policy and privacy considerations.
Instead, if you want such things to happen, you ask someone (a superior, say) to write a letter of recommendation for you.
And "industry's governing body" isn't a real concept here except in a few cases.
And, in general, an admissions committee looks only at what you, the candidate, present in your application materials. They aren't likely to go outside that, again for several reasons including time.
See also: How does the admissions process work for Ph.D. programs in Country X?


text:
A coworker has involved me in fraud by splitting his conference trip expenses between our accounts
I'm new to this website and am posting this question to ask for advice. I'm really stressed and don't know what to do.
I went to a conference with a few researchers from our group. After the trip, one of them approached me and asked me to do him a favor. It turned out he had considerably overspent his limit for meals because of a misunderstanding of the rules. To get out of this, he wanted to claim to have paid with his university credit card for group meals and thereby split his meal expenses between his account and the accounts of others including mine. I didn't want to participate in this, but he literally begged me and said others had already agreed. We logged on to the online tool and did what he wanted. Now I've gotten an email from finance asking me to confirm whether I actually participated in those group meals.
I don't know why they are asking. The email is very short. It may be just a routine verification. But I don't know. They may have found something wrong or suspicious. They may have been tipped off. They may be wondering how we could eat together if my university credit card was charged at a different place at the same time.
Am I likely to get fired by the university if I just tell the truth? I want to be honest, and I hate myself for getting involved in this fraud, but I can't afford losing the job in my life circumstances. I am on a relatively long fixed-term contract, just like that guy, and we are both funded from the group's funds and report to the head of the group. Is it safer to say that I don't want to discuss how we ate and prefer paying out of my pocket if there's any issue? It's just a few hundred bucks in total for my meals and my share of help to that guy. What's my best bet?
Please don't be too hard on me. I need advice. I've learned my lesson and will never let anyone manipulate me into participating in fraud.

Suspiciously similar to the situation in https://workplace.stackexchange.com/q/187807/91090. Is this question inspired by that one?

I am confused, how could he claim to have spent using the university credit card, but there would be no charges on that account?

As I told that gentleman on workplace.se, what he did was fraud. Criminal. Career destroying. Lying to gain an undeserved financial advantage is fraud. If “finance” asks you, you can continue the lie (and they have seen it all, they know it’s a lie), or tell them exactly what happened. Do you want to destroy your career?

Given the similarities with the Workplace.SE question, it seems unlikely that this question was asked in good faith, so we mods are going to hammer this closed. @tigress - if you disagree (and especially if you have proof this is real that you're willing to share privately), let us know (by hitting the flag button on your question) and we can work with you. All others: this was a difficult moderation decision; if you think cases like this should be handled differently in future, please post on meta and we can discuss.

No one can guarantee an outcome.
I suggest, however, that one option is to get everyone involved in this together in one place and discuss it. I'd advocate for honesty and maybe a joint statement (confession).
Ideally, the person that instigated it should be the one to come forward and honestly explain it to the bosses. While it is you that has "involved" yourself in fraud by agreeing, they likely used a form of friendly coercion to get you to act as you did.
You can promise joint restitution. It may or may not be sufficient, depending on how understanding or severe the system chooses to be.
People err. Everyone. Most people tend to be forgiving when it is possible. Most, not all. But restitution is required in such a case.
Refusing to discuss it or continuing the fraud seem to me like poor choices that would have more severe outcomes than honesty.

"It's not the crime, it's the coverup."
You messed up—you shouldn't have lied about attending these meals.  However, this is a small mistake, and it is likely that if you tell the truth now, there won't be too many serious repercussions (particularly for you—the person who pressured you into lying may be in a bit more trouble).  There is some small possibility that you could be in real trouble, but most institutions try not to throw the book at people who make one mistake.
Do not cause yourself further problems by lying.
Falling to peer pressure and fraudulently signing off on reimbursement forms is a mistake, but it is one that you can likely recover from.  Engaging in an extended coverup of a small fraud is, potentially, career ending.
If you do as Buffy suggests, and discuss this with other members of the group before moving forward, I would strongly suggest that you go into those meetings with the attitude that you all need to come clean, and that you are not going to lie to protect them.
I would then respond to the request for clarification with the truth.  You don't have to volunteer information which is not requested (e.g. in response to the question "Did you attend these meals?", a simple "No" is sufficient—you don't need to go into details about why you said you did unless you are asked), but you should answer any questions you are asked honestly.  Don't compound your error by lying.