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letters of recommendation for computer science masters
How does someone secure strong letters of recommendation for a master's program in computer science, considering my bachelor's degree is in biology and I graduated five years ago?

Any reason you asked this separately from your other question?

Securing strong letters of recommendation for a master's program in computer science, especially when coming from a different field and with some time since graduation, involves thoughtful planning and strategic outreach.
If you are approaching a master by course degree in computer science, there is no specific requirements that you must have related CS background. You could reconnect with former professers. Even if you graduated five years ago, you should reach out to professors who knew you well during your undergraduate studies in biology. These letters can highlight your academic abilities, research skills, and dedication to learning, all of which are relevant to any field of study. When reconnecting, remind them of your past work and update them on your career progress and current goals.
If you have any CS/IT related working experiences, you can consider asking for recommendations from supervisors or colleagues who can speak to your technical skills, analytical abilities or any specific CS related projects you have undertaken.
Another personal suggestion is "never asking anyone who is famous in CS but you don't have any connection with". They receive many similar requests everyday and won't waste time for someone they don't know.


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The number of ‘review invitations accepted' reduced?
I have a paper submission to Elsevier. It's a revised re-submission after one round of review. I got review feedback from 2 reviewers in the first round review. So for our re-submission I suspect the editor sent our revisions to the original 2 reviewers.
The weird thing is that the number in the red circle used to be 2 since 03/10/2024, both reviewers accepted to review but one of them has not returned his/her feedback within 2 months. Today (05/10/2024) the number in the red circle reduced to 1. Can anyone please explain what is going on? Does the reviewer reject the review invitation after accepting it or the editor just disallow the reviewer to review any more?

When something that needs your attention happens, the editor will contact you. There's no useful purpose in consulting the bones or interpreting status changes as if they are Tarot cards.

I imagine the reviewer completed their review, hence "Reviews completed" went from 0 to 1, and "Review invitations accepted" dropped from 2 to 1.

"Review invitations accepted" remains even if someone completes review.

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C.V. For PhD Application
I will be applying to a PhD in English program in about a year and a half. One of the admissions requirements is a C.V.
Firstly, I am not sure of what to include in my C.V. Additionally, I feel as if my C.V. Is unremarkable.
Any ideas or tips for creating a professional C.V., what to include to position myself well for the program, or things to do to improve my C.V. (I.e., volunteer work, conference attendance, etc.)?

The CV of nearly everyone applying for grad school is pretty unremarkable.

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Is it okay to ask a professors for a research assistent position during exchange?
I'm currently finishing my second year of a Bachelor in Econometrics and Operations Research (of the 3 years in total). Next semester will be doing an exchange semester. During my exchange, I want to try to make the best out of the opportunities and resources
that it can provide for me. I saw a certain professor that is doing research that genuinely interests me and I was wondering whether it would be okay to send them an email asking if I could be a research assistant for the months that I will be there. I understand already asking to be a research assistant is shakey ground if you don't know the professor, plus being an exchange student, I get this might not be a conventional question.
I am prepared to do my best and give it my all. It genuinely interests me and I want to learn but also try to add whatever I can.
Is this something that can be asked?

The obvious answer is that it never hurts to ask.
That said, professors routinely discard essentially unread the many unsolicited "I want to work with you" letters that turn up in their email. So to increase your chances of success try to make the first paragraph of your request as specific and compelling as possible. Show that you are very familiar with this professor's work.
Your question asks about asking for a research assistantship. That suggests you are looking for financial support. I think you are unlikely to get such support, so if you don't need it, say so clearly.
If your exchange does not depend on arranging in advance to work with this professor you can ask in person when you show up at their university.

Thank you for your answer, to clarify, I do not need financial support so I may have phrased it wrong. It's purely out of interest and wanting to grow my understanding of the field.

@Heens A "research assistant" is a job title for a graduate student in my part of the world; it would imply a paid position, especially with the word "position" along with it even if it were not interpreted as a graduate student position. Depending on the location, it may not even be legal to not pay someone to assist in research. If you are not looking to be paid, you should state explicitly that you are looking to volunteer (though, again, volunteering may not be legal).

