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Should I put a paper I'm not proud of on Arxiv?
I recently wrote a paper that was accepted as a workshop paper in a conference.
The truth is, I was pretty surprised it was accepted - I wrote it in a matter of weeks and there isn't a lot of novelty in it, it just takes some known techniques, mixes them together slightly, and does a lot of experimental analysis that, on close inspection, don't present anything that insightful. If push comes to shove, I can't really defend anything I did as relevant, and if I didn't desperately need more publications to graduate I don't think I would have ever submitted it.
My question is, should I put it on Arxiv? I'm having a hard time gauging how big a deal it is to put up a paper I'm not especially proud of. There's nothing egregiously wrong with it, though I think someone could plausibly accuse the analysis of reading too much signal into noise. On the other hand, it was accepted by 3 reviewers, so maybe I'm being too harsh on myself?

Does the workshop have published proceedings? If yes, it is already available publicly anyway.

Just do it. Nothing bad will happen and it can only be good, I think.

Ask someone who has read it.

Also, "don't present anything that insightful" and "reading too much signal into noise" don't seem to be the same thing — does the paper just lack novelty of results (in which case it may still be a useful contribution in other ways), or does it make unsound conclusions?

You are under no obligation to put anything on arXiv or equivalent.
In particular, if this was a bit of "make-work", that won't really help anyone else (beyond your own paper-count), you can indeed take the viewpoint that it's better to not clutter up the internet with pointless things.
On another hand, perhaps you misjudge the potential of what you wrote. For that matter, there is lots of crap not only on the internet but also on arXiv. You could take the viewpoint that putting it on arXiv is a sort of honest expression of your work (even if you didn't accomplish anything heroic in this interval).


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Is it ok if I haven't decided my research topic when I first meet with a potential phd advisor?
I'm currently in my last semester as a master student and planning to apply for phd degree. I'm going to have a first meeting with my potential phd adviser in a few days and I'm really nervous. All I know is I'm confident about what I've studied and I'm prepared to do the phd study both mentally and physically.
I'm wondering what is the expectation for a professor to accept phd student in general? I've read several research paper of his. However, I only have a general idea about my future research but not a specific topic. Is that ok? What is a decent way to respond when the professor asks about that?
update:
The field I'm studying is applied math and I'll doing my phd study in the US.

It would be useful if you included what country you are speaking of here. In the UK, because a PhD only lasts 3 to 4 years, you are expected to apply with your research proposal and, essentially, begin working on in on day one (though it will likely develop and change). In other places, where PhDs take longer, it is possible and even normal to begin your PhD without a clear topic.

While the main question is a new one and a good one, I removed some parts of the question that are more broad and unrelated to the main question. You can find plenty of related questions by using the search function on this site.

@GrotesqueSI It varies by field too. What you say about PhDs in the UK is true in some subjects, but isn't generally true in (at least pure) mathematics.

This doesn't warrant an answer, but I will add that while it can look great to have an idea for a project in mind when speaking to a potential advisor, I wouldn't assume that this will necessarily be the topic you will work on. If you want to work with a particular advisor, she may have other ideas she'd like her students to work on. But it's still great to come prepared.

@GrotesqueSi I confirm what Christopher said, I had no precise topic at the start of my 3.5 year long UK PhD in pure maths, just an idea of the area I wanted to work on.

In most fields in the US, coming to a potential advisor with a proposal isn't necessary. But with an MS, you should have the area you want to study narrowed quite a bit. I don't know specifically about how it works in applied math, but in theoretical math, you generally work out the project details with your advisor given some common interest.
The advisor, if interested in what you are doing can then be more than just someone who looks over you shoulder as you carry on by yourself and can become something of a collaborator. If you are too tightly focused when you first meet, you might hear: "Interesting, but not to me."
But if you want to work at the intersection of, say, analysis and health science, but without anything more specific, then you have a chance to find some common ground with an advisor. The field should be something that you already know about (since you have an MS) and that the potential advisor has previously worked in or has expressed interest in.
If you were a BS graduate instead, very little is actually required (in the US) and you have time to work together with potential advisors in a more general way to develop some common ground for a research problem.
For specifics, just say where you are (intellectually), and what your general interests are. Be prepared to answer about what you have done, and what you have considered.

For completeness, outside the US the answer might be quite different.

To complete on this answer. In many places in Europe, so for a general answer only, there must be a common general interest. In many cases the topic will be given or choose together among lines already established in that lab. Obviously when research doesn't require hardware it can be simpler for a candidate to show up with a more unusual topic. But again, even in Europe isn't necessary for a candidate to have his/er own project at start.

"Plans are worthless, but planning is everything."

It is a very advisable to have a clear idea of your future plans. Being committed to a particular project (or in some cases even area) is not necessary. However, this does not mean it's okay to not give it any thought at all. Also, all the thoughts and plans you have about your future research career may be summarily invalidated as soon as you actually join a lab - but this does not defeat the point. The more homework and soul searching you do about what you see yourself doing in the future, the better.

It demonstrates maturity and self-awareness
Discussing your plans gives you a chance to show off your knowledge about fields you like
Being able to grasp the concept of "backup research direction" is a very, very good thing for a researcher
Professors like it when a student can be self-directed
Professors like it when a student seems to have a specific interest in their lab's area of work, as opposed to treating it as yet another lab
You will have an easier time in grad school if you consistently think ahead

Keep in mind that there is also a broad spectrum in terms of expectations. Some advisors expect the student to be fully independent from day 1 (even day 0, ie. the day you first talk to them) while others expect a large degree of subordination to their own agenda. Some also have a broader appetite for the diversity of their students than others. So in reality, you will have to tailor your "plans" to each person. Because of this, you will have to come up with several parallel long term career plans in your head, one for every different person. You can think of this as "my future plans given that I end up being supervised by Prof. X...". This reveals 7th benefit: It shows you've taken time to understand the potential adviser and show empathy to their professional goals.
During rotations, you will be exposed to completely new research and likely all of your planning will be shattered. However, you should still be prepared to discuss your future research plans in detail at any time. You shouldn't expect to actually end up doing those plans (you will probably come up with much better ones with experience and your advisor's help), so don't get so committed that you can't let go of an idea that nobody wants to sponsor. Focus on exercising your  ability to say:

If this is where I am, right now, where do I go next? And then? And after that? And what if that fails?

This same ability will also be tested and pushed to its limits during your quals, so you might as well start practicing. Not to mention that it is a key survival skill for any researcher in general.

Since you've read the guy's papers, can't you write down a few ideas for extension of the work or to take it in new directions?  If you contribute that, you can have a meaningful discussion and also show off the prep.

Simple, efficient, to the point.

I would say it is always better to have at least an idea or an outline of a project by your first interview.

All I know is I'm confident about what I've studied and I'm prepared to do the phd study both mentally and physically.

I suspect you may be mistaken - that is, you may not actually ready to engage in doctoral work. Let me briefly explain why:

Doctoral work is almost exclusively "research work" rather than "advanced studies"; it's not simply a higher level of what you've done as an undergraduate. And while a Master's is a bit more of a mix of studying courses and doing research, you can still get through your Master's having the wrong idea about being a junior researcher - for the PhD this typically won't do.
If you do not feel strongly about studying certain specific subjects, or proving the feasibility of some process/method/idea, or improving some features of established work - more solid objectives for your doctoral and future research work - you might not want to embark on the entire endeavor.
Continuing the last point - it's not clear what your motivation is beyond obtaining the title of "Doctor of Philosophy". Maybe you do have such motivation, but you've not mentioned it.

So, while you don't necessarily have to have decided on your exact specific research topic before you meet that adviser, I would advise you have a stronger grasp of your intentions and motivations before doing so. Also, the more you know about what it is you want to be doing, the more that will help you choose which potential advisors to seek out and contact.

This really does not answer the question, and is unnecessarily discouraging. OP is not talking about their motivation and is not interested in us evaluating whether they are suitable for a PhD or not. They make it clear that they are planning to apply. They have read several research papers, to this end. On what basis you discourage them so strongly?

@Bzazz: See edit. Also, the fact that OP does not talk about something, does not make it irrelevant to OP's predicament.

@Bzazz I do not find it discouraging.  It is like a young person contemplating enlisting but complaining about pushups.  Maybe that young person does not belong in the army.

Truthfully I don't know, but with a general intuition... If you arrange a 0th meeting for advice from the person who knows what your advisor thinks is most sensible (the advisor) then you will be superlatively equipped for the 1st meeting.
You have to be careful though, you might have met at the bus stop in the rain last autumn - it was the guy with the funny red hat - and then it's all over 'cos you already met and you didn't even know you were going to do a Phd back then and the whole of your future is trashed because your 1st meeting didn't meet the rules.

