text:
Is it wrong to unintentionally withhold information?
I recently posted something related to this (If an assumption proves to be false, is the research then meaningless?), but it is still bothering me.
As I mentioned in that last post, I conducted my first research project in high school last year, and I am now having doubts about one of my assumptions (I was not used to making assumptions at the time). I actually learned that one of my assumptions were invalid from a judge at a science fair.
As a matter of fact, I had not even noticed that I had made that assumption until he brought it up (and penalized me for it). Despite all of the people that I had proofread and check my research, no one brought it up. Furthermore, I competed at science fairs prior to that one and none of those judge brought it up (I am not sure if they caught it or not). I was successful at those science fairs, but I am now feeling guilty. I feel as if me not mentioning that one assumption is the only reason I was as successful as I was (although I cannot justify it).
Is it wrong that I withheld this information, despite the fact that I was not even aware of it? Is that considered cheating? This question has been bothering me and I would appreciate any help. (I am now working on a different research project and I am being much more cognizant about my assumptions.)

I wouldn't even start thinking that you cheated.  We all have errors/mistakes, and we learn from them and (eventually) move on.  Now, maliciously leaving things out would be another story.

If you publish enough, you will publish something incorrect. Probably not before that long. As a PhD student I was asked 'Have you found the mistake in your thesis yet?' by a researcher I had just met. They then turned to another researcher and began discussing when they spotted ones (ie before or after printing the final copy).

Given that you didn't know there was a problem, how could you possibly have done anything differently?

If you were not aware, you did not "withhold" because that requires intention.
With time, you will practice insight about what implicit assumptions you make - this is part of the scientific development and even great scientists have not been free of that. Galilei transformation, for instance, was taken for granted for centuries, which was initially fine, but was sustained to the point where "ethereal" concept-bending had to be introduced to keep it alive.
As Einstein said: "The fish is last to discover water." Do not be too hard on yourself, as long as you put it firmly into your agenda to do your best to be fully aware of your assumptions and their validity. Discussion with friends/colleagues can help here.

Galilei transformation, for instance, was taken for granted for centuries. – This may not be an adequate comparison, as the Galilei transformation is not really a wrong assumption. Sure it’s not precisely correct, but it’s a still a sufficiently close approximaton and thus a valid assumption for many applications. Aether or phlogiston may be better examples.

@Wrzlprmft I chose Galilei on purpose. I am not talking about perfectly valid approximations inside a well-understood domain, but holding on to assumptions when they clearly didn't work. Namely, with the discovery of the Maxwell equations, I do not think people realised immediately what was amiss here. They built lots of "ethereal" assumptions to save Galilei invariance which they just took for granted. Einstein didn't discover the whole set of transformations to make things fit, his achievement was realising that changing one fundamental assumption made everything fall in place.

@Wrzlprmft Changed the response slightly to address your comment. I hope it is better now.

Doing wrong without knowing it may not save you in a court case, but morally you're fine. You made an honest error, it's good.
As long as you accept the correction and go with it now (i.e., don't use that assumption anymore, now you know it's invalid), it's OK. Science is full of occasions where things proved to be wrong after the fact.

Sometimes a major scientific breakthrough comes from realizing that everyone has been making the same wrong assumption.

It sounds like you're feeling shame because you are thinking that you somehow "cheated" and wrongly benefitted from the work you presented. If you are telling yourself that you are a cheater and a fraud that's bound to be found out, that self-shaming and it gives you no room grow.
If you recognize that you made a mistake and resolve to avoid doing the same in the future, you can allow yourself to learn and stop dwelling on this.


text:
Citing books, with unproved facts, in the introduction part of a research paper
Research community accepts a statement as fact in any domain of knowledge if and only if it has a proof. I am asking about domains for which proof is necessary.
But the same fact may present in age old books without an explicit scientific proof.

Let us consider the following example for better understanding:
Consider the summary of a research paper, related to plants, in Biology

Plants lack eyes and ears, but they can still see, hear, smell and
respond to environmental cues and dangers. They do this with the aid
of hundreds of membrane proteins that sense microbes or other
stresses. Researchers now have created the first network map for 200
of these proteins. The map shows how a few key proteins act as master
nodes critical for network integrity, and the map also reveals unknown
interactions.

Consider the (same) fact, with abstract (may be an unscientific) explanation, in an age old scripture

"Bhrigu said, 'Without doubt, though possessed of density, trees have
space within them. The putting forth of flowers and fruits is always
taking place in them. They have heat within them in consequence of
which leaf, bark, fruit, and flower, are seen to droop.
They sicken and dry up. That shows they have perception of touch.
Through sound of wind and fire and thunder, their fruits and flowers
drop down. Sound is perceived through the ear. Trees have, therefore,
ears and do hear. A creeper winds round a tree and goes about all its
sides. A blind thing cannot find its way. For this reason it is
evident that trees have vision. Then again trees recover vigour and
put forth flowers in consequence of odours, good and bad, of the
sacred perfume of diverse kinds of dhupas. It is plain that trees have
scent. They drink water by their roots. They catch diseases of diverse
kinds. Those diseases again are cured by different operations. From
this it is evident that trees have perceptions of taste. As one can
suck up water through a bent lotus-stalk, trees also, with the aid of
the wind, drink through their roots. They are susceptible of pleasure
and pain, and grow when cut or lopped off. From these circumstances I
see that trees have life. They are not inanimate.

Can the research paper mention, in introduction part, that the fact proved by them has been mentioned in that (old) book, but without any scientific proof?
There can be multiple similar facts like these in age old books without proofs. We cannot treat them as wild imaginations since they may say almost same numbers in many cases.
For example
#1: book and research.
#2: Statement by Carl sagan

The Hindu religion is the only one of the world’s great faiths
dedicated to the idea that the Cosmos itself undergoes an immense,
indeed an infinite, number of deaths and rebirths. It is the only
religion in which the time scales correspond, no doubt by accident,
to those of modern scientific cosmology. Its cycles run from our
ordinary day and night to a day and night of Brahma, 8.64 billion
years long, longer than the age of the Earth or the Sun and about half
the time since the Big Bang. And there are much longer time scales
still.

Is it a recommended act to mention about the presence or existence of fact (in such a book), without any proof, in the introduction part of a research paper?
If recommended then isn't it like citing a statement form an unscientific docment? If not recommended, isn't it unethical to not mention the existing fact because of only reason that proof is not given in the book?

You say

Research community accepts a statement as fact in any domain of knowledge if and only if it has a proof.

This is a simple statement but reality is much messier. Which kinds of explanations are and are not accepted by a given research community is culturally determined. See e.g. the demarcation problem (how do we distinguish science from non-science?) and the experimenter's regress (how do we decide if a particular experimental result is valid?)
In the research community I belong to ("Western" ecology and evolutionary biology), quoting Hindu sources (or any other religious/literary/folkloric texts, e.g. the Koran or the Old or New Testament, or the Greek Odyssey [honestly, I'm not sure how to categorize the Mahabharata]) as "flavour" in your introduction (e.g. "Interestingly, similar arguments can be found as far back as the Mahabharata [citation]") would probably be considered fine. Quoting religious or literary texts as part of the actual foundation of your scientific arguments would probably be viewed with extreme skepticism and might hurt your chances of publication.
Other research communities might be either more hostile to such citations, or more open to them as representing valid prior evidence on which to build an argument. One way to tell would be to read research works in that field and see whether citing such texts is common practice.

There was a kerfuffle sometime in the last few years when some Chinese (?) scientists made a statement in a paper that some readers regarded as overly religious/indicating support for divine intervention in physical processes. I can't remember the details, but it would be a good example of the trickiness of the demarcation lines here.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Is it possible to survive as a researcher being a dispassionate person?
I heard a lot of tips for (upcoming) researchers from top professors and researchers.
Almost all of them told that the passion of a candidate is one of the qualities that drive her research life.
All of them told the same fact in different ways. Some say that the element of surprise or shock is necessary in order to lead a research life.
It is true that anticipation/passion/element of surprise etc. may lead to great research life. But, I am thinking the other way round.
Suppose there is a professor named dispassion. She won't get surprised or excited by the results of great researches of researchers. She is neither passionate nor dispassionate towards research or results. She does it as a routine task without any excitement or surprise.
Is it possible for her to survive as a productive researcher in academics?
Note: Dispassionate here does not refer to the unwillingness towards work. She feels that whatever results that can be obtained by research are normal or ordinary and hence she is not excited or influenced by them. As a lecturer has anxiety, the researcher is dispassionate here.

Please consider similar questions before close voting https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/84604/lecturer-with-anxiety-how-to-survive-in-academia
Although it may be rare, it can happen.

Your question doesn't make too much sense to me. People may force you to leave Academia. But, no one can force you to stay. If you are not passionate enough to stay, you can always leave. Why bother to stay?

@scaaahu She has no element of passion. I told that she can able to work, but not with passion or excitement. She works for the sake of working, not with passion, but just as a routine.

The question and resulting discussion seems rather theoretical to me and is definitely not limited to academia. There are characters with different degrees of emotionality. But if you show no emotional response whatsoever to what you are doing it is time to get some help and/or to do something else.