I would advise against showing that you are "very familiar with the professor's work". I know this is common advice and I get contacted regularly with people doing so about my work, and for lack of a better word, it makes me cringe. Mostly because they get it wrong. They often focus on prior research we have moved beyond. Or they pick collaborative works where I am clearly not the leading PI.... or worst of all, they are filled with awkward flattery. One or two sentences that you find that area of research really interesting and you really want to learn more about it. That's all I want to see.

@R1NaNo Yes. That's the right way to phrase what I said as "very familiar with your work". Thanks.

Yes of course, there is nothing wrong about asking. Very often people do research internships for a period of 3 months over the summer, sometimes even less. So it is totally ok even if you are on exchange.
No professor will care whether or not you are on exchange, as long as you can provide some kind of value to them.
Your chances of being accepted however may be increased if you have taken his/her course, or have skills that can uniquely contribute to their research agenda.


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Can I be accepted into another university for masters in a different subfield of the same subject?
Im finishing my masters in aerospace engineering on the subfield of propulsion. During my studies I got really hooked on spacecraft design and their applications. Is it possible to get another masters but this time in spacecraft design in another university in another country?

In brief, yes, depending on the country. But, equally, depending on your goals it's not necessarily a good idea. Related: Can a masters student apply for a second masters in the same field at another university?


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Why are there still page number restrictions for journal papres even though physical printing plays almost no role anymore?
Why are there still page number restrictions for journal papers even though physical printing plays almost no role anymore?

This question is similar to: Why do so many publishing venues limit the length of paper submissions?. If you believe it’s different, please edit the question, make it clear how it’s different and/or how the answers on that question are not helpful for your problem. I understand it's been over eight years since it was posted, but the motivations don't appear to have changed much.

These rules encourage conciseness.

that is a very concise answer

Right. My favorite example of concise math writing (allegedly, due to page limitations) is by Pierre Fermat: "It is impossible to separate a cube into two cubes, or a fourth power into two fourth powers, or in general, any power higher than the second, into two like powers. I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of this, which this margin is too narrow to contain."

@MoisheKohan That's not concise. That's trolling. Or taking shortcuts that fail, but I prefer the "trolling" interpretation.

At least four reasons:

Many journals do still publish print versions.

Longer papers can take longer for editors and referees to read them. (I think this is a mistake in some respects. I'm in pure math, and the push for a very concise way of writing papers often makes them harder to read. Papers which have more length but use that length to explain what they are doing are great.)

Longer papers may be seen as less likely to be read and built upon which means they are less likely to be cited.

Tradition. Honestly, as much as academia is supposed to be about pushing the forefronts of human knowledge, we can be pretty conservative and this is likely  the main reason.

I had similar discussions with some colleagues that are EIC/executive/associate editors at major ACS, RSC, and Wiley journals over the years. Their take was that even though we are not limited by physical print, we still rely on all of the production editors, and their workload is already high. Another part is to discourage unnecessary bloat, hundreds of loosely relevant references, etc...

In my experience (in pure math), these page limits usually only exist (unless you have an absurdly long paper) when there are two or more sister journals, one publishing short papers and one publishing longer ones.

What do you mean by absurdly long? Generically (in math) the longer the paper, the harder to publish. There are many reasons for this, including difficulty in finding referees.

@DanielHatton: I refereed for well over 30 years, I always could see the entire paper before agreeing to referee. Ditto for serving in editorial capacity: potential referees could always see the entire paper before agreeing. But it might be different in some journals.

@MoisheKohan I mean a lot of journals that don't have explicit page limits (so aren't what OP are asking about) might nevertheless refuse an 80-page manuscript because, as you say, they won't be able to find referees. There are journals that specialise in publishing papers of abnormal length, and they presumably have some strategy to deal with this, but I don't know what it is.

I published 4 journal papers which are over 80 page long and wrote a 20 page appendix to another. All appeared in journals which also publish short papers. I once was asked to referee a 200 page long journal paper (I declined). I guess, the notion of "abnormal" is field-dependant (mine is math).