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Is it ethical not to cite a paper because of the reputation of the journal/researchers?
The title is misleading mainly because there is not much room to write a detailed question.
I am currently working on a (Maths) paper. While doing the literature review, I first found something interesting that I would like to include in my paper in another paper (A) from a not-indexed journal. The researchers who wrote the paper come from a no-name university.
Later, I found somewhat the same thing in another paper (B) from another journal which is well-reputed in my field. (B) is better written than (A). The paper (B) was published before (A). However, I can not tell whether or not A plagiarised B.
I decided to cite only the paper (B) in my paper because of the reputation of the journal/researchers.
Is that unethical and disrespectful to the researchers who wrote the paper (A)?

The question in the title is essentially the reverse of Is including references of journals with low or no reputation considered bad practice?, but the body of your question doesn't make clear if the sources are interrelated, their chronological order, or who first discussed/established the "interesting thing".

I don't understand why this is even an issue. Cite both. If (B) was published later than (A) (by at least a few years), then it will be apparent that possibly (A) "copied off of (B)" without you having to explicitly say so (which would be saying something you don't actually know to be true). Otherwise, I don't see the concern. Publishing something in a non-reputed journal doesn't make something non-reputed, it only raises suspicions until you've double-checked the result yourself (if possible).

Does "not-reputable" mean "actual scam" or "low IF"?

Low reputation (in your definition it seems only low impact/not famous, and not bad reputation, ie. problems with academic integrity) itself is not a reason to not cite a paper. However if I am understanding right B predates A anyways, and they contain essentially the same information from your point of view. In that case there is no need to cite A. As a personal note, seeing the vagueness of your own question: I think we all can be a little less judgmental about who is a good writer and who is not.

Apologies for the vagueness of my text as I typed it at midnight. I am currently editing it to address any question.

somewhat the same thing. Did paper (A) had an innovative way to reach same conclusions of (B)? or is it really the same assumptions/development/conclusions?
In short: what is the novelty of A in comparison to B?

Particularly if publication dates are close, the fact that B got published first does not necessarily mean it was the earlier paper. You should also check the submission dates (and arXiv posting dates, if relevant).

I doubt this was the intent of paper (A), but supposing you are ethically obliged to cite it, then I see a prolific and rather annoying future for some troll, publishing previously-known results in trash journals, with plausible deniability as to whether they're plagiarised. Or, some kind of AI prover honestly would not be plagiarising the original papers, and might even come up with novel proofs, but it would be a faff to have to cite them all every time you use Cauchy's Theorem (any of them). A should have cited B anyway, if they'd found it, so one hopes they simply didn't.

@SteveJessop I think the main argument for also citing both papers in this instance is that A is where OP found the results, but they subsequently discovered B has priority. If OP had found B first then there would be no particular reason to cite A.

You’ve cited the earliest reference for the results your paper is relying on, so you’ve fulfilled your ethical obligations to the readers and to the researchers who deserve the credit for those results. You have no ethical obligation to do anything else.
The fact that that earliest reference is also a better written paper than a later published paper is another reason to be satisfied that the citation serves your readers in the best way by directing them to the best written source explaining the results. But this consideration is a more minor one and not related to ethics in my opinion.
The reputation of the two journals, and the ranking of the universities the authors work in, are completely irrelevant and have no bearing on the question of which paper to cite.
You are still free to cite paper (A). This may make sense as a show of recognition to the authors of the paper if you believe that their discovery of the results was made independently of the authors of paper (B) (this happens frequently in mathematics for example). In that case one can argue that they deserve some minor credit even if they were later to publish, and even if they didn’t do as good of a job writing up their results. But this too doesn’t rise to the level of an ethical imperative, in my opinion.

I draw attention to "somewhat the same thing in another paper". If B is only loosely what you want to use in your paper, or perhaps it fairly obviously implies it, or provides a framework that proves it, whereas A is precisely what you want to use in your paper, would A then deserve a citation for saving you the need to narrow B's observation down to the exact observation you need? Assuming for the sake of argument no plagiarism, that A was independent work.

I decided to cite only the paper (B) in my paper because of the
reputation of the journal/researchers.

If it wasn't the case that B had been published earlier, I would not see this as good practice. So looking at this problem from a more general standpoint, I would not let the "reputation" be the decider on who to cite. In many cases, it doesn't even hurt to simply cite both sources.
Citing a source/a researcher solely because they have "better" reputation will perpeptuate the status quo (or even make it worse): the already reputable will become more reputable (if that status can be measured by citation count alone) and the less reputable will be left behind. Even the most reputable researcher started with no citations to their name, and being at a no-name university doesn't imply inferiority (just imagine someone prioritizing taking care of loved ones over their career which makes them less mobile).

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Is it ethical if I claim the first authorship as I own the idea and the implementation but I do not test the method myself?
I have an idea for a new approximation method. I am pretty sure that it works, but I don't know how well it works compared to the existing methods. However, I do not have a lot of time to pursue the idea.
I am thinking of asking my supervisors if they could give that idea to an undergraduate student so that they could evaluate the performance of the method on the datasets I provide. They do not need to implement anything, as I will supply the Python code of the method. They need to report the results to me and do some writing, and I will summarize the results and proofread their writing. This will probably lead to their bachelor's dissertation, and we will probably publish a paper based on the findings.
Is it ethical if I claim first authorship for the paper?

If it is that easy to do, seems like you could carve out a little time to just do it. More likely, there will be work to be done by the undergraduate and they will know more than you by the end. Ideas are a dime a dozen. Simple ideas often are not simple. If it is so trivial why do you even want first authorship?

I wonder why you are asking whether this is ethical. It possibly sounds like you know it isn't, but want someone to reassure you that it's OK.

@user438383 I seriously don't know. That's why I asked this question.

+1 for thinking about things like this before doing the work. Better than leaving this discussion to later. However, it would good to be open to the possibility that your undergrad (or your supervisor!) might add so much value that they might want to renegotiate this. Plus: are you certain that "first authorship" is a thing in your field? Enough fields always order authors alphabetically.

You can't really "own" an idea. If you have expressed an idea as a piece of (creative) work, (e.g. a work of art of a piece of code), you that specific expression falls under copyright (automatically), and you can potentially licence it to others. On the other hand, a new invention (defined as a new process, idea, composition of matter) can be patented, but you need to take steps to get through the patenting process. In both cases, the idea (the "eureka" moment where the little light bulb went off and it just "clicked") is not protected in any way -- ideas themselves are cheap.

Another thing you say is "an undergrad student could get their BSc dissertation from it". But you say the implementation is already done, you've already picked the datasets and completed the experimental design. That doesn't sound like a lot of intellectual work. In fact, the only part of intellectual work you seem to want to pass on to this student is writing -- and that's pretty hard if they don't need to implement or engage with your method, just run some experiments that have been prepared for them. Why do you think this will be enough for a BSc dissertation? Or interesting to the student?

What is your field? Does your field give importance to the last author? In my field, biology, I would expect you to be last author (depending on who else is involved, who the PI is etc) and the student to be first.

Why wouldn't that student wait for your implementation to be published, then write about your implementation and how well it works, citing your publication obviously? "About the results of a method published by Neuchatel". And get the sole authorship. You will publish your implementation in a way that allows this, right?

@penelope "I don't know how well it works compared to the existing methods" seems just fine for a Bachelor student, for example if they automate the testing or if they look for analytical reasons behind the superior performance of the newly proposed method.
Let's stop asking too much from Bachelor students thesis.

@EarlGrey I absolutely agree that investigating a new method for which we "don't know how well it works compared to existing methods" is perfectly suitable for a BSc thesis (maybe even too much?) The scope issue in my mind is that the BSc student would be working on a method for which the implementation has already been provided, the datasets have been selected and the experimental design has been completed. The only expectation seems to be to run the experiments -- the OP says "I will summarise the results", so not even analysing the results is expected of the BSc student.

@penelope: see my answer addressing your point.

This is the second question you have asked this month about first authorship.
I would like to suggest a frame change. Try to think more about the quality and usefulness of the work you and your colleagues are doing, and how the paper reporting it will be better because you've talked about it and wrestled with it together. Part of that discussion can include how credit is allocated.
Of course this may be naive if you're in a field where professional advancement is measured by a weighted average of author position on published papers. Fortunately, I'm a mathematician and we just alphabetize. I tease my coauthor Catalin Zara about that.

until the day your coauthor discovers their grandfather was mr. Azara, with the famous and common "mute A" among mathemticians ...

Your reasons are fine in my view so I don't see any ethical problem with this. However this doesn't mean that nobody else has an "ethical right" to claim first authorship as well, depending how exactly the work plays out in the end. People may disagree about authorship without anyone being unethical.

Nobody owns an idea.
There are professional norms to credit originators of ideas, but you should not think you in any way own an idea.
https://ipwatchdog.com/2018/11/17/protecting-idea-can-ideas-be-patented/id=103389/#

I'll note that copyright gives certain rights to the expression of an idea, not the idea itself. Likewise patent gives certain rights to the exploitation of an idea, but not the idea itself.