@hanugm Most of the work of a professor is routine: administration, writing research proposals, preparing exam sheets, grading, reviewing student's theses. All of this takes probably 60-70% of the time and, believe me, it's just routine for which there's no passion around it. And then there's that 30-40% (sometimes even less and 40% if you're lucky enough) interesting part.

Passion is a loaded word, perhaps one might instead talk about a "strong affinity". In a regular office job, it's possible to not care about what you're doing and still get by. I almost never see this in academia, at least among the people who are competitive to secure a permanent job.

@MassimoOrtolano to give a broader context, please add that the 60/70% of the time you refer to, it includes the fact  that your working time is 140/150% of the time written in your working contract.

The "passion" thing is a myth and a shoddy cliche.
Your true feelings need not have any effect on your career.  You just need to do the job.  In academia, there is lots of competition, so "doing the job" means doing it very well - among the best in the world.  But this requires actions, not feelings.
It can be handy to have the skill of making others believe you have certain emotions, though.
If you dislike academia, don't be an academic.  Especially don't teach if you dislike it.  There are better paying and easier jobs that are no more dislikable than teaching, but where you cannot harm students.

Exactly, "passion" can be, and mostly is, short-lived. One can be passionate about someone or something, but it's not long until they move onto something else.

@C26 How many decades is "not long"?

I’ll try to analyze what’s hiding behind this “passion” meme and, as a helpful exercise, rephrase the same message without using the word “passion” even once.
The key point is that academia is full of people who work very hard, and are very smart. If you want to be a successful researcher, you need to think how you could be competitive in such an environment. The possibilities for doing that are fairly limited. They are, roughly speaking:

You could be just as smart, and just as hardworking, as the typical researcher in your discipline.

You could be a bit less smart than the typical researcher in your discipline, but be more hardworking than the average.

You could be much smarter than the (typically already very smart) average worker in your discipline, which would allow you to work less hard than the norm in academia.

Individuals who can adopt strategy number 3 are very rare, so let’s assume that’s not a viable option. That leaves options 1 and 2, which means that, depending on how smart you are, to be successful you’ll either need to be very hardworking (the norm in academia) or very very hardworking — I’m talking about pretty extreme, workaholic levels of being hardworking here.
Now comes the part related to that word I said I wasn’t going to use. Ask yourself: how do all those hardworking people manage to be so hardworking consistently over many years? What’s their secret? And what is the chance that you can replicate such a performance?
The answer is simple. These people enjoy doing research. They enjoy it so much that it doesn’t feel like work. To them, going to the office or lab to work on research is as much fun as doing your favorite hobby. They don’t do it to get paid or in anticipation of the next promotion. They are a bit baffled whenever they hear someone talking of “work-life balance” (as if those two things are distinct and belong in separate compartments). Basically to such a person the whole concept of “work” and the connotations around it are quite different from what a lot of people (most people, I’m afraid) think of when they hear the word “work”.
So that’s all it is really. That word we were talking about is just a code name for enjoying something and wanting to do it out of intrinsic motivation and not because you are paid or out of a sense of duty. If you have it, it will not be a struggle to “work hard” because you wouldn’t be “working”, rather it will feel like you are playing a sort of fun game that you really enjoy.
And if you don’t have it... well, I’m not a psychologist but I think human nature being what it is, it will be an uphill struggle to maintain that level of hard work that others find effortless over more than a few years. At the very least, you’ll be at a serious competitive disadvantage, so you need to think what advantages you do have (being unusually smart, unusually creative, unusually good at collaborations etc) that could offset that disadvantage and allow you to still be successful.

You also need access to the right resources, e.g. plenty of people to bounce ideas off of, access to the leading experts. I think that most successful researchers have that.

No, not for longer than 10/15 years.
The amount of overwork and the necessary submission to hidden power games and the extremely laborious task of writing proposals only to see them rejected will provide ample dissatisfaction to the dispassionated person to get out of research.
However, a non-negligible quota of research&teaching workforce of the academia will root its motivation in egoistic and selfish feelings, which makes academia a terrible world, where people are "happy" and are actaully enjoying and passionate about the progress and research, but at the expense of other people feelings and in a rather absurd competition mood, with the constant need of proving themselves better than the others by constant overworking (forcing the other to overwork themselves, in a constant downward spiral) as well as by smearing other colleagues and research groups, building closely knitted comunities and "how you dare" leave them.
So, no, you need a lot of self fuelled passion to survive in such a world.
Disclaimer: yes, I am very bitter, been there done that, in the academia for 11 years, since 3 years I left the Academia and I found that in the corporate world the human nature is more streamlined, at least people try to s***w you just because of profit/career and not because they dream they are helping a superior good (which they think they are entrusted to).

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


text:
Do researchers of deep learning understand the existing codes in detail?
Now-a-days, literature in deep learning is increasing at a rapid rate.
One of the key difference with other domains is that almost all research papers in deep learning provide corresponding code in GitHub.
It is (relatively) easy for me to understand the (mathematical, analytical aspects of) research paper. But, I personally feel it difficult to understand existing codes.
in this context, I want to know the common practice among researchers regarding the existing codes. Do researchers in deep learning understand the existing codes in detail? Or they just use the code as a module to execute?
Is there any recommended approach towards complex existing codes?

Out of curiosity what is your background and level of training?

@NAMcMahon Completed course on DL and at literature survey level.

Do researchers in deep learning understand the existing codes in detail? Or they just use the code as a module to execute?

A little bit of both. Some thoughts:

I only look at the code on a tiny fraction of the papers that I read. Most of the papers explain their "idea" well enough and have results on standardized tasks. So, there is no need to look at the code unless:

I cannot understand exactly what the "idea" is (and I am sufficiently motivated to continue trying to figure it out), or
I want to implement the idea myself.

In general, most of the codebase is the skeleton for ETL (extract, transform, and load), training, validation, tensorboard, etc. I ignore this. Instead, I look for the small part of the codebase where the new idea is implemented, and I study that in detail. Even if I want to run the code, I will generally add their new idea into one of my existing codebases, rather than running their entire codebase off-the-shelf.

Of course, new students will have different needs than more experienced people. After you've seen enough codebases, you can quickly distinguish between "the usual stuff" and "hmm, why did they do that?" When you are just starting out, everything will look unfamiliar, and you may need to go much more slowly to understand the different pieces. This is the same as any other discipline, really.

An added complication is that these papers come in a wide variety of languages. Recently, research papers have been converging on PyTorch, which I am very happy to see. But this is another difference: students generally get stuck on the software details of each language (which is reasonable, since their software engineering skills are less developed), while experts will only care about the underlying math.


text:
Age restrictions for teaching in united states
I am asking this question in a general sense (in the majority sense) and is not particular to any institute or topic.
Is there any upper age limit to join as an assistant professor in the US?
If a person completes her post-doc by the age of n, with no prior teaching experience. Is she eligible for assistant-professorship for 60 >= n >= 35?

Please read JeffE's answer for the above linked question.

Defining limits violates age discrimination laws, which is why there are no age limits.


text:
Status of submitted article changes the date but status remain from 'With Editor' to 'With Editor'
I Submitted a paper 2 months ago, the current status is "With Editor" and the status date of the manuscript (from With Editor to With Editor!) has been changed twice. What does it mean?

I would not deduce anything from this. Most likely the system changes the date whenever the editor accesses the article (or the editor does not use the system in the way it was intended).
Also, it happens that the state is not accurate (e.g., in reality, the paper is already with the reviewers), but there is no way to know that.
Anyway, many journals have a processing time span that is much longer than two months. If after some time the state is still "with editor", you might politely contact the editor to inquire about the process.

I think it is more likely to be the first. Possibly, the editor is accessing the system to find suitable reviewers fro your article. It's possible that he/she is looking at the references section of your paper and shortlisting a few of those authors as reviewers for your paper.

Thanks Danny and Kakoli for your answer. Actually the metrics given on the journal website says that on average it takes 14.5 weeks for the first decision and 17 weeks to publish online. What does it mean? Whether 14.5 weeks required by editor to take a decision regarding start of review process or its the expected time to receive the reviewer's comments?

@Mohaqiq: Although this is an old question, I write my answer for the readers.  The first decision time is computed by the summation of the time of the desk rejected papers and reviewed ones. if a journal rejects 100 papers immediately in one week without any review and review 20 papers in 12 weeks (with the decision to major revision/minor revision/reject/accept), the announced average first decision time would be (100 * 1+ 20* 12)/120. So, if the paper has gone under review, the actual time of review is often much more than the announced averaged time for the first decision.

This probably means the assigned editor changed. This can happen if, e.g., the first assigned editor declines to handle the paper.

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


text:
How can I change a typo in the author affiliation after publication?
I am really needing help. There is a typo on my University Name, however  the paper is already published. Is there any way to still change it? The paper has been published on ACM Platform.
I am very concerned about the reputation of my research with this minor typo. I spent a lot of effort to this research and just realize that...

Have you contacted the editor yet?

Not yet, I was concercing because I just read it: " 2.6 Fixity of Works
ACM does not alter works once published. There are times, however, when it is appropriate to publish a revised or corrected version of a work; doing so requires the approval of the responsible editor." Do you think that there is any solution for that?

You can send an erratum, but I don't think is so important. Either way, it is  not an important problem.

I edited your post before to correct a language error ("concercing a lot" is not valid English) and to remove the "thanks" because on Stack Exchange sites there is a policy of not including greetings, signatures, thanks, etc in posts. Not sure why you undid these edits.