@MoisheKohan perhaps subfield-dependent then, or I just picked too small a number. I have no real experience of exactly how long would be considered excessive, just went for a figure well over double anything I've written or refereed.


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What annoys reviewers more: Missing information or a paper that is too long? (STEM-related field)
I for myself, when reading papers, almost always miss important information such as justifications for certain design decisions, implementation details or more detailed differentiation to related work.
So for my own papers I tend to generously include such information. However, in the opinion of my co-authors and PhD-advisor, this leads to "too long" papers that reviewers may be unwilling to read due to time constraints leaving a bad impression on the reviewers, and they therefore may be biased against the paper.
If I were a reviewer, however, I would be thankful for every additional information & explanation (even if redundant or maybe "obvious") and  would be more annoyed by missing content.
So my question is for those of you that are often involved in reviews, how they think about this issue. Are you, bluntly put, more annoyed by missing details or by "too long" papers ?
EDIT: I think the question is particularly relevant, considering the fact that restriction on the number of physically printed pages is much less relevant nowadays where most information is published and read online.

This calls for pure opinions. Page limits are still relevant as they force authors to be concise and clear. If you have a disagreement with your supervisor, deal with it there.

Forcing authors to be concise and clear is a good thing, of course. This is not the question. The problem is that short length is not necessarily a good indicator of conciseness and clearness. As EInstein said: "Everything Should Be Made as Simple as Possible, But Not Simpler" :-)

A paper should be a clear and succinct report of the science with appropriate context. You have the option of shifting extra details and justifications to an expanded experimental section in the SI. Writing a paper is different from writing a thesis.
Also restrictions on pages is still relevant because journals must pay their non-scientific editorial staff.

I do not see why a long paper should annoy reviewers. When I am asked to review a paper, I am most annoyed when it is vacuous, meaning too long for the information it contains. At the same time, there are excellent papers that are long because they need to be. If your paper is longer than 4 pages, correct structure is vital, so that the readers can get the information they need without reading everything from A to Z.

thanks, this is helpful information. "vacuous, meaning too long for the information it contains. At the same time, there are excellent papers that are long because they need to be" yes, this is exactly the point.

You should be extremely critical (to yourself) and ask, which "missing details" are essential for understanding your ideas -- these should stay in the paper, which are just necessary for a critical reviewer/reader to verify the validity of your methods (these can go to the supplemental material or into the addendum), and which can be skipped altogether. There is always an infinite amount of details about every paper that no one is interested in, so some reasonable cutoff is certainly needed. The paper should be not only valid but also interesting to read.


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How to accurately check for cause of plagiarism for programming assignments with online content
I heard that most of the code plagiarism checkers use MOSS for evaluation. But MOSS doesn't check for any content in GitHub or present on the internet. How do we exactly tackle the problem of checking the whole code present on the internet (eg GitHub public repos, Kaggle public notebooks, etc). If let's say we had a similar assignment from the previous years and some students just tweaked the assignment to get it done. We can have the submissions from the previous years while we send them to moss but that does not solve the problem as they are not exactly similar but with a few minor tweaks.


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Graduation paper submitted to conference, suddenly demoted to third author?
I submitted a thesis to graduate as a Master's student at a European university approximately half a year ago. With my verbal approval, my uni submitted my work to a leading conference in the field of research, after having summarized my work and adding references together with some academic colleagues from another university.
The content, findings and conclusions remain largely identical to my original work, with large pieces of text remaining identical to the original. In my mind, this still makes me the significant author.
Yet, on the conference submission, I'm now listed as a third and last author. The order of authors was not discussed with me prior to submitting the updated paper and I did not receive any updated version up until the point where I was notified of the  submission.
I feel this is incorrect, and while I fully acknowledge that the universities want to promote themselves by placing contributors high on the author's list, this is doing me injustice as it still is my work.
Am I in the wrong here? Are there any intricacies or nuances in academics I should take into account while engaging with my (ex-)university on the matter?

"... adding... together with some colleagues from another university." ??? Were these other "colleagues" in any way contributors to the work?

Your field and the country of your old university could be very relevant to this question and its answer.

