text:
Is it legal in the US for a student to download a copy of a textbook, to study?
(this is coming out of a comment thread regarding this question.)
The USA has a Fair Use legal provision restricting its copyright law:

17 U.S.C. § 107
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 17 U.S.C. §
  106 and 17 U.S.C. § 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work,
  including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any
  other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism,
  comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for
  classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of
  copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any
  particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall
  include:

the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
the nature of the copyrighted work;
the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole;
and the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.

Obviously there might be other relevant statutes and legal precedents, but  still,

Is it legal, considering the above, for a university/college student to download a copy of a textbook (say, in a course s/he is taking), for studying the course material?
Same question, for a student not enrolled in a class for which the downloaded book is a textbook?
Same question, for self-study outside of Academia?

Notes:

"Legal" in two senses: First, the sense of very small chance of being convicted of a criminal act or obligated to pay money; second, the sense of there being a solid argument for the legality of this act which is likely to hold up if you appeal and appeal and maybe get to the supreme court.
Assume it's been established that the downloader did not publish the copy elsewhere, did not cite from it extensively, etc. etc.
I'm not asking whether it's moral or ethical to download textbooks, only about the legality. I believe it is moral and ethical, but that discussion is not what this question is about; please don't start it.

This link has several examples of common copyright-related scenarios in universities and explains how to evaluate whether they are fair use or not.

The answer depends on what you mean by "legal". Law is the complex product of statutes, regulations, precedent, and subjective feeling of the case-deciders. If something is technically disallowed by statute, the statute could be an effective nullity if it is never enforced. I believe that no penalty has even been imposed on a student in the context you describe, so it is in that sense "legal". Also note that "fair use" is a defense, meaning you have to prove it if you are brought up on charges.

@TomDworzanski: I'm not ignoring ethics, I'm just not having that argument on this site. See my edit. As for the campus bookstore - your problem is the university body which lets them operate as they do... I would try to get the student union and academic staff union(s) to take collective action to change this situation.

The first sense of 'legal' is not a sense of the term 'legal' as used in standard English at all. That the chances of Jones getting caught for killing Davies in a particularly obscure way are vanishing small does not make Jones doing so 'legal' in any sense of the term. As Alice points out to Humpty Dumpty, the question is whether you can make a word mean so many things....

As I understand it, 'fair use' governs the use of copyrighted material. It is not about that material's acquisition. If I purchase an ebook, I might or might not be able to defend as 'fair use' sharing part or all of book with you for a certain purpose. I cannot, as I understand it, use it to defend my acquisition of the ebook if that's the issue which lands me in court.

When asking questions about what is "legal", appeal to common usage is the last thing you should rely on. 'It would be a narrow conception of jurisprudence to confine the notion of "laws" to what is found written on the statute books, and to disregard the gloss which life has written upon it' (310 U.S. 362). It is fundamentally unknowable whether such downloading is prohibited by the totality of the law, though reading only the statutory part would say that it is.

Just curious, setting aside the poorly named stipends you apply for that are common called "scholarships" (because stipend isn't very motivating to high schoolers) do you consider all education to be scholarship? I highly suspect the scholarship they refer to is not just any and all educational purposes, but rather the advancement of a field i.e. research.

@cfr If acquisition of the content involves reproducing it (as downloading material to your computer necessarily does) then it may be governed by fair use. It's actually explicit in copyright law: "...the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction..." The closest analogy is making photocopies of a library book for yourself, also a means of "acquiring" content involving reproduction; that, too, may be defensible under fair use in some circumstances.

Perhaps this would be a suitable question for the Law Stack Exchange? As far as I know, not many of us here study law, and this certainly seems like a legal question more than an academic one.

@chipbuster: I didn't realize there was a Law SX ... it might have been a valid question there, but I think it's also valid here - academia involves both law, sociology, anthropology, economics, philosophy, history...

@ff524 The cases are not analogous. In the case of the library book, you are starting with a legally acquired copy: the library buys a copy of the book (ebook, paper book, whatever). It then lends that copy to you, which is also legal. But the library is not relying on the defence of 'fair use'.

@cfr the issue (the copyright infringement that could potentially be defended with fair use) is the copy you make, the source you are copying from is not strictly relevant to this direct copyright infringement. (In fact, my university library used to have signs posted near the copy machines informing students that photocopying too much of a book is potentially copyright infringement.)

@ff524 That is exactly my point. Does US law not make that distinction?

@cfr I'm not aware of any jurisdiction where an unauthorized copy of an authorized copy is treated differently in the law from an unauthorized copy of an unauthorized copy. Are you? (Do you have a specific example?)

@ff524 But the question is surely whether the download would be an authorised copy of an unathorised copy.

@cfr No. This question is about whether making an unauthorized copy (which is generally copyright infringement) can be excused with a fair use defense. As long as you don't have permission from the rights holder to make a copy, it's an unauthorized copy, whether you make a photocopy of a library book, or download it from a website, or go to a bookstore and take photos of every single page with your phone when nobody is looking...

@ff524 OK. Yes. Fair enough. I misspoke. The question is whether the an unauthorised copy of an unauthorised copy could be defended as fair use, given that the latter could not be. At least, that's how I understood it.

The purpose of the Fair Use doctrine, especially with respect to academia is to allow published works to be reviewed and discussed, while still protecting the copyright holders rights to charge for full and/or effective use.  In other words, a copyright holder cannot use their copyright to prevent public and/or scholarly review and criticism of their work (i.e., critics/reviewers can quote passages to support their points). At the same time, readers cannot use the doctrine to bypass paying for their copies when they are actually reading the whole thing (or a substantial portion).

@RBarryYoung: That's one/some of the purposes - research, commentary, criticism. There's also scholarship, mentioned separately.

@einpoklum I believe that scholarship refers to scholarly references and quotes (a form of review), and is not intended to mean "self-education by reading most of the work without paying for it". Note that scholarship and education are not necessarily the same thing.

@RBarryYoung: 1. Scholarship is pretty much self-education by studying something. Studying the text of a book seems like scholarship to me - although I'm not a native speaker of English, so you may be right. Still, research is mentioned separately. 2. Indeed, scholarship and education are not the same thing - education is something you (typically) apply to other people.

If your reasoning is correct it would apply to other copyrighted material other than textbook as well,  if it is used for studying. Consider a student of cinematography. He should be allowed to download and freely watch all movies since when's watching then he's studying... What do you think would happen in this other instance if some Hollywood company sued you?

@Bakuriu: You're right, but how many people are students of cinematography? Now, anyone could claim he was downloading a copy of a work for self-study, but that's why I separated the 3 cases in my question. If I were to ask it about a film and film students, it seems to me like a student taking a class on Truffaut could better make a fair use argument about downloading a copy of Jules and Jim.

To point 2 of Fair Use, the copyright page of any textbook will either say "All Rights Reserved," or will have something to the effect of this "All rights reserved. No part of this book covered by the copyright herein may be reproduced or used in any format in any form or by any means—graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or information storage and retrieval systems—without permission of the publisher." So in that respect the nature of the copyright is that the copyright holder, unless expressly granted otherwise, expects that every copy be paid for.

The fair use doctrine comes more out of a desire to protect US Constitutional First Amendment rights without the risk of suppression of criticism by the threat of a law suit. The intention has never been to allow for use not authorized by the copyright holder. Fair use also can be applied to free expression in the production of derivative works, so even though Campbell's soup holds a copyright on its labels, Andy Warhol's work was substantively different enough from the original to be considered fairly used.

Publishers will often chose to provide professors with free instructor copies as an incentive for them to evaluate and adopt the book for their course, which as the copyright holder is their choice to do, but they have no intention to allow that professor to then copy that book and distribute to their class. Even if the professor were to purchase a PDF of the book, they would not have license to then post that PDF to their course resources site for students to use. There expectation is that the book will be purchase, at least by one generation of students.

Short answer: Nope.
Long answer: It's complicated.
The proportion of the work copied can actually be the whole of the work (i.e. 100%), if the other parts of the fair use test provide a strong enough justification:

The extent of permissible copying
varies with the purpose and character of the use. Taking more of the copyrighted work
than is necessary to accomplish the fair user’s salutary purpose will weigh against fair
use. In some cases, the fact that the entire work — for example, an image — was needed to
accomplish the fair use purpose has led the court to hold that the third factor was neutral,
favoring neither the copyright holder nor the putative fair user.