First of all, calm down. This is not as big of a mistake as you think it is. Many if not most published work contains insignificant mistakes such as minor typos. If it would make you feel better, I once had a typo in my own name (I blame autocorrection).
Contact the editor. They are probably going to publish a correction or erratum. If it is already published, they probably won't fix the original published article even if it is online only. (I am not familiar with the ACM Platform.)

Probably you cannot change it , usually journals inform authors to double check names and affiliation when they send galley proof because after publication it's difficult to change them , but the best approach is contacting editor in chief for explaining the mistake , maybe they fix it

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


text:
Master in Germany after 3 years bachelor degree
I've completed my 3 years bachelor degree in B.Sc.Hons in Computing from Nepal affiliated to London Metropolitan University and i am planning to do Ms in Germany. Am i eligible to enroll directly in master program in Germany?


text:
Should I include test scores and recommender information given elsewhere in my application in my CV for graduate admissions?
All of the universities I am applying to require a CV as part of the application process.
As I am requesting the recommender from the on-line application and also giving the test scores there, is it necessary to add these in the CV?

The question of photo in CV is addressed here, so I'm going to edit that part out of your post and narrow it so it isn't so broad. Refer to the question I've just linked for answers to that.

Do you mean references? Occasionally you will see a CV that lists references or it will say "References available on request." I myself have always just left them off.
As far as test scores go, it is typical to leave off them off since you have to send the official scores separately anyway.

FYI I've removed the part about photo from the question, since that's addressed at length in another question, and to narrow it so it isn't so broad.

@ff524 I edited that part out then. I vaguely remember a previous question about test scores on your CV so I am searching for that as well...


text:
Applying for graduate programs, will missing classes count against me?
I'm working on some graduate school applications, and I've been wondering...
If I'm missing some classes these schools require(this is more relevant in different states)will my application be less desirable to that particular school, because I will have to take some extra classes in order to start that program.

Please [edit] your post to clarify the kind of program you're applying to. There's a big difference between programs like computer science, chemistry, etc. where students can sometimes "make up" undergraduate coursework after enrolling in the graduate programs, versus programs in fields like physical therapy, pharmacy, and dentistry, that strictly require certain prerequisites and won't consider applications of students without them.

It's probably inappropriate to say it always "count against you," but it is fair to say that it will be taken into consideration.
For instance, some schools may not admit you officially to the master's or doctoral program in a field if you are missing classes normally expected of students in a given program (for instance, if you're missing analytical chemistry and applying for a chemistry master's). In still other cases, you may be admitted to a program, but with no allowances actually made for the courses missing—that is, you'd be expected to pass the graduate-level courses just like everybody else enrolled in the program.
On the other hand, if you are missing too many "core" classes, then you will probably find yourself struggling to gain admission, since the admissions committee may (rightly?) feel that you have too much prior work to make up.

That helps, it's only two to three max. If they offered these at my current institution I wouldn't be concerned. Anyway, thanks!

When I heard "required," I was thinking of programs that strictly require students to have certain classes before starting the program to be considered for admission. e.g. many Doctor of Physical Therapy programs. I don't think of "normally expected" as "required."

Yeah, I could have been more clear... Sorry about that!

@AustinMauldin Can you edit your question to be more clear, i.e. specify whether you meant "normally expected" coursework or "required" coursework?

@ff524: I think in the case you state, a provisional admission, if possible, would be the likely result.

From personal experience of people in my family, programs like those won't consider applications from people who don't meet their stated requirements. (If you haven't taken them as part of your undergrad degree, you have to take them at as a non-degree student at another school before you apply to the graduate program.)

@ff524: I think it depends on what the school's admissions options are. Our university allows students to be enrolled in the undergraduate courses for a while before beginning the "official" program.

Does that program have language like "To be considered for admission... you must meet the following requirements" or "Course prerequisites must be completed by the end of the spring semester (or quarter) prior to commencing the program" in its instructions to prospective students? From what I hear, PT and occupational therapy programs are very strict with requiring that the prerequisite coursework be completed before starting. I think many other health-related fields (pharmacy, dentistry) probably are as well.


text:
Do universities in the UK start making PhD admission decisions before the application period is closed?
Suppose a university in the UK is advertising multiple funded PhD positions. For example, suppose a given department is offering ten different projects. Do the admission committees ever make a formal offer before the application period has closed? How about an informal one? It may be further assumed (if needed) that the candidate has been already interviewed via email, phone, or in person.
I am interested in this because there are some universities that have application periods closing much after other schools (e.g. one month) in the same discipline, which is a sub-optimal strategy for hiring best talent (other schools get to choose first).
The candidate would obviously have to be very competent, the recommendation letters good, etc.

This is kind of complicated.  There are in theory two stages of acceptance at a British university:  getting accepted, and then getting funded.  Generally, any student can get accepted if and only if a supervisor says they are willing to take them as a student.  Getting funding is harder because that is in more limited supply. If funding is allocated to the department or faculty, then probably it will go to the best student, but it may well go to a particular supervisor instead, e.g. a new young lecturer that is seen as needing extra support, or someone whose current research project is seen as important or promising, or just someone who hasn't had a student for a while. But quite a lot of funding is won by particular supervisors themselves, in which case they advertise a studentship like a job, and review as many applicants as they can and pick the best one. This can happen any time of the year.  Actually, so can the departmental funding -- you never know when the university, government or some benefactor will suddenly come up with money they want spent.
I said "in theory there are two stages": in practice, sometimes a prospective student (perhaps one responding to an advertisement, or just one who's folder has been sitting on a desk a while) is clearly the best applicant for some funding, and there is a sudden rush to formally accept that applicant so that they can be put forward for the funding! In the specific case you mention, there will normally be a competition between supervisors for the funding (not all of the advertised possible positions might be filled) so there will be a deadline that allows departments to compare the applicants.  But a truly outstanding applicant might still be made an early offer, if the committee is certain from past experience that they are likely to get the offer anyway, and if they are concerned the student might get snapped up by another university if they wait.
In general, and in any country, it's important to apply to multiple universities because there is such a large chance component in getting accepted, even if you are very good.  Certainly in the UK you should contact specific supervisors in advance and show them convincing evidence that you will help with their research and are likely to get funded.  This means showing you've read (or at least read about) their work, and that your record to date is very promising (e.g. already having published papers helps a lot with university funding.)  If you don't already have an outstanding resume, it might be a good idea to pay for a masters degree and then try to get a publication out of your dissertation project, or try to get a lab position where you can help with publications.
If you've done all that, and are not sure you can wait to find out if you got the funding you most want, be sure to let the person who might be your supervisor and your director of studies know that.  Not every supervisor will know all the options, but the director of studies should, but your supervisor is your main champion.  Good luck!


text:
Some economists seem to have a second PhD from a U.S. institution, conferred one year after their European PhD. How is this possible?
Some Economics professors (e.g. here and here) obtained a PhD in Economics in Europe and then obtained a PhD in economics in the U.S. in just one year. I would like to do the same as I am finishing a PhD in Economics in Europe and I would like to get a PhD from the U.S. for obvious reasons (e.g., higher prestige, better job prospects).
How is it possible that they did the PhD in the U.S. in just one year? Is it possible that it was some kind of joint PhD? Or maybe they only did the preliminary examinations? I would appreciate any advice that would be useful regarding obtaining a second PhD (from the U.S.).

At least in Peri's CV, he lists an award for student teaching in 1996 and a US fellowship in 1997. The Italian Ph.D is in 1997 while the US one is in 1998. He must have started the US one in 1996 or earlier.

And in Persico's, he passed his Northwestern quals in 1992---one year after obtaining his undergraduate degree. The Italian PhD seems to be somehow dual-tracked while he was a student at Northwestern. The answer here may be that these things have to be set up from $t_0$; there are worse things than not achieving as much as Persico.

I don't know about economics, but I know a number of people who have done a PhD in English abroad while doing a PhD in their language in the US such that dual PhD (one in English literature, the other in, say, Spanish literature) isn't unheard of.  It helps if one program doesn't require coursework (just the dissertation), doesn't generally require physical presence, and/or lacks time limits.

Note that both professors have their European degree from Bocconi. Double degrees appear to be a Bocconi (and some other universities') special. For the MSc level, it's explicitly mentioned on their web page as a highly selective option; see, e.g., here. But you also find an economics PhD program in which you spend a year abroad participating in a partner university's course work and studies, the AEEP. It is not explicitly mentioned that you'll get two PhDs - and you probably won't on a general basis -, but if you get close to a professor abroad during your year, and start your research with them, it doesn't seem a stretch to think you can negotiate two.
Note that one of the current partner institutions is Northwestern, as in one of the examples you linked, while the other (Berkeley) is not mentioned. This might be due to changes in times, or simply to the professors linked not having been part of this particular program. But as Bocconi is apparently very active in these international cooperations, it seems highly likely that both were part of one of them.
The bottom line is that, in my opinion, it will be very unlikely that you'll find a U.S. institution at which you can get a second PhD in only one year if you haven't been part of such a program, where the second degree is a natural and fairly minor extension of your work predominantly in Europe.