Who, specifically, made the decision. It wasn't your university, but some person. Your advisor?

Thanks for the comments, allow me to clarify. Yes, the paper was submitted by my advisor, and it is also my adviser who consulted a colleague at another uni to participate in refining the paper (adding references and summarizing it). Both of them contributed to it - the advisor in actually coaching my research, the academic colleague by actions mentioned. The field is positioned around management science and the uni located in western Europe.

So those two people are the other authors of the paper (just to be sure) ? Isn't it possible that the author are listed alphabetically in your field? Are you going to be the one going to the conference?

Yes, they are. They both made contributions and, in that respect, deserve to be listed as authors. My specific concern is about the order of authorship.

The authors are currently, with me as a third author, not listed in alphabetical order in any way (not by first, not by last name). Regarding attendance, if the paper will be presented, I will attend. I would prefer not to present it myself, but that should not affect the order of authorship, should it?

@Euro-Msc Sometimes the first author is required to be the presenting author. In my field at least, the last author is usually the senior author and so gets more credit for the work than middle authors do. I could maybe see rearranging the authors this way to have someone else present but try to still place you in a position of credit. That's all speculation, though, and might not make sense in your field. I guess mostly this comment is just to caution you that it's possible there is no malfeasance here. You still should have been informed.

Did you come up with the topic? Or did you advisor, first author, provide you with the idea, the material, the starting point and advised you during your research? After that he took your results and made a paper out of it. Correct? May it be possible, that the main work, the idea, the strategy, the writing itself and later the presentation is done by the first author? I too had student do their thesis, and used their results in papers, but mostly their contributions were implementation and result generation.
Just as a new perspective, how important was your work for the paper?

Ask your advisor, at this point.

Thanks for the additional comments, everyone. Okay, I'll keep in mind that there might be requirements for presenting a topic at the conference,

To clarify, I wrote the entire paper, from coming up with the concept and finding initial data, to data gathering, processing and writing it out. My advisor really only supported me with advice and some small corrections on wordings - hence, my feeling that my contribution was the most significant. Not trying to minimize the effort here, the support was crucial for delivering the paper for sure.
The best advice here would indeed be to take this up directly with my advisor, which I'll do.

Unless authors are arranged alphabetically, it would indeed be expected that the largest contributor be the first listed, and from what you have written that would appear to have been you.
Except...
You speak about the submission entirely remotely. It sounds like you were not involved and did not ask to be involved in the preparation of the conference submission.  Moreover, it appears that you did not have any discussion about authorship with your advisor. I still would generally expect an advisor to keep the student as first author, but if the advisor believes the student has effectively vanished and does not care about the publication, it is not surprising if a difference in perspective may have developed.  For example:

Your advisor may consider the revisions to be more significant than you believe.
Since your thesis should be a public, citable document, your advisor may be viewing this paper as a derivative work.

You really need to have a conversation about this with your advisor.  Start from an assumption of good intent---your advisor might just be a self-promoting jerk, but they also might have good reason for the choice they made, of which you just are not aware.
Finally, even if you don't end up as first author, consider this as a lesson for the future: stay involved in the preparation of any paper on which you expect to be first author!

Your advisor may consider the revisions to be more significant than you believe. - For instance, right now I am working on finishing a paper now based on work with a student who graduated, and I am doing a lot work on my own in order to try to get better results.  (Though fortunately I am in a field where we order authors alphabetically, so I don't need worry author order.)


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Second PhD after a not successful PhD and not being trained enough by professor
It is my fifth year of graduate studies in chemistry. I haven't had enough training from my professor and I don't have enough confidence to do even a post-doc. It is so close to my graduation, that I deeply feel that my PhD is nothing. So, you can imagine how stressful could be my life. After thinking a lot, I decided to do a second PhD in not chemistry but in biomedical sciences. I found a professor in one of the med schools and he told me I could be his graduate student next fall( since there is no chance for applying for spring) and during spring I can be a research assistant in his lab and work there for around 7 months until I will get the admission. I asked one of the faculty members and not my PI to help me make the best decision. He recommends me not do that and apply for a pos-doctoral instead. I am so confused. I really feel that I need this second PhD, but people are telling me to not do it and find a postdoc position instead. Could please help me?