Copyright and Fair Use: A Guide for the Harvard Community, Harvard University Office of the General Counsel, Last Updated
November 23, 2009
Unfortunately, the courts haven't consistently viewed educational use as 'fair use' per se:

On its face, the text of the statute seems to favor educational uses of works as fair uses.  It first lists a variety of educational purposes such as criticism, comment, teaching, scholarship, and research as prototypical fair uses.  It then identifies the use of content for “nonprofit educational purposes” as an explicit consideration in the first of the four enumerated factors for consideration in a fair use analysis.
In practice, however, courts have not consistently found that educational uses qualify as fair uses.  Because the doctrine is applied on a case-by-case basis and resists reduction to a per-se rule, it provides limited assurance to scholars and teachers seeking bright-line guidance.  ... even scholars well-read in precedent may be hard-pressed to find consistent analyses, across different federal courts, of educational copying and other scholarly uses.

Digital Learning Legal Background Paper:
Fair Use and Educational Uses of Content, Ashley Aull for the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School
So you need to look at how the other three parts of the test pertain in the particular case at issue.
Unfortunately, in regard to the first factor:

In determining whether a use is “commercial,” courts generally find that the “distinction is not whether the sole motive of the use is monetary gain but whether the user stands to profit from exploitation of the copyrighted material without paying the customary price.” Thus, despite the fact the statutory text contrasts commercial with nonprofit educational purposes, courts may exclude schools and universities from the protection of the fair use doctrine if they “benefit” from such uses.

Harper & Row Publishers, Inc. v. Nation Enterprises, 471 U.S. 539 (1984) as cited in Aull
And in regard to the fourth factor:

the Court has held that “a challenge [of a use]…requires proof either that the particular use is harmful, or that if it should become widespread, it would adversely affect the potential market for the copyrighted work.”

Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios Inc., 464 U.S. 417 (1984) as cited in Aull.
We should therefore take account of a couple of facts that pertain in our hypothetical situation:

the student benefits from their use of the material,

if all students were to copy the material without paying for it then the market for the material would be destroyed, which would hurt the incentive system for the production of new works,

and those facts seem to me to imply that copying (or downloading a copy of) an entire textbook, where the alternative is paying to purchase the textbook, would usually not be 'fair use' under US law.
But exceptions to this are possible. If the whole work was vital for scholarship but not commercially available then a pretty strong argument for 100% copying as fair use could be made. For the full picture read Aull.

Update in response to comments:
@einpoklum, thanks for your insightful comments. I thought they deserved proper discussion, so I'm answering them here, where I've got more space to address them.

It seems that the complicated situation is more in the case of educational institutions using full cpies.

You're correct that the case law (at least as far as I'm aware) that's specifically about textbooks concerns organisations (such as businesses and educational institutions) rather than individuals.
That's likely to be because it's not worth suing an individual for a very small loss. If the textbook only costs $20 - or even if it costs $100 - the publisher would lose money by suing the student, because the non-recoverable costs of the case (such as the time of the publisher's staff) would cost more than that. This is the reason why lawsuits in P2P filesharing cases tend to be filed against the uploader rather than the downloader.

But has there ever been a conviction, or a ruling in a civil suit, against a student who downloaded a copy of a textbook?

Not that I'm aware of. The very small amount of damages that could be recovered would mean that this would be a loss-making lawsuit even if it were won, although it might have a certain deterrent effect.
"Can I get away with doing this without being sued?" (to which the answer is almost certainly 'Yup') is of course a different question from "Is it legal?".

Also, any copier of any work stands to benefit from it somehow, otherwise they wouldn't make the copy; it seems you're interpreting that sentence too widely.

It certainly is a very wide interpretation! Unfortunately this is the interpretation which the US courts seem to give it.
Aull makes this point as well:

of course, one might strain to find a situation in which educators would use content without benefiting from it somehow.

Aull, footnote 10, page 5.

The Guidelines for Classroom Copying have received the most scholarly and judicial attention.  While recognizing that some photocopying of copyrighted material for classroom distribution is fair use, the Guidelines require that such copying, in addition to having clear copyright notice on each copy, fall within three specifically described limits: “brevity,” “spontaneity,” and “cumulative effect.”  The American Association of University Professors and Association of American Law Schools vigorously opposed these Guidelines, stressing that they “restrict the doctrine of fair use so substantially as to make it almost useless for classroom teaching purposes.”  Meanwhile, in a series of strategic lawsuits filed soon after the passage of the 1976 Act, publishing interests succeeded in persuading some courts to view those Guidelines as an authoritative gauge of fair use.

Aull, p.7

Also, your claim about market destruction is simply invalid - just like with the music industry, people continue to buy music, concert tickets etc. despite having downloaded copies off of the Internet.

This is a view with which I have much sympathy. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for the US courts.
An example from the Napster case:

Effect of Use on Market ...

[31] Addressing this factor, the district court concluded that Napster harms the market in “at least” two ways: it reduces audio CD sales among college students and it “raises barriers to plaintiffs’ entry into the market for the digital downloading of music.” Napster, 114 F. Supp. 2d at 913. The district court relied on evidence plaintiffs submitted to show that Napster use harms the market for their copyrighted musical compositions and sound recordings. In a separate memorandum and order regarding the parties’ objections to the expert reports, the district court examined each report, finding some more appropriate and probative than others. A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc., Nos. 99-5183 & 00-0074, 2000 WL 1170106 (N.D. Cal. August 10, 2000). Notably, plaintiffs’ expert, Dr. E. Deborah Jay, conducted a survey (the “Jay Report”) using a random sample of college and university students to track their reasons for using Napster and the impact Napster had on their music purchases. Id. at *2. The court recognized that the Jay Report focused on just one segment of the Napster user population and found “evidence of lost sales attributable to college use to be probative of irreparable harm for purposes of the preliminary injunction motion.” Id. at *3.
[32] Plaintiffs also offered a study conducted by Michael Fine, Chief Executive Officer of Soundscan, (the “Fine Report”) to determine the effect of online sharing of MP3 files in order to show irreparable harm. Fine found that online file sharing had resulted in a loss of “album” sales within college markets. After reviewing defendant’s objections to the Fine Report and expressing some concerns regarding the methodology and findings, the district court refused to exclude the Fine Report insofar as plaintiffs offered it to show irreparable harm. Id. at *6.
[33] Plaintiffs’ expert Dr. David J. Teece studied several issues (“Teece Report”), including whether plaintiffs had suffered or were likely to suffer harm in their existing and planned businesses due to Napster use. Id. Napster objected that the report had not undergone peer review. The district court noted that such reports generally are not subject to such scrutiny and overruled defendant’s objections. Id.
...
[36] We, therefore, conclude that the district court made sound findings related to Napster’s deleterious effect on the present and future digital download market. Moreover, lack of harm to an established market cannot deprive the copyright holder of the right to develop alternative markets for the works. See L.A. Times v. Free Republic, 54 U.S.P.Q.2d 1453, 1469-71 (C.D. Cal. 2000) (stating that online market for plaintiff newspapers’ articles was harmed because plaintiffs demonstrated that “[defendants] are attempting to exploit the market for viewing their articles online”); see also UMG Recordings, 92 F. Supp. 2d at 352 (“Any allegedly positive impact of defendant’s activities on plaintiffs’ prior market in no way frees defendant to usurp a further market that directly derives from reproduction of the plaintiffs’ copyrighted works.”). Here, similar to L.A. Times and UMG Recordings, the record supports the district court’s finding that the “record company plaintiffs have already expended considerable funds and effort to commence Internet sales and licensing for digital downloads.” 114 F. Supp. 2d at 915. Having digital downloads available for free on the Napster system necessarily harms the copyright holders’ attempts to charge for the same downloads.
[37] Judge Patel did not abuse her discretion in reaching the above fair use conclusions, nor were the findings of fact with respect to fair use considerations clearly erroneous.

A&M RECORDS, Inc. v. NAPSTER, INC., 239 F.3d 1004 (9th Cir. 2001)

I'm hearing speculative opinions on the prospective interpretation of the law.

Yes, that's entirely correct. In the absence of an existing case which exactly replicates the hypothetical situation you're proposing, that's all that anyone can give you. If you want a probably-more-accurate speculative opinion then consult a lawyer, but it'll still just be their opinion.
That doesn't mean, though, that the law doesn't apply until there's been a case which covers exactly these circumstances.

In the mean time, it seems perhaps nobody has even been sued or tried criminally for doing this, and it is a widespread practice. So...

So you'd probably not be sued. That's correct, but doesn't mean that the practise is necessarily legal.
A few notes:

You should also be aware that many US universities have their own rules which are more restrictive than copyright law:

more than 80 percent of American universities now adhere to internal policies derived from the Classroom Guidelines that university lobbying groups has rejected.  Some enforce even stricter guidelines, all but prohibiting reliance upon fair use.  At least one commentator has predicted that, in this environment, “current trends…will eventually eliminate fair use for schools, colleges and universities.”

Aull, p.8

I encourage you to continue to campaign in favour of a more liberal definition of 'fair use'. The EFF is an excellent place to start. Lawrence Lessig's book 'Free Culture' also makes for an interesting read on this topic.