I have a degree from MIT one year after a degree from Edinburgh (though I didn't do economics.)  This is because I went to Edinburgh to do some research part way through my PhD, and the only way we could fund that research was with a masters, but I didn't really care about having (another) masters so it took me a long time to finish that dissertation, and then even longer to organise my viva for it.  So really I had completed that Edinburgh degree in 1998, but it was awarded in 2000.


text:
Missed April 15th deadline to accept grad school offer. What can I do?
I missed the April 15th deadline to accept my grad school offer and wanted to accept it. It is now April 16th and I got an email saying they have withdrawn my consideration, is there anything I can do, anyone I can contact to accept the offer they extended to me even though it is now after April 15th?

Why did you miss the deadline? 2.Have you reached out and asked to be let back in? It is now the 17th. It is possible that literally every hour decreases your chances of success.

Just FYI, it looks like your real name is attached to this post. If this isn't desirable, you can change your user display name, but a mod may need to scrub your real name from the question / question history.

One true answer is: you might as well ask them to make an exception for you, because even if they don't, you're no worse off at all.

You have nothing to lose by reaching out -- the sooner the better. The best person would be a professor who recruited you (wants you in their group) or informed you of the offer. But I would also reach out to:

Any administrator who contacted you
Any other professors you are interested in working for
Whichever faculty member in the department is in charge of graduate admissions

The email doesn't need to be long, but it is important. Just apologize and say that it was a mistake, but you had intended to accept the offer. Unless they are looking for an excuse to retract the offer, there is a good chance they still want you. They may see missing this deadline as a bad sign; however, being proative and apologizing for your mistake will make it more likely that they forgive it. Follow up and reach out to new people if you don't get a response.

P.S. Bryan Krause makes an important point in the comments about programs that have wait lists:

The biggest issue is that any program with a wait list is likely to go to those applicants as soon as possible, which is the fairest thing to those applicants. They may not have a funding slot for you if someone from that list accepts, and they may feel they should give them priority over you[.]

I did as you instructed, what do you think my chances are of being given the chance to accept my offer? also they offered to pay me to study there, since I missed the deadline would I lose out on that money?

I would add to that list: whichever faculty member in the department is in charge of graduate admissions.

@PierreSarabamoun You shouldn't lose the money, and I think there is a reasonable chance they will still accept you. But this would be very dependent on the people involved in making the decision. If they are looking for an excuse to reject you, they might. All you can do is be as proactive as possible and hope for the best.

It depends whether they have a directive about "fairness to other applicants". If this is not a priority and you have a strong application, you might get in. Some places, however, they enforce deadlines to not be vulnerable to this accusation.

@CaptainEmacs how is fairness an issue here? If they have already offered OP’s slot to someone else, then obviously there’s nothing to be done, but if they haven’t and the slot and funding still haven’t been allocated or offered to someone else, the thing that’s both rational and fair for them to do is to give it to OP as they originally intended. There wouldn’t be any “accusation” that anyone can (reasonably) make against them for behaving in this way.

@DanRomik I am not saying this necessarily makes sense, and I personally think that if the slot is open, they should give it to the best candidate. Whether things make sense or not is not always a criterion in a bureaucratic administration that is bent on compliance (or simply afraid of taking responsibility).

It seems perfectly "fair" to kick out somebody who can't be bothered to meet a deadline which is known for months in advance. Some people have to learn the hard way that their actions (or lack of them) have consequences.

@Pierre The biggest issue is that any program with a wait list is likely to go to those applicants as soon as possible, which is the fairest thing to those applicants. They may not have a funding slot for you if someone from that list accepts, and they may feel they should give them priority over you: you had and missed your window when you had dibs.

@CaptainEmacs - I would note that the assumption that OP would be the 'best candidate' assumes that the department can uniquely order all applicants against some criteria. More likely, they had a pool of acceptable applicants larger than they could take on and offered a sub-set of that, chosen on various grounds (such as diversity of research interests to meet department openings).

@JonCuster There are all kinds of criteria. But "best" means according to whatever criteria is important to the department, of course, and hopefully, this incorporates being academically most promising.

@CaptainEmacs - one important criteria is likely to be responding by the deadline...

Re the "reaching out", it would also help to mention any extenuating circumstances. If a close family member is currently ill with coronavirus, for example, they may understand that your application was not top of your priorities.

@Graham Absolutely. If a department does not include that as one of the criteria, it's probably not a department you want to be at.


text:
How do scientists get nominated for society awards? Should I ask someone else to nominate me?
I never get nominated for any award. I was wondering how people get nominated for society awards.
I am a full professor, and I have an h-index of 45. I have more than 11,000 citations, so there isn't any problem with my academic performance.
Most importantly, I created a computer model which has been used by dozens of scientists across the world, which resulted in at least 200 publications in leading journals in my field (without me included). I maintain that model and people explicitly ask me to get it which I gladly do. I am one of the best computer modelers in my field, objectively, creating models that rival ones created by large teams of people in national labs, for example.
Yet, I get no nominations for any awards ever in my life. Note that in my field, self-nomination is not allowed. And I feel that it would be inappropriate for me to actually ask someone to nominate me. I think it is not ethical and a form of cheating.
Yet, I see many people get awards for far smaller contribution to the field. Some multiple number of times. The only explanation I have is that they just explicitly ask other scientists to nominate them. Which is very wrong, in my opinion.
I just feel very demotivated by this lack of respect by my fellow colleagues with who, in general, I have good relationship. I am just a bit puzzled by all this. Is it actually common for people to ask for nomination?

This seems like a very culture- and field- dependent question, could you add those?

with due respect: it would seem there’s a disconnect between how you perceive your research and how it is perceived by others.

The fact that your research is being cited so much shows that you're respected and your contributions are valued. Awards are pretty much a popularity contest, I'd pay them little heed.

I see this as a general problem with overlapping sets: your contributions: those who use and appreciate your contributions; those who nominate or award. Unless the intersection of these sets is big enough, even large contributions will not help. The same issue arises with honorary degrees.

" I am one of the best computer modelers in my field, objectively, creating models that rival ones created by large teams" Large teams comes with large institutionals overhead, so they have non-negligible time allocated to promotion& scientific/public outreach, either in form of press-release or in organizing conferences or in pushing candidates for prizes.
Having been in the scientific commitee with the duty of organizing a conference, I have seen that sometimes the prize recipent decision is made there.

I've been involved in two such awards. In both, the candidate had, to my knowledge, no prior knowledge of the nomination. In both situations, the nomination was made by a person more widely known than the candidate. In both situations, the decision was made by a committee of the association with competing candidates. One, the successful one, had several nominations, in addition to the primary one. The primary nominator in that case lobbied some of us to add support, which we gladly did. And we secondary contributors were able to speak to different aspects of the candidates suitability.
Unlike Hogwarts, magic doesn't happen. Either some number of your colleagues get together on their own in a "cabal" to push you forward or you have to nudge someone yourself, probably a major collaborator. In both cases above, the nominator and nominee had been collaborators in the past.
You are unlikely to be spontaneously thought of for a major award unless you have led some aspect of your field in some way. Lots of papers probably isn't enough in most cases. You need to be visible in pushing forward on some front that is seen by many as important. That could be research or service to the organization or possibly a number of other things.

Good answer. I did a couple of nominations over the years. As chair of my department’s personnel committee, which was also charged with trying to get awards for deserving faculty, I sent an e-mail to the entire faculty, asking if anyone wanted to be nominated for an award. One faculty member responded positively, so I worked with that faculty member, got strong outside letters, including one from a person who subsequently won a Nobel prize, and my colleague won an award. It helps enormously to be known to the folks at the top of one’s profession. Service to profession can help enormously. (+1)

@EdV You should post that as answer too.

@AzorAhai-him- Well, I only did a couple and the answer by Buffy pretty much covers it. In my experience, most faculty would love to be recognized with an award, but most are uncomfortable putting themselves forward, even if they are doing seriously good research, bringing in grants, publishing in excellent journals, etc. They know a certain degree of self-promotion is necessary for professional success and advancement, but are quite reticent about the awards issue. Anyway, thanks for the suggestion, but folks here do a terrific job of covering all the bases.

@EdV I think your comment is distinct in having a departmental committee whose job it was to "get awards for deserving faculty" and having someone in your dept self-nominate to that cmte.

@AzorAhai-him- True. The reason our departmental personnel committee (DPC) was charged with the awards matter was simply because the DPC already had all the annual faculty reports, updated CVs, etc. So no confidentiality issue. But the only time I know of, where a faculty member actually asked the DPC to be considered for an award, was when I sent out the e-mail to the faculty. Maybe it changed years later, when I finally got a break from serving on the DPC.

Awards are a popularity contest within the group of people who give out awards. If you want one, choose a few deserving contributors in your field and try to get them prizes. As you interact with various awards committees, remember your only goal is to get your colleagues the recognition they deserve. If, and only if the awards committee asks for your CV to understand how valuable your nomination is, you can share that. Your professional conduct, charismatic disposition and tireless advocacy is what impresses the various award committees. It'll also position those you advocated for to reflect on your contributions.
This method is not foolproof, but ... an award is just a notch on your belt. Put the ones you win on one side and the ones you advocated for on the other. Recognition is as much an accident of charisma, contacts and timing as it is based on your hard work.

Good point.  The OP complains he has never received an award.  The question could be put to the OP: how often have you nominated someone else for an award?

