text:
57 references and 70 footnotes in a 18 page article, normal?
I am submitting a paper for graduate school application in philosophy. Among the items required, a writing sample. The sample relates directly to the field and to the potential supervisor's research area as well. The paper DOES reconstruct a philosophical problem for a particular philosopher, and it comes with something new for sure. However, the references I used and footnotes were about 57 and 70 respectively. The footnotes addressed a lot of issue and worked as a linkage to contemporary studies in the field. For the references, I couldn't help it.
Are those number going to be looked down on?

We can't judge it in a vacuum. If appropriate to the field and to the topic, then fine (normal). But you can also check similar and/or related papers to see if it is normal enough. Some of your many citations will give you a hint, I'd guess.
On the other hand, you use what you have and be prepared for any discussion.
A writing sample is also to judge how well you use the language. How clear you are. Are you concise when appropriate. I'd guess that is more important than citation counts. The review of your paper might be quite cursory, actually.

Agree completely with Buffy's answer: it depends on the conventions of your field and the content of your paper. For example, 57 references might even be too few for a review paper. But regardless of the domain, I doubt having too many references would be too much of a problem.
The part that jumps out at me, though, is that you have 70 footnotes. In some old-fashioned papers, footnotes are used for citations (i.e., you will add a footnote saying "Jones 30" and then the bibliography provides a full citation for Jones's work). In this case, 70 footnotes might be okay. But it sounds like you are not doing this; rather, you have an enormous amount of footnotes which are making parenthetical comments and providing additional content.
Again, it is hard to judge in a vacuum; it might be that adding all these footnotes was a judicious way to present very complicated information. For example, I could imagine a linguistics paper where you use footnotes to provide translations or etymologies without disrupting the narrative. But, I think you should really reflect on whether using so many footnotes was the optimal choice for your paper. In particular, if you are expecting your reader to spend 18 pages bouncing between the main text and the footnotes, it is likely that your paper could benefit from being reorganized.

Do you know that old style still exists in philological research! My footnotes acted as comparative to contemporary insights on the topic in question.

@user18602524 I had a habit of including footnotes with side remarks in my text when I was a student. My master thesis advisor told me: decide whether these comments are relevant additions to the thesis. If they are, include them properly in the main text; if they are not, exclude them entirely. No need for footnotes. This was in math though, so your milage may vary.

I had the same experience as @Marc with some of my first papers I had submitted (in theoretical cs, much math involved). Since then I try to avoid footnotes as well. Maybe consider adding separate discussion section in case you do not want to leave the content out.


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What are objectives and incentives of journal editors?
I am trying to understand better the factors that affect the decisions of journal editors (re: publication). I am not interested in strategies to boost my chances of publication, rather I want to understand explicit policies and objectives that incentivize publication choices. Since policies differ between journals and regions, I am interested in examples of how editors' objectives translate into policy in western European/American-based journals, e.g.:

Is the goal of an editor to maximize impact factor? If so, are editors who facilitate publication of work that becomes highly cited recognized or awarded in some way, or are other strategies used by the editorial board to pursue this goal?
Is the goal of an editor to have a large throughput? If so, are editors subject to throughput quotas? If not, does this create tension in journals with APC's that have budgets to meet?
Do the motivations differ between editors and publishers? If so, what kind of journal policies  result from these tensions?

I hope and suspect that editors of (reputable) journals want to publish papers appropriate in content and level for the readers. I doubt that considerations of impact factor and throughput matter.

Work is cited after it's published, so how do you "facilitate publication of highly cited work"?

And print journals are pretty restricted in "throughput". Pages cost real money.

@AzorAhai-him- I meant work that goes on to become highly cited - I've clarified this. Though perhaps in fields where preprints are common this clarification isn't needed (for example, an editor facilitates publication of a work with a highly cited preprint)

Prediction is hard. Especially if it is about the future. (stolen, but I don't remember from whom) Ah, research: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/10/20/no-predict/

I can add my two cents as an associate editor of some journal: In this specific journal there are no objectives of the editor-in-chief that are communicated to the associate editors (really,none at all). Hence, I think that all associate editors follow their own incentives. Speaking just for myself, I can say that I accept any paper for which the topic fits the scope of the journal and for which the reviewers recommend acceptance. There are no other factors involved.
I should add that I am associate editor only for a short time and haven't participated in any editorial board meetings. It may well be that the board discusses objectives of the journal at such meetings…

Agree completely (I served on editorial boards of 3 journals, for over 15 years, currently just 1).

The personal motivation for becoming an editor are based on prestige and service to the community.
The primary goals of a journal depend on the publisher. Learned societies including e.g. ACM and IEEE in engineering or the Royal Society are intent on the spread of science and engineering, help their members e.g. by providing publication outlets, and their own prestige, whereas commercial established editors look for revenue by establishing a journal as a brand. Some newer editors forego the establishment of a brand.
Publishing can be extremely profitable as university libraries have to provide access to publications. With the exception of predatory publishers and commercial editors who maximize short-term profit, the goal is to have a product that is prestigious enough that their main customers, i.e. university libraries, just have to buy their product.
To build a brand, a journal needs to contain sought-after articles. A good journal enjoys a virtuous circles. By having already published good articles, the journal attracts authors with good articles who prefer the name recognition of the journal to other outlets. This makes it more likely for libraries to subscribe to the journal, which gives it also more recognition among potential authors. By specialization, a new journal might find both an audience and a group of authors.
In the short term, an editor has to fill the journal with good quality articles justifying the subscription fees. Over the last decades, the costs of adding one page to a journal has gone down, which takes away one big reason for limiting the size and number of articles published. However, a journal that accepts just about everything will lose prestige and no longer attract good authors. The quality of editing and reviewing also enters the picture. Bad reviewing and having articles retracted as a consequence is a big loss of prestige.
In the last decades, informal renomée has been replaced with bibliometric measures such as impact factor. These are more important for the less prestigious journals and are also the target for "gaming the system".

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What process determines whether a preprint appears on inspireHEP
I am trying to access the INSPIRE-HEP citation metadata for a lot of preprints, specifically preprints that are (cross)-listed in the quant-ph category on arXiv. A lot of these (roughly 80%) do not appear on INSPIRE-HEP, but I can't tell any obvious pattern as to why.
This difference doesn't seem to be caused by cross-listing in other categories, and I couldn't see any obvious trend in the titles/topics of quant-ph papers that were included on INSPIRE-HEP.
The INSPIRE-HEP FAQ says, "INSPIRE is highly selective to papers within High Energy Physics" but no details are given about how that selection is ultimately made. Is anything more specific known about how preprints are gathered for INSPIRE-HEP?

The content policy details which arXiv categories are indexed:

Types of content included in the HEP Literature Collection

arXiv.org e-prints

e-prints from hep*, gr-qc, nucl*, astro-ph.CO, astro-ph.HE, physics.acc-ph, physics.data-an and physics.ins-det archives. Articles cross-listed to these topics are individually evaluated for appropriateness.
Relevant e-prints from other archives (determined from cross-listing, citations or selected on a case-by-case basis).

Preprints in the quant-ph category would be indexed on a case-by-case basis, depending on the topic and at the discretion of INSPIRE. The core topical areas they consider are also laid out in the content policy.

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Do I have an obligation to tell my brother that his paper may not meet the standards of a "legitimate" research article?
My brother has written a paper which is essentially a survey of different techniques to accomplish a certain security related goal. He has also managed to present it in some conference.
Unfortunately, I do not think that this paper meets the standard of a rigorous research article for a few reasons. For instance, the surveying done in the paper seems to be shallow. Essentially anyone who has done a first course in security, or seen a few textbooks could write such an article with some rehashing. I also think that the classification he suggests in the paper is not very coherent.
So, I believe that this paper neither meets the standard of a research paper (because it lacks novelty) nor meets the standards of a rigorous survey (since he summarizes secondary sources, rather than primary sources). I believe it would me more worthwhile to publish this as a blogpost, or in a newspaper column instead of as an academic paper.
I am not certain how reputable this conference is. I suppose there was an accept/reject phase, but there was no feedback from the reviewers (if there were any).
Should I have a conversation with my brother about this?

Arguments for: This will inform my brother of what research articles typically consist of. Also, it is in the general interest of academia to not have tertiary material labelled as "research articles".
Arguments against: This might offend my brother. Also, it is better for the academic system to collectively express their assesment via standard channels (reviewer feedback, citations, etc) rather than me expressing my individual informal opinion.

Edited to add more context:

My brother is a second year undergraduate student.
This paper is co-authored with a professor in his university. However, (based on their Google Scholar profile) it does not seem like they have a solid track record of publishing security related papers. Most of their papers seem to be unrelated to security, and some of their most cited papers seem to be related to management/leadership.
While this institution happens to be reputed, it is not reputed for their research (as far as I know). I am led to believe that this is the standard to which publications are held in this institution (and also by this certain professor).
I am a graduate student, several years into my program.

I think that you are well aware of the relevant arguments. Everything else depends on the personalities of the two of you and the dynamic between you, maybe also personal history, and we can't know about this. (For sure you don't have an "obligation".)

why? how old is your brother? why are judging his work but you are not helping him bringing it to a publishable status?