If you have an implementation and you are "pretty sure it works", then you don't have an implementation. You have an idea that has been somehow fleshed out. "They don't have to implement anything" is something I'd believe when I see it. The hard work hasn't been done yet, that's what you want to leave to an undergraduate student. Who needs to properly implement not only your work, but also other people's work that he needs to compare to. That is much more work, and much more value, than you have provided so far.

Yes, from what you describe it is absolutely fine.
Whoever does additional work to yours deserve co-authorship, but the decision on who should get first authorship is, in the end, an internal discussion between co-authors, you provide enough arguments to be the 1st author.
The not asked question arising from your question is if the work you propose would be enough for a Bachelor thesis.
The answer is no.
However, the solution is simple.
The Bachelor student can spend a couple of weeks dealing with your code (and getting co-authorships) after having spent a couple of months automating the testing against other approaches or looking for the analytical reasons behind the superior performance of the newly proposed method against the literature methods.

If it is trivial, authorship is not an issue.
If on the other hand you developed a method that is not trivial, you should implement it yourself. Designing a non-trivial algorithm in your head without missing something is rare. If you don't implement it yourself, your student will have refined and corrected your method, and would be a co-author. It would then be unethical to claim sole authorship.
EDIT: It would then be unethical to claim sole authorship. However it would not be unethical to claim first authorship in my view.

The OP is asking about first authorship, not sole. I don't think there is any question of not including the student, the person who will actually do the work and write the paper, in the list of authors. The question is about who should go first.


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Gift authorships and necessary actions
In my paper as well as in others there is a specific person that acquired gift authorships. How do I speak about that anonymously? Should I send an anonynous email to integrity office? or to the journal? I don't know how to handle the situation and I need some guidance. Apparently something is going on with this person. Is it possible a person to be handed authorship on papers across departments without significant contribution (eg. helped with 2 constructs, set up a PCR, helped with an experiment aliquoting sample supernatants, etc.) and this to be done for non-suspicious reasons?

What you describe actually sounds like a contribution. "Significant" can be a judgement call. People can be generous with that call without it becoming "gift" authorship.

in one paper this äuthor" contributed to a panel (supplement) along with other 4 authors - just or one experiment. In the same paper another person contributing a panel was put in the acknowledgements.

Given that in your previous question you were hoping to get someone's Ph.D. revoked on the grounds that their thesis is not strong enough (indicating a seriously skewed perspective on what is a significant enough issue to result in the revocation of one's Ph.D.), perhaps you should allow for the possibility that your perspective on what counts as a significant enough contribution to a paper may also be skewed compared to the rest of academia.

The amount of contribution is a fickle matter. Students tend to view it as very black-and-white and are overly protective of their work (and tend to deem others' contributions as insignificant), while those with more experience managing research groups - and, admittedly, valuing evidence of them being good at managing the team higher - are more likely to include a lot of authors.
Nominally, you are very likely to have at least some case here: one of the checkboxes one gets to fill when sending a paper to a journal is a confirmation that all authors agree to a publication and listings of others' respective contributions, especially if something like CRediT is being used. But anonymity is likely not an option in your case. How likely is that someone not familiar with their work flags them as dishonest? How many people are in the authors' list of their recent papers? How long would it take for them to talk to each other and figure out who was the most likely person to yell "misconduct!"?
The reality of a situation is that the practice of gift authorship in this case (which does not even seem completely outrageous to me, try people just exchanging money under the table!) may be so deeply rooted you could not possibly hope to bring it down, especially not without causing a very considerable harm to yourself. You surely could demand a stricter standards of contribution on papers where you are one of key authors, but that is about it. If you come across something unmistakably egregious, you could report it to someone in the university like Thomas Schwarz said (and be prepared for them potentially sweeping the issue under the rug to not deal with the fallout; the only viable escalation from there is burning the house down by getting press involved).
It is very, very hard to argue your case there, unless some extremely apparent corruption was involved. Authors get to collectively decide whose contributions were significant and whose were not; if you stir up trouble, not working with you would be an easier option for the rest of them, and it may well end up being a career suicide for you. Until your own contributions are valuable enough for others to play by your rules, you get to play by theirs or look for a more perceivably ethically sound team to be in, sorry. Not a lot of leverage there.

are you trying to scare me that i will have retaliation? I already had but for another miscompetent individual who happened to be assigned as my daily supervisor. What could be extremely apparent corruption according to you? I am also not working with them so no problem. This goes across teams and does not involve only one team.

@oknow No, I am just stating that 1) It is unlikely you would achieve a good semblance of anonymity while reporting misconduct in this case, as it was explicitly requested and 2) If all you want is to report something, no problem. If you are actually interested in it effecting some change, you have to have some leverage.

If your apparently high standards are to become the norm, it should be demonstrable that they are usable and, in fact, superior. Lead by example. Show others how you still publish papers and get funding without engaging in dubious practices such as disputable authorships; supervise a few students invariably producing high-quality theses. This may put you at a perceived disadvantage, but good ethics is well worth it. I am a perfectionist, too, but either I can show how my way is better, or I am wrong and have to tone it down because these suggestions won't work for other people.

A useful answer would require much more knowledge about your situation, which you probably should not provide. As a co-author, you should know who was responsible for this person to be included as an author and why this authorship is not warranted. Also, how can you be sure that these are gift authorships on the other papers?
At a US institution, you could bring your concerns (not accusations) to a Dean or a VP for research.

Of course the last author.

Still, people were answering my questions, none got in the paper though.  In general I have used protocols of others and others of mine and I was not in their publications and they were not in mine. So I learned that sharing expertise unless it is very special, novel etc is normal between colleagues

otherwise all publications would have 100 authors or - god forbid - we would do everyything by ourselves reinventing the weel every time. Or design RT-PCR ( but not performing it?) in author contribution. At least the could just write just investigation and manuscript revision. Also setting up an RT PCR is controversial regarding if it guarantees authorship.  For european university?

this goes ater my first comment. Either I learned it wrong so that I would be taken advantage of or helping with cloning is suicient to get you in the authors list. I have designed construct for inducible knockout and got really helped by lots o my colleagues.

In my case this person made me start to wonder whether talking to someone in everyday fashion and receiving some input and encouragement should make me put their names in my publication otherwse I am a really bad person not collaborative and not appreciative enough. !!!!!! I also received some messages mildly blackmailing stating  how my PI likes this person!!!!! He also helped me once with a presentation and the rehearsal. Omg I should have put many on my other publications then. Really weird with this guy what does he do! no grants,  no first author publications for him! Like...how?

@oknow You seem to be reacting very emotionally to this situation. In almost any professional setting it makes it nightmarishly difficult to argue your point. Also, your paper, your call, but if people felt their contributions were significant enough and you left them out, it could put you in trouble. And yes, in HEP publications very commonly have hundreds of authors, many of them students doing a meager amount of work in the grand scheme of things. In my field, if a person has worked in the lab on samples at least for a bit, they are likely to get authorship.


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Life story on Ph.D SOP
I am applying to math Ph.D programs from U.S universities for next fall.
Frankly, I was not a good student during my Bachelor's degree. Instead, I did many things towards finding my real dream: what I really want to do. After I got my B.S in math, I did teaching in academies, and learned some skills for analyzing football statistics from a private academy. (Actually, I was crazy about football at that time, so I wanted to get a job related to it.) After that, I met a consultant and he advised me that it would be much better to utilize my major.
So I got back to my university to get my Master's degree, and I think I did quite well. I want to research on AI and math. My thesis is about graphs, which is related to expressing our body through graphs (to research related to football, too). I got my Master's degree in August this year and am now preparing for applying.
I wonder if I should write the story above, to compensate for my lower B.S. degree and to emphasize that now I am quite a motivated researcher and totally different person than about 10 years ago. Also, in Korea, there is an "age stereotype" in society. I am now 31, I am worried about the committee thinking I am too old to study.

Is this about further study in Korea or elsewhere?

@Buffy I forgot to write. I plan to study in US

Any "story" in your SOP needs to be brief and to the point - you don't want to make it seem like you're offering excuses for poor performance, but instead, want to show that even though poor performance happened briefly - you were able to bounce back from it, and become a more capable student and prospective researcher than you were before.