@GEdgar High-output individuals feel pressure to keep performing and often choose to prioritize different things. Priorities change. Just because a person has never before doesn't mean they won't ever in the future.

Awards are a mark of a social recognition, and they have everything to do with visibility and networking. An absolutely stellar result does not an award make, not on its own. Working behind closed doors in your ivory tower would only bring in recognition and respect from people in a somewhat narrow field, and these are not the same people who influence award-related decisions.
How often do you engage in chest-beating compared to those less accomplished colleagues getting nominated? The research administration has some awards to distribute, was it you or someone else who had their ear the most recently talking about the greatness of their results? How much funding did you get for the school? How many students have you successfully graduated? The most decorated people have this feedback loop fueled at all times; for them, awards help getting more funding and other resources for the research and so they often talk about how great their research is and how deserving of all accolades it is. Not that this is a bad thing per se, and not all awards are like that. But the majority is.
One needs not be self-nominated to kick things off, but someone with enough motivation to get them an award should speak out directly. The most "honest", down-to-earth awards seem (to me, at least) to be given out by scientific societies such as AMS or IEEE, and you may be well on track to get one of these. But these honorary, often lifetime achievement awards usually come pretty late in one's career. "Smaller" ones often come in a "science fair"-like format, and people seem to start collecting these from the "best ... at a conference".
The last point about conferences is actually rather important, it replicates a lot of the dynamic tied to the institutional award-giving.

I agree with Buffy, however, I'd suggest that finding a major collaborator to nominate you might not be enough.  Instead of soliciting a single nomination, you should work with a person willing to coordinate the gathering of a nomination package.  Ideally, that person would be soliciting nomination letters and submissions designed to boost your chances from a number of colleagues that could all support your nomination in slightly different ways.  They'd contact the list of potential nominators, suggest what part of your portfolio they're most in a position to support, ping them to make sure those that said they'd submit a letter actually submit it, ...

I suggest adding that most departments should have a process that will result in this sort of support; the OP should talk to their Head/Chair.

With respect, I appreciate that your question is meaningful, but the way you have framed it is really quite bizarre (or maybe even narcissistic).  I am puzzled that someone with your experience in research is asking this question.
One goes into research because they enjoy it, are passionate about it and want to contribute, not because one expects or is searching for prizes.  There have been many mathematicians (Harish-Chandra, for example) who won almost no awards although they did work of foundational importance.
Just openly stating puzzlement (and even offence) that you have not received any shiny awards for your work is really quite a bizarre and surprising statement.

-1 This doesn't answer the question...

You always compare yourself with your peers. If you achieve more, you compare yourself to others which achieve on the same level. If they receive prizes, it is naturally to ask yourself, why you are left out.


text:
Would it be immature to ask my PhD advisor for more background for a paper they've asked me to help with?
I am doing a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics at a U.S. university and after taking Professor X's class this Spring, he has agreed to be my advisor. About a month ago, Professor X asked me to read a particular recent paper of his and prove a conjecture.
I have been reading his paper, and I can understand the logic in his proofs from one line to the next. However, I fail to see the big picture. I would have no answer to the questions such as "What is the motivation behind coming up with this theorem?" or "What is the motivation behind the proof of this lemma?". As a result, I feel like I don't even have the slightest idea of how to prove the conjecture he assigned me.
I think I know the answer to my dilemma: just keep reading and trying until you understand. However, it is possible that he has something else to add. Perhaps he might recommend me to read another paper for more background or something like that.
Would it be immature and not worthy of a PhD student to ask this question of my advisor?

Hurray, also the mathematicians miss the big picture of mathematics then!
Try to revert the roles: you are the leading researcher on topic X, you lived through the topic for 10/15 years and now one one of your young unexperienced minion (slaves), while solving equation X.333.a(bis) asks you "what is the point of X?". How would you take that question? would you use your experience as a claw to bash your minion or as a light to show the way to your tutored student?

@EarlGrey: "Hurray, also the mathematicians miss the big picture of mathematics then!" As a mathematician I'll add the (somewhat - but only somewhat - tongue-in-cheek) comment that it seems to be somekind of cultural fetish in mathematics not to explain what you are doing... ;-)

Have you tried reading the papers cited in the paper he's given you yet?

@EarlGrey  True.  On the other hand, we Americans have a cultural obsession with talking about ourselves and our ideas.  Any time that someone asked me to explain my own work, would easily be the best day of my week.

If you have a good advisor, they will actually really like that you are asking this kind of question! It shows you are curious and want to understand "the big picture" beyond the specific task you've been assigned.

In general here, the immature thing is not to talk to your supervisor...

If there was one piece of advice I could have given myself when I began my PhD journey it would be to ask more questions. Not knowing something is OK! If your advisor doesn't have time to go through background with you, find someone who does (post-docs etc)

Thank you all for the valuable advice!

I don't think your situation is at all unusual and it is probably a good thing to talk over with your advisor in general terms. There is a hierarchy of mathematical understanding that goes from simple computational ability at the bottom to something that I won't try to describe here.
But about 3/4 of the way up that hierarchy is true insight into a subfield or problem area. This is about the time in your career when it would be natural to be developing that, but, I hope, your advisor can assist you in this.
At some point you have a a-ha moment when things fit together and you suddenly see the big picture and how the parts fit together.
You can try to tough it out on your own, but if you explore the topic in general, not necessarily related to this particular paper, you might get a boost.
And, the fact that you are asking if such questions are immature seems to indicate that you are within reach of the next step.

I wish you had tried to describe it.

@HashimAziz, the highest level, which is also a form of insight is when you can recognize things that "might be true" but haven't yet been proven true. A look into the future about what might be with a more or less valid intuition about its likely truth. Such a person will always have more or less fruitful lines of inquiry, but more, rather than less. I hadn't quite reached that stage when I finished my doctorate, but did a bit later.  Random poking at the boundaries of knowledge isn't likely to be successful. You need more.

This is a fantastic question to ask. It's where your advisor's expertise really has the chance to make a difference, and it's much more interesting to answer than "Why does line 4 follow from line 3"? Long term it's your hope to understand the big picture as well.
The best time to ask questions like this is after you've first taken a stab at it yourself: you'll be in a much better position to understand the answers! As you've done this already, I'd encourage you to proceed.

Thank you for your answer. My meeting is today, and since I was not planning on asking this, I did not prepare anything concrete about this. I just have a general feeling of "I really don't see the big picture" because I don't understand the big picture of how to prove ANY of the lemmas/theorems. Do you think it's a good idea to just ask him for general advice today, or should I wait until I come up with something concrete?

@user56202 Sorry I didn't respond to this by the time of your meeting. But really the advice I'd give is (1) do your best to prepare (whcih you did!), (2) when you ask questions, show interest in what your advisor tells you and try to follow up (which I assume you'll be doing!), and (3) try not to worry too much about the rest. If your questions sound "immature" in some way, well, you're fairly new to research, that's to be expected.

No problem, thank you for your follow up! In case you're curious about what happened: I asked my advisor the general question, and he recommend me a (family of) papers to look at for motivation. So it turned out well!

These questions are usually addressed in the introduction of the paper. Papers are written with graduate students and professional academics in mind, and some of those readers are likely to have similar questions about the motivation.
If you can't find the answer in the paper itself, this is an excellent question to ask your advisor.

Thank you for your answer. The introduction does contain some high-level motivation, such as "we took the algorithm from reference [25] and made this and that modification". However, I am having trouble with the motivation of most of the technical steps of the proofs; and I don't believe that this sort of motivation is provided in any paper. Do you think it's appropriate to ask about details like this?

@user56202 I believe it is :-)

There's a boundary somewhere between 'go and read more yourself' and 'ask for additional support'. This boundary depends on the problem you're studying and your own ability in that area, and on how much time your supervisor or colleague or friend is willing to spend discussing with you. It's there in many aspects of life, as well as being a part of studying for a PhD.
You can learn where that boundary is by trying; try reading one time and try asking another time. Pay attention to how well you managed to learn on your own and how willing your supervisor was to help you out. You could also ask your supervisor 'I'm trying to learn when to read more and when to ask for more help from you, do you have any advice?'
As you move further along, 'ask for additional support' may start to become more like 'discuss the problem with another expert'.


text:
What is the difference between "adjunct professor" and "professor emeritus"? Can the dean be an adjunct?
What I understand is,

an adjunct professor is a part-time teacher
a professor-emeritus is a part-time teacher who went past his full-time (tenured) period, but either the university didn't let him go, or he didn't want to retire

Is my understanding correct?
If YES, I am confused. Coz, I found some adjunct teachers to be the dean of the faculty. How can an adjunct teacher become a faculty-dean?

What country? Buffy's answer applies to the US but I believe the term is used differently in some certain other places.

An adjunct is someone without a continuing contract who teaches courses with only a contract for that course (or a few courses). They are "temp" employees and often get only minimal benefits such as contribution to retirement and such (US). Pay is normally abysmal.
A professor emeritus may teach or not. It is an honorific often/normally given to someone who retires from the profession in good standing. In some places I think it is automatic, but in some it is specifically granted.
A person might do both, teaching on an adjunct contract after having retired (and given up tenure). Some of these may be paid more than the normal adjunct.
In the case of the dean, it was probably just that the dean position was achieved in the normal way (usually a tenured professor advances) but had no teaching duties. If they wanted to also teach a course they might be given an adjunct contract for it (probably paid, but possibly not). It wasn't that the adjunct got to be dean, it was the other way round.
I leave out the very exceptional case where a superstar is an adjunct and is later appointed dean. I know of no instance of that.