Is the security feature IT/computer science-related? Is the conference a computer science conference? If the conference is more management/leadership focused, that may be why the paper was considered appropriate

A general rule to live by is to not give people harsh feedback unless they asked for it. It does not sound like anybody is actually harmed by this paper (it's not plagiarised, it's not a spam conference that would hurt your brother in the future), so why not give your brother this small achievement in his early career stage?

You say that he is co-authoring the paper with his professor. Let the professor advise him.

Don't pollute your sibling relationship with critical academic feedback
There are plenty of people who can give your brother critical feedback on his research article, including journal referees and other academics.  Not only are you under no obligation to be the one to give him critical feedback, but it seems to me that as his sibling you are poorly placed to do this.  (Why not tell him that he's not very good looking while you're at it.)  I recommend that you leave the critical appraisal of defects in his research to journal referees and other non-related parties.  If you are in a position where you have academic expertise that could be useful, then presumably you also know other colleagues who could do the same as a favour to you, so that any adverse feedback comes from someone who is not his sibling.  If you must involve yourself with his paper at all, you should consider doing so in a more positive spirit --- i.e., help him identify ways he could improve his paper to bring it up to a standard where it can be published.

Whether you have an obligation or not is probably dependent on cultural norms, including those of your family. In general, though, you wouldn't have an "obligation" (I must do this), but likely it would be doing a service to him to learn the standards.
So, whether there is an obligation or not, I suggest you give it a try, gently, perhaps, if you worry about his reaction. And make it clear you aren't the judge.
This would be especially valuable to him if additional effort could bring it up to standard. Having a first attempt at a publication rejected is pretty common, though, and an education in its own right.
You might ask him whether he would value your opinion on what you think the response of reviewers might be. You might also point him to papers in a reasonably close journal and point out what elements made them acceptable.

Leave your brother to submit the paper and you will be surprised that others will give positive feedback and might even see that the work is worthwhile for publication. In any case, it is your brother who clearly knows the question he is answering. You might also be having a 'I know the person' syndrome where we label people as competent or not competent to accomplish a task depending on our interactions with them.
Thank you

Sure, tell him if you don't think the article is publishable. It's a bit hard to tell by your description if this is really not publication worthy but I'll take your word for it.
I guess the bigger issue is why does this matter? Is your brother in academia? At what stage of his career is he? At what stage of your career are you?
Constructive criticism and useful feedback is different than just dumping on his work, you probably can't go wrong with the former.

Thanks, I edited to add more context

I would not call it an obligation. However, I would assume that telling a brother your opinion on their work and (potentially) giving them an advice is not an issue and a common everyday behavior. I don't see a downside. If he would be offended, he needs to be told twice as much.

Has he asked you for your opinion on whether it's publishable? Is there something on the line, e.g. the professor won't pay for publication and he/your family would have to foot the bill for submission fees? It appears like you're trying to take on the role of mentor here instead of brother and it's unclear why you feel like you need to take on that role (as you say, he has a mentor, even if you don't feel there credentials are as strong as you might personally prefer, but perhaps they have contacts and expertise that aren't immediately obvious). Is this typical for your dynamic with each other? Is this something he usually responds to positively?
Rather than potentially creating an issue in your personal relationship, it seems like it could be the better path, if your brother has requested help to put your brother in touch with security researchers who might perform peer review outside of the publication process, e.g. your PI or postdocs you work with. This would allow you to maintain a supportive family member role while also getting him the advice you feel he needs from people you respect. It's also worth keeping in mind that it's not uncommon for work done in undergrad to be published in undergrad-specific journals with somewhat different standards and that if he's just a sophomore now, this may well not be the final draft. And besides, not everything has to be top tier work to be valuable or publishable.

Remote control? I was imagining OP explaining their concerns to their advisor and asking them to review it as a favor with the acknowledgement that their views may be biased by familial ties. All advisors I've had would review it objectively while being kind due to personal relationships, but I'd have no control of them. I agree, it'd be messed up to use a third party to force OP's views on the brother, and while I guess you could interpret the suggestion like that, it's contrary to my first paragraph, no? I suspect OP is being harsher than is warranted and the brother will get good feedback.

Your brother seems to have written a review paper, and those can be important contributions to academic literature.  I don't see a reason to share unsolicited criticism.


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Is it acceptable to ask a professor for a recommendation letter if I am also looking for jobs in their lab?
I am currently considering my job options:

I could potentially apply for Professor X's lab; however, I do not know if he will have positions available
I could also apply for other research positions, which may require a recommendation letter.

I have not decided which option would be better for me, yet.
I believe that Professor X will write me a good recommendation letter if necessary. However, I am concerned that if I ask him to be my reference while I apply for other positions, it may be inappropriate to also apply to his lab as well.
How do I approach this?

Dear Professor X;
I anticipate graduating in time XX, and I am looking for XYZ positions. I wonder if your lab will have any positions open during that time.
Also, since XX is relatively distant in time, I am also considering applying for other positions, in the meantime, just in case. Is it okay if I list you as a reference in my application?

Or is it unacceptable to try to do this?
Edit: I asked this professor for a recommendation letter, and also asked him for a position in his lab and it went well! I got an offer for both the other position (thanks to his recommendation) and a position in his lab.

You should first have a face to face meeting in which you ask them if they would have positions available and whether they would consider you if they do. Let them know you seek a position somewhere.
Some professors, like myself, would suggest that you go elsewhere even if they have a position and like you very much as you are likely to learn more from an expanded experience. It shouldn't be a problem. Such professors will/can write you a very nice letter: "I'd love to keep this student, but have suggested they broaden their horizons and you would be a good group to work with..."
Moreover, any reasonable professor should understand that having more than one option is a good thing for you.
But such meetings should be face to face as you can get a better "feel" for their enthusiasm or lack of it. If they lack  enthusiasm you may want letters to come from elsewhere in any case.

Unfortunately, I cannot have a face to face meeting with this professor since he lives in a different continent.

@Grzegorczyk You've worked with him previously though, correct?

That makes it harder, but no less necessary to try to get a "feel" for his enthusiasm for you and your future.

It is certainly appropriate: a professor who thinks highly of you should be willing to recommend you for other positions even if they hope you'll take their own offer. I would be honest and up front about your plans; if they are reasonable, there will be no problem.
Some professors may not be able to handle emotionally this simple task; in my view, these are not people that are worth working with: if you try to keep them happy by not asking them for recommendations, they'll pay you back by making you unhappy in the future in some other way. In other words: do you trust this person? If so, you can certainly ask them. If you don't trust them, do you want to work for them?


text:
working as lab Engineer in Germany
I got employed as a lab engineer In a university of applied sciences in germany. I originally come from Egypt. I'm very highly qualified and hold a PhD from the United States , in addition to years in consulting and other licenses.
My employer makes me lecture as well (because of staff shortage and my high qualifications)
I set my own curriculum like the work of a professor. So in another word, I do the work of a professor but treated as lab Engineer.
Shall this be entitled to Salary increase ?
Also, in case of getting a research project to work on, is this entitled to additional salary increase ?
I got employed on TVL 10 , as a lab engineer,  shall ths move higher to TVL 13?
I'm not sure of the German regulations, any help would be highly appreciated

The rules are laid out in "Anlage A zum TV-L" https://www.tdl-online.de/fileadmin/downloads/rechte_Navigation/A.TV-L__2011/01_Tarifvertrag/Anlage_A_i.d.F.des%C3%84TV_Nr._11_2019_2020_2021_01.pdf

For technical assistants "teaching at technical assistant schools" is one of the criteria for E10, so teaching in itself doesn't get you higher. Do you teach at a level that would require a MSc? that would be an argument towards more money (though maybe only an addon payment without permanently higher group) But some excercises/seminars/labwork can be and is taught by higher semester students, that would likely not get you more). Doing scientific research on your own would be E13+ but again that would need to be the majority of what you do (though you could have two part time contracts)

Thank you for your answer,  indeed , I teach a Masters course, so I think at least I would need to personally have a masters degree. I teach as a lecturer (the course is under my name) same as other professors and I grade the exams as well. I set my own curriculum like the work of a professor. So in another word, I do the work of a professor but treated as lab Engineer.

wrt work of professor: the distinction between the professor and someone else teaching a course on Master level is that in the latter case the professor still has the responsibility. If my professor decides I'm to be trusted with teaching a class on x, that unfortunately doesn't qualify me for a professor level wage since I'm considered to work under supervison (at high level). Nevertheless, teaching Master courses sounds to me like it would be worth while to start some negotiations. You may find that your professor agrees, but administration is adamant, though.

In my experience it's good to have some flexibility/creativity there, e.g. if you find that there is no way into full E13 (which I'd think unlikely given that you are currently E10), you could try to get at least part time E13 for the teaching, or some additional payment or the like.