(Context: I’m a computer science professor in Canada who’s been on the other side of admissions a handful of times.)
If I were reading such a statement of purpose: yes, in this case a brief explanation of your path to wanting to do research (more or less as long as you wrote above) would be helpful to me. It helps to understand your motivation for wanting to do research, and justifies a bit not only your lackluster undergrad but also your somewhat-nontraditional experiences in between. (Not everyone necessarily agrees about motivating stories, but here in particular it also helps explain some things about your undergrad and work experience, so I think this is a meaningfully different situation.)
But make sure that, while this is a motivation, you convey your legitimate interest in the math itself. I’d personally be a little bit wary of a student who seems to only be interested in one particular application (if I’m not especially interested in it) – if the research ends up wandering a bit, I’d want to think that you’d still be okay with that.
I wouldn’t especially worry about your age: 31 is young enough that you’ll only be older than the very youngest professors, who could potentially feel a little weird about that, but for most professors it won’t matter at all. It’s also not like you can do anything about it at this point anyway!

I actually read the child story post before, but I think it is a different situation from mine. So, I would rather writing contents of my life on my SOP. Also, I am writing "what fields of math I am interested in and why I should study them" on my SOP, too. Thanks for your guidance!

I would look at the age from the other direction. Most starting graduate students are in the mid twenties. So 5 years older than that is not much of a difference.

Actually I'll give the opposite advice than the answer of Danica. You have a misunderstanding of the purpose of the SoP. Some places also ask for a letter about motivation, but that isn't the SoP, which should be entirely forward looking. It isn't well used if you just write about the past to try to explain away shortcoming.
In the SoP write about what you intend to study, being as specific as you can without being too insistent on a particular, narrow, research topic. Write about you goals for doctoral study. Also add some things about your goals thereafter. What career are you working towards.
If you focus on the past, then you are wasting an opportunity. However, you can include some short phrases in the SoP that indicate your readiness for starting on you plan. You can also put short phrases of motivation as long as they are strongly connected to the plan for the future.
The CV details the past. The SoP looks to the future.
Note also, that in the US, for someone with a masters already, the undergraduate grades will mean much less than the more recent results. If your math performance has noticeably improved then you should be fine. If your masters thesis is good, even better. The CV already contains that sort of information.
The admissions committee needs to make a prediction of your likely success in the program. Make sure that your letters of recommendation are strong and support that view. If they focus on your current readiness for doctoral study, the older grades mean much less.

The reason for not being too insistent on a research topic is that you will need to find an advisor who is willing to take you on. If few are interested in what you want to do, then it will be much harder. Keep some flexibility within the plan and how you express it. You can specify the fairly narrow area you'd like to work in.

I see your point, but I think it is necessary for explaining my "the very first motivation" and it cannot be shown neither on CV nor SOP, if I didn't write it. Also, I restarted my study, so I think I should write what I did during the time that I did not study. I think your answer and Danica's answer, both of them have a point so I should consider it


text:
Do we have to make any changes to a Springer LaTeX template before submission?
The Springer template is by far the most bizarre out of all of the LaTeX templates I've seen so far. There is no problem as long as you stick to the two-column option, but the appearance of the single column option is just crazy.
The main problems are the following

The right margin being outlandishly wide compared to the left margin.
Smaller font size in main content
Bigger font in reference section

These issues can be corrected to make the format look identical to the published papers in the same journal. However is it necessary?
I would especially like to know from people who have published papers in Springer who have submitted it using the standard LaTeX template provided by the publishers.
This is particularly about Multimedia Tools and Applications, but I've noticed this problem in other journals sections that use the same template.

Springer has many templates. Which are you talking about? CCIS? LNCS? Something else?

@xLeitix: I'm currently focussing on MTAP. Thanks for the clarification; just made the edit. LNCS didn't have this problem the last time I've used it. I had the problem when working with JSPS too, but used the two-column option and had no trouble with it.

I've used the svjour3 Springer template recently. It does have some weird formatting, but two-column works okay. Do you have to submit in one-column? What do the author's guidelines for your journal say?

@Ian Same here, I had no issues with JSPS which was two-column, but it is the MTAP which looks so strange with the single column requirement.

In my experience no changes are needed and these formating issues will be taken care of by the typesetters.

If you don't like the look while drafting, you can adjust things (for instance, make the margins a more comfortable width), but then leave it up to the publisher's outsourced production team for the rest. Have you checked out the published articles? Looking at a recent one in MTAP with single-column the left and right margins are (to my eye) the same width and the references are in a slightly smaller font than the body text. This was also the case for something I published using svjour3 (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10485-015-9400-4)

@DavidRoberts Please don't adjust the geometry of the page to your liking. It will change where the lines cut, potentially causing multiple overfull and underfull boxes, especially if you are using long equations, graphs or table. It's my job to check the layout of article and authors regularly put their source in A4 (while we publish in a format close to A5), giving me a lot a work to cut their equation correctly. Use the template as is and don't worry about the margins.

@Luris I did say "while drafting". I wasn't clear that I meant that for submission any adjustments to the results of using the template as-is should be left in the hands of the production team, rather than leaving it to them to fix any alterations back to how it needs to be. It would be nice if the output pdf was the size of the printed page, assuming the journal has a print copy, so that the result could be seen before proof (or publication) stage.

No. I don't recommend changes to the template. That is because the journal can easily update the template to the style they prefer for publication. Your changes to the template won't affect the eventual look of the manuscript.

Please, don't adjust the geometry of the page to your liking. It will change where the lines cut, potentially causing multiple overfull and underfull boxes, especially if you are using long equations, graphs or table. Use the template as is and don't worry about the margins.
The only reason I see to change the template would be if the template is not adapted to the final version. But in that case, it's the editor's problem, not yours.
Source: It's my job to check the layout of article and sometime authors put their source in A4 (while we publish in a format close to A5), giving me a lot a work to cut their A4-wide equations and tables correctly.

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


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Finding graduate program with large number of high quality peers
From this answer I understand that it important to get into a top schools with top graduate programs because of the large number of higher quality peers makes a big difference.
I am wondering how do I find those schools? Do I need to look into this list R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity.
I am also under the assumption that some schools have a good graduate program on very specific areas that won't show up in the above list. Where do I find those schools?

Sweet! My institution is one of those R1 Doctoral institutions in the list!

Yes, in the US, start with the list you link to. A lot of them are large State funded universities and they have large faculties and most of them cover most fields. But to narrow it to a single field you need to do some research yourself.
They will all have websites listing faculty by department. Some of them also list graduate students. Find departments with a fairly large number of members and then narrow it further by looking at the sub fields and, especially, the recent papers that the faculty has published. But, unless your desired field of study is very esoteric, most large R1 universities and even some R2 places will serve you well. Smaller places can be excellent, but they may also be a bit spotty in the research fields they are able to support well.


text:
Does delayed graduation affect graduate school acceptance largely?
I'm double majoring philosophy and Japanese in Asia, I transfered from the philosophy department and applied for philosophy as a double major, additionally, I'm trying to complete a program ran by the school related to translation and interpretation.
The issue is, I need more time.
I'm already a senior, but it will take me 5 more semesters(the following spring semester included) to finish all of the workloads.
It makes me nervous, thinking about whether should I compelete "ALL" of my studies, or just pick one(likely philosophy) and graduate as soon as possible.
Going to grad school(for T&I) would mean a lot to my future plans, but I still want to finish my studies, I don't really know if these two ideas are conflicted.
Does graduate school take in consideration how much time I spent on the bachelors degree?
If they do, does having two degrees and a program certification sound persuasive enough for the extra time spent?
Thank you in advance for the replies.

If I read it correctly, you are (a) getting a double major and (b) getting separate degree in a different field. If that is correct then I think that you should be fine.
Five additional semesters would otherwise raise some questions.
In general, though delayed graduation being a problem would depend on why, exactly, the delay. In this case it might even be a positive. If it were caused by a poor academic record it would probably be otherwise.
Another issue, however, that might arise is your commitment to a field of study. Graduate study usually requires specialization. You can probably address that in any application, and there are also exceptions to that "rule".

Note, however, that this is also a US-centric answer.


text:
Advantage In Delaying Physics Grad School Application For Senior Undergraduates
I am a senior math/physics major at a T20 American private university who aspires to pursue a PhD in physics. I became involved in undergraduate research position with a non-tenured faculty member (a teaching professor) whose class I had taken during the summer after my first year. The research did not occur in a formal lab environment, and was largely based on the whims of the professor.  While I did accomplish a lot during the time I spent with the professor, presenting at multiple conferences, I struggled to balance my research commitments with an intense course schedule, causing my progress to stall during the academic year. The professor repeatedly complained about the pace of my research during the school year, and eventually dropped me from the project during the spring of my junior year. Although some blame for my slow research progress came from bad personal habits, I think the lack of a formal lab environment and the COVID pandemic (which made most of my interactions with the professor virtual) were major factors which limited my success.
Fortunately, I have learned from my prior research experience, and I am currently working in a related branch of computational physics under the tutelage of a tenure-track professor in a formal lab setting.  I am much more productive at the lab, and I am on track to have a publication (along with strong recommendation letter from my PI) by the fall of next year. Given my experience with my previous mentor, I lack publications and three strong recommendation letters, and I feel like my application would be significantly bolstered by delaying it by a year.  Is this advisable?  Are applicants who graduated judged more severely than senior undergraduates who apply to grad school?  If I choose to apply this year, will this impact my admission prospects if I choose to apply to the very same schools next year? If I do choose to delay my application, what opportunities should I seek in the year between my graduation and my matriculation into grad school?