I know of a small college where Dept. Chair and Dean are rotating positions.  Each person in, say, the math department is chair for the year.  Each department rotates its chair into the dean position, so if you're unlucky enough to be chair of the math department that year, you get to be dean also.  My friend was a new hire and still working on his Ph.D. and it was that position's turn to be chair and dean.  At a small school like that, the positions mean little more than you have to do the course scheduling (which varies little from year to year.)

@B.Goddard, there are other, not so small, places in which the chair rotates through the tenured faculty a couple/three years at a time. The dean thing is new to me. Dartmouth used to have rotating chairs, but I don't know if they still maintain that.

Both of your definitions are too restrictive.
Even in the US, the term "adjunct professor" is used in at least two ways.  The older meaning was for an extra appointment to a department for someone employed in another department or another institution.  This meaning is still in use at some institutions, with "Adjunct Associate Professor" reserved for those with a regular position elsewhere.  Such a position might involve no classroom teaching and no pay, for example, and just be there to allow this person to advise graduate students.
The newer meaning is a euphemism for part-time instructor.  It is similar to calling a worker at a big box store an associate instead of a sales clerk.  Words shift over time.
As to emeritus professors, there is no requirement that an emeritus professor teach, although many do.  The rank of emeritus professor is somewhat formal, given to some retired professors, but it can be associated with certain rights.  For example, the right to apply for a research grant, get an office, and if very lucky, a good parking sticker.
You need to know how these ranks are defined at a specific institution to make sense of what is happening.  The dean might well have been a full professor at another institution and an unpaid adjunct full professor at the current one, then been hired as dean.  Or not.  It is hard to say.   I would look at this person's CV to get a sense of what they have done over the years.

My emeritus status comes with a permanent email address and continued maintenance of my academic web page(s). Both are quite valuable to me.

@Buffy I have a permanent email address just from being an alumnus of my college. But it's a distinct domain from student/faculty.

@Barmar, Dartmouth used to do that, and I think it is a brilliant practice. The alumni office loves it in particular.


text:
Why is plagiarising words such a big deal?
Plagiarising the ideas of others is obviously a big deal. You are stealing the hard work of others and misleading your peers by pretending it is your original work.
But why is plagiarising words and paragraphs considered a big deal? I mean, isn't the point of academic effort to transmit ideas and knowledge? Who cares what specific words were used to transmit it? It's not like we are writing poems here: the words themselves don't matter, the underlying ideas do.
For example, say you are writing an article, and you need to add a short section on some background information. Your original source for this information is some book by a guy called Juntao, in which he writes

It is well-known that the K-Group is hyperdifferentiable and pseudo-geometric. It can further be shown, given certain assumptions on the continuity of the underlying complex manifolds, that the associated Einstein-curves are super-composites and universally dense in the field of measurable spaces. Indeed, this was shown by Hilbert and Plato in their seminal work on uncountable and analytically algebraic left-Sylvester Deligne graphs.

Say you need to provide this information in your paper. What’s the problem if you just copy it verbatim? I mean, I could write it in my own words, easily. But why should I be forced to waste time on that? Why is it a problem if I just use the above formulation?
As long as you refer to the original material, such as by ending the section with

For more information on this material and proofs of the stated theorems, we refer to the works of Hilbert and Plato [1840]. A complete summary of the material can be found in Juntao [1998].

then everything ought to be fine, isn’t it? And yet, there are question like this, where somebody wanted to "seek justice" just because somebody else stole a few sentences of his.

Related: Why is plagiarism so harshly punished?

Let me say again here, that plagiarism involves lack of citation, which represents the work of others as your own. It isn't that quotation marks are some magic incantation that gets you off the hook. You need to be clear who is the source of the words, whether literally copied or not, whether paraphrased or not, whether "quoted" or not. Citation is the magic incantation. Quoting  helps one delimit what is being used, but isn't the essence of it. Citation is the essence of it. Moreover, you need to be clear in what you are capturing. Quoting helps you do that.

Your example above would have been clear if you end with "The above passage comes from Juntao..." As you write it, it isn't clear.

What you're talking about is called citation. And yes, it's perfectly fine. No one has a problem with citation. Plagiarism is exactly the same as citation, with one key difference: you don't actually cite the work you're lifting from. That's all there is to it.

Paraphrasing -- writing in your own words -- is not a waste of your time.  If you can't do it, you don't understand it.  If you can do it, you show your readers (and professor) that you do understand it.  You still need that citation, even when you paraphrase.

The real problem is that, bar a couple of adjectives, anyone familiar with the subject would probably write something very similar to that paragraph, without ever having read Juntao's work - or remembering that specific paragraph if they'd read it a decade or so ago.

For instance the use of Juntao words as per your question isn't plagiarism. " Say you need to provide this information in your paper. What’s the problem if you just copy it verbatim? I mean, I could write it in my own words, easily. But why should I be forced to waste time on that? Why is it a problem if I just use the above formulation?" would have been plagiarism if copied from another question even mentioning that question somewhere. With your criterion one could easily write a review (indeed it happens).

@BobBrown "Paraphrasing -- writing in your own words -- is not a waste of your time. If you can't do it, you don't understand it." One could see it as a waste of time. Precisely in the case when you can do it, but don't want to do it. Not doing it doesn't mean that you can't do it. I agree with your idea but I sometimes think that a certain amount of laziness can also be a virtue. Just citing others (if you understand what you are citing) can be rewarding as well.

If you think it would be easy, I would challenge you to re-state what Juntao said.

This question shows the seriously deep divide between Western and Chinese cultures.  I've read more than one article by a Westerner who gave up trying to be a professor at a Chinese Uni exactly because all the grad students considered plagiarism to be completely acceptable.

@CarlWitthoft I am currently my department's officer for handling plagiarism matters and I can assure you that while circumstance and culture may lead to some differences in extent of plagiarism, there are plenty of thoroughly home-grown British students who consider plagiarism acceptable. (P.S. born London 1979 in case you felt like drawing inferences from my name)

Can I also point out to Shi Sen that not all academia is scientific in nature, that there is research to be done in disciplines such as history and political theory, and that in those disciplines the words may be the actual ideas, not just the vehicle. So plagiarism really is a big deal in those disciplines. (I personally also find it a problem in scientific communication as well, but I just wanted to remind everyone that this is academia.SE not sciencechat.SE )

@YemonChoi I drew the influence from the OP's name as well as his strong point of view.  Sorry for slanging you.

Plagiarism is just one form of being dishonest. (Why) is that bad?

One of the reasons for citing people is to help others authenticate the information. If you just make a claim, it's not very useful. If you tell where you got the claim, it's a lot easier to find out if it's true. This is true whether it's genealogy, hymnology, tomato breed facts, etc. It's not just important for academia. I'm just saying why it's important (but, rewording doesn't help, and in fact obfuscates the facts, from a non-academic perspective, IMO, since it's easier to trace exact words to probable sources).

@BobBrown - how in the world does that imply that paraphrasing isn't a waste of time? Either you don't understand, so you can't paraphrase, or you do understand, can paraphrase, and will waste your time doing so.

@BobBrown: as a non-native English speaker, I do see a difference between understanding an idea to be able to paraphrase (or explain/teach) it and doing so in nice English.

Per your example, you are not, in fact,  "forced to waste time" finding another way to express the idea that another author had. You can just copy the passage down verbatim, but to do so without putting it in quotes and citing it is plagiarism. If you write a publication that has no quotes in it, you are essentially claiming that you wrote the entire thing yourself. If you have copied text verbatim, that is false. You are taking credit for someone else's work, which is rather frowned upon in academia.
Authors should be deliberate and unambiguous in their language, so finding the right words to express an idea isn't always a trivial task. A lot of work can go into a sentence that is succinct, precise, and understandable. Your choices are to either find different words to express that idea, or give someone else credit for having done the work already.

Careful here. If you "put it in quotes" but don't provide a citation, then it is still plagiarism.

Addendum: in mathematical contexts, statements are produced in quite formal language, limiting the variability - quotes are not required in standing definitions where modification of text may affect understanding or precision of the formulation. But, of course, if not a well-known concept, the originator must be cited. The sentence of OP, however, is not a formal mathematical statement by more a "narrative" one, and that requires quotes to clarify that this formulation is indeed lifted from another source.

"Careful here. If you "put it in quotes" but don't provide a citation, then it is still plagiarism."

@Buffy Not by any definition of "plagiarism" I've ever seen. If a passage is clearly marked as quotation, then the author isn't misrepresenting it as being their own work, and therefore is not plagiarising.

And it's still plagiarism, even if you paraphrased, if you don't don't give citation to the block that you paraphrased.

Paraphrasing is a grey area... certainly some cases are clear plagiarism, but others less so.

@MarkAmery It's difficult to make it clear that something is a quote without any citation at all, especially with longer quotes, which are presented simply as indented text. If you don't name a speaker, then they're just scare quotes.

I agree with @CaptainEmacs - the emphasis on quotation marks is silly and certainly doesn't apply to mathematics.