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I am burning out due to lack of personnel
I was hired by a research group which - as they stated during the interviews - wanted to invest in my field and strongly needed my expertise. However, I am being the only person in the group with preexisting experience on the topic. This is resulting in severely working overtime (at least 60 hours per week, but there are also peak of 14 hours per day). This the highest workload I have ever had (even heaviest that phd) and I am feeling like I am close to burnout, both physically and mentally.
I talked to my manager about this but they said they are not able to find people to help me due to funding reasons and because it’s difficult to find someone with the right profile to be put on the projects they assigned to me. They say I don’t have to work overtime and that I can delay deadlines. However, this would result in less papers, and still I would be the only person on the projects whereas our ‘‘competitors’’ from other labs, either American and European, have larger teams with postdocs and phd students. That’s not a really ambitious perspective.
Even if they told me that they wanted to grow in my field, I knew this could be a possibility in this institution. However, I received the offer in the middle of the pandemics, they where the fastest to made me an offer and with a short deadline for acceptance, so accepting looked the best option to me. My contract is temporary due to company policy, but they want to keep me (if they don’t offer me an extension, I would probably be the first one in the group that cannot keep the job). In other words, I am staff but renewed year by year until the law of the country permits it.
Soon after other offers came, but I had to turn them down as I had just started here. Some of the offers are still available. What they don’t know is the contractual details (fixed term contract and that they plan to keep me).
How do you think I should proceed? In particular, considering that I am definitely burning out, would it be acceptable to quit a fixed term contract for probably better conditions? By probably better I mean higher salary and (hopefully) lower workload. Also, should I disclose the perspective employers that I would be interrupting a fixed term contract? There is a high chance they would still come to know from my present managers, as my field is an extremely small world.
I am starting the second year and, in case of hiring, I would be able to give a notice of months (approximately from 2 to 6).
EDIT - PLEASE READ: What I am asking, in other words, is not choosing between (A) working normal hours and produce less than other group, and (B) working overtime, keep production up for a while but then produce less because I am burned out.
The real choice is between (A) working alone, either on regular time or overtime, and produce less than bigger teams and (B) quit and accept the offer from one of those bigger teams, where I could work normally and still have high impact in team.

"company policy"  Is this academic research?

No, it is private research.

But I had any kind of experience: university, national labs, industry. This workplace (the industrial company) certainly have the highest workload (due to lack of a team). University was hard but not so hard as now. National labs have the perfect balance between work and private life.

If it's research outside academia, then Academia.SE is probably not a good place to get advice.  You could try [workplace.se] instead.

Nate, we do gov funded research, we partner with universities, national lab and do the same kind research of our public counterparts, evaluated on publications, have students, and many others. Employees come in from academia/nat labs and go out to academia/nat labs.

I'd suggest workplace stackexchange instead. And cut down your problem to one paragraph to get to the essence.

Reading your question, you do not list any reason why you would want to keep your current workplace. You have a temporary contract, less output than you would like due to working alone, and are close to burnout. Is there any reason you want to stay there? If you cannot find any, there is your answer. Quitting is by definition always "acceptable": a company cannot choose not to accept it.

They say I don’t have to work overtime and that I can delay deadlines. However, this would result in less papers.

Then don't work overtime.  Most likely overtime is actually reducing your productivity.

would it be acceptable to quit a fixed term contract for probably better conditions?

Sure!  However, in a new job you will still have a manager who says you do not have to work overtime.  You will still have a choice between spending your time on papers and spending your time on other things.  You might benefit more from changing the way you manage your time; that would save you the trouble of job applications and, most likely, moving.

I partially agree with the first part of your answer. Working overtime is harming my well being, not yet the quality and quantity of papers. But we will get there very soon.
I don’t agree with the second. In a new workplace I don’t necessarily have to work alone (the title says: burning out due to lack of personnel), when other groups from other institutes work on similar projects with group of 4-5 people. Actually, I only worked without collaborators in my PhD, on a much limited project. Other than that I have always had collaborators in national labs.

I don’t get - with all due respect, ofc - what time management has to do with that: massive projects need more people on them. Assigning only one person would either result in working long hours or work too slowly as compared to other labs. Working slower than ‘competitors’ means less high impact papers because most likely they 4 people will produce more than one (either I works 40 or 60 hours per week).

In other words, choice is not between (A) working normal hours and produce less than other group, and (B) working overtime, keep production up for a while but then produce less because I am burned out.

In other words, choice is not between (A) working normal hours and produce less than other group, and (B) working overtime, keep production up for a while but then produce less because I am burned out. Choice is between (A) working alone, either on regular time or overtime, and produce less than bigger teams and (B) quit and accept the offer from one of those bigger teams, where I could work normally and still have high impact in team.

"work too slowly as compared to other labs."  You seem to have the idea that the productivity of an individual should be judged by comparing the productivity of their team to the productivity of another team.  That is wrong.  Stop thinking about the productivity of other labs.  Do good science instead.

"Working overtime is harming my well being, not yet the quality and quantity of papers."  If you are really working 14 hours in a day, you are not doing good quality research for all that time.  In short, I do not believe you when you say the quality is not harmed.

Anonymous, it seems we are getting stuck whether my productivity already got stuck or is getting stuck by the end of summer, which doesn’t really change the question.

‘’You seem to have the idea that the productivity of an individual should be judged by comparing the productivity of their team to the productivity of another team. That is wrong. Stop thinking about the productivity of other labs. Do good science instead.’’ Without knowing what I do, this message is a bit over simplifying. But again, this is not the point of my question.


text:
How to find research work after Master's application rejections
I'm a computer science student about to finish a year long research related co-op (more similar to a research software engineer position than research assistantship) and graduate with a BS with high GPA in a top 50 international school. My intention up until recently has been to complete an ME at my current university, but I made a mistake and didn't check the course content of the ME that I was accepted to 4 years ago. I applied to competitive MS programs given my ability to take the ME as a fallback option, but was rejected on all my applications. I am not interested in pursuing the ME anymore at my university after I discovered that the ME has a finance/industry focus where I'd like to continue into academia under a taught research focused MS degree. I am applying for the few MS programs that are still accepting applicants, but I am not too hopeful this late in the admissions cycle.
For these reasons I would like to know what my options are in terms of full-time work that will make my application better for the next graduate admissions cycle. Ideally there would be some nice term that was the BS holding version of the PhD requiring "Research Scientist" (My current aspiration) title for computer science, or some job board to find research assistantships in academia that will accept my qualifications. Anything that would during the course of the work result in some authorship on some publication is what I am looking for with little success.
I hope the context can help to generate a better answer for someone in my situation, but an answer to my more common question will also help: What are my options for full-time work in computational science research for someone rejected from all MSCS programs during the graduate admissions cycle?

Could you provide clarity on this ... My intention up until recently has been to complete an ME at my current university, but I made a mistake and didn't check the course content of the ME that I was accepted to 4 years ago.

If you were in my field, the best bet would be to work in a university lab that already knows you and liked your work as an undergraduate - maybe that's a possibility where you did your internship.
I don't know if these positions exist in your field, but it's difficult to find them by title since titles vary so much by institution. Some examples are Research Intern, Junior Scientist, Technician, Research Specialist. The same title could be a completely different level at a different institution. Practically, though, if you don't have any connections and your CV isn't enough to get you into a MS program (unless perhaps you've only applied to very competitive programs), I think you will struggle to find anything in the academic world - there just aren't a lot of these sorts of positions.


text:
What should I do about a tricky situation regarding a student who plagiarized twice?
On the syllabus of an elective college course, I have stated that a student who plagiarizes once will receive a zero for the assignment. A student who plagiarizes twice will receive zeros for the assignments and may withdraw or take an F for the course. So, a student in an elective course submitted an assignment created by AI (artificial intelligence). She did not deny it, but asked for the chance to submit another essay in its place. With some misgivings, I agreed to this. As I was grading the journals due that day, I found that her new work was also created by AI. I commented on this and she apologized via email, "explaining" that she had submitted the journal after the meeting in which I'd agreed to let her rewrite her essay.
At this point, I can either still let her rewrite the essay and warn her yet again, or tell her that under the circumstances, I cannot accept a rewrite from her. She could have told me during our meeting that she had again submitted plagiarized work.
What do you think I should do?

Comments have been moved to chat; please do not continue the discussion here. Before posting a comment below this one, please review the purposes of comments. Comments that do not request clarification or suggest improvements usually belong as an answer, on [meta], or in [chat]. Comments continuing discussion may be removed.

Where in the world are you located? It might influence the answer based on cultural and legal aspects.

"she had submitted the journal after the meeting" and "She could have told me during our meeting that she had again submitted plagiarized work." are contradictory. Was the second submission before or after the meeting about the first?

@ojchase I agree that it's confusing because the OP calls the second assignment "her new work", but it looks like the first assignment is the "essay", and the second assignment is the "journal" (which is different from the essay).  So the student submitted plagiarized work twice, but both were submitted before the first discussion about the essay.

@Mike Your "both were submitted before the discussion about the essay" interpretation doesn't make sense in light of OP saying "she had submitted the journal after the meeting". OP maybe needs to relabel everything to say Paper A and Paper B and check their "before" and "after" in the sentences.

@DKNguyen You're right; I must have missed that.  But I think that "after" must have been a typo for "before".  I was relying more on this: "She could have told me during our meeting that she had again submitted plagiarized work."  Which seems to directly contradict the "submitted after" clause...