I think you will be fine...

My recommendation is that you don't delay but apply in this cycle.
The one thing you say you lack is strong recommendation letters. That situation isn't likely to improve with a delay, but (usual case) worsen. Unless you enter a MS program I doubt there is much you can do to improve your situation and not all of those are research based, and are usually two year programs in any case.
I don't think that the subject of undergrad research will be a factor, but the actual fact of it is a strong plus, regardless of topic, since the experience in the process itself isn't shared by most candidates.
Moreover, you say you have some conference presentations. Include those in any CV and they should support you strongly. In CS it would be even more the case, but even in math/physics it is a strong plus indicator.
Talk to some professors, however, about those letters. Even the former supervisor might be more supportive than you assume. People understand, at the moment that COVID caused a lot of disruption. And, at a top institution it is also known that your courses were challenging. If you can get good letters and write your CV properly, including research experience and "work in progress" you should be fine. Just don't apply to institutions that are too similar. Applying to only MIT and similar is not a good strategy.
You gain nothing by assuming the worst case scenario.


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Is it ok to ask academic contacts if they know of any postdoc positions suitable for me?
I'm a graduating PhD student looking for academic postdocs. So far, I've tried (soft-)applying to positions I found advertised online, applying for a grant and asking my PI for help. None of this has worked (yet). Especially the part with my PI has not been productive - they want me to stay for a year and apply for grants, I do not want this and it did not work for his last student who tried it.
Is it rude to explicitly ask people in my extended academic circle for help finding postdocs? My logic is that while they don't have open positions, they might know people who do. I don't want to be rude and impose on them, but I'm starting to get desperate.

This is called "networking", and it's an important part of the toolkit for finding jobs.

In what sense did the stay and apply for grants not work out? I assume the student didn't get a grant but if the professor paid them for the year they still got one year of being paid to do research and the possibility to continue looking on the job market for longer.

Yes, you can certainly ask others for help and support. Your PI is behaving unethically if they are inhibiting your career for their own ends. Sadly there is little/nothing you can do that won't cause yourself harm, though.
But, yes, make it known in your circle that you are looking for a position and would appreciate any help or hints, or leads on jobs. Don't rule out a tenable position, however. They are hard to get these days, but sometimes it happens. Good luck.
No, it isn't rude to ask for help.


text:
Is it cheating if I get paid to write simulation code for a grad student's thesis?
A grad student has offered to hire me to write simulation code of a published paper and they said they need the simulation for their master thesis. Is it considered cheating if I accept the project?

It'd be difficult to give an answer without knowing the field and the subject of the master's thesis. I wrote code for people in linguistics grad school to help them automate processes. The point of their research, however, wasn't that such-and-such process can be automated. (For that matter, years afterward I wrote code for my masters students!)

Are you a grad student or professional academic yourself? I'm inclined to believe for some reason you are an undergrad/out of the school system and therefore perhaps you should consider getting a position at the same lab as this graduate student. It seems like your skills would be valuable there

Do you mean is it cheating by you or by the student? Because lots of the answers are about whether it is wrong for the student to do this, but not about whether it is wrong for you to do this (which IMO are two separate questions)

Depends on if you produce the results that were paid for. If not, that's fraud, which is illegal. - It'd be difficult to give an answer without knowing if you are grad student or professional academic, or just a professional, and whether you mean is it cheating by you or by the student. If you're not a student or a teacher then no it's not; it's called the free market. If you are either of those, then no one can answer this except the people at your institution.

As long as the thesis states who did which things, it's not cheating.
If the thesis says someone else did all the work, it will fail, but it won't be cheating.

Not necessarily... The thesis could quite easily be based around developing the theory underlying whatever is being simulated and the simulation is only actually being done to aid in visualisation. The actual writing of the code is probably not that complicated for a software engineer, and the software engineer doesn't necessarily need to understand the underlying theory, just implement the algorithm. I don't think it's necessary for a researcher to have actually implemented it themselves, as long as they don't claim that they have.

It wouldn't say "someone else did all the work", but "someone else created the simulator". Let's say your thesis is about a rare phenomenon. You could use a simulator to check thousand cases quickly and cheaply and let it tell you five cases where it thinks that rare phenomenon is most likely to happen. The real work getting the thesis is examining these five cases for real, not with a simulation.

Not necessarily, though it might be on their part and it might not be wise to do it in such a case.
I suggest that you ask for a three way conversation with the student and their advisor to clarify.
The software might not be an important component of their intellectual contribution to the thesis, or it could be.
Ask for that conversation. If the student refuses to do it, you have a strong indicator that they aren't being honest.

Another indicator is who is paying: If it is the student, that is a red flag. If the money comes from the chair/department/university, it looks not suspicious.

I like this - it's a simple way to resolve it. It's also a thing that research labs do sometimes farm out, and something I wish they'd farm out more, as many of them are bad at this whole code writing thing.

@lupe I suspect that we're even worse at writing clean specs than clean code!  I've had to do both.  We also have to keep evolving our code after the funding runs out

@ChrisH  - I've been a research software engineer for a bit, I'd agree! (But, the funding is really the problem, we really should be paying continously for software developments and feature updates, and it's crazy how much of say, biology, runs basically off unsupported software projects.)

+1 A PhD is essentially an apprenticeship in research in that field.  To pass, you need to demonstrate you have gained the research skills to work successfully as a researcher in that field.  If writing simulation code is one of those skills, then getting someone else to do it for you is an admission that you are not able to work independently on that topic and don't deserve the qualification.

@lupe or keeping software engineers on staff with decent contracts.  Some of the more software-intensive physics-related fields do that now, but it's rare

@ChrisH - I feel the decent contract bit of this - 2 year contracts are typical, and my view is that I'll commit to a place for as long as they'll commit to me, so end up job hopping every 2 or so years, sometimes 3 if I can find an extension

@lupe, I've been lucky enough to get a couple of 3-year postdocs, and extensions. But I'm not very mobile, so I'll try harder than most to stay in one place

That conversation doesn't need to be adversarial: it is absolutely appropriate to understand the context your software will be used in, and how customers might hope to extend it. Here, that very reasonably means understanding how the software will be used, and also how this research fits into the lab's larger efforts. In an academic context it's also worth discussing whether the software itself will have anything novel enough to publish or present separately from the main thesis.

@usr1234567 It doesn’t make any difference who paid for it. What counts: The grad student didn’t write it, and therefore they didn’t claim they wrote it, but actually told who wrote it.

Without a much better description of the situation it's pretty hard to tell, but as written, but no, providing a computational tool, is not in and of itself cheating.  Also, yes, there are ways that the student can write this up in the dissertation that would be cheating.
Let's use a typical piece of lab apparatus as an example.  If a student needs a gas chromatograph to analyze samples, and goes out and buys one, I think everyone would agree there's no dishonesty there (so long as the student doesn't claim to have built the chromatograph).
In this case, the student is asking the simulation a question.  If the student says "I specced out a simulation and it was constructed to that spec by person X", citing the code builder, there would be nothing dishonest about that.  If the student says "I built a simulation and used it", that would be clearly dishonest.  If the student presented it a little more wishy-washily, so it wasn't perfectly clear that the simulation was created by another, that's a bit more of a gray area, but most would say without proper citation that would be cheating.
Now, if the sim were absolutely central to the student's work, and not just a side gig, then it's a bit more serious, even with proper citation.  The coder may well deserve authorship, and the student's supervisor and exam committee may well question whether the student made an adequate contribution to merit a degree.  Note that these issues are not cheating per se, but it may be a reason why the student one of these issues is necessarily cheating, but might provide motivation to hide or obfuscate the provenance of the code, which would be cheating.

to extend the analogy to the last paragraph: if the student's paper is "a new method for the manufacture of gas chromatographs" and the student goes and buys a gas chromatograph - even one constructed with the new method - they haven't really done anything. (They could change their thesis to "evaluating the accuracy of two different kinds of gas chromatographs" and then it would be okay, but maybe not so interesting to research, depending on what their supervisor wants them to research)

Obviously work that someone else created would not contribute to the grade.

The thesis should clearly state that you wrote this software. So when the thesis is judged, your software will contribute zero to the grade. As long as the grad student does this properly, they are not cheating. If they gave you instructions how to write the software they can add those instructions to the thesis, because they wrote those instructions.
Are you cheating? If the grad student is cheating and you knew or suspected it, then you would have contributed to cheating. If you are a student yourself that might be a problem.