@MarkAmery "If you were right, I would agree with you."  --William F. Buckley

@Noldorin No, paraphrasing is not a grey area.  Plagiarism is using the words or ideas of another and though they were your own.  No matter how much I might paraphrase, if I'm using your idea, I plagiarize if I do not cite.

"If you write a publication that has no quotes in it, you are essentially claiming that you wrote the entire thing yourself". This is not true if you paraphrase and cite.

@BobBrown Wrong. There is no such thing as a completely original idea, as inspiration for everything comes from existing knowledge, whether it is implicit, explicit, recycled, or whatever you want to call it. Furthermore, when does a novel discovery/idea become common knowledge? It is a huge grey area. In mathematics, as some others have pointed out, certain ideas are just well accepted, and furthermore there are often limited ways to express something technically/formally. Must we cite Newton or Leibniz every time we use the rules of calculus? Or the latter's notation? I don't think so!

I'd change the "isn't always" to "is never", but the fact that I'd do this shows that doing it would be justified.

@morxa Paraphrasing and citing indicates that you're not claiming all the ideas as your own. Without quotes, though, you are indicating that you have written every sentence yourself, in the very mechanical sense of word selection - all the words are your own. I could write a review article with absolutely no new ideas in it, but as long as I don't take any text verbatim, I can rightfully claim that I wrote the whole thing myself.

The focus on "quotes" in this answer is rather misguided in this answer I think. It would be legitimate to say "In the following, we provide the definitions of Hyperbolic Cotton Candy as originally given by Bigshot [1]:" and then go ahead and type up Bigshot's definitions verbatim and without quotes. As @Buffy commented on the original question, you need to be clear what you are capturing from the other source. Quotations help you do that, but are not the only way to do it.

The question as I understand it is "why is it considered plagiarism", not "why can't I do it?"

@penelope If you mean that you can use a block quote or other stylistic convention rather than quotation marks to indicate a direct quote, then I agree. However, if a paragraph of text is copied word-for-word without being marked in any way as a quote I would consider it plagiarism, even if it is prefaced with an acknowledgement that the ideas come from someone else.

@BobBrown There is a distinction to be made: if you paraphrase (enough) you are no longer guilty of plagiarising the words. You may still be guilty of plagiarising ideas. But that holds only if the ideas originate with that author  or another particular author. If you just paraphrase an article that describes a common idea which might be new to you but common in your field, you don't plagiarize. It still can be helpful to put a reference if you are not already familiar with the idea for others to check up on your source in case you misunderstood something.

@Darkwing  I tell undergraduates that if 1) they can find essentially the same information in at least three different sources and 2) they can write about it of their own knowledge, then citation is unnecessary.  However, if they can't write about it of their own knowledge, then citation is needed no matter how much they paraphrase.

@Noldorin There comes a point when someone's words or ideas become so popular that they can be reused and restated without citation, as everyone already knows what it is and where it came from. To use your example, no one is going to read a paper that makes use of calculus or contains Leibniz notation and is going to think the author invented those methods. The same cannot be said for using any given set of words or ideas. Also, there's a huge difference between drawing inspiration from existing ideas and trying to pass those same ideas off as being your own.

@Abion47 Exactly, so there’s a spectrum / grey area. Some cases are clear-cut one way or the other, but others are debatable. I generally find absolutists with regards to anything oversimplify the matter greatly and ignore its nuances.

@Noldorin While I agree with the existence of grey areas, it may be a valid and more helpful approach wrt. to teaching undergraduates to err on the safe side and first teach them a rigid absolute way, that they later can deviate from once they matured in the topic and know how to judge the grey area themselves. Maybe with a small side note, that "there are some exceptional cases where you can be less strict, but for now better follow the simple rules rather than waste time trying to judge each case perfectly - and perhaps run afoul because you misjudge"

@Darkwig Maybe. But I think making them aware of the existence of grey areas is at least helpful, even if you drum it into them to err on the side of caution if in doubt. E.g., even experienced mathematicians may not agree on where to draw the line when it comes to citing Hilbert, Cantor, Bourbaki, etc on certain statements. This sort of prominence and recency is where it becomes murky to me.

Having been plagiarized before, I found three things irritating:

Plagiarists seem lazy. Instead of writing something in their own words and adding their own knowledge to it, they simply copied what I and others wrote and stitched it together into a semi-coherent whole. When I write formally, I spend a lot of time to get the words right, and I don't think it's fair to simply copy my work. (Particularly when they don't credit me for the work.) If you get the same reward (a publication) for copying as you do for producing something original, that does not seem to be incentivizing the hard work that produces valuable research.
Plagiarism at the sentence level seems to lead to hard-to-read writing. One sentence from here, one sentence their own, another half a sentence from somewhere else, etc. Mix in inconsistent vocabularies, the use of a thesaurus to trip up plagiarism detection software, and rearranging sentences to trip up plagiarism detection software. That's a recipe for bad writing. To be honest I think making plagiarized writing good would take more time than writing something original in the first place. Also, I think the opportunity cost for someone who is not a fluent speaker of the language they are writing in exceeds the time savings from plagiarism. (My impression is that many non-fluent people who plagiarize do so because they don't believe they can write as well as a fluent speaker. But this tends to not work well, and doesn't help them learn the language as much as writing would.)
Plagiarists sometimes don't seem to understand the passages they copy. This might be because plagiarism seems to be correlated with poor reading skills. A plagiarized sentence says X is true and then later the authors argue "not X has already been established..."

+1 just for pointing out the "hard-to-read" writing style. If I come across an elegant sentence or two in a sea (puddle) of awkward communication, I'm putting quotes around it and googling. It raises my hackles and I start viewing the document with suspicion.

I could have wrote this. +1

Citing verbatim has its places, especially if you cite a technical standard or a definition of something. But it should always be very obvious, such as: "The National Institute of Standards and Technology defines <...> as: [Blockquote]\Cite[...]

@DavidStockinger If there is a whole coherent passage that describes concepts or related work for a new publication quite perfectly, I would feel that it would save the writer as well as readers already familiar with that text and therefore the research community as a whole quite some time if that would simply be copied (by all means with citation!) instead of rewritten again (perhaps less well). Yes the more one would need to stitch existing text and one's own text together the less helpful such an approach becomes. Still, sometimes I do find people copy less than would be optimal out of fear

In scientific work there is more to plagiarism than just crediting people for the work that they do. But first, an aside in the difference between copyright infringement and plagiarism.
Suppose that I find a publisher (unlikely) who will let me take an early edition of Goethe's Faust and publish it under the name Buffy St. Magnus, with no indication anywhere that it is from Faust. I can do that legally, since the work is not under copyright, though some recent editions may be. I don't use quote marks or anything, but even if I do, it is plagiarism. Plagiarism, but not copyright infringement. I'll be condemned (well St. Magnus, anyway). But I can't be sued.
Suppose, alternatively, that in writing a new book, that I take a chapter (not the entirety of the work, but a substantial part) from a recent novel of, say, Louise Erdrich and incorporate it into my own work. Suppose that I'm clear, using quotes or whatever, and giving proper citations of the original. Since I cited it (quotes or not), it isn't plagiarism. But whoever owns copyright to the original will likely object and I'll be sued, almost certainly, for copyright infringement. So, copyright infringement, but not plagiarism. This would also be the likely outcome if I make small changes or paraphrase parts of it.
In the latter case, if I do the same thing but don't give a citation. Then is is both plagiarism and copyright infringement and I'll be both sued and condemned.
But, suppose that what we have is scientific writing instead. Note that scientific papers have a context, usually expressed in their own citations and their bibliography. There is more here than just who wrote it, there is the complete scientific context in which it was written. A scholar reading the work, sometimes need to explore that context directly. If the paper makes that impossible, by plagiarizing another, for example, the chain is broken. St. Magnus says the buck stops here. But really it doesn't. If I just copied from Shi Sen, then a reader of my work has no easy way to find the original and thus explore the context expressed there.
That is what makes scientific plagiarism special.
If it were only about attribution, then self plagiarism wouldn't be a thing. I'm the source of the words, even though I used them before. But if I don't cite myself properly on the prior use, others are cut off from the complete context.
Also, if were just about attribution then putting it in quotes and providing an incomplete citation, say, just the author's name, then it wouldn't be plagiarism either. But most would consider such an incomplete citation to be wrong for some reason, whether related to plagiarism or not. Ancient authors are often quoted this way, of course, but not living (or recent) ones in scientific literature.
To avoid plagiarism, or self plagiarism, you need to cite and you need to be clear about what you are "capturing" from the early work, just to help other scholars find that original context when needed. You can do this in many ways, but you need to be clear about it. Putting a few words of others in the middle of a sentence that I otherwise write is a situation that makes quote marks especially useful. For a paragraph, I might want to indent instead, with the citation immediately following (or at the beginning). But it has to be clear.
However, if I cite properly, avoiding plagiarism, but still copy "too much" (a value judgement) then I'm still open to a charge of copyright infringement. Any copyright holder can make the charge and file a suit. It is then up to others (courts, juries, ...) to decide whether I overstepped the bounds.
But note the important difference. It is lack of citation that makes it plagiarism. It is giving the impression that the words, ideas, whatever, are mine, and not those of the originator. It is the appropriation that makes it wrong, not the lack of "quoting".
That said, quoting formally, can help you make it clear what is yours and what is not and that clarity is important.