This is hard, but also common. You have to fail her in the course. The usual student response varies from fessin' up to full denial until you can show hard evidence, then they go into "you're ruining my life over a small mistake!" A small minority of students know that it's more work for you to go through than to give them yet another break. In my institution, the administration puts all of the burden on the professor, and students know it. Still, I take the time to go through it. Students talk a lot about their professors, and having the reputation of a pushover will only bring more of that type of student into your classes. Usually, the student drops the course once they know you will be giving them an F, and if the drop deadline has passed, they go to the counseling center and get a late drop extension for "mental health reasons." It's an evolutionary arms race.

The problem is that I already told her she could rewrite the AI essay. At that point, I didn't know that she had just submitted a plagiarized journal assignment. Her "explanation," after she'd been caught, was that when she submitted the plagiarized work, she didn't know she'd be able to rewrite the plagiarized essay. She gave no explanation as to why she didn't tell me about the second plagiarized submission when we met.  In your view, do I owe it to her to let her rewrite the essay, which I agreed to do before I knew she had plagiarized again?

You have to admire the chutzpah of arguing that you got caught twice cheating, but that the second time should not count because ... I still don't understand the student's argument. Because they didn't know cheating was not allowed until you told them so? Some of these students argue like 4-year-olds.

Quite honestly, I don't know where they come from. Agree it is "an evolutionary arms race," and I fear we are losing.

@Dan Some students see points awarded as a game. Any means to get a good score are fair game as long as they pull it off. The "gamification" aspect is a known motivator, but of course not the only one. When it does become the main motivator, though, students become acting against their best interests, all while thinking that they are "winning". I'm not sure if the arms race has much to do with AI or new methods or cheating, or with social acceptance of widespread gamification. See any online learning service, including class management systems & on-screen confetti on assignment submittal :/

It counts double. She submitted it already and thinks she gets a free pass? Basically, by withholding information she essentially cheated again the very moment she did not tell you about the second AI-written submission. This is reason for aggravation, not for lenience.

@Kubahasn'tforgottenMonica Well, you explain to them that they lose the game the moment they play it. Nobody cares much about their marks once they have been in the workforce for 1-2 years. They will be found out if they don't do the job well. They have failed in cheating, so they are not even effective on this level. I am quite blunt in telling this to students, and to make clear to them that the assessment is as much for their own benefit (in terms of feedback how they are doing) as to anyone else's. The argument of "unfairness" has long lost its edge, but this line seems to work a bit.

@CaptainEmacs I will also add to this from the corporate side (software development). Students who cheated in their education are basically worthless, and you can literally smell it on how they work. The verbal gymnastics, vagueness, aggressiveness, emotional pleas, etc. It's like a giant sign on their forehead that says "useless". I give them the benefit of the doubt, but eventually they'll really cheat during training by copying code from a colleague, and that's immediate dismissal. I don't bother explaining to them anything because it's within probation. They're just gone.

My rationale is that skill can be taught in a predictable way, but ethics is going to be much more difficult, especially the desire to hide things and be a "yes" man. The last thing I need is for them to do something stupid and either cause millions of preventable damages or be sued into the ground. I've definitely made my fair share of mistakes, but the first thing I do is tell my boss ASAP and own up to the mistake. I just can't trust cheaters to do that, and them hiding it will always make it worse.

@Nelson "Sign saying useless"/"Ethics is difficult to teach/learn" - excellent points, as are your others. Better formulated than I would have.

Please, please help us all by being hard on anything to do with A -- emphasis on A -- I.

@Nelson - Worst case, the technically worthless people will have good management skills and somehow survive long enough to be your boss.

A slightly different answer. Though of course, I agree with the others that say you should check your institution's policies before deciding whether / how to handle this on your own.

On the syllabus...I...stated that a student who plagiarizes once will receive a zero for the assignment. A student who plagiarizes twice...may withdraw or take an F for the course.

This is a very reasonable policy. You should have stuck with it.

a student...asked for the chance to submit another essay in its place. With some misgivings, I agreed to this.

Mistake! What's the point of having a policy if you're not going to follow it? I hope you at least (1) did not agree to give her full credit, and (2) will file a report so that she cannot have a new "first offense" in a different class.

As I was grading the journals due that day, I found that her new work was also created by AI...she apologized via email, "explaining" that she had submitted the journal [before being caught on] her essay.

Your policy probably didn't envision this scenario -- you may feel that a student who submits two plagiarized assignments before being caught deserves less of a penalty than a student who submitted one, got caught, and then submitted another anyway. Or you may feel that plagiarism is so manifestly unacceptable that the timing doesn't matter. Either way, make sure your policy accurately reflects what you want to happen.

At this point, I can either still let her rewrite the essay and warn her yet again, or tell her that under the circumstances, I cannot accept a rewrite from her

The essay case is already adjudicated, you already agreed to let her rewrite that one. But this journal case is new and separate. As I see it, there are two options:

You could treat this journal case as a first offense (since you've already agreed to overlook the essay case) and assign a zero on the journal. Or,
You could treat this journal case as a second offense (since she did in fact plagiarize twice) and allow the student to withdraw or take an F for the course.

Personally, I would lean toward the former if she had voluntarily confessed about the journal. Since she didn't, I would lean toward the latter. But either is defensible at this point.

+1 for "write it up for the Academic Dishonesty Office". That way, even if you stay with your lenient approach and they pass your course, there's a strong deterrent.

Imma play devil's advocate and say go with option 1.  This way the student can't use loophole arguments to complain about broken promises (however fatuous), and at the same time gets at least one zero.  If the journal is in any way a significant component of the grade, that will make it very difficult to get a good mark (if normally they are studious) or a just-passed grade (it they are normally as slack as they sound in the problem).  Relevant to the situation is the explicitness of AI being documented as a form of plagiarism.  I can see that being used as a loophole, too.

I'm not sure why you ask. You made the consequences clear. For this assignment a zero seems clearly in order. Failing the course doesn't seem out of order, though it is a bit harsh.
Decide whether there is any reason to believe this student will behave properly in the future. Letting them skate by won't work to change their behavior.

That would mean she has the chance to rewrite the plagiarized essay which counts 20% toward the final grade, but gets a zero on the journal assignment she submitted after she'd submitted the plagiarized essay. Her "explanation" for submitting the plagiarized journal was that she didn't know at that point that I'd let her rewrite the essay. My question is why she didn't tell me she'd plagiarized again during our meeting. I am tempted to offer her a withdrawal. I don't want to fail her for the course.

Failing the course doesn't seem out of order, though it is a bit harsh - I'm not sure why this sounds harsh to you.  Are you saying the OP's original policy was harsh?  Or it's harsh in this scenario because the student thought they got away with cheating the first time before they cheated again?

@Dan "was that she didn't know at that point that I'd let her rewrite the essay" this explanation doesn't make any sense. Whether you'd let her rewrite the first cheated essay shouldn't change her decision to cheat on the second essay. Unless she's saying she didn't come clean because she was scared she'd get a 0 on both essays? I suspect she might be lying to you.

@Dan You are way too lenient. "My question is why she didn't tell me she'd plagiarized again during our meeting." Do you really not know why?

@Dan To make this explicit: The student is ignorant enough to believe they can get away with this, even after they've been caught once. The professor is ignorant enough to let them get away with this, even though they know the student cheated twice.

@Dan "I don't want to fail her for the course." Chances are you are not actually doing her a favor by adopting this attitude. Quite the contrary.

In my experience, most universities have specific policies and procedures for dealing with academic misconduct by students.  These are the applicable policies in such cases and they will typically override what an individual instructor puts in a course syllabus.  Universities usually do not give discretion to academics to formulate their own rules and punishments for academic misconduct, so the conditions you have stated in your syllabus might not be binding (depending on the degree of discretion granted under university policy).^
I recommend that you immediately read your university policy and procedures on academic misconduct and seek assistance in applying those policies and procedures to the present case.  For a second infraction, this would almost certainly involve some kind of formal escalation to a disciplinary process under the procedure, which usually involves some kind of hearing with the Head of School or a relevant delegate.  If you are unsure of what to do, talk to your Head of School or to a relevant staff member in the ethics office of the university.
As a secondary matter, unless you have advice to the contrary, you should generally avoid formulating your own rules and punishments on academic misconduct in your course syllabus, and instead refer students to the general university policies and procedures that operate in these cases.  If you are unsure, seek advice from your Head of School to see what you are allowed to put in the syllabus.  It is possible that your existing syllabus could cause problems for the university, if it is inconsistent with general policies for dealing with academic misconduct.

^ By stating a specific punishment on your syllabus, it is possible that you may have imposed a "cap" on the level of punishment the student can receive based on their right not to be misled on university policies by your syllabus.  Aside from this possibility, the university policy and procedure will typically override rules and punishments formulated by individual lecturers.

I agree where your basic assumption is true, which it usually is in the UK, and from what you are saying, in Australia. However, my experience is that Professors in the US are given much more freedom and less guidence over such things.