Does this answer your question? How to effectively deal with Imposter Syndrome and feelings of inadequacy: "I've somehow convinced everyone that I'm actually good at this"

I regularly have dreams that I'm pursuing a second PhD (in the exact same field and sub-field as my first, that I got in real-life).  This never seems to work out well in the dream, and I certainly wouldn't pursue a second PhD in my own real life.  However, are you still planning to actually graduate with your first PhD?

Wow, this seems really similar to my situation (except physics). My PhD work honestly has minimal scientific impact and I've not learnt nearly any new coding skills (learnt more on my summer internship than my entire PhD so far). Really don't see how I can apply for a postdoc, but a 2nd PhD somehow feels "more doable"(??)

It is not an imposter syndrome. What do you call it when your professor doesn't;t like to teach or train you just because you are older than him? He kicks you out of any important meetings since he believes that you are not able to understand that level of talk. Tease you in front of others

Are you sure you have an unsuccessful phd? If you finished your credits, published and defended your thesis it seems to me like a successful phd. Just move on.

Yes, I am planning to graduate with the first PhD.

I am sure that it is unsuccessful PhD. I have 3 publications in journal with low impact factors

Academia is a path of constant learning. If you want to change field, a postdoc is a great way to do that. You can even change back after, or combine the two fields. So long as you can pass your PhD then it has served its purpose. Just make sure to advocate for yourself in the future to get the training and support you need.

Can I ask, what purpose does "passing" a PhD really serve? I thought a PhD was meant to be the first stepping stone towards serious research; if the PhD ends up being wooly, even if you switch field it's simply not clear what the point was. One could have done either a different PhD, or even gained skills in indusry (not always orthogonal!), and then commenced the path as a researcher afterwards?

@RealDisinformation a PhD is ultimately just a qualification, like a batchelors. To pass shows you can meet the criteria of performing at that level, have acquired knowledge commensurate to that. What it is not is a pass that says you are now a scientist and ready to do all of the science. Absolutely the same skills can be gained through equivalent industry experience, you can even get a PhD based on this at some institutions because it's just a qualification.

The same thing happened to me. I was not being trained by my first advisor. It was not impostor syndrome, I was just being treated like a cheap lab tech. There was no "advocating for myself" way to solve the problem: that advisor was unable and unwilling to train. Nice guy, but useless.
Near the end of my PhD, I asked for a Master's degree and applied to another PhD program in a much better school. Pretty much submitted the PhD thesis as a master's thesis. At the new school I got the training that I wanted, and because I had so much lab experience, was able to finish the PhD quickly.
I went on to a successful academic career.
Speak with other professors, look into other programs. Leave with a Master's or not. Get the training you need.

I heard from a lot of students that they did it. I applied during the last 2 years for admission from better university, but unfortunately, most professors believe that you are the culprit and professors are always doing great. However, that professor told me there is still a position for me in his lab, and I am going to join at first as a research assistant for some months thenI become a graduate student in his lab.

Go for the second PhD. I also suggested by people to go for postdoc only, and endup doing nothing for almost 2 years. Grab the oportunity u have.

Regardless of the actual situation that would lead to your decision to pursue a second PhD, I guarantee you that it would be a huge red flag in your curriculum vitae. Since you are so close to completing your PhD, I recommend following through and then moving on in a postdoc that best suits your interest and career goal.

What do you recommend me to do at this time?

I am thinking of asking my PI to give me a better project to help me improve my knowledge and lab work. What do you think?


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Second teaching letter vs. letter from a co-advisor from a secondary department for a math positions in LAC
When applying for tenure-track positions in mathematics at SLACs, one typically includes one recommendation letter from the math advisor and another as a math teaching letter. However, for the third letter, which would be a better choice: (a) another math teaching letter or (b) a letter from a co-advisor from a different department (which is not STEM)? On one hand, mathematicians may not give as much weight to a letter from a non-mathematician. On the other hand, a co-advisor might be able to provide more personal insights about the applicant compared to a second teaching letter.