It seems that the complicated situation is more in the case of educational institutions using full cpies. But has there ever been a conviction, or a ruling in a civil suit, against a student who downloaded a copy of a textbook?

Also, any copier of any work stands to benefit from it somehow, otherwise they wouldn't make the copy; it seems you're interpreting that sentence too widely. Also, your claim about market destruction is simply invalid - just like with the music industry, people continue to buy music, concert tickets etc. despite having downloaded copies off of the Internet.

Finally, based on your long answer, I would say the short answer is: "yup."

@einpoklum It seems to me you had an answer in mind when you asked the question.

@MattSamuel: 1. See my first note in the question , and 2. Yes, I did - reading the Fair Use description, to me it was pretty clear that the answer was "yes". I was kind of surprised anybody would claim differently.

@einpoklum AE's point on market destruction is perfectly valid. If everyone would illegaly download music the market would be destroyed. Copying of text books on a wide-spread scale would obviously mean a loss in profits for the publishers as those people would no longer (be forced to) buy the text. I'm not sure why you're still refusing to accept that the answer, in general, is a flat no. Dura lex sed lex.

@Lilienthal: Umm, I'm sorry to break this to you, but essentially everyone is downloading music. At any rate, I was talking about an individual; and an individual can't be tried in place of "everyone" and based on what "everyone" might do. I don't find this dura lex, harsh law, that you speak of. I'm hearing speculative opinions on the prospective interpretation of the law. In the mean time, it seems perhaps nobody has even been sued or tried criminally for doing this, and it is a widespread practice. So...

@einpoklum Given that the music industry generated a global revenue of 15 billion USD in 2013, I guess not everyone is downloading music. And if you had bother to read AE's answer you would see that your second point is equally invalid: "if it should become widespread, it would adversely affect the potential market ". In other words, the court ruled that even if one individual's behaviour would not be hugely problematic, the change that his behaviour would spread is.

@Lilienthal: You're assuming people who buy music don't download it, and that's not true. Also, about the court ruling - let's have a link to that. But not a ruling regarding the publication of copies or their sale, but about their download.

@einpoklum Instead of perverting the arguments made here, consider reading them. At this point I'm going to recommend that you put a lawyer on retainer or hire a yes man because I doubt you're going to get what you want on this site.

@einpoklum, I've added to my answer in response to your comments.

Since you cite so much case law: the ongoing case involving Georgia State is highly relevant here. Specifically with respect to (4), the decision there was that the excerpts shared by instructors were considered to be fair use partly because they "do not substitute for the full books". Also with respect to (3) the lower court suggested very specific quantitative guidelines; although the use of specific quantitative rules was overturned on appeal.

@ff524 Very interesting!

'Fair use' was understood in a way which made it virtually useless for instructional purposes even 10 years ago. Course readers in the US are typically combinations of materials from various sources e.g. a poem from a book, an article from a journal, a paper from a collection. Each item in such a reader typically has to have copyright clearance and publishers levy a charge for this. They also charge for some items placed on electronic reserve in libraries. (And all this is true even if the library owns copies of the material.) Only if you can claim that the use of material was unforeseeable...

... can you typically get away with distributing copies of it for free. Note that I realise the question is about individual use, but the 'fair use' defence is supposed to be available there, too. (At least for non-profit educational institutions.) These policies are, of course, defensive in nature. They are, unfortunately, both shaped by, and shape, interpretations of the 'fair use' clause in US courts, which have tended - though not without exceptions - to interpret what is defensible rather restrictively. This is unfortunate morally, socially & educationally, but sets the US legal context.

@ff524: Just wanted to emphasize that your Georgia State reference regards the act of distribution to others (within the framework of an educational program which students pay for, or the government pays for). In that context I obviously agree there is well-established illegality of distributing copies of books. The context of my question is different.

@einpoklum The relevant points of the Georgia State case here are not 1, the nature of the use (e.g. distribution vs personal use), or 2. The parts I brought up are 4 and 3, which both relate to the idea of using a copyrighted work in its entirety (vs a small part of it).  (You seem determined to completely dismiss any relevant case law that isn't exactly the scenario you have in mind, but that's not how case law works. Courts use relevant parts of related but non-identical precedents to guide their decisions in new contexts that have not yet been decided in the courts.)

@ff524: But, again, it was found inappropriate to distribute an entire work. From reading the text it seems to me that it was intended to be limited in scope. And, yes, my question was kind of specific..

"That's likely to be because it's not worth suing an individual for a very small loss. If the textbook only costs $20 - or even if it costs $100 - the publisher would lose money by suing the student, because the non-recoverable costs of the case (such as the time of the publisher's staff) would cost more than that." As publishers register their works with the US Copyright Office, then "Registered works may be eligible for statutory damages and attorney's fees in successful litigation." That means a court could decide to force an individual violator to pay the expenses of the publisher....

... and while it isn't likely, and the courts may frown upon its docket being filled with a publisher bringing individual lawsuits against thousands of violators, you take on that risk if you download copyrighted work without license to do so. I fully support free access to information, but it is up to the creator of the work to decide to make that content freely available through Creative Commons licensing.

Where I actually have a problem is where work has been funded by public grants, such as NSF or NIH grants, and the work ends up getting published in Journals that have pay walls. The knowledge generated by those researchers was funded by the taxpayers and should be made available to the public that paid for it, and not be a source of profit for journals that place embargoes on the data's access and charge exorbitant amounts to access what should rightly be The People's knowledge. I do not see a textbook that was generated for the purpose of profit in the same light.

@AMR, agreed. Re costs, there's usually some that can't be recovered from the losing party. Eg I can claim for my lawyer's fees but probably not for my own time used in consulting the lawyer and dealing with the case - this is why I said "non-recoverable costs".

In general, it is not considered fair use to download the entirety of a textbook, regardless of whether or not you're a student or enrolled in a class using the textbook. Fair use normally is considered to extend to making copies of small excerpts of larger works. For instance, you could copy a particularly relevant figure from a book, or a quote from a textbook or reader for use in a class discussion.

I was asking about the specific case of scholarship - and I think you're giving an overly general answer, or referring to use in teaching, which is something done for pay/tuition.

My point is that fair use never extends to downloading an entire textbook when you do not formally have the rights to do so. There is no exception for scholarship purposes.

@einpoklum see point #3: "the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole"

@einpoklum The third factor "the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole" is the major factor here. Regardless of the other 3 points, it is pretty obvious that downloading an entire textbook is not fair use. And the fourth factor "the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work" is also clearly a problem in this usage. If every student could download the book without paying for it, it would seriously affect the value of the work.

@MJeffryes at the same time, I haven't seen any books that can be downloaded chapter-by-chapter or similar, what's a few kb when only 1% will be used?

@user2813274 Even if it would be fair use to obtain a single book chapter, its unavailability online doesn't make downloading the whole thing fair use. It's possible that if you were sued for infringing and you argued that you only used a single chapter, the judgement would be in your favour. There's no way of knowing.

@einpoklum I don't think the answerer has misunderstood or generalised. Its a bit of wishful thinking on your part.  The scholor clause is obviously so that you can take excerpts from a full text you have legitimately and not for procuring the full text in the first place.

@user2813274. I believe the onus would be on you to prove that you only used 1% of the work if you did indeed download the entire book. You might be able to get away with it, but chances are, you won't.

"For instance, you could copy [X from Y]" -- ... which you legally obtained, right?

@MJeffryes: The opposite is clear. As a student, a scholar, you would obviously need to read the whole book. The "amount" consideration seems like it would regard, say, citation somewhere.

So, @aeismail, has there ever been a conviction, or a ruling in a lawsuit, according to your point?

@JamesRyan: How is that obvious? Have the courts specifically ruled according to that interpretation?

@einpoklum: I would imagine there has been, but copyright infringement suits don't normally make the news. However, you should see this page from the Stanford Libraries that discusses fair use in greater detail. (Note copyright infringement is normally a civil, not criminal, matter).

@einpoklum I cannot find any conviction for pirating textbooks. However, I suspect this is not because the courts have ruled it legal so much as it is because nobody has tried to prosecute individual downloaders yet. The RIAA abandoned the strategy of suing individual infringers in 2008, and copyright cases over ebooks has only recently started becoming heated. Between these two factors, I don't think there's a precedent for fair use of pirated books.

@einpoklum individual countries often give advice on how to interpret these laws and yes there are civil cases brought all the time against people and organisations misuse. You are naively questioning something which is established and widely accepted, you have not found a sneaky loophole.

@JamesRyan: It is not naivete, it's a different cultural (and legal) background - in Israel it's completely legal. It seems incredibly bizarre that something like this would be illegal. As chipbuster suggests, though, it seems this is not actually established (= no court ruling) and not actually accepted (= hundreds of millions of people download all sorts of media all the time, in the US specifically, including most probably academic textbooks)... and that's why I asked.