I wonder whether part of the problem here is the definition of plagiarize. From Merriam Webster:

to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own : use (another's production) without crediting the source

What is "another"? Normally that would be another person. Not another intelligence of some form. One could even argue "I told the AI some keywords and stuff, so the output is based on what I told it".
I am sure many schools have already formally worked AI into their plagiarism rules, and many more will in the near future. But unless your instructions specifically included "AI" or "computer generated" or similar, if I were a student who wanted to push the limits then I might try to see if an AI could take care of my assignments for me.
I would recommend the following:

Make it clear to this particular student that AI, or any similar system by any other name, is equivalent to traditional plagiarism and not acceptable for any assignments in your course. I think you already did that.
Send a note to the entire class stating the same, and update your syllabus for the future.

That still leaves open the problem of what to do here. I would definitely consider the first offense as "forgiven". The second one, based on:

she had submitted the journal after the meeting in which I'd agreed to let her rewrite her essay

should get a 0. after is the key word here. If it was submitted before your meeting then the student could claim it should be forgiven as well. But "submitted the journal after the meeting" gets a 0. That is assuming you made it clear at the meeting that "using AI to complete an assignment is equivalent to copying from a human".

Oh, man. I didn't even catch the "after" part. It's even worse than I thought. No idea why the OP wouldn't fail her right then and there.

In my opinion, the answer lies in what you explicitly stated in a comment (emphasis mine):

The problem is that I already told her she could rewrite the AI essay. At that point, I didn't know that she had just submitted a plagiarized journal assignment. Her "explanation," after she'd been caught, was that when she submitted the plagiarized work, she didn't know she'd be able to rewrite the plagiarized essay. She gave no explanation as to why she didn't tell me about the second plagiarized submission when we met.

Although I believe we should act within the rules, I do not believe we should bind ourselves to a blind reading or execution of rules regarding cheating. In my opinion, we should judge the intention and figure out the deserved outcome, before we see how well we can achieve that outcome within the rules.
So, look at her intention in the simplest explanation of the facts you have already, especially the one I highlighted above. It is that she is trying her best to get away with what she can. You didn't know about her second instance of plagiarism, so she didn't tell you because she hopes you didn't notice it.
Therefore, she has attempted to cheat twice on separate occasions, where the second occasion is in deliberately concealing information about her second plagiarism that you had not noticed in your meeting with her. This suffices to justify a full penalty of the sort you stated in your post (i.e. withdraw or accept F for that course).

+1 Caught between the letter of the law and spirit/intent of the law ... do not believe we should bind ourselves to a blind reading or execution of rules regarding cheating. In my opinion, we should judge the intention and figure out the deserved outcome, before we see how well we can achieve that outcome within the rules.

What you should do is stop playing nice with somebody who evidently has no problem with being dishonest. You already stated that you have a rule:

A student who plagiarizes twice will receive zeros for the assignments and may withdraw or take an F for the course.

All you have to do is apply it - I don't understand what you could possibly perceive as "tricky" here.

Here's my advice. Coincidentally, I'm in a similar position right now as last week I had to deal with my own first case of a student trying to surreptitiously use AI during an in-class test.
The OP and I both gave a partial waiver on the first offense. Now we regret it. This is common; when I decide to go lenient, the majority of the time I wind up regretting it later.
Nonetheless, we need to stick to our word on that waiver. This is for multifold reasons: simply honoring our word is important, if the student disputes it we're in a very weak position, etc. Hopefully this serves as a (painful) lesson to the instructor to do better next time; waiving formalized penalties is usually a short-term easy way out, but long-term a bad idea.
The second offense should now be treated as the first and receive a zero without further argument. Any later offense should be failing the course.
Probably someone could try to look at the specific language on the syllabus and try to legalistically argue the second offense is still course-failing, but I don't think that's robust enough to be worth the trouble.
Errors of different types were committed on both sides, and even if the student doesn't take the lesson, we as the instructor should.

If she is a student in good standing and you desperately want to somehow "de-escalate" the situation instead of applying the policy as written in the syllabus, just give her two-three hours to write a medium length essay on a different topic in a controlled environment. If she manages to do it well, then, at least, you'll know that she is capable of succeeding with this task on her own and for me that would be "sort of acceptable". If not, well, it is time to flunk someone then...
Downsides:
a) You'll lose two-three hours of your own time on proctoring outside your normal hours.
b) You'll create a precedent of deviating from the syllabus policy (though this late in the semester I doubt it will be easy to exploit by others).
c) You'll send the message to the student that it is OK to cheat if one can do what is required without cheating.
I have mixed feelings on the last one; in the American university culture cheating seems to be much more severely punished than in Russian one and the punishment is applied regardless of the student abilities, but, in my experience, at least modern American students cheat way more often than we cheated in 80's, so I'm not sure we aren't involved into some analogue of the infamous "war on drugs" here (I'm not saying that drugs should be legalized, even marijuana, I'm just saying that the approach should be way more sophisticated than just "jail everything that smokes"; the same with cheating/plagiarizing). I usually let my students to use whatever aids they want for take-home assignments as long as they can explain every step clearly when they submit it and they usually do not hide their sources and even cite most of them in return, but this is mathematics. You can do the same with essays (asking to elaborate on some passages or logical conclusions) but I admit that it may be more difficult there.
Under no circumstances would I do this for a student that shows low level of understanding of the course material in general or is of a "fighter for rights" or "whine your way through" type. The only way to deal with those is to apply all formal policies and procedures exactly to the letter. But if you believe that overall she is a bright student and a decent human being, you may try this approach.
Just my two cents.

"If she is a student in good standing" This is clearly not the case.

@curiousdannii Why? I've seen students with good GPA (obtained honestly) to cheat occasionally when under pressure or when the subject is one of their least favorite ones. The OP didn't give any information about the general student performance or did I miss something?

Why? Because twice. That's why.

"if she is a student in good standing " to consider the general student conditions is useless. What if the student did cheat at every single exams, therefore being in a good standing, because of that? should they get condoned the only time that they got caught?
There may be thousands reasons to cheat, there are 0 reasons to balance the punishment for cheating with knowing the reasons.

And I will add, if you are thinking in doing a parallel with stealing because of hunger, that is a good reason. But please remember that no one in the world is forced to go to university (ok, maybe in NKorea, I don't know), it is a voluntary choice.

@EarlGrey * it is a voluntary choice.* To go to the university in general - yes, to take some particular courses - not always. Anyway, it is clear that my opinion is different from yours, which is by itself normal. I voiced mine, you commented, and I'm thankful to you for your comments: it is always interesting to know that someone reads what I write and to see a different point of view. I know that my point of view is controversial on top of coming from different culture and I guess the balance of up/down votes on my post reflects it fairly. Everybody chooses for themselves. :-)

@fedja You said "good standing", not "good grades". No one caught cheating is in good standing.

@curiousdannii "No one caught cheating is in good standing" Ah, this is just about the definition of "good standing". According to yours, no cheating whatsoever is allowed, while according to mine, a little bit (and, especially, the first known offense) can be ignored (you might have been 100% honest during your student years, but I wouldn't say that about myself: I have never cheated on math subjects just because they were easy and clear-cut, but the History of the Communist Party was a bit less logical :-)) Consistently repeated cheating disqualifies the student in my view too, of course.

"If she is a student in good standing" - this reads like blatant favoritism and depending on the extend and circumstances of the application of such a policy it will inevitably invite some tough questions down the road. Either you have rules or you do not. Applying the same rules differently depending on how much 'standing' a student sounds very bad.

@Sim. Yes, if somebody consistently demonstrates good results, he or she is entitled to some privileges the people who do a poor job studying shouldn't get, IMHO. If that is what you call "blatant favoritism", then I am a "blatant favoritist" (though for me "favoritism" means giving someone privileges on a whim rather than for a reason). "Either you have rules or you don't" is, probably, a quotation from Procrustes. He is a celebrity, of course, but not exactly my hero :-)

There are many answers, but I'd like to re-emphasize one point from comments that may have been lost.
The student's reason is completely invalid. During or after the first meeting, she had the chance to admit the same cheating method for the second test, and ask for a redo. By not doing so, she willingly chose to hope you won't catch the second test, and as such committed a second cheating after the meeting.
No, she did not make an honest mistake in the second test.

So far everybody assumes that this is cheating. However, you did not say why it is cheating, i.e., what rules were violated.
If you have a definition of cheating encompassing AI assisted writing you have a clear cut case and the consequences have been spelled out. If there is no such policy you are punishing a student who did nothing wrong according to the rules you gave.
I also wouldn't assume that there is a 'clear wrong' when using technology or assistants to improve speed and output.

Is using Google to find sources for your work cheating? This clearly speeds up your workflow (as opposed of going to the library) and possibly improves the overall result.
Is using a spellchecker cheating? Your actual spelling might be bad but suddenly you are flawless.
Is using a grammar/style checker cheating? Your grammar and style might be bad but suddenly you are writing flawless sentences.
Is asking a friend to comment on your work cheating? They might give you feedback you then incorporate, i.e., you include 'their' work.
Is hiring a proofreader cheating? They might substantially improve your output. Especially if English is your second language.