I am a professor of mathematics at Denison University, a good liberal arts college in Ohio. I've been on around 10 hiring committees. Based on my experiences, my impression is that you would be better off with option (a) another math teaching letter.
To be clear: Denison wants to know that candidates who get hired here will be excellent teachers and will also have a strong scholarly program resulting in several peer reviewed publications in good journals, before tenure. The "non-STEM" comment made me worry that such a letter might be more harmful than helpful, if it somehow triggered the idea that the research program was not solid and serious. Now, if you had said the co-advisor was in STEM, then their letter could help a bit, for the reasons you wrote, but I still think it wouldn't help as much as a letter from another mathematician. Note that even teaching letters will generally comment a bit on your research skills, service activities, and collegiality. Furthermore, most letters from advisors are glowing and don't carry a ton of weight. That might be even more true of letters from non-STEM advisors, since we don't know their experience supervising math PhD students.
Lastly, I want to point out that you don't need to limit yourself to three letters. When I applied to liberal arts jobs in 2014, I had 5 letters. Some places might have restricted to allowing 4. I've certainly read hundreds of files with 4 letters. The key should be to pick people who really know you, know the kind of jobs you're looking for (i.e., can emphasize aspects of your file that make you a good candidate for a job at a liberal arts college), and can write convincingly. For sure, you should only include a teaching letter from someone who has observed you teach. Even better if you've had conversations with them about your goals and development as a teacher. Good luck!


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Do people use the number 42 in research?
I have to choose a certain number of data points. The exact number has little effect on my outcome -- it could be as little as 10 or as high as 100. There is no good way to choose this number, and no factor limits me from going higher.
Since 42 is a popular number, I plan on using it. The findings from this will be submitted to a conference for peer review.
My questions:

Do people often use the number 42 in research?
Will this (mostly) be viewed positively or negatively?
Is the number popularly accepted as the "answer to everything," or could I come across a reviewer who has a strong opposing viewpoint, and therefore lead to a biased review for me?

42 is the default seed in most if not all my code. More of a habit than anything, and I don't mention the seed value in a paper. I wouldn't think anything of it if you were saying you used 42 as a value. Tbh, it's so common now, I wouldn't realise

However, I advice not going on an explanation why you chose this number. If it has no effect, just say it and that you choose 42.

@JackRed It's not a seed value, it's the number of data points required for an experiment's result to be reliable. If one were to explain why they went with 42, would it be detrimental?

@PriyanshulGovil in your last comment you say that  42 is the number of data points "required for an experiment's result to be reliable". In your question you state that it could be as little as 10. Can you please clarify?

@Theoretician The number (my choice = 42) is the number of data points required for my experiment's result to be reliable. Yes, the number could be as little as 10, but there is no way to assess if 10 would be a better choice than 42, or vice versa.

If it's truly irrelevant, you may use it. But even as someone who really enjoys science culture, I would be massively put off if it were important but chosen for memey reasons.

@Roland In my case, the number of data points required depends on the underlying distribution of gpt-3.5. As I do not have access to it, I have no way to measure my statistical power.

One possible concern is to avoid suspects that you chose that specific number because it works better and makes your method look good.
Someone might think that you tested all numbers between 10 and 100, and then you only reported the results for n=42 because they are in favor of your method, while most other numbers would give a worse result.
For this reason, I would rather opt for a simpler-looking number like 50 or 100. If you want to stick with 42, you can include a sentence that the results are similar for all other choices.
But this is a secondary concern, at least in my field; people do not care too much about it.
See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing-up-my-sleeve_number in crytpography.

Hmmm ...

The exact number has little effect on my outcome

That seems extremely unlikely. How can that be?

it could be as little as 10 or as high as 100. There is no good way to
choose this number, and no factor limits me from going higher.

If you are doing any kind of modeling, or statistics (even taking a mean) then there IS a good way of choosing a number. It's called power analysis. And if no factor limits you from going higher (which is also unlikely) then you should go higher.

Do people often use the number 42 in research?

I've never seen it used and I've read lots of articles in many fields (I do statistical reviews for a couple of journals, and I worked as a consultant in lots of areas). But your field may be different.