@aeismail: The page you linked to claims Fair Use is limited to criticism and commentary. So, it doesn't actually address the issue of use for scholarship at all ... oh, wait, it's worse! The guide claims that "a fair use is any copying of copyrighted material done for a limited and “transformative” purpose" - but scholarship does not have any inherent transformative aspect. So, I'd say that text misrepresents the law in this respect.

@einpoklum in the US it IS well established, there have been many rulings. Lots of people downloading media illegally does not make it legal, they are not doing it under any kind of fair use exemption, there are just too many to practically chase. It is an area that law is having trouble dealing with and may need to change, but at present what the law IS is very clear.

@einpoklum also this is NOT legal in Isreal. As party to the Berne convention copyright applies there too. In fact Isreal's copyright system is modelled on the US one and it's definition of fair use is very similar.

@JamesRyan: It is legal in Israel; could you indicate where/how the Berne convention forbids what I've described in the question?

@einpoklum Israel changed it's copyright law in 2007 from British style to US and the implications of this are widely analysed. So while you say is it legal I am afraid reality is that you are simply ignorant of the law.

@JamesRyan: The new law kept in effect the personal use article of the 1924 copyright ordinance (article 3-gimel). Your insistence on misrepresenting Israeli law makes me doubt your claims about what's "well-established" in US law even more.

@einpoklum that is absolutely not the case. Fair use was limited to study, that does not mean it exempts all study (eg some cars are green does not imply that all cars are green) http://www.tglaw.co.il/en/content.php?id=27

@JamesRyan: You, can ignore the law all you like, it's written, black on white: "It shall not be a violation of the rights of creators and performs to imprint or to copy a creation onto a tape for private and home use without commercial purposes." The source you linked to is a legal opinion column by a law office which needs to attract foreign clients, to represent in trying to sue for copyright infringement. So, my doubts regarding your claims about US law again deepen.

@einpoklum again YOU are misinterpreting.  That clause is for people to make backups of media that they already have in their possesion it does NOT allow other people to freely distribute it to you

@einpoklum if you have a lot of confusion about your own laws then it will be hard for you to understand the laws of other regions. Do you have a legal advisor at your institute that you could discuss this topic with, maybe they can clear up some of your misconceptions?

@JamesRyan: That clause is crystal clear, and your interpretation is baseless - not to mention the fact that you've switched from your previous factually incorrect claim to a new one. There's no "confusion". By the way, how come you're so (baselessly) confident about Israeli law? Do you read Hebrew?

@einpoklum I have an Israeli aquaitance, he has confirmed that you are misinterpreting. If you are refusing to accept that then there is no point in continuing this conversation. I know 100% that you are wrong and I suggested the local advisor because you might be able to accept it easier from a source that you trust

@JamesRyan: With all due respect - we've established your acquaintance is feeding you claims which contradict the letter of the law. Let him argue here himself if he (or she) is so inclinded. Or rather, please don't, since the question is about US law.

@einpoklum you haven't established anything of the sort and if you arn't prepared to listen to what the answer IS when reality doesn't match your preconceived misconception then what was the point in asking at all?  Just continue making up what you like.

@JamesRyan: You're not helping me get an answer to my question, you're trying to promote your anti-copying agenda. Please, just stop.

@einpoklum I don't have any agenda, I am a consumer and if anything in support of free-er laws, you however are simply refusing to acknowledge reality

@einpoklum: The reality is that the law is heavily biased against free distribution of copyrighted materials. As an example of this, consider the Petrucci Music Library, which, as a result of copyright law, is unable to offer scores from any composers alive after 1945 unless they've been specifically released into the public domain. It is a major problem, but the fact remains that the law is not on the side of allowing what you suggest.

@JamesRyan This is a useless argument as einpoklum has no intention of listening to reason and is basically a troll. In the post that he references, I provided an example of Israeli case law. ff524 chose to delete those comments, but never the less, even presented with Israeli case law, they rejected it and claimed they were still correct. http://www.iipa.com/rbc/2012/2012SPEC301ISRAEL.PDF "In June 2011, in the case of Hebrew University of Jerusalem vs. Yaakov Cohen, the Supreme Court of Israel clarified the doctrine of contributory copyright infringement under Israeli law..."

"... This case sets an important legal principle under which those who, while not directly infringing, can nevertheless be held contributorily liable for copyright infringement of others."

@JamesRyan, I also pointed out that Israeli is a party to most of the major International Copyright treaties of the latter half of the 20th Century, http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ38a.pdf including the 1995 WTO agreement that 160 nations are party to. "World Trade Organization (WTO), established ... The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) is one of the WTO agreements. It includes substantive obligations for the protection of copyright and other intellectual property rights as well as their enforcement."

It's my understanding is that "fair use" is about the reproduction of copyrighted materials.
I don't believe it has anything to do with how you obtained those materials.
If you stole the same textbook from Barnes & Noble, would you claim fair use?
It is true that the RIAA and others are suing on copyright grounds & not for plain theft.
How that works exactly, I'm not sure. You can read more about it on Wikipedia.
This excerpt is relevant to your question:

Where a defendant has admitted downloading and copying song files from
  other users in the P2P network without permission of the copyright
  holders, she cannot claim that such copying is a "fair use".

The analogy to stealing from Barnes & Noble is a false analogy that is not related to the issue at hand. If you steal from a bookstore, you are stealing from the retailer (who is not the copyright holder), and you are not making a new copy of the book, nor violating any other of the copyright holder's exclusive rights. Downloading a book in PDF form, in contrast, does not involve stealing from a retailer and does involve making a (digital) copy of the book, which is an exclusive right granted to the copyright holder. (It's similar to making a photocopy of an entire book from the library.)

The first two sentences would be worth upvoting. Unfortunately, the rest seems rather confused since the question is whether somebody could be sued for breach of copyright (legitimately) and not whether s/he could be prosecuted for theft. But, it is true that the idea of 'fair use' applies to use of copyrighted materials and not to their acquisition, as I understand it. (Or, at least, it should apply to use. But what it actually permits in practice is very little.)

I've read this "answer" five times now and I don't see an actual answer in it.


text:
Can two PhD students publish without involving their supervisors?
I am a theoretical computer science PhD student. My childhood friend (my present roommate) is in the 3rd year of his pure mathematics PhD program. Very recently we both worked on a problem on combinatorial geometry and got some interesting results to publish. However both of our dissertation topics are way different from this work, so we don't want to involve our advisors in this matter. This was kind of our joint fun project.
We don't know whether it's academically unethical to publish paper(s) as PhD students without including our advisor(s).
(Note: We have nothing to lose even if they reject our paper right away, but we don't want the editor of the journal to mail the chair about this matter. Maybe I'm thinking too much because I've never done this kind of thing before.)

This question makes me all kinds of sad.  How do students become so afraid of their advisors that they don't want to brag to them about doing the one thing that PhD students are supposed to do—become independent researchers?

@JeffE, I wish all supervisors had that much positive attitude about their students that you imagine. I witnessed a supervisor (who NEVER EVER helped her RA) terminated her RA because he had published a very ordinary text in a paid non-ISI journal without supervisor name (not because he did not seek supervisor permission!, but because not put her name!!!). Can you imagine that? Your "Independent researchers" phrase is somehow strange to me. I am thinking, how many percent of the world PhD students have helpful supervisors not misleading students for their own experiment?

I witnessed a supervisor...terminated her RA — Good.  She needed a new advisor.

Here is a related question that might help.

This question is especially sad coming from a theoretical computer scientist.

@JeffE The only grad. student I had officially was forced by me to publish his PhD thesis without my name (to avoid the "yeah, I guess that was ...'s work!" atitude, which was far from the truth though I do not claim that my contribution was zero). However, my attitudes are known to be non-orthodox and I know many people for whom it is more important how much and where to publish than what to publish. So, next time you are on FAC, try to fight the ubiquitous practice of giving points for publications (especially with taking journal into account) and linking the score to salary raises.

@fedja What is FAC?

@Faheem Mitha Faculty Advisory Committee (this is the most usual name for it in the USA though at some places it is called differently. It is in charge of establishing the main department policies, among other things. The usual "governing trinity" in the department is the chairman, the FAC, and the general department meeting. The exact portion of power held by each varies from place to place.

@JeffE OP says that they don't want to involve their advisors, not that they are afraid of them. It sounds to me that they are simply reluctant to share the credits.

You might want to be a little careful about this if you used resources provided by your advisor, then you should involve him.

@JeffE I have seen that in many of your comments you mention that the person may have to look for a new advisor. Is it normal that a PhD or MSc student change his advisor even in his 3rd year of study when PhD program seems to go to finish? In most of the universities of have seen, students have to talk and choose their advisor in the first month of their PhD program and they are not allowed to change their idea at all. Logically, it is not a good idea to change the thesis advisor at the middle of the way. (If it is not broad or subjective, I can post this question.)