I would consider neither of the above cheating and I am afraid that AI assisted writing is simply the next step. I do understand and agree that this defeats the purpose of letting the student write. However, in that case the purpose of the exercise has to be clearly communicated ahead of time, and the rules have to be clear how much and what kind of help is allowed (and why).
Based on your telling the rules weren't clear and the student simply used the same tool twice before being informed she was doing something wrong. Forgetting that another assignment had been submitted already while being chewed out by the lecturer is somewhat understandable though an unfortunate mistake that she could have done without.
Edit: I misread the initial question and thought the second assignment was handed in before the meeting. Handing it in after the meeting changes the situation. As the student was aware that she was cheating and blatantly did so anyways, applying the cheating policy to its full effect seems appropriate.

what rules were violated. Probably, the university academic policy has some exact provision even for that (though to foresee and to cover everything is quite a daunting task; that's why living wills saying "everything to my daughter" span 10 pages when written by a professional lawyer), but what was violated is just good old common sense and it is enough (for me, at least). If a student had started an argument with me along these lines, I would certainly placed him/her into one of the categories described in the end of my post and apply the regulations to the full extent :-)

Good notice- I don’t think my class policies forbid AI explicitly. Very grey area.

"Forgetting that another assignment had been submitted already while being chewed out by the lecturer is somewhat understandable" - This is not what happened though.  According to the OP, she didn't submit that assignment until after the meeting.

@GuyG I misread that. Thank you for telling me.

Warn Her Again
Based on the information that you have provided in the original question, the timeline could be something like this:

The student submits the first paper.
The student submits the second paper.
You discover that the first paper was written using AI; you confront the student; the student asks to resubmit the first paper.
You discover that the second paper was written using AI.

It is arguable (i.e. likely) that the student should have known that AI was not an acceptable method for writing their paper.  However, providing this "new" information to the student should not aversely impact previously submitted works.
Take, for example, an incorrect citation in a student's paper.  As the instructor, if you provided a correction prior to them submitting another paper that happens to use the same citation, then they should be punished for using the incorrect citation again; in this example, they had no excuse for not knowing that they had cited the source incorrectly.  However, if you provided a corrected citation after they submitted another paper that happens to use the same citation, then they should be shown leniency; in this case, they didn't know that the citation that they had used was incorrect.
The situation that you describe is slightly different from the example above (because, as mentioned previously, the student should have known that AI was not an acceptable method for writing their paper) but the main principle still applies.
You should warn her again for the second paper.  If any other papers are submitted with AI, then you have every right to give her an "F" for the course.

This is about the worst case behaviour. Ordinary plagiarism means that you find a solution created by someone who is reasonable competent in the subject, and copy it, without attribution. (If I submitted an answer and told you "I found this on the internet, and it was written by XYZ" that wouldn't be plagiarism, but obviously my answer would have zero value academically). In a non-academic setting where all that counts is getting the right answer in a legal way, that would actually be just fine.
This student relied on answers written by an idiot with an extreme case of Dunning-Kruger symptom: Totally incompetent, and too stupid to realise they are incompetent. I have seen maths answers where after two lines I thought "WTF why would anyone do this?", and two lines further on "This can't be right" and "This is completely wrong". Things that are called "AIs" today completely lack the "I" component. They are very good at taking any old nonsense or just making it up and turning it into very convincing words. So a complete failure is 100% deserved.

This doesn’t answer the question about what the OP should do.

Also the attack on AI is not entirely justified: they are better than you describe. IMHO, they have passed the Turing test by now and are improving. If you compare with some speeches by politicians and administrators, I find the opuses created  by ChatGPT more coherent and making more sense :-) Turning something "into very convincing words" is quite a difficult skill and many creative writing exercises test exactly that ability (there are few really novel things you can say about any widely discussed topic). But thanks for sharing your opinion :-)

Supporting @fedja: Make sure you're not succumbing to publication bias around AI math failures. Having tested ChatGPT like that, I had to hunt pretty deeply into my discrete mathematics text (and be clever about picking stuff I thought might be a curve ball) before I could find something it faceplanted on,

@fedja Only very recently have some AIs passed the Turing test w.r.t. to some people. For most people that have some clarity of mind and ability to reason, it is easy to distinguish these AIs from real people. If anything this serves as a reverse Turing test of sorts; these systems pass the Turing test w.r.t. to precisely the people they will soon replace.

@Servaes Yes, it happened only very recently. However ChatGPT can easily beat me on many topics unrelated to my area of expertise. As long as it doesn't start whining that it is "just a poor language assistant", I found it capable of maintaining quite a decent conversation despite the fact that when I tried it, it had no memory for its own lines and no access to internet or advanced computational resources.  Of course, a lot of developers' time has been and will be wasted on compensating for general human stupidity and malevolence, but they are moving forward, believe it or not :-).

Would the use of 'AI' be to aid learning (learning scaffolding) or replacement tools. Should they be incorporated to train for  life (after the course).


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Google Scholar mixes all OR-operators to one single OR-condition
I want to use and compare the results of the three different databases: Web of Science (WoS), Scopus and Google Scholar
WoS and Scopus can be searched pretty clearly using boolean operators and their advanced search. E.g. if I want to search for the following query (made up example) in WoS TS=("heating" OR "AC") AND ALL=("window" OR "door" OR "wall" OR "roof" OR "floor") AND ALL=city, I will get all publications with heating or AC within the topic and window ordoor or wall or roof or floor and city within the whole publication. Same works for Scopus using their advanced search.
But if I try to use boolean operators within Google Scholar, my query gets mixed up. If I use the same query adjusted to Google Scholar ("heating" OR "AC") AND ("window" OR "door" OR "wall" OR "roof" OR "floor") AND city, Google Scholars advanced search ignores the parentheses, which results in one big OR-operator and therefore not precise search results: screenshot of Google Scholars advanced search
Is there a way to search for multiple different OR-conditions within one query?

Ask the big advertising company (Alphabet) which owns the closed-source and obscure algorithm product called google scholar.

@EarlGrey How would you go about asking them?

@JamesMartin exactly. Please stop using obscure tools that are just exploiting the work of others, with no real benefits.

I wonder if there would be interest in creating an open-source alternative to Google scholar with the goal of supporting similar use cases. I would certainly be interested.

@EarlGrey too bad that if you don't pay a subscription you can't use WoS or Scopus. So easy to say when you have access to those and many people don't

@JamesMartin, yes sorry

@HermanToothrot If a product is free, the user is the product. I feel the pain, either you pay or someone make a profit out of you ... that's a long road to fix all the crap we produced in the past 10 years (Alphabet) to solve an issue of the past 50 years ( https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jun/27/profitable-business-scientific-publishing-bad-for-science )

@HermanToothrot disclaimer: I have no access to Scopus or WoS. But luckily I enjoy and access libraries.

@EarlGrey I know that really well, and I avoid using G services as much as possible, I even removed them from my phone. It's just that in most countries in the world researcher can't afford costly subscriptions, so what's your solution? If you use ad blocks and are not logged in and have cookies disabled, Scholar does not get much data out of you outside of the searches you are doing. Not sure that brings much revenue.

@HermanToothrot you bring credibility to Alphabet and traffic (i.e. money) to google. Do they deserve credibility? seeing how they manage their tool "Google Scholar" absolutely not.
Do they deserve money? pay them.

The short answer is no.
The long answer is no, and you probably shouldn't even try because, as you have found out, the advanced search features of Google Scholar are limited. Complex statements are not really supported (from what I can tell), although you can use some basic Boolean operators. I've only found reference to those in University guides and not official documentation. This obviously works, but it seems manually entered search terms are just forced into the limited advanced search format.
In case you did not know, there is also a fairly restrictive 256 character limit on search terms, a 1000-result limit, and no way to export results in bulk. This is on top of the nebulous Google search algorithm.
It should be clear by now that Google Scholar cannot safely be used to run repeatable searches for academic purposes. If you're interested this is a relatively recent survey of academic databases and search engines. It's certainly a useful tool for conducting a less formal search, it captures a ton of so-called "grey" literature. But really, it should only be used as a supplement.
If you're interested in comparing search terms for some sort of research methods assessment then go ahead and report that you cannot, in fact, run this type of search in Google Scholar. If you are trying to replicate a search term for the purposes of a lit review, I would advise you to stay away from Google Scholar, or at the very least, modify your search term in such a way as to circumvent the limitations.


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Failed classes during study abroad due to paperwork mistake. How much of a problem for graduate admissions?
I am a student in engineering from a not know university. In my third year, I did an exchange in a european university. In two courses I got an A and an A+, but in the other two I got an F. The reason for this is that I had asked the administration if I could audit the courses, and they agreed and said that they would change my status. Later, I found out that they did not do it because exchange students are not allowed to be registered as audits. As a result I missed deadlines and ended up failing the course. I also did not have the pre-reqs for the course, that was the reason why I asked to be an audit in the first place.
The university did not want to change my grades, but they provided me a statement (pdf) that explains what happened.
The rest of my profile is solid (over 90% GPA), excellent LORs, research experience and what I consider to be a strong SOP.
How is this going to affect my graduate application?

Can you simply omit those results from your applications? P.S. Don't be too hard on yourself; the university staff made a mistake. You checked with them, and they confirmed that what you wanted was possible. They were being sloppy, not you. I think anyone who hears your explanation will see it that way.

I would try harder to have these courses removed from your transcript. Do they appear on your home institution's transcript, or only on a separate transcript from the exchange institution?