Will this (mostly) be viewed positively or negatively?

For people who "get it" (those who have read Hitchhiker's Guide) it will be viewed as a joke. For those who don't get it (not everyone will) it will just seem weird.
Academic presentations and articles can be funny. But a) Usually, such papers are from pretty well-known researchers and b) The humor has to serve the purpose of the paper.

I sometimes use it, even here, for things peripheral to the actual argument, or as an illustration, where a joke is fine. But for the actual research, I doubt that people "getting the joke" is a good thing.

Different fields have different customs. That said, in my experience this style of humor (memes, in-jokes, pop culture references, etc.) is extremely rare in formal publications. Honestly it's rare for research papers to be funny at all, and papers that are funny are usually intended entirely as jokes.
Your idea is liable to give the impression -- perhaps unfairly -- that your research is not worth taking seriously. I'd recommend avoiding it entirely.
I've seen more of it in conference talks. If you're new to academia, I'd recommend you play it straight at first, and not try to be funny. Once you have a few conferences and publications under your belt, you'll get more of a sense of what kinds of humor are typical in your field.


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Is it plagarism if the entire paper is copied, but each sentence is quoted?
I have some high school students submitting assignments where the entire paper is copied from another source.  They cited every line.  Is this plagiarism?  I'm sure they are just being lazy, but they are a smart lazy.  I can't find anything to back up my suspicions that they should get a 0 on this assignment.
Thanks.

Isn't lazy enough? I would have a good laugh and say "no. Do it over". If they also give the source then it isn't plagiarism. But it isn't a good thing to do either. Since they spent little effort and you don't need to spend effort to mark it, just require them to start over.

Make them do this one over, and add for future assignments that the grade will be based mainly on their own writing, with limited weight given to selection of quoted material to support their writing.

If every line is a citation, then what is their work?

@NickS collating and curating the citations, apparently. Unfortunately that was probably not what the assignment was about.

What factor makes you think this wouldn’t deserve a 0 (or close to)? After all, they did no work whatsoever, exception potentially research (and if that’s nontrivial you could reward that, but even then a crucial part of research is synthesising the findings, not merely digging them up, so even their research was poor to mediocre).

Maybe you should invest more effort to make your assignments less of a cookie cutter assignment that has been done hundreds of times before?

If we edit the question to remove the words "high school," does that make the question on-topic? The gist of the question isn't specific to high school. It's unlikely, but still possible, that college students would behave in this manner.

This is not plagiarism, but poor work.
See this discussion on The Chronicle of Higher Education, where several instructors opined that this type of work was not plagiarism but deserved a low grade. One (polly_mer), stated (my emphasis),

I agree with Summers_off that the grade is low for lack of doing the work.  My syllabi and assignment sheets now have a comment of "Multiple direct quotations or extensive paraphrasing with little original work will result in a low grade" because I have had too many properly cited assignments that were all cut-and-paste with practically no synthesis.

Plagiarism has an inherent gravamen of dishonesty - that the writer is deceiving the reader into thinking that the writing is the author's when it really isn't. Building a paper that is little more than a collection of quotations and paraphrases with corresponding citations isn't dishonest, it's just crappy work. Think of it like buying a car. If someone says that the car has been scrupulously maintained and has only 20,000 miles on it, but it actually has 125,000 and needs a new engine, that is dishonest, and quite likely leaves them open to legal liability for fraud. If someone tells you that the car they are selling is a hunk of rust and oil, then it's a literal hunk of rust and oil that you aren't going to pay that much for, are you? So, the student gets what they deserve - a low grade for low-quality work.

Upvoted for the comparison with the car. I'll keep it in mind while discussing that matter.

pmf----this is anything but a 'cookie cutter' assignment. Students are asked to research an organism of their choice with guidelines to follow (ex. discussion of anatomy, reproduction,evolutionary history, etc.)

I’m guessing that the criteria sheet that you’re using has language that says something like “synthesises and analyses multiple data sources into a coherent, logical argument”. If they just quote and cite a bunch of sources without writing anything of their own, they’re not doing any analysis or synthesis, and you can fairly mark them down as a failing grade on that aspect of the criteria sheet (and likely a number of other aspects of their criteria sheet, too).
It wouldn’t be plagiarism or academic dishonesty, though.