Is it normal that a PhD or MSc student change his advisor even in his 3rd year of study — Yes, this is completely normal, although relatively rare.  I personally know several former students who changed advisors in their 3rd or 4th year who finished their PhDs and now hold tenure-track faculty positions.  For many of those students, I was the advisor they left.

There is nothing unethical about publishing something like what you suggest. Personally I would be happy and encourage a student of mine if that happened. So from a formal side you need not to worry. I can add that authorship, or contributorship, does not include adding names to a paper if they have not contributed anything (or enough; see posts on authorship on this, Academia.sx, site). I would, however, be open about it with your advisor. I assume you have a good working relationship with him/her? The only thing that could complicate things would be if you are in a bad working relationship with your advisor or if your system is very hierarchical and not open to initiatives. Clearly only you can assess this. But, I do not want you to over-emphasize these "risks". If you get stuff published on your own and in a field that is not directly within your topic, it will only be viewed as  a positive in your resume when applying for, for example, post-doctoral positions.
As for risking rejection, I suggest you have someone whose views you trust to read and comment on the paper. Having someone independent look at the work is always good to work out details that can otherwise distract reviewers. This is always a good idea so it is not unique to your case.

@precision: "see posts on authorship on this, Academia.sx, site)". For example http://academia.stackexchange.com/q/644/285

@Peter Jansson, Thanks a lot for your suggestion. I have a good working relationship with my advisor and he is a nice guy. Recently we submitted our work in a peer reviewed journal. The only thing is, he wants me to think always on my dissertation and doesn't like to get distracted by other stuffs.

he wants me to think always on my dissertation and doesn't like to get distracted by other stuffs — This is a good sign that he thinks you're not making sufficient progress on your thesis to justify your working on other stuff.  Listen to him.  Independence is good, but you must also finish your thesis.  (Ideally, these two goals reinforce each other rather than interfering.)

@jeffE, Thanks for your suggestion. I have experienced when I work with different groups on different problems,I make good progress on my dissertation . So I believe research students should have some academic freedom and this will help them to see a single problem from different perspectives.

The answer is "yes", but many advisors may respond differently to this. I think it depends much more on the advisor than on any established "academic norm":

Advisor might not be happy that you are using up your time for "trivial pursuits" on the advisor's grant money when you should be doing "real work toward your thesis". (For the record, I would consider this as a bad reason to be unhappy with your students). Often, if you can ensure that the side project doesn't take up that much time, you can mitigate this risk a little.
Advisor might be happy that you are independently pursuing projects.
Advisor might not want a part of this paper simply because of lack of time/energy but otherwise be happy that you're doing it. This is pretty common, for example, in the case of class projects in which you end up with something that's actually pretty significant and the class professor would like you to help publish it.
Advisor might not want you to "spread yourself out too thin" later in your PhD career. I've been advised to be careful about coming up and getting involved with too many "one-shot" ideas that will never get developed and don't help your overall image. So, for example, if you're in the area of "program analysis and testing" (for example), publishing a one-off paper in a venue (maybe "distributed computing") that you don't keep up with and won't be remembered in will result in a forgettable, low-impact paper. I think this is more of a risk when students are thinking "of things to work on" and aren't really focused or don't have a good idea of a research thread to develop. This is also more of a risk if your academic profile isn't very focused. For example, if you have a bunch of disconnected topics you're more in danger than if you have only one or two side projects in a whole field of papers on your main interest.

As a note beneath this one, I think most advisors are mostly concerned that their students are "too distracted". It's easy to do that as a Ph.D ("I can explore anything I want!") - so advisors by nature of their jobs need to make sure that the thesis ends up having focus. Having ideas is a good thing, but putting those ideas into papers is a lot of work. Just to help put a bit of perspective here.

I am generally in favor though of at least letting your advisor know of "side projects" that you're involved in, even class projects, because often they will want to find ways of integrating that into some research work that you can be doing. A good advisor might see a connection between your combinatorial geometry "side project" and your main thesis research, for instance. It's also a good idea, in general, to have a tiny amount of breadth across one or more areas as well. It not only generates good ideas, but helps you keep perspective.

The answer is Yes, because I did this, and was actively encouraged to do so.
Your supervisor does not own you. If you did some outside work, and you think it's publishable, and your supervisor wasn't involved, the work wasn't building off their lab's work or using their equipment, there's no reason they need to be involved.
Now, you might want to involve them, to get their input, keep them aware of other things you are doing so they can say nice things about the terribly clever projects their students are up to, etc.

Rather than repeat what others have mentioned in their answers, I'd rather touch upon another related issue:
In some cases not involving your supervisor also means not involving the institute that you are part of.
Apart from the issue of attribution, depending on the specifics this may have legal ramifications, especially if you are receiving funds from a grant. Theoretically, if you have used any resources supplied by your institute, including existing ideas, computing power or your own paid work hours, you may not have sole ownership of the resulting IP. Things may get even more complicated if your co-author is colaborating with a different entity.
You may not need to do anything, you may need to get a waiver of IP rights from your institute or you may have to add something along the lines of a "This work was supported by..." snippet. If I were you, I would discuss this with my supervisor, even if only to clarify any such issues...

I published a few papers in my area and outside this area, while doing my PhD - without my supervisor's name on them.
In the articles in my research area, one was done with some hints from my supervisor and I gave it to him for review (once it was written), with his name as a co-author. He stroke out his name from it and told me

Do not let your work be diluted by adding people because "this is expected". I have my share of papers and do not need one more. You will need this one, and it is your work - not mine.

As you can imagine, after that the "thank you" section sounded like I was announcing our engagement.
In other cases (whether in my field or not), when I was the one thinking it out (or working with otherwise unrelated friends), I/we published under our names without asking anyone.
As a side note - one of the reasons I left the academic world (which is per se wonderful and I have fantastic memories) is the feudal relationship I witnessed, together with the idea that people are slave to "recommendation letters". This is certainly a specific case but do not let yourself, at that stage, become obsessed with political correctness.

Is your advisor supporting you, e.g. as an RA?  If so, he might be perturbed that you are spending time and energy on something "way different" from what you are paid to do.  Along the same lines, he may also be intent on your completion of your degree program in a timely manner so that he can free up resources, say for another student to enter the group after you graduate.

Yes, you can, by all means.
The thing you both need to discuss with respectively supervisors is the time you spent on this, and convince them that this will not adversely affect your "proper" work with them.

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text:
accepting and online first publish date
Is there any difference between accepting date and First Online date? For example in the journal Acta Mathematicae Applicatae Sinica, English Series , I see this
Received, Revised, First Online
03 April 2014, 17 February 2015, 04 October 2018
from
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10255-018-0786-2
and there is no information about accepting date. I would like to know what is the difference between them and when papers are accepted in this journal.
the journal Applications of Mathematics only shows the  Received, First Online date and not the revised date.
thanks

Why do you want to know? The Accepted date would likely be close to the Revised date, but there is no way to know if it's not specified. All you know is that it's between the Received and First Online dates.

@Thomas I already sent a paper to this journal, if the accepting date is too long, I will withdraw the paper

Define "too long"...

@SolarMike it has been 4 months the paper is submitted. and I can't wait more than 8 months. The submission to accepting process not to be more than 1 year. But I saw in the journal that papers submitted in 2013 and published in 2017. 4 years is too much.

@MorganRodgers accepted date is before revise date or after revise date? Please explain a bit more

@MorganRodgers The journal has a good option which tells you when the paper is submitted to editor, when editor submitted to the reviewer, when reviewer resubmitted to editor and so on. My paper is currently under review by the third reviewer. The first two reviewers have done with reviewing. All these things took about 3-4 months

Manuscripts are received, possibly revised (several times), maybe accepted, then online, and finally published (for non online-only venues), venues may show some or all of the dates of those events.

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text:
Source code plagiarism detection tool that checks against online content
I asked this question on Stackoverflow and was directed to ask it here. The question is:
I wanted to ask about plagiarism detection tools for source code written in C++. When I searched Google the ones I found compare between documents that you already have. What I'm looking for is a tool that compares against content on the internet (i.e Github).

I think it is unlikely to be of use except for the most blatant and poorly done plagiarism. After all, I can copy code, paste in my IDE, Edit -> Refactor -> Change variable names and get brand new code in no time.

@Davidmh: Surprising as it is, students keep trying to conduct such "most blatant and poorly done plagiarism".

While this isn't a real answer, what I use is Google.  Take the code snippet and throw it into Google search. You'll quickly find if there are any exact copies. it doesn't easily find those that have been refactored but it does find those really lazy cheaters.