Related to my question on your answer on the linked question: Your stance boils down to: If it is properly cited, it isn't plagiarism. If it isn't clear what of the original work I am using (words, ideas, or both) how can it be properly cited?

@Mr.Mindor Yes, it has to be clear. But that is a different question as to whether you are claiming something for your own. Paraphrasing can be plagiarism or not, depending on the attribution. If I attribute it to myself it is plagiarism, otherwise not. My stance is that we should be clear about the words we use, only charging plagiarism when it meets the "definition that is", not the "definition we want it to be".

Good point risen. Preserving context and a chain flow.

So you're arguing that if you cite but then copy without quotes from an old document (for which copyright has expired), then you can't be guilty of anything?  Copyright is a legal construct that has limited duration.  Or are you implicitly assuming a moral copyright that can be violated indefinitely?  I would argue that there are two kinds of plagiarism: ideas / scientific plagiarism (the kind you're talking about), and plagiarism of wording (for which citation alone isn't adequate.) Attribution of the wording via quotes is also necessary, or more than minor paraphrasing changes for big chunks

I argued this in more detail in my answer on When to give up seeking justice after you've been plagiarized?.  (Which I just edited to add a bit about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_rights of an author (including the right of attribution), which some countries do protect in perpetuity by law as part of copyright law, unlike the normal limited-term copyrights on books that we're more familiar with.  I hadn't realized this, but I'd argue that plagiarism-of-wording is separate from the violation of the author's moral right.)

For the copyright side of things, we do have quite established work flows available: e.g. for reproducing graphics and type-set tables you need the explicit consent of the copyright owner (unless copyright expired). This is the source of those boilerplate senctences "This diagram is reproduced with kind permisson by $copyrightowner from [$source]"

If you present the words as your own, then plagiarizing the words is equivalent to plagiarizing the idea.
When you submit written work, putting your name on it implies that you are responsible for its content.

But why is plagiarising words and pharagraphs considered a big deal?

If the work contains someone else's written words, and you don't cite the original author, then you are effectively taking credit for that written idea. Claiming credit for someone else's idea is plagiarism, and is typically a punishable offense in academia.
If you want to save time by include someone else's quote verbatim, then there are standards for quoting and properly citing the text.

Why is it a problem if I just use the above formulation?

However, if the majority of the written content is copied from another author, then this suggests most of the ideas and thought process behind the writing isn't your own either. It may not even demonstrate that you understand the content that you've quoted. So if you claim credit for material that is mostly copied from someone else, it can at least seem lazy.

However, as there may be only so many ways to well and concisely transport the respective meaning, I don't see anything wrong with saying We cannot express this better than Juntao [1]: "...". Lazyness impression IMHO is somewhat secondary here. It is a bigger consideration in theses, but in general a lack of understanding is in my experience not bound to whether the source is paraphrased or copied. I.e., I've seen a number of indirect/paraphrased quotes and citations that I consider show a distinct lack of understanding.

But why is plagiarising words and paragraphs considered a big deal?

I am a scholar who writes not because a university says I must to advance, but because I enjoy writing for its own sake. So much so that I consider myself above all else a writer. So when my words are plagiarized - and it's happened more than once - it feels tantamount to someone breaking into my house and stealing a prized possession - something deeply personal.  When I write, I don't merely slap words on a page, but I revise them time and time again, perhaps 15 or 20 times or more before I have molded the text into a form I like, and for which I feel pride of craftsmanship.  You say "It's not like we are writing poems here." Perhaps in your field that is true (I don't know), but it's not the case in mine. I am not literally writing poetry, but what I write has a certain lyricism that is art. (Whether or not it's good art is for others to decide.) This might sound maudlin, but it's nonetheless how I and others no doubt feel, and may help you to understand why some, like me, consider plagiarism a big deal.

Agreed. I'm not sure what field you're in, but even in "dry" scientific fields making complex ideas understandable is an art. Unlike more conventional art, where the goal is to be emotionally evocative, the goal of scientific writing is to be both clear and precise, which is an exceeding difficult balance to strike.

@WaterMolecule  I understand: I once heard a humanities student argue aesthetics with a math major.  The humanities student claimed there was no beauty in math as there is in, say, poetry or a well-written line of text.  The math student countered by asserting he saw beauty in certain formulas.  Checkmate.

If you want to use Juntao's exact words, put quotation marks around them and cite the exact source (next to the quotation, not a couple of sentences later). Otherwise, "[y]ou are stealing the hard work of others and misleading your peers by pretending it is your original work" [Shi Sen, this question, but in a different context]. You may not realize it, but Juntao might have put quite a lot of work into this passage, not only looking up the relevant background information but also making expository decisions like choosing to mention "certain assumptions", giving their general character, but not stating them explicitly. Juntao deserves explicit credit for that work, not just a generic citation for a "complete summary".

+1 for Juntao might have put quite a lot of work into this passage [such as] making expository decisions like choosing to mention "certain assumptions"

Coming up with the right words to express an idea is also work that authors deserve credit for.
However, the reason why copying words is such a disproportionately “big deal” is that copying words is common, easy to detect, and hard to deny.
It’s common because it is the result of laziness. There is software available to detect copying automatically. And, once the copied passages and their source are identified, there is irrefutable evidence.
This results in a lot of people being punished for copying words and most people are very careful to avoid doing this. That makes it a big deal.
Of course, ease of enforcement is not a good reason for something being a big deal. But, unfortunately, that is the reality of the world.

This is the best answer. As an example's - Zimbardo's famous prison experiment has been teared into shreds in recent years and there is a strong likelihood that he faked the whole thing. But its not irrefutable, so Zimbardo can keep going on talkshows and denying everything. But outright copying something is impossible to disprove, so its easy to call out people on it.

In some cases, if one were to offer a dozen people an awkward paraphrase of a sentence and ask them if they can write it more clearly, one might find that all twelve write the exact same sentence as the original author, even though it would be impossible for them to plagiarize something they'd never seen.  The fact that words match precisely is hardly proof of anything absent evidence that someone trying to express the same ideas as the original would be unlikely to match it by coincidence.

@supercat The probability of coincidence rapidly declines the longer the copied text is.

@Thomas: That is generally true, but in cases where one is describing things using standardized terminology and phraseology, even a fairly long piece of text might be the standard way of expressing the concepts involved  What matters is not the length of the text, but the probability of coincidence.

The problem is that the goal of science has slightly shifted from generating knowledge to generating papers over the last few decades (publish or perish). While these two goals are not mutually exclusive and the former implies the later (the reverse sadly isn't true), generating papers has a lot to do with writing. Hence, people get mad if they see someone copying their written words because writing has become an (if not the) essential part of their work. Take it as one of the many expressions of the current crisis in academic research.

Not all academia is science. Not all research is science. Plagiarism in disciplines that involve greater communication, synthesis or interpretation is much more of an intrinsic problem/offence and not just something that annoys authors.

@YemonChoi: That's why I talk about science first and mention academic research at the end ...

I'm not sure the other answers address your question directly: why is it important to cite and give credit to the original source of words rather than just copy them into our own writings?

Putting ideas into words is very hard work and requires deep understanding. Contrary to what you've written, the wording also matters a lot: the whole point is to communicate the ideas! So originators of wording deserve credit also.
The normal required/accepted practice is that the author does not plagiarize, i.e. all words have been written by the author except where quoted and sourced. Given this, plagiarism is misleading or dishonest to the reader who assumes words are original. (This wouldn't apply if it were normal to plagiarize, but it isn't.)
It is very useful to the research community to have this norm of "no plagiarism" because it is easier to evaluate a paper and its contributions, for reasons that many others have been posting.
In cultures such as the USA where many of the cultural norms of research are set, plagiarism of words is viewed as ethically wrong (presumably for reasons related to the above). So it is a bad idea to plagiarize when writing for people who feel that way even if they had no rational reasoning.

This article might help.
The gist of it is that getting 'noted and quoted' is big deal in academia.
While there is some wiggle room of distinguishing "important contributions" from "used two words in the same order" and everything in between its hard to summarise this in a number, so most of the time it gets dropped.
The result of this is anything that makes a difference between getting a citation or not is a big deal (even if it contributes very little). Add to this the complexity of what makes a useful citation and it becomes politically costly and often untenable to sort out the nuances. It's not an ideal situation1 but it's really not that bad and it has upsides (see other answers).

1 I once found myself in the situation that opening few lines of an introduction I wrote for a paper turned out to be similar another recent publication. It was analogous to your example (stating widely know results of the field) and really there are only so many sane ways of saying it. It wasn't a huge problem but I felt, as you seem to, that it was a waste of effort to sort. Perhaps ironically part of the problem was I didn't want to change to using their version verbatim an cite it. One of the differences I didn't like was the attribution of the actual work was missing in the other paper (as the results where old/obvious).

I feel like it is pertinent to point out that, in most cases, scientific publications are meant to build on existing work. Plagiarising words and sentences verbatim, without being able to bring an original spin is simply not publication ready.
Essentially if it is a very basic tenet of your field then you will never need to mention it, you may simply cite a standard book and move ahead to present your work. There are word and page limits as well.
I believe this question arises mostly while writing reports and other "unoriginal" documents.
If you are aso student then, think of this as a learning experience, not a broken part of academia.