Undergraduates and graduates have a toxic behavior of having such assumptions of cheating behavior regarding moral (godly) judgment. As long as things are consensual, you can pay anyone to do anything to you. Another question is if the content is highly valued intellectually and financially, which makes rather the question a further issue related to publishment and credit sharing in future profits. I helped my colleagues in college to do their essays for free. :-)

I guess, your position is laissez-faire capitalism taken to the extreme. Do you think it is ethical or legal to hire a contract killer as long as you and the killer agree on the price? A bit less extreme: Do you consider it ethical to hire somebody to write your entire dissertation, as long as you and the writer agree on the price? Etc...

There must be a law or rule somewhere, but it is not written in stone, as we say in Portuguese. Yes, the extreme cases are oftentimes the first-thought counter-examples, but they must not be.

Yes it is cheating if the student did not do the work itself than the student is cheating. An dyou are an acompliance to it.

Yeah, this isn't correct, particularly at a grad student level - cheating would be you writing the software, and them passing it off as their work in a part of their thesis. You're expected to collaborate, but not to plagarise

It happens frequently that I write a prototype program in MATLAB/Python/R, and then I ask someone else to convert my program into a C program for higher efficiency. That's not cheating as long as I properly acknowledge their help.

Is it cheating to use numpy? That is doing numerical computations using code that others have written. Shouldn't an honest grad student implement their own numerical routines in C or Fortran or even assembly language?

@JohnColeman Even assembly language is relying on someone else's language design and a third person's chip implementation. Etc.

@JohnColeman  The cheating aspect largely depends on who they end up claiming did what.  The citation of code has also been increasing.  In my publications we cite each R package used and the version, likewise the version of R, and the names and versions of all other major software used.  Admittedly, some extremely common software seems to escape citation (e.g. the C++ standard library).  I suspect that publishing a preferred citation method for such software (like CRAN has for R and R packages) will greatly increase citation frequency.  I should maybe see if there is a recommended way...

I’d hope for a precise list of all software used, and exact versions, to be able to reproduce the results.


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Adding all entries in bibliography of a research paper automatically other than using Excite and wos
Every research paper had a bibliography at the end carrying various earlier research papers, books, web articles, etc. The user has to click on each one separately and then, through Google or Semantic Scholar, find the bibtex or endnote reference and then add it to the citation manager like Mendeley or Endnote. I do not have Web of Science subscription and the Excite weblink is not working. Is there any working solution for doing the same, which would automatically add all the entries in the bibliography of a research paper in bulk to citation manager instead of doing it individually?

What do you mean by "Excite weblink ... is not working."?

If i put the pdf in excite public web service (https://excite.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/excite) , it shows only one link from bibliography where actually there are more than 50 citations.  I am interested in complete list of bibtex or endnote citations mentioned for each entry in bibliography. Is there any other service or tool to do the same ?

Retrieving the references in a publication automatically and Web Service to fetch article citations may give some ideas.

@Vikrant I just tried the excite page, and it worked perfectly - I had to wait a few minutes but after that I could download the list in different formats. I tried several papers.

I tried an old paper (published in 1976) on excite and it worked fine after waiting a few minutes. Did you wait long enough?


text:
Convention on embedding three pairs of items in a single sentence using parentheses
I am writing in a description of three items in a thesis on Particle Physics, and I can do it in one line in theory. If there were just two items, e.g. A and B, which produce results C and D, I could write it like so:

When using A (B) to estimate the upper limit, the best fit result is C (D)...

where A is associated with result C, B is associated with result D.
I wondered if there was a convention for three items that you'd ever come across? Or would this just be 2/3 separate sentences? It's just the following don't look right, I wondered if there was a convention people had seen in publications previously?

Ex.1. When using A (B) (C) to estimate the upper limit, the best fit result is D (E) (F)...

Ex.2. When using A (B (C)) to estimate the upper limit, the best fit result is D (E (F))...

This is a bad convention even with two parallel items, and it becomes worse with three. We should never write in a way that requires readers to scan a sentence multiple times to understand what we're trying to communicate. I strongly encourage you to use separate sentences/phrases for each item; your readers will thank you.

At the very least you could write "When using A (resp. B) to estimate the upper limit, the best fit result is C (resp. D)" so that the reader has a chance to understand your construction. Otherwise it just looks like B is a clarification of A and D is a clarification of C.

@Stef GregMartin Just to add some context, in my experience this convention is mainly used in journal articles with strict word/length limits. When every word matters you need compact ways of writing things, and your suggested "resp." is very likely to be left out. Of course, a thesis is unlikely to be subject to such strict limits so the convention might as well be avoided entirely.

Skit on triple parentheses: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0N9nRbwJdOA

I agree with @Anyon, this is a common convention for listing two items in papers published in my collaboration, however I think \at Greg Martin has it right here, in that for a thesis like this, it's probs better to write as three separate sentences. But thanks for the advice on all sides

Is there any reason why you cannot write these as an explicit mapping for each pair, e.g. a table? "I can do it in one line" shouldn't always be the goal.

I think if it was several items, for sure a table is the way to go, but for just 3 items, I think text format would be expected, even for a thesis. But it really depends on the field, too, I've noticed!

I wouldn't use parenthesis for this at all, but rather use 'respectively':

When using A, B or C to estimate the upper limit, the best fit result is D, E or F respectively.

This becomes a bit harder to read if you have many objects to list, but for three I think it would be fine.

Ah, of course, didn't even think of that. Reads far nicer that way! Thanks!

Another option besides the good answer from Stephen McMahon would be:

When using A (B, C) to estimate the upper limit, the best fit result is D (E, F)...

or, based on Stef's comment,

When using A (respectively B, C) to estimate the upper limit, the best fit result is D (E, F)...

It is slightly less clear than a more explicit sentence would be, but is a little more concise and might work well in certain contexts where brevity is required or the construction will be used frequently.
I would not use either of the suggestions in the original post, and I think they would lead to confusion.

May I suggest "When using A (respectively B, C) to estimate the upper limit, the best fit result is D (respectively E, F)". Otherwise the reader has no chance to guess that B and C are alternatives to A and not a clarification of A.


text:
Should I upload a preprint in multiple repositories?
Recently we submitted a paper to the Springer Telecommunication Systems journal, and we would like to upload the preprint to a repository, such as arXiv or TechRxiv. Is it wise to upload the preprint in both? Are there any advantages or disadvantages to doing that?

What do the preorint servers say about this?

@user2705196 Can they talk? (+1 ;-)

Advantages (minor): people who get a regular email about one repository's new papers will hear about it. People who search one repository but not the other or Google will be able to find it.
Disadvantages (major): it is confusing and mostly pointless. If people find there are two versions of it on two different repositories, they will wonder which is the newest one or whether there are any differences. A journal might prohibit uploads to one repository but not the other.

Thank you very much for the advice! We uploaded it on techrxiv.

I do not think version control is a major issue once there is a date on the front page.

Dates don't solve the problem. One repository's version might be newer but shorter and less detailed.


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I used ChatGPT to polish my essay, what are the consequences?
I used ChatGPT to polish my essay, now I’m freaking out.
As above, in Feb I had to write a reflective piece about 1000 words for university. The essay was based on my real experiences and reflection. I wrote the essay myself then fed it into ChatGPT with prompts like “ revise this to make it more professional.” And the output it gave looked much better than my original writing, but did not change my original meanings, and I used the chatgpt output pretty much word for word as the essay I submitted. The essay might not be marked until July/August.  At the time my intention was not to cheat, I thought it was like using a better version of Grammarly. Especially because I am not a native speaker and have always struggled with writing. Fast forward to today, I realised what I did was shady, put my essay into multiple AI detectors and got picked up as AI written by some. I looked up my university’s policy about AI (published after I submitted the essay), which states you have to openly disclose any use of CharGPT or it will count as contract cheating. I have been living in pure fear the last couple of weeks and it’s ruining my life. I am in my last year of a professional program which means it will attract more severe penalties. I have immense regret for putting my education and career at risk for something so stupid. I also wish the university had talked to us about AI directly early on. In fact, to this day, I have received no information about AI from any faculty member. If I had known this was contract cheating I would never have done it.
I have had no previous experience with academic misconduct, and I have no idea what to expect.

Assuming the instructor does not detect the source, I'm kind of curious if you will get a good mark on your essay. I have seen a lot of results from ChatGPT that are not what I would call high quality. It seem to be grabbing things from the net based on keywords (or whatever the correct term is for key phrases) rather than a true understanding.

I doubt it. Reading back at the essay I submitted now, I realised I could have done a better job myself.

They'll use ChatGPT to score it :) More seriously, I wouldn't worry too much about it, because you're right that people use things like Grammarly also. Also, people show their essays to others for feedback all the time. My impression is that since you actually wrote the essay and used ChatGPT as a tool, that's different from just asking ChatGPT to write the whole essay for you. But it's better to err on the side of caution in the future.