Your question had accumulated several close votes, likely because you had too many details (i.e., the answers/discussion wouldn't be useful to anyone except you). I took a stab at removing some of the details...you can make further edits if you like, but recommend keeping it short and high-level.

"They could check with the other university if I was present during exams (which I wasn't of course)" they wouldn't, and the other university probably wouldn't know and most likely wouldn't tell them anyway.

Please do not change the core meaning of your question. If you have a new question, you can create a new post.

I think if you have a bad grade due to an administrative issue, you are best off resolving it with the people where the administrative issue lies. It's understandable that they have some policies about who can audit, but if you specifically asked their administration and got a different answer, you have a good case that they need to honor the answer they gave. They're not really gaining anything by having Fs on your transcript. It's possible you need to escalate to people that can make a different decision and explain how this affects you.
It's not really up to third parties to decide the issue. If ultimately nothing can be changed, okay, all you can do is explain (briefly) and hope they understand, but you certainly can't expect them to investigate beyond the materials you provide, and you don't want to spend too much time on it in your own application, you should be focusing on your strengths.
Additionally, they're not deciding on "is your application good enough" at competitive programs, where your application is the only focus. Rather, they're going to have a stack of excellent applications and have to find reasons to deny very good applicants for shaky reasons, because that's all they have to differentiate people.
Ultimately, though, the answer to the question you ask doesn't actually affect what you do. If you don't apply at all, you certainly won't be accepted. If you do apply, you apply with the record you have, not a different one you wish you had or feel you deserve.

@SantiagoBaz I'd try a phone call. The best time to resolve it would have been immediately after the semester you were there, but it's worth trying again now. You might need to talk to multiple people if the first person isn't able to help. If you have any documentation of your story like saved emails that would be helpful.

I have been able to receive a letter from the administration of the university (official, with stamp and signature) that states that I was supposed to be registered as an audit but after that they figured that it was not possible, and that I did not have the pre-requisites for the courses. In your experience, how good an effect this could have on my application? Also, considering rest of my profile.


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Where should citations be placed relative to punctuation (e.g., full stops and commas)?
This question pops up every time I write an article (in the computer science domain), and I am unable to find a British English style-guide providing a proper answer.
Where should citations be placed within the sentence and its punctuation?
Where to put white space?
E.g., which options are preferable:

More coffee is always better. [XY]
More coffee is always better [XY].
More coffee is always better[XY].
More coffee is always better.[XY]
According to [XY], more coffee is always better.
According to XY[XY], more coffee is always better.
According to XY [XY], more coffee is always better.
According to XY, [XY] more coffee is always better.
According to XY,[XY] more coffee is always better.
According to XY, more coffee is always better [XY].
According to XY, more coffee is always better. [XY]

In the IEEE editor's style manual it says on page 34:

References in Text: References need not be cited in the text. When they are, they appear on the line, in square
brackets, inside the punctuation. Grammatically, they may be treated as if they were footnote numbers ...

I would interpret "inside the punctuation" as ruling out options 1, 4, and 11, even though the grammatical treatment of footnotes is not quite clear to me.
The Springer guide does not appear to comment on the question.
Any other hints / links / viable styles?

Are you asking in general or in relation to a specific publication outlet? Are you just talking about numbered citations or are you also talking about author-name styles?

As others have mentioned, all sentences should be grammatically correct. The citation marker of the form [X] may play the role of a noun, or of silent word.
1, 4 and 11 are never correct - they put the citation into the next sentence, where it doesn't belong. Similarly, 8 and 9 put it into the wrong phrase of the sentence.
3, 6 and 9 combine words incorrectly. Spaces can't just be ignored.
That leaves 2, 5, 7 and 10. These are all used, except that the exact form of 7 will depend on the referencing style in use. You could have 'According to Smith [3]', but not 'According to Smith [Smith, 2017]', The latter would become 'According to Smith [2017]'. Also, for 10 you need to think about how long the second phrase is.

I have seen 4 and 11 at the end of paragraphs. I always took it as a signal that the whole paragraph is related to the reference and not just the immediately preceeding bit of information. Could that use be area specific? I am in engineering.

@heuamoebe I've only seen that once, and I don't like it, but it could well be area specific. My preference would be to say more explicitly at the start of the paragraph what you are doing, such as 'we recall the treatment of this topic given in [X]'.

"The citation marker of the form [X] may play the role of a noun" - [ref] is a noun?  I think 'is' here would be wrong.

@VitaminE I can't quite follow your point. Mine was that you can form sentences like 'In [2] the authors prove that...'

@heuamoebe The Chicago Manual of Style (17 ed., 15.26) prescribes 11 for a block quote.   From the example therein: If you happen to be fishing, and you get a strike . . .  then you may know you have been fishing in the Galapagos Islands and have taken a Golden Grouper. (Pinchot 1930, 123)

Can you provide some sources to back up "The citation marker of the form [X] may play the role of a noun, or of silent word?" When I wrote something like "In [x], ...", my supervisor told me that a citation marker should not act as a noun.

@GuanyumingHe It varies by field. I have seen mathy sort of papers do the noun treatment more than any others.

"1, 4 and 11 are never correct".  Really?  The American Medical Association style checklist (11th edition) states under in-text citations: "Format: Superscript no. outside periods and commas, inside colons and semicolons."  I do agree with the sentiment, but unfortunately a great many journals insist on AMA style.

Since you specifically mention British English, one useful style guide for academic writing is New Hart's Rules The Oxford Style Guide. I bring this book up not because it is necessarily your authoritative guide, but because the book tries to describe varied styles in use and not just the their particular in-house style, so it may give you some general idea. Of course the most relevant style guide to follow is one used by your publication venue.
In the section about author-date references, i.e. (Author 2017) or Author (2017), the guide states

The reference is placed immediately after the statement to which it relates. If this happens to be at the end of a sentence the closing parenthesis precedes the closing point (but a reference at the end of a displayed quotation follows the closing punctuation).

This should correspond to option 2 in your list if the author's name is not mentioned in open text, or a variant of 7 if the author's name is part of the sentence.
For numbered references, which I believe is more common in computer science, the guide does not specifically mention the placement, but from the examples given, brackets are placed before the full stop, like this [1]. On the other hand, a superscript number (like a footnote cue) is placed after the full stop.2

This may depend on referencing style. According to the University of Manchester, for Vancouver-style referencing, which is very common in the UK:

If you do not mention the author’s name within your text, you should
place the number in brackets at the end of the sentence, eg.
There are six distinctive conditions, which need to be satisfied, in
order for a whistle-blowing case to be justified. (2)
Multiple Authors: Provide the numbers in brackets as they appear in the text after the sentence, eg.
Several drug trials proved that the antibody was released immediately.
(2, 3, 9- 12)

Source: https://subjects.library.manchester.ac.uk/referencing/referencing-vancouver
The British Medical Journal (BMJ) likewise places the numbers after the full stop, but without brackets and in superscript, and without commas between reference numbers.
For example: https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/bmjopen/10/2/e034056.full.pdf
The Lancet also puts the numbers after the full stop and in superscript, with commas without spaces and without brackets. They require you to:

• Cite references in the text sequentially in the Vancouver numbering
style, as a superscripted number after any punctuation mark. For
example: “…as reported by Saito and colleagues.15”
• Two references
are cited separated by a comma, with no space. Three or more
consecutive references are given as a range with an en rule.

Source: https://www.thelancet.com/pb/assets/raw/Lancet//authors/lancet-information-for-authors.pdf
You need to style according to where you intend to publish, or according to your institution (e.g., for a Master's thesis or PhD thesis) or employer.

One crucial difference between people's preferences on the matter, seem to be how we interpret a citation. Is it a word or is it a mark/reference? A word should be part of the sentence. A mark/reference may mark the sentence itself and should therefore not be a part of it. A citation has the purpose of referring to further reading elsewhere, and therefore sends you off to some other text. The citation is not a word, in my opinion, unless it is a subject or object as part of the sentence. In options 5-7 the citation is an object, while in options 1-4 it is not a subject/object, but a reference marking the sentence or the last word. Citation may be treated or read as a word in some formats, like APA, but not in formats where the citation is just an index in the bibliography. Footnotes are common behind punctuation (without white space), and I think references should be treated similarly. (Some formats even use superscript for citation, just like footnotes are marked.)
Option 4, 7 and 11 (without whitespace after punctuation) are preferably. Here's my reasoning: What is intuitive and what can cause confusion?
When citing/refering to a word or expression or person in a sentence, it makes sense to refer to it immediately after. with a list of different words to cite, it is easier for the reader to follow which citation refers to which word. Citing a person would look like options 6 and 7. Choosing between them would be a matter of aesthetics. Maybe option 11 is a good choice (but without the white space after full stop), as a citation mid sentence tends to make the sentence harder to read.
To quote user1101674 in a comment on this thread:

As mentioned, they [options 1 and 11] allow for the distinction between backing the
entire sentence, or just a specific part of it. So if they were
commonly understood in this way (apparently they are not), they would
indeed reduce ambiguity.