@O.R.Mapper They do indeed. There was an incident where someone copied handwritten homework word for word from another classmate. They even copied their classmate's name at the top of the paper.  Then they both handed it in in class, one submission on top of the other (as if the TA never marks work sequentially). Stupid is as stupid does. If an intelligent plagiarizer substantially improves or obfuscates the code that they plagiarized, they probably actually managed to understand the program and you'll have a hard time proving they plagiarized.

@Davidmh: Modern plagiarism tools (such as Moss) are not fooled by changing variable names.

Not really meant for plagiarism, but there is Black Duck Software. It's a tool that checks against open source code, to allow companies to make sure that their employees didn't copy copy-left source code into their proprietary code base. https://www.blackducksoftware.com/ I assume it must also check for source code from the public domain or from the Apache/MIT licenses, since knowing that a piece of code has been legally copied is also useful information for companies to know.

We use the MOSS (Measure of Software Similarity) system provided by Stanford, at here.

I think MOSS just compares between the corpus that you submit, not against code in the web. I'm not aware of anything that indexes code on the web for comparison in this way.

@FarazAhmad, are you sure the email you sent is correct? I just used it and got a response within a minute.

Haven't used it, but I found this:
https://codequiry.com/

There are many general sites such as:
http://smallseotools.com/plagiarism-checker/
Sure, they will flag everything that "has to be copied" such as
    int main
but everything that "has to be copied" should be common between your students. It should then be fairly easy to not take it into account using a simple script removing anything shared by more than 80% of your students, preferably before submitting it to the plagiarism checker.
It would probably be easier using a website with an API such as:
https://api.plagscan.com/guide

This doesn't answer the question, the OP was looking for a plagiarism detector for source code, not free-form text.

It is actually terribly bad for source code. It finds all the things that have to be copied, like int main and \"%s\"\n"

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text:
"With editor" status for 2 months: is it normal?
I'm a bit worried because one of my papers have been more than 2 months "with editor" status. It's a science journal (field: drug residue, food), from a famous editorial and impact factor 3.3. I'm used to 48h desk reject and I was wondering about the options of being so long with this status 1) very busy editor 2) my paper was forgotten 3) there is a mistake on the website
Oh, normally we have the option to send an e-mail to the assigned editor, but in this case there is only "view your submission".
Edit:
At the end it took 2 months but... We are under review!

It's possible your paper got stuck in the system, or it's just not updating properly.  Talk to others who have submitted to that specific journal.  If this is an anomaly you should contact the journal.

The problem is that I have no others to ask ^_^U

Times vary a lot between journals and, I believe, disciplines. Two months seems like a relatively long period to me but not unheard of. Out of your three reasons I would not opt for 2 or three depending, of course on the form for submitting manuscripts. If it is digital I am sure 2 and 3 would not be high on the list, if it is manual, by post or e-mail, then the likelihood is higher.
I think a busy editor is one possibility. It is not clear from your question if this is "with the editor" after submission or "with the editor" after review. If we consider the former, the most likely reason, in my experience, is that it has proven hard for the editor to get reviewers to accept to review. This occasionally happens to me and I can say that it has no clear relationship to the possible quality of the paper. In the case of the former (after review), the busy editor becomes a more likely candidate since the editor should study the reviews, decide on the faith of the paper, and possibly provide guidelines for your revisions.
If you have any indication, from for example peers, what typical handling periods are in the journal where you submitted your manuscript, you should definitely contact the journal to ask about the status of your submission. Such requests are commonplace (too common in fact) so try to assess if the two months is long or normal in the case of this particular journal before contact.

Thank you very much for you quick answer, we are "after submission". Unluckily we don't have peers, it's first time in our department working in the field we submitted the paper my research is in the middle of 3 fields so, we just can wait and see how it goes! At least now I know that other people in other journals have been waiting for this period.

Perhaps you could state the general field(s) in your question so that someone familiar with it/them can provide more of inside experience?


text:
What is the strategy to identify natural experiment as a PhD student?
As social scientists become more concerned with causal inference, a good thesis these days needs some sort of quasi-experimental strategy. For example, an economist wants to know the effect of military service on income but faces the problem that people who enlist are different from those who don't. So he uses the random Vietnam War lottery as a quasi-experiment with a valid control (who won the lottery and did not serve) and treatment (who lost and did serve). (More examples of these natural experiments).
As a PhD student sitting in my cubicle, I'm lost on how to identify these opportunities. Reading published work does not really help since these experimental opportunities are quite idiosyncratic. I'm not averse to going out there to find my own opportunity, but unsure about how to do this effectively. Do I read history book? Or talk to policy makers?
Since experimental opportunities are not available to all (or most) topics, I'm already paralyzed at the stage of choosing a topic (and thus can't start reading history book / talking to policy makers).
The standard advice I've got is not to pick question based on method. However, I find this quite a double standard given the concurrent push for quasi-experimental design.

Suggestion: Look at examples of past natural experiment based papers to see what kinds of patterns they looked for, then think about whether your field has anything similar. (My canonical example of a natural experiment was the epidemiological study of cats falling from high-rise windows -- not an experiment you can deliberately try, but one which happens frequently enough that there was enough data to draw statistically valid insights from, telling us more about exactly how and in what order the typical cat responds to that emergency.)

@CapeCode My apology since my question is quite specific to social sciences. I included an example of what's a natural experiment I have in mind. Hopefully with that example, it's clear why I'm having difficulties coming up with similar design on my own.

What makes you believe such a strategy exists?

@Superbest Because there are scholars who specialize on using these quasi experiments in their research (eg Economist Angrist, Political Scientist Thad Dunning). I suppose there is a certain momentum factor involved since when an opportunity is spotted it's brought to these well known authors for collaboration. Of course I'm not attributing everything to fame (these guys need to get famous with independent work first) - hence I ask for things that a PhD student can do to spot these things by himself.

Don't sit in your cubicle!
Go to the library (a physical one assuming you have one still). Read the newspapers (physical ones are easier to browse but you can do this on line).  Look at the controversies, the scandals, that are emerging daily on the news: political lies, child abuse, discriminative policies, public funding, privatization, quantitative easing, bank bail outs. Look at states with different parties in control. Get hold of the latest and previous census data. Get hold of the Enron emails. Get access to the data that companies are building up through loyalty cards and credit cards.  Talk to you med school or a disability charity about mining their data.  Have a look at the data mining literature - talk to the people at your university who do this and what contacts they have...


text:
How common is it for graduate schools to allow admission to be deferred for a year
I have a number of Arabic friends applying to graduate school and due to their situation, they tell me they intend to apply and then get a deferment for the next year. I am curious how common it is for grad schools to allow this.
I ask this because I am considering applying to PhD program in statistics and I'm starting a Master's program this fall. My GRE scores will expire at the end of the year and so I am considering applying to PhD programs this fall (with the expectation of deferring acceptance for the following year, which will be right after I get my Masters).
Most of the schools I look at seem to discourage deferment, and the only reason why I can think maybe the Arabic students don't run into difficulties is b/c they don't require any funding (they tend to be on the KSA scholarships).
Just curious if anyone can give me a realistic idea of how grad schools generally deal with deferments?
TIA,
Matt

I think the general trend for deferrals is to make them available, but not automatic—usually, you have to explain exactly why you want the deferral, and what you plan to do in the intervening time. For example, doing a volunteer year (for example, for a Peace Corps-like organization) or accepting a prestigious international fellowship are usually acceptable reasons for a deferral. On the other hand, accepting a job offer for a year would normally not be considered grounds for a deferral.  However, I think this is a policy that differs from department to department and institution to institution, so definitely check with them first!
The reason for this is that deferrals impact two admission classes: the current one, as well as the following one. You can't admit extra students, because you have the deferring students from the present year, plus you're now "short" a student for the new incoming class.

Thank-you: that was pretty much my impression. I've been in academics for awhile and can't remember ever hearing a student granted a deferral. However b/c all of these students acted like it was commonplace, I naturally wondered if things might have changed.