After this I think I have PTSD from chatgpt and certainly will not being using AI for any future writings.

" I thought it was like using a better version of Grammarly." You are correct. The issue is that the policies are making a bit fuss about chatGPT and the likes. Just retire from the prize, you do not need to provide a motivation but you can always provide it if you feel like, maybe you can write an essay on why you equated chatGPT as Grammarly on steroids to motivate your dropping out of the competition.

https://openai.com/policies/terms-of-use/ OpenAI's terms of use says you cannot "Represent that Output was human-generated when it was not", so you might encounter problems from OpenAI (but it's a stretch since they'd first need to find out, and also need to care).

The consequences for any sort of cheating/misconduct are determined by your institution. Generally, I'd expect more leniency for first offenses and more leniency for things in a "gray area" versus clear violations.
It would seem extremely unfair to me to apply a policy published after your submission, and if you were accused under that policy this seems like a straightforward defense. There is certainly some level of novelty to these tools for everyone involved, and likely to be some growing pains associated with that.
It's possible a strict interpretation would find you have violated some already existing policies, with the new policy only meant to clarify. It could be argued that, especially if you are expected to be graded on things like the language used, you have not submitted work that reflects your own writing abilities. You've also violated any terms of using ChatGPT that require disclosure/attribution.
I don't know what academic system you are in where assignments are graded so long after they are submitted. Possibly you could in the meantime write a proper version of your original script without ChatGPT, confess to having violated a policy before it was a clear policy, and ask that your new submission be accepted. If it were me responsible for assigning a grade, I'd find this to be honest and commendable, but I can't have any idea what the attitude will be at your institution. As BobaFit alludes to in a comment, many people find that ChatGPT's idea of "professional" or good writing really...isn't, so it's also quite possible that the version you've submitted will not get a better grade than what you could have produced yourself, even with your low confidence in your writing.

Thank you for your comment. The reason why it takes so long is because it wasn’t actually an assignment, it was an application for a prize I was eligible to apply due to good academic standings (how ironic, I know), and we won’t find out who gets the prize until much later. The “policy” about the definition of contract cheating re involving a third party has always been around, but correlating using AI to contract cheating was only published on my University’s website couple of days ago.

@LonelyStudent If you're feeling so much stress about it, can you simply withdraw your name from consideration for the prize?

I actually really want to withdraw my name but do not know how to. I emailed the person who sent out the invitations to apply weeks ago asking when we might find out the results but got no response. There’s no clear procedures on how to withdraw, and I’m worried if I ask to withdraw now it will look suspicious. I don’t think I will get the prize and I certainly hope I don’t, due to the essay being mediocre and off topic.

@LonelyStudent I think it's really probably not a big deal. You could email them and say "there's a new policy that makes clear that disclosure of ChatGPT usage is required, you had used ChatGPT previously to edit your submission, even though the policy was posted after your submission you feel most comfortable if your name is withdrawn from consideration". They might thank you for your honesty and withdraw your name, they might say oh it really doesn't matter, I think it's extremely unlikely there would be any other consequence. It's not worth anyone's time and you haven't benefitted.

Thank you for your time and valuable advice. I think I will write an email to formally ask for my application to be withdrawn, but I don’t feel comfortable admitting using ChatGPT as the reason as I feel embarrassed and worry that it will attract unwanted attention . However, if they raise the suspicion of using AI I will be honest and admit.

Earlier in the year, I wrote a policy thought on conversational AI (ChatGPT.
I refer to this as in my view, your use of ChatGPT us what I thought it could be. An assistive tool rather than a replacement tool.
You indicated that you used ChatGPT to polish up your essay. Although you did not say to what degree this polishing up is. What is instructive is that you're not saying you wrote your essay with ChatGPT: in essence, it was not written by ChatGPT from ground up.
In the circumstances, I'll strongly iterate that

you send a follow-up declaration email: indicating that ChatGPT was used as a consulted tool to polish your essay.
you could even send through a supplemented copy of your essay (unofficially, as the submitted essay remains the official), along with your declarative email. The supplementary will be in two parts. The first is the exact same copy you submitted. The second part (more of appendix), will succinctly outline how ChatGPT was used or consulted.

PS: I took note of

I looked up my university’s policy about AI (published after I submitted the essay), which states you have to openly disclose any use of CharGPT or it will count as contract cheating.

By sending the declarative email, you are infact (proactively) aligning to the university's policy.
The policy came after you've submitted. You've now sighted it and acting on it.
My view about conversation AI like ChatGPT is that it should not be banned outrightly. It should be encouraged as part of learning processes: as learning scaffolding.
[Extract from my policy thought on ChatGPT]

Students must disclose their ChatGPT search terms (keywords)
Students must include their ChatGPT result verbatim as an appendix
Students must write their own assignment/assessment submission
Students must show their creativity, their critical thinking and cognitive skills in their writing
It is a crime or punishable offence to use tools to paraphrase ChatGPT results.
Students must show their own originality.
For computing-based assignments/assessments, students must fully comment on their work:
introduction/summary, each line of code, and each function/class

Thank you for your advice. Unfortunately I cleared ChatGPT history so I don’t have access to the conversations anymore. As this essay wasn’t an assignment but a application for a prize, my plan is to consult with the student advocate first and then send a formal email acknowledging the use of ChatGPT and ask for my application to be withdrawn.

Do you still have a copy of the essay that you originally wrote?

I used google doc, which has version histories, but it did not save every single edit so I only have the first half of the essay I originally wrote

I would imagine it won’t be too difficult to argue the essay was originally written by me since it was based on personal experiences, which AI can’t do

Disclose to your lecturer, and seek to remedy the problem
Since your essay has not yet been assessed, and the university itself has not detected the use of ChatGPT, I recommend that you approach them and advise your use of this facility for "polishing", let them know that you are worried that this may not be allowable, and ask them if they would prefer for you to resubmit the earlier version of your essay prior to adding this "polish".
If you were the one to make this approach (as opposed to having the university detect it and raise it with you) then that is much less likely to be interpreted as cheating.  Moreover, even if your previous submission were to be regarded as a breach of academic rules, if you were to take the initiative to bring this to the attention of the university and offer to resubmit, that would be a heavily mitigating factor.  The likely outcome is that your lecturer will counsel you on what is and is not allowed, and will want you to submit the pre-ChatGPT version of your essay.
Assuming you still have your pre-ChatGPT draft, I recommend that you immediately write to your lecturer to disclose the problem and seek a solution.  Here is an example of the kind of thing I have in mind:

Dear Professor ...
I am writing in relation to my essay I submitted in February, which I understand is due to be assessed soon.  I am writing to disclose that for this essay I constructed an initial draft that I wrote myself, but then I used ChatGPT to polish the prose for the essay, and took substantive changes from this source.  The essay presently does not cite ChatGPT as a source.
It has come to my attention that this might not be allowed under university rules,  and so I would like to find out (a) if use of ChatGPT for this purpose is allowed; (b) if and how I am supposed to cite ChatGPT as a source; and (c) if not allowed at all, what I should do to go about remedying this error.  In case it is not allowable to use ChatGPT for revisions of the essay, I have retained the previous draft of my essay prior to use of ChatGPT and would be happy to submit that version in lieu of the presently submitted version.  If use of ChatGPT is allowable with attribution, then I would like to revise my essay to make the required attribution.
Please accept my sincere apologies if I have done the wrong thing here, and for any inconvenience it has caused.  I would appreciate if you could advise me on what you would like me to do with my essay in order to make sure it is compliant with university rules.
...

If we don't know where you study and we don't know the internal regulations, we can't answer this question. Each university deals with this according to its own regulations, so it would probably be best to contact your own study department or someone who understands these regulations and consult them.
From a professional point of view, I would recommend developing your own methodology for recognizing the veracity of chatGPT responses. ChatGPT is not an AI that has logical intelligence, so its answers may be wrong. ChatGPT is a chatbot that synthesizes some text (probabilistically, I guess) from bibliographic sources provided to it during learning. The output is then sorted - the developers assign points to the individual outputs (so, for example, expressive answers are pushed to the back). However, this mechanism cannot check for itself if, for example, there are things that contradict each other in its answer. It is developed to synthesize text, answer, and speak. It can be worse with the truth of the lyrics.
The correctness of the answer also depends on the accuracy of the question. When you ask a question that is not in direct line with the answer (even if it seems like it is), the chatbot will answer it, but in reality, it is not an answer to your question. It is best to play with it a little to see what answers different chatGPT contexts offer to the same question asked in different ways and how the bot answers conflicting questions or situations that occurred after the last update.
With the above two paragraphs, I want to tell you that after using chatbots, for example in the direction of deepening information, you need to be careful about them not to ruin your knowledge.


text:
Is it acceptable to leave an adjunct teaching position 10 days before classes begin?
I have just very recently accepted a full-time teaching position at a reputable college (hooray!).  I've been employed as an adjunct the last several years with courses assigned to me generally well in advance of the academic term.  This full-time offer however has come in only a couple weeks before the start of the next term.  I've essentially given my other institutions only 2 weeks notice (only 10 days notice in the case of one of the schools) to find someone else to cover my originally-assigned course load (one campus had me assigned to 1 section, the other campus had me assigned to 3 sections).
It's now only occurring to me whether or not I should've given these institutions a heads up that I had an interview and was potentially leaving.  I'm not sure as to the etiquette in leaving a teaching position so close to the beginning of an academic term.  I honestly thought I would've received the results of my interview sooner than I did.  I'm curious though if telling these institutions that I had an interview would've made them rescind their offers of employment (generally a soft offer is made in advance of the term, and a contract is signed only once the term begins).  To summarize my question:

Is it acceptable in this situation to simply provide notice once an offer was put in front of me, or should I have given advanced notice to my other campuses that I had an interview and merely the potential that I would leave?  Would it be proper etiquette to give a warning to these institutions of a potential departure, or could that have resulted in rescinded offers of employment?