Using the citation as a word in a sentence looks a bit untidy. Specially if you are going for the citation format of superscript number: According to ^1, more coffee is always better. (This is option 5.)
When paraphrasing a statement (like options 1-4) it makes sense to put the citation behind the punctuation (i.e. option 1 and 4, but I would choose option 4 because it connects the citation even tighter to the sentence). This is intuitive for three reasons. First of all: You first make a statement, which should end with punctuation. Then you cite it. In my view the citation is not a word. You don't read it out loud. The citation is not part of the sentence, but refers to where the reader can read more about the sentence.
Secondly it is less confusing and more consequent and neat if there is no difference between citation location for quotes "bla bla."[XY] and paraphrases: bla bla.[XY]
And don't forget if you are quoting a sentence with citation: "bla bla.[AB]"[XY]
Thirdly it would be very confusing if readers cannot distinguish a paraphrased sentence from a referred word. If the last word in a sentence is a referred word, it would look like option 2 or 3. How can you tell it apart from the case where option 2 or 3 are paraphased sentences? Does your citation regard the word "better" or the sentence "More coffee is always better."? Therefore option 2 and 3 show confusing citation sites for paraphrased sentences. We are left with option 1 and 4.
Choosing between option 1 and 4 is for me  a matter of aesthetics, so I opt for option 4. Maybe someone can come up with a case where it is natural to have citation first in the sentence? If so, there may be a semantic reason for option 4 as well.
Language exists in order to understand and be understood. Therefore language and grammar ought to be designed so that confusions are avoided. That's the purpose of language.

What does your prefered journal say and do?
(I'm not in Computer Science, so I'm attempting a general, non-field specific answer.)
Each journal is going to have its own style guide as to how to format the citations. There are likely to be generalities, but each journal and publication venue is likely to have slightly different preferences.
Taking a look at the "instruction to authors", as you have with the IEEE journals, is a good start, but as you mention, there's likely to be a bit of ambiguity in how to interpret those instructions.
The way I would approach this is to take some of the articles by big names in your field in the journal you're considering, and see how they do things. (This would be in the actual finished, formatted papers as published in the journal, after it's been through the copy editors - not preprints.) If you're not targeting a specific journal, then pick one of the big name journals in your field, preferably one which exercises good editorial control, and see how papers there are formatted. You would likely want to survey a number of journals and a number of authors, to see how much is field-specific style versus journal-specific or author-specific preferences.
There really isn't a formal way how citations are treated "grammatically", as they're not really grammatical elements. Claims otherwise are really just post hoc rationalizations. Instead, the treatment of citations is a stylistic one, rather than a "grammatical" one, much like the treatment of the Oxford/serial comma, or whether to put punctuation inside of quote marks or outside of it.

"... big names in your field in the journal you're considering, and see how they do things. "   -- this is not a sound advice.  This is the blind copying the blind.  Many 'big names' write poorly because they are not native speakers.  Further, they lend their name to many papers, and I know many big names do not read such papers.

@VitaminE Hence the recommendation to take a look at a number of papers from a number of authors. The concept isn't that big names have some sort of special connection to "the one true way" of formatting (this answer rejects the concept that such a thing exists), but instead that examining such papers will give you a good impression of the established conventions in the field. Because if the major names in the field don't follow them, can they really be claimed to be conventions?

As explained, 1, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, and 11 are incorrect, which leaves  2, 5, 7 and 10. Let's consider those.
5 I dislike, it reads as, According to [manuscript].... I favour 7, According to [authors [manuscript]].... But prefer 10, According to [authors], more coffee is always better [manuscript], because the citation no longer obstructs my reading. Whether to opt for 2 or 10 depends on the message you want to convey:

More coffee is always better [XY],

suggests you agree, whereas 10 does not,

According to XY, more coffee is always better [XY],

it clearly attributes the claim to XY.

I would go for 1, 7 and maybe 11, since the citation is used to back the whole sentence.
Type 2 citations seem to refer to the end of the sentence, especially in more complex sentence structures like:
"Research has shown that coffee is dark, hot and always better [XY]."
In such a sentence, I would assume that only the "always better" statement is backed by the source.

I disagree: I have never seen options 1 or 11 and believe them to be wrong - the reference should fit within the rules of grammar wherein you would never have any words outside of a sentence.

Since the rules of grammar for citations are still under debate (http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/49487/can-cited-works-hold-grammatical-positions-in-sentences?rq=1), I would still opt for the less ambiguous alternative.

I'm not sure it's less ambiguous in practice.  Maybe the usage varies between fields, but I don't recall ever having seen a citation outside of the punctuation like this.  To me, it comes across as sloppy, rather than seeming more precise.

While I agree that options 1 and 11 are rare (but I have seen them), I disagree that they are sloppy. As mentioned, they allow for the distinction between backing the entire sentence, or just a specific part of it. So if they were commonly understood in this way (apparently they are not), they would indeed reduce ambiguity.

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text:
How useful is Cambridge Part III for PhD applications in Europe?
I am currently doing my masters in theoretical physics in Switzerland, about halfway, with most of the coursework done. I will be done with the degree by summer 2025. So far, my grades are the highest possible (6.0), and I hope to keep that up.
My ultimate goal is to find a PhD dealing with gravitation, either GR, semiclassical or quantum gravity, as these topics (or what I've learned about them so far) have fascinated me most.
I started doing some research online the past few days, and have stumbled upon the Relativity and Gravitation group of the University of Cambridge, which seems to be doing exactly what I am interested in. On their website, they state that most of their PhD students come from the Part III, and the external applicants usually get positions in "less formal areas" such as lattice field theory and cosmology.
Given this information, I have started considering to do the Part III after my masters, essentially as a second masters degree, to maybe get a PhD position in Cambridge. In another post on this forum, I have read that about 10 of the 70 Part III students get PhD offers from Cambridge, and a few from Oxford. Although I am confident in my performance, I do not know how I compare internationally, so I am simply estimating a one seventh chance of getting a PhD in Cambridge after doing Part III. If I don't get one there, I would need to apply for other PhD positions in Europe.
Now comes my main question: How useful/convincing is having a Part III degree in Europe? Would this significantly increase my control over what kind of PhD I will be able to do?
I am not worried too much about "losing" a year of my life to Part III, since I will finish my masters at the age of 23.
Besides answers to these questions, I would also greatly appreciate any advice on doing a PhD, either in Cambridge, Oxford or anywhere else in Europe, as I am feeling somewhat lost at the moment with what I should be doing.

This may be odd given the length of the question body, but I don't totally understand what you're asking. Are you asking "Will success in Part 3 make me more competitive for PhD places"?

@user176372 yes, essentially. Or rather, "will doing it and ending up at the middle of the class make me more attractive as a PhD candidate in europe?" I am asking this for the scenario in which I get into Part III and find funding, but am not offered a PhD in Cambridge at GR/HEP, to see how much it increases my chances for the then following PhD applications in other parts of europe.

We've gotten essentially this question with minor variations 5+ times over the course of 10 years, so I'm now suggesting we create some kind of canonical version to centralize answers. In the interim: Part III is one of the most famous degrees of its type in the world, and it's a bit hard for it to hurt PhD applications. As to whether it's worth whatever its cost is to you, that's not a question we can really answer for other people.

@user176372 I am not asking whether its worth the cost in both money and effort, I am asking how much it helps for PhD applications in europe. This is because the other posts I saw here about Part III were US-specific, and I dont live nor plan to live in the US, so these dont really apply - the answers there state that it is not as much appreciated in the US due to the cultural differences in academia.

Whether or not any given score on a course/degree would help or hurt you personally is probably too individualized of a question for it to be within Academia.SE's scope. What we can do is try to answer whether Part III is generally recognized by people hiring PhD students in Europe.

To the best of my knowledge, the answer is the same as for our US-based answer (How appreciated is "Part III" in the US?).
Part III is one of the most well-known if not the best known degrees of its type given by one of the best-known mathematics departments in the world. Good marks would surely boost your competitiveness for PhD slots almost anywhere. Though I can speak mostly to math and not physics, it seems unlikely though not impossible to me that Part III could be anything less than a boost in physics subfields related to the physics subjects it covers.
The best I can offer is anecdotal justifications as to why you should also expect this to be the case in Europe as it is in the US. Perhaps someone from the continent can be even more confident.

I took a similarly-pitched course from Oxford 8 years ago, and have met several people then and since from various European countries who completed Part III.
Continental Europe is in closer proximity to Cambridge than the United States.


text:
What are the chances of getting a second postdoc after two years of unemployment gap?
I have a 2 years of employment gap after my one year long first postdoc (Biochemistry). I left it because I did not like the lab. And after that I was unsure what to do (it was almost traumatising to move to another country and then leave without a plan within a year). I decided not to persue research career further. I did a course in scietific writing and did a freelance job during this time. But now I miss being in the lab. I want to continue doing research. What are my chances to get a postdoc after a 2 years of gap and that my postdoc supervisor (well known) will not give me a reference. I have good publications and reference from my Phd supervisor and others. Do I stand a chance? And how do I adrees it in my CV?

Your chances are better if you make application. But this depends too much on what we don't and can't know to make any prediction.

Promote the experience and positive contributions that you will bring to a position. Do not dwell on what you believe you are missing.