@MattBrenneman: Immigration might be a different issue altogether—it's certainly a significant obstacle for students from many countries these days, and could also be an "acceptable" reason to defer. (Depends on the school.)


text:
Are there ranking for Master's programs (sciences, subject specific)
There are rankings of US universities and colleges:

overall,
for undergrad programs,
and for doctoral programs

But, I find nothing for rankings of Masters programs in specific subjects (like physics, math, etc).
Does my observation ring true with others, and if so, why is this? It would seem curious to me if undergrad and PhD programs were ranked but Masters were not.
Thank you,
Matt

I'd say, generally, rankings are often fickle beasts, so don't put too much faith in any specific one you come across. Depending on the publisher, ordering rules, etc, you may get very different rankings for each school. To your specific question though, it's a fair bet to lump Masters programs in with their respective doctoral program, at least if you're looking for some prestige comparison.
That being said, particular Masters programs can be better than others in certain aspects (like affordability, access to research, focus on industry, etc) that may run counter to the institution's prestige ranking. For those things, it's best to research institutions within your specific field rather than look for some published blanket rankings anyway.
As to why there is no blanket Masters ranking, it is likely related to what I mentioned above: Masters programs are often geared toward students with specific goals in mind. Undergrad and doctoral programs are each generally focused on well-defined tasks, providing a foundation and establishing research competency, respectively, and thus perhaps easier (more valid) to compare. In obtaining Masters degrees, students' goals can run the gamut of possibilities. Some people are looking for career advancement (e.g. MBA, MEng, etc), others are looking to make a pivot in their field, and still others are looking for something else. It's tough to compare these programs because,  with all the variables, you're really comparing apples and oranges.

Actually (as I stated), I am looking for Master's rankings that are discipline specific (not a "blanket rating"). –

@MattBrenneman -- I realize that. By "blanket rating" I am referring to what I'd also called a "prestige comparison." That can be within a single discipline or across all offered.


text:
Citing a short story within a collection within another collection
Its collections all the way down today.
I am usually pretty sure about my works cited pages, but I just ran into something that has me stumped.
I am citing "Araby" from James Joyce's Dubliners. However, the only copy I have access to right now is the Barns & Nobel Classics edition, which contains both Dubliners and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
So far, this is what I've come up with:

Joyce, James. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Dubliners.
Barnes & Nobel Classics, 2004.

and

Joyce, James. "Araby." A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and
Dubliners. Barnes & Nobel Classics, 2004. pp. 249-254.

Ignoring my lack of hanging indent, are either of these correct?

What sort of document is this for?  For many purposes, you are expected to track the proper source via inter-library loan.   Waiting a week should not matter in most cases.

@TerryLoring It is for a writing sample needed for a graduate program.

How formal your citation must be depends on your audience. Course paper? Thesis? Article for a literary journal?
That citation will allow your reader to find and verify what you have to say.
If what you're writing is scholarly, you might want to find the original publication date, and put (reprinted) in the citation. If it's really scholarly you might have to look at the original somehow.
By the way, the text is available at Project Gutenberg. Adding that url will help your readers even if it's not an official source:
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2814/2814-h/2814-h.htm

I'm using it in a writing sample required by my graduate program. My particular program asks that we follow the same guidelines as we would for any other course paper throughout undergrad. So it is as formal as, say, a final paper for an American Fiction class.

Your citation is fine for a course paper. I'd note the (reprinted in). But it will raise a red flag if you write "Barnes and Nobel" instead of "Barnes and Noble".

Good catch! Admittedly, I was not paying much attention to that at the time. I figured I would have to use a stand-alone copy of the book instead. Cheers!


text:
Total impact factor and average impact factor per publications
I have been asked to compute the total impact factor and the average impact factor per publication with respect to the year of publication. Does anybody know how to compute these metrics? Also, a website that explains it is ok. The best would be a website that already provides me these informations, but I do not think that it exists!
Thank you!

Publications don't have impact factors; journals have impact factors.  You should ask the person who told you to do this for clarification.

Actually, it is written on a document and I cannot ask anyone. I suppose that, as you said, I have to compute these values considering the journal. The total impact factor is easy to find (I think I can find it on Web of Science, right?), but how can I compute the average?

I guess they mean total citations and total citations / citations. Something like that. But see above.

Ask the person who asked you. Our whoever is responsible for the document!

Total number of cites divided by the total number of publications?  You basically treat your publications list as a journal, and then calculate your IF the same way.

I suppose that they are asking for the Impact Factors (IF) of the journals in which you published your papers. This, at least, is a widespread (but ethically doubtful) approach in research evaluation.
Anyway, to find the IFs per year, you need to have a subscription to Web of Science's Journal Citation Reports (JCR). (Usually, your university library provides an institutional subscription for you.)

Access JCR: https://jcr.clarivate.com

Enter the journal name and hit enter

Find the IF of the year of your publication

Here is an example of a journal which had an IF of 9.580 in the year 2018:


text:
Do certificates from accredited online courses play any role in applying for a graduate program?
I am very interested in an online course which can be enrolled either for free without a certificate or with money and a certificate.
The contents in both cases are absolutely the same. I wanted to know whether a certificate makes any difference in the grad application since as far as I know they don't ask to show certificates and I can mention the course even without a certificate in my CV.
So, is there any use at all of the certificate if the course content without the certificate is exactly the same?

Accredited by who, exactly? And a "course" is more than its content.

Well, generally speaking, it depends on the opinion of who reviews your CV. Some people don't care about these online courses at all, but some people might have attention to that. But in my experience, it's not something that could change someone's opinion from NO, to YES. It might be better instead of investing time on online courses, accredited or not, try add some research experiences to your CV.

@Buffy For instance I am doing a course in particle physics on Coursera made by University of Geneva. They have quizes, weighted grades etc and the quizes can be attempted onle by a valid name signature etc. Would certificate from such a course help at all while applying to graduate progams?

@Alone Programmer I will anyways do this course since I am doing it to educate myself but I wanted to know if getting a certificate along with the knowledge be useful?

The explicit answer is: Not really... if you put it on your CV it's better than nothing but, is it useful? That only depends on the opinion of the reviewer.

How would I put a certificate on my CV anyways? Wouldn't mentioning the course etc enough on a CV? If I am not wrong nobody attaches a certificate?

If you wanted to show your certificate, the best way would probably be to include it as a clickable link on your CV entry (similar to how accreditations can be added on your LinkedIn profile for those that are familiar with it). But I'm not sure if all of this is really necessary.

Potentially relevant: How do the completion of online courses impact a Master's application?

This is a personal view and I think that there would be a lot of variation in what people accept for a graduate program; especially for a doctoral program.
I would tend to discount almost all such courses for the simple reason that I have no real idea about what the student learned in the course, independent of whatever grade the received. I have no idea what they did and I have no idea how to evaluate a course that relies only on online quizzes and tests. To me, the value of a certificate is just that of a piece of paper. Probably virtual paper, actually.
I would think that such courses are fine for the person who simply wants to learn something and is willing to do a lot of work (exercises, projects,...) based on it, but not for any "accreditation" purposes.
The exception would be a reasonably scaled course with a professor and sufficient staff so that the student/staff ration is less than 30/1, preferably closer to 20/1. Most online courses don't have that characteristic (though Harvard's CS50 does, actually, as do courses run by Open University in UK).
A person learns through reinforcement and feedback. Massive online courses have no real way to judge whether such learning has happened. The reinforcement can't be enforced (so to speak) and the feedback to the student is minimal. An individual might be able to judge that they, themself, learned something, but an outsider would find it difficult to impossible.
I can't guarantee (or even guess) how many feel similarly, but the educational background of most of the people judging things now is very different from such massive "courses".
I don't think they are worthless, though it is impossible for me to make a judgement about their worth with enough confidence to predict the success of a student in a graduate program (especially, again) at the doctoral level. I would base my judgement on other factors, and especially those of recommenders.


text:
How usual/feasible is it for European universities to accept PhD candidates right after their bachelor's degree? (computer science field)
I am nearing the end of my bachelor's degree and wish to know what my options are for continuing. Optimally, I would be able to immediately pursue a PhD, but I get conflicting information on the matter by different professors, advisors, and online sources.
The institutions I am mainly interested in are: EPFL, ETH Zürich, University of Edinburgh, Technical University of Darmstadt (TU Darmstadt), UCL, and University of Warsaw, as this is where I could find advisors most relevant to my research interests.
I was told that, besides the advisor being interested, the university has to have a precedent or a way for the master's degree requirement to be bypassed, but I am having a hard time locating such information. Any and all insight on previous cases of the aforementioned universities accepting or explicitly denying a PhD candidate on the basis of not having a master's degree is very useful.
Personally, I will have four to eight publications to my name by the time I graduate, but probably six at the time of sending out applications, and a very very strong research thesis. If that is not enough regardless of universities accepting without a master's degree or not, that would also be some useful information to have.
I repeat; I do not care about the rest of the criteria, just whether or not not having a master's degree is an absolute deal breaker for a PhD in the aforementioned institutions.

Have you checked the official university websites? E.g. for EPFL, this page suggests that you can apply with a Bachelor's degree: https://www.epfl.ch/education/phd/edic-computer-and-communication-sciences/edic-computer-and-communication-sciences/edic-how-to-apply/

Have you asked these universities explicitly? You will probably get a more useful answer than our general speculation here.

You must ask the universities directly. We won't be able to help you. Even if the official rules are crystal clear and would technically disqualify you, you may qualify for a specific exception that isn't even published...