I used to have this issue.
I dealt with it by making the marking scheme cover discussion and relevant conclusions.
Once they got to grips with comments like, "good source, but how does it affect your conclusion?" then it tended to sort the issue.


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Where can I find a list of think tanks broken down by funding source?
I'm doing research on funding for think tanks. I'd like to know if anyone maintains a database of who funds think tanks. Ideally, the list would state each organization that has contributed to a think tank within the last few years, but I would be happy with more general data as well (i.e. funded by a government, funded by an individual, funded by a nonprofit, etc).

How do you define a "think tank"?

I would define a think tank as an organization that is dedicated to producing public policy analysis. A list of global think tanks can be found here: https://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1017&context=think_tanks


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Asking for recommendation letters for postdoc positions in mathematics
I'm starting my fifth year in math PhD. For two years I've been thinking on a well known problem (well known enough to have a Wikipedia page) in my field with no success  and all of a sudden I think I did solve it with a very short solution. I haven't written it down yet but I can do so in 1 week. The bottom line is that I'm in a situation that there is nothing positive about my CV except solving the conjecture. I do not have any other publications and I'm very unknown,no professional mathematician in my field is aware of my existence. I'm planning to apply for postdoc positions this coming fall but what I'm struggling with is the letters of recommendation. Let's say I'll write my arxiv version of the paper in 1 week and about 1 week it will take it for me to explain it to my adviser and proofread it. My adviser hopefully will help me to give some talks at some places (I haven't given any talks outside of my university during my PhD). I think the standard procedure is that after giving the talk I should start asking for the LOR from the people who attended my talk until I can get 2 LORs. Problem is that this procedure will potentially take a lot of time and as people require at least a month to write LORs by that time the deadlines will be passed. I wanted to ask for some ideas on how to get LORs in my situation?
I was thinking maybe I can send emails directly to the people in my field with my preprint and directly ask for the LOR but someone told me this is very unusual and might not be a good idea. What are your opinions on this?

Go over your proposed solution in detail with your adviser before making any plans based on the assumption that you've solved a well known problem. Most of the rest of this will frankly be also better served by then talking to your adviser about what you should be doing.

Is staying one more year an option?  (I.e. has your funding run out or do you have personal reasons you need a higher salary.). If so, in your situation it’s very much in your interest to wait one more year.

@NoahSnyder I can do 6 years but if that happens I won't apply for academia that's the minimum standard I did set for myself that I'll only continue doing math only if I can manage to solve one of the conjectures in my field in a timely manner. If I know I am going to do 6 years I'll focus on obtaining skills for getting a job outside of academia.

no professional mathematician in my field is aware of my existence — Surely you have an advisor, no?

@JeffE Yes I do have an adviser and that's it. I can get 1 LOR! need 2 more. I have a somewhat strange type of relationship with my advisor too. Hopefully that won't be problematic. He suggested to me to work on more feasible problems to get my PhD done but I didn't listen to him and went my own way and therefore my field is not directly related to my advisor's field. (He is not a professional in my field.)

Huh?  If you solved the problem this year, how does staying for another year change whether you solved the problem in a timely manner?

I define timely manner as being able to apply for a postdoc AND getting a descent position after 5 years, anything more than that is an indication of not being good enough and I do not want to waste my time on something that I'm not good at (well of course after wasting 5 years). Even if my proof passes the proofreading process and it is correct if I do not manage to get a descent job this coming year I take it as being slow and think academia is not for me. Because other than quality of your work productivity is also an important aspect of an academic job.

@lincclay Your reasoning strikes me as strange -- indeed, so much so that I'd discourage you from sharing it when job searching. It might make a negative impression. In any case, if you indeed solved a well known problem then your problem-solving skills are definitely good enough. Are your collaboration skills? Your speaking skills? I'd recommend taking the next year to do the following: submit your work to a top journal; give talks everywhere you can; talk to senior scientists in your