I suppose this is a problem that other industries don't run into; in normal businesses people can leave at any time with the work uninterrupted.  In academia however, institutions need to secure a reliable person well in-advance of an academic term and it's generally unacceptable for a professor to give up their teaching appointment in the middle of a term.  The institutions I'm leaving have rather large adjunct pools, so maybe it's not as bad as I'm worrying it may be.

What is your question? I'm sure they would have preferred more notice, but it sounds like you told them as soon as you could reasonably be expected to do so.

@avid I suppose my question is more about etiquette and what's expected in this situation.  Do academic institutions generally have greater expectations around leaving a position too close to the academic term, or are the expectations consistent more or less with any other industry when leaving a position?  I suppose I'm asking because I don't want any of my previous bosses saying that I should've given them more notice and that I created a faux pas for them in needing to find someone else last minute.

Does this answer your question? The etiquette of leaving a faculty position

@GoodDeeds I think this really does not apply. Going from adjuncting, which is most of the time exploitative, to a full time paid position is an obvious decision.
And in general, you shouldn't tell you are leaving before you have a signed contract.

If they would really not want you to leave, they would pay enough money, give you enough job security and write a penalty into your contract.

I think it's generally agreed that it is unwise to tell an employer that you might leave, that nobody does this, and that nobody expects anyone to.  You only tell them when you are definitely leaving, which you did as soon as you knew.  You haven't done anything inappropriate.
Your old department head is surely not thrilled about having to fill your classes with 10 days to go, but it's their job to handle such contingencies, just as if you had been hit by the proverbial bus. You weren't under contract and so you're a free agent. I probably wouldn't expect them to hire you as an adjunct again, but it seems unlikely you'd want them to anyway.

Firstly, in academia this is an expected situation, although they are not happy, they just need to figure this out. It is very natural for you to accept a much better opportunity, especially when you are switching to a full-time position. You are not expected to tell them unless you have a definite offer and you have made arrangements to take it.
That being said, you should try to make it easier for them as much as you can. Do you know anyone that could take over - within the institution or from outside- Is there a TA that could take over, or can you ask some other faculty working on similar topics? Maybe you can provide them your teaching materials? Can you ask your new employer whether you can 1) start at a later date? 2) teach at the former institute at the same time (if location/time allows or remotely).

I suspect the options of later start or teaching simultaneously for both instutions are not going to be practical for a full-time teaching position, but it is at least worth considering, even if you immediately rule them out.

Starting at a later date is not uncommon at all, you do all your paperwork in advance too, so nothing to worry about, but it depends on the country, institution, whether it is state/private etc. Teaching at multi institutions is also not so uncommon, again depends on the intuitions' policies of course.

I was assuming that the full-time position expects OP to start teaching a full load right away.  At least for US, it'd be unusual to make a hire just before the term unless that was the expectation.  A delayed start also wouldn't be very advantageous professionally or financially; you're putting off the start of a better-paying, higher-status job for one that is lower in both respects.

Not a great option, but a smooth one, if students are already enrolled it leaves the former institution in a difficult position.


text:
Unplanned sequential interviews with different groups
I have recently conducted a set of qualitative interviews with a particular group. Their interviews yielded interesting info about a certain phenomenon. However, based on the information gathered from the first group of interviewees, it led me to a different type group whom I also conducted interviews with in order to explain/expand the first group's perspectives.
So it was a sequential process that I couldn't have planned beforehand without coming across the info gathered from the first group.
When parsing this information in a research manuscript (under methodology section), is it perfectly okay to explain the process of how I did or is there a set of framework out there that explains what I just did?

In general you do not have to disclose the exact order or reason for data collection. Most papers are ‘narratives’ written with the available totality of data at this point. Constructs such as ‘because we found xyz we then tested if abc...’ don’t necessarily describe the actual order of events.
The only times where this is truly relevant is when you run statistical tests. For example, if you collected data from the first group and analysis made you collect a larger dataset that now jointly gets analyzed, this has to be stated and included in the statistical analysis.

As @MarioNiepel says, it's not necessary. But it might be interesting  for your readers to see a little bit of the the serendipity that sometimes goes into research. It helps to know that the formal structure of a manuscript does not reflect the process that led to a successful conclusion.


text:
Is it reasonable to have both a TAship and an internship during grad school? If not, what to consider when choosing between them?
I'm attending grad school out of state, paying upwards of $17K/semester. Over the summer, I was offered an internship (40 hrs/week). A couple of fellow students were also interested in this internship, but I was selected after my code interview. When grad school starts in the Fall, my manager has agreed to reduce me to 12 hours/week so I can keep the internship while focusing on grad school.
I also applied for some TA positions and landed an amazing TA Job (20 hours/week), that cuts my fees by half. This is a very basic "service desk" job that needs me to attend to email/phone and some other logistics stuff. So, I signed up for this job too.
I've the following questions:

What factors should I consider when deciding whether to keep both of these jobs or quitting one of them?
In particular, should I give up my internship for ethical reasons? Perhaps one of my classmates could capitalize on this opportunity more than I will be able to, given my other time commitments. But I really don't want to give up the internship since I see a future with this company and we have an amazing team.
Should I let my boss at the internship know about the TA position? I'm really not sure that they would approve of me spending time TAing when (from their perspective) I could be spending the hours at the internship. But the TAship is less work for more money, so I really don't want to trade TA hours for internship hours.

The first question is off-topic for this site, but the second seems to be suitable, so editing out the first might help.

Potentially an interesting question; I agree with GoodDeeds and suggested an edit that removes the first question (we don't take poll-questions like "Has anyone ever done this?"). There are already several reopen votes, and I will also vote to reopen. Feel free to make further edits if I botched anything.

Your TAship pays more per hour than your internship?

Also, what field? The importance of internships varies wildly.

Thank you for the responses. This is in Architecture.

It is not that the TAship pays more than internship. It is that, $ to number of hours ratio is high for the TA ship when compared to internship.

It's somewhat unusual to have a part time internship like you describe, at least in the US. Typically, people who want internships only do it full time, during the summer. But if you think you have enough time, there is nothing stopping you.
As for your TA job, the actual amount of hours you will need to spend on it is probably nowhere near 20 hours a week. You should ask the course instructor what a realistic estimate for the workload is. It can vary a lot, both on the course and its instructor as well as for how familiar you are with the material/class.
There is no need to tell your internship boss about your TA unless you think it will interfere with your internship.

So, this is a basic “lab technician” job. I need to wait at the desk, attend phone calls and respond to emails, along with helping other students with the lab, when they need it. Thank you for your comment!

This sounds like it adds up to more time than you should be doing work and school together unless the internship is research for your degree, too. Lots of people manage all those together.


text:
Typesetting statement of purpose for a masters application
What is a good format to use for the statement of purpose on a masters application?  I read that margins should be 1 inch (2.54cm). This seems to leave quite a lot of space on the page though. Should I use the justify feature on word? I used this often when writing mathematical coursework, as a lot of my lecturers also used it in their lecture notes, but is it suitable/needed in this case?
The main things I'd like to know:

Font
Margin size
Use justify or not
Spacing

Note: by format, I don't mean the structure of content, I mean the aesthetics of the document.

You should follow the instructions. Absent any such guidelines, you can do whatever you like, within reason. In the US, "reasonable" tends to mean:

Times New Roman, Arial, Calibri, or something similar
Single spaced, or something close to that (e.g., 1.1)
1" margins, almost always
Left or justified alignment, personal preference
Indent your paragraphs or leave a space between paragraphs or both
Header on each page including your name, page number, and any other relevant information you'd like to include. (e.g., university name, application number)

Personally, I like to use letterhead (either institutional or with my name on it) for official documents like this.