Btw 4-8 publications is absolutely incredible as an undergraduate. Well done! That should also give you plenty of contacts to push for you personally within their academic network.

Are the publications in first tier journals?

ETH has a direct doctorate program for exceptional students.

IIRC, some European universities have a strict time limit on doctoral studies. Beginning with only a bachelors might be a disadvantage for a student if they need time to "catch up" in some things. I've heard that 3 years is the maximum in some places. Maybe someone with direct knowledge can confirm or refute this.

When you apply to a PhD do they just look at your last MSc for example? or they also need to check the bachelor degree?

It's six schools. Why not ask them?

This has to depend on the field surely.  More likely in engineering and computer science, much less likely in pure mathematics, although it does happen.

@Buffy You are correct. In France, for example, a doctorate is a fixed-time 3-year contract. The PhD candidate is employed by the lab, receiving a salary and paying tax and other standard contributions from it (actually, PhD candidate is a bit in limbo as they are also the student of the Uni and pay token tuition of some 100s eur/year). After 36 months, unless you find an extension to your funding (and those are rare and no longer than a few months), you are no longer employed by the lab, but are expected to keep up your enrolment as a student until you graduate.

In contrast to Stephen McMahon's answer, which holds absolutely true for the UK, the situation in most of continental Europe is the opposite.
On the continent, it would be very unusual to start a PhD directly after one's BSc, hence the suggestion to look for "precedent or a way for the Master's requirement to be bypassed" at your Unis of interest. This is in direct contrast with the UK, where this is not even a requirement.
(Source: PhD from France, professional network from all over the EU, followed by a postdoc and a permanent position in the UK.)
As a side-note, PhD programmes in the UK often offer different levels of funding for home and international students (it used to be home+EU, but, alas, Brexit) -- or worded alternatively, some/most PhD programmes in the UK are only fully funded for British students. In my anecdotal experience, the international students that do apply to a very limited number of available fully-funded positions tend to be finishing an MSc while applying (or already hold one), despite it not being a requirement. And given a choice between an applicant with an MSc and an applicant with a BSc only, the one with an MSc typically has more to offer simply because they have had more time to demonstrate their skills. (However, your specific situation of 6 publications at the time of application + 2 submitted is definitely "a lot to offer" from your side, and on par with MSc applicants.)

Why would you need an MSc to apply for a PhD in France? I only did my post-doc in France, so I am sure you know better, but I thought that the French DEA is often (usually?) part of the PhD and the DEA is equivalent to an MSc. Is that not correct?

@terdon From what I know, a DEA (or DESS) is a short post-Master degree which is equivalent to the non-research part requirements of a PhD. Not saying there is no way to apply without a MSc, but that's certainly highly unusual.

@terdon I don't know about the DEA (honestly I tried figuring out their education below university level and it just spinned my head around), but my PhD in France certainly expected a MSc qualification (most of my peers got their positions during a MSc internship), and didn't provide any sort of a MSc-equivalent as far as I remember. This was almost 8 years ago now, so stuff might have changed.

In Germany, it might be possible to start a PhD with only a bachelor's degree. Not all universities allow that, though (you will have to check their websites). To get accepted with only a bachelor's degree, you normally have to have very good grades, and it might be that you have to take additional courses.
Be aware though, that this is (still) quite uncommon and it might be hard to find a supervisor that will accept you with only a bachelor's degree, but it is possible.
You can find some general information (in German) here.

A relevant (apparently Germany-specific) keyword to look for is "fast track".

The general requirement (in Germany) is a university MSc in a closely related field, but exceptions/case-specific approval are possible. Such approvals are actually quite common, they are typically also needed by PhD students with MSc in a different field or from a university of applied sciences (FH) rather than a full university. The approval is typically conditional on the student passing certain exams (but less than a full MSc). I've met 1 such PhD student starting with a foreign BSc (so, yes, rare), but a whole lot with degrees in other fields or from FHs (not so rare).

It is quite usual that requirements at German universities are expressed as such-and-such or equivalent. So, I'd recommend to ask how to show equivalence in your case.

I believe some German universities have 'Fast-Track' programs which require a very good Bachelor degree, among other criteria.

At least in the UK, a Master's is not a typical requirement for PhD entry, with the minimum level usually being a good undergraduate degree. E.g. pulling a random CS PhD project from the University of Edinburgh website, it says under candidate profile:

A good Bachelors degree (2.1 or above or international equivalent)
and/or Masters degree in a relevant subject (computer science,
artificial intelligence, engineering, mathematics or related subject)

Similar language can be found in other PhD advertisements, indicating that while a Master's is desirable, it's not a requirement. And I imagine this phrasing is typical across the vast majority of PhD advertisements in the UK - I obviously can't exhaustively check, but I can't recall seeing any which explicitly require a Master's degree.
Mainly, what they're typically looking for is evidence of ability to conduct good-quality research in the field, so I think a good portfolio of papers would serve as evidence of that even moreso than a Master's (particularly given I imagine the median number of papers among UK PhD applicants is 0).

It's very common now for mathematics/science/CS first degrees in the UK to be an 'integrated masters': generally four years, sometimes but not necessarily any research, a degree name like MMath. This means there will be a lot of PhD applicants with one first degree as opposed to a bachelors+masters combination, which may influence the typical expectation. Also, in Scotland an MA is often a first degree equivalent to an English BA, which further confuses things...

You provided a long list of universities and I bothered to check two of them, which took me about 5 minutes each at most. The ETH Zürich, as a Swiss federal institute of technology, is governed by Swiss regulations. Specifically, for the doctorate it's SR 414.133.1, available in German and other languages that you can look up for yourself. In SR 414.133.1, Chapter 2, Section 1, Article 5, 2., f. you can read that

Kandidaten und Kandidatinnen mit herausragenden Qualifikationen.

can be admitted to do a doctorate at ETH Zürich. That is, you need "outstanding qualifications" and nothing else, not even a Bachelor's degree. It's up to you to prove that you are indeed outstanding enough.
For EPFL, the regulation is SR 414.133.2, available in French for example, where it says you must prove qualifications equivalent to a Master's degree from ETHZ or EPFL, but you aren't required to have any specific degree. There is an exam after the first year of doctoral studies which you can repeat once on failure and if you fail again you are expelled.

University of Warsaw has a list of PhD programs for international students, and having a master degree is one of the requirements to apply. This list is not exhaustive though, so if you're interested, please contact the responsible person and ask directly (there is an english webpage).

A frame challenge: Are you sure bypassing the masters is really the right thing to do?  Depending on your underlying motivations, there may be more effective ways to achieve them.
On the one hand, the main good motivation I’ve heard for going directly to a PhD is to finish it sooner.  But instead of skipping the masters, you can also achieve this by completing a masters and PhD more quickly than average — a 1-year masters and a 3-year PhD.  Many (?most) institutions allow early completion, especially if (e.g.) you have existing high-level course credits that can be transferred forward, to reduce the course-load during the masters/PhD. Taking this route, you sound like you’d be a very strong applicant, so you should have opportunities at excellent institutions.  By contrast, applying for PhD’s without a masters in continental Europe shouldn’t be impossible (as other answers say), but would certainly make the competition harder and reduce your options.
On the other hand, completing sooner has some disadvantages that many students overlook or underestimate.  In many ways, working conditions as a grad student are excellent — you have more time and support for research than you probably ever will again.  As you progress in an academic career, administrative and service duties soon take up more time and energy than most people foresee.  And many jobs and grants are only available for a limited number of years after PhD completion — so cutting the time you take in graduate study will reduce the research track record you’ll have while eligible for such opportunities.  (Of course, I do agree there are trade-offs too — I’m not suggesting that stretching graduate studies longer is always good.)
So going for the standard masters+PhD route, and aiming for early completion, seems to offer the same main benefit, but with several advantages, including being more competitive for your preferred institutions, and the possibility of falling back to the standard timeline either if you have difficulty completing quickly, or if (as you become more experienced) you reconsider and decide you don’t want to complete so quickly.

The main reason I am trying to avoid this is financial. I largely depend on a PhD salary to be able to live abroad, even a year would be really hard to cover.

@riverwastaken At ETHZ, one of the universities you mentioned, an outstanding masters student should be able to (easily) get a job as a teaching or research assistant, paid about 30CHF/hour for up to 15 hours per week. That could cover your living expenses and give you valuable experience too.

I'm an american who did this as part of a special program at a university following the Bologna accord (which is the standard throughout continental Europe for some time now). On my records with the university they would write I was in the PhD (bridge) program to explain why I was taking 2 years of masters classes.

My ten cents: In France, if your bachelor was 5 years long (some Latin-American countries have 5 year long bachelors) your advisor can fill a document asking the university to waive the Master on the basis that you already have 5 years of schooling, which can be considered equivalent to the French bach(3+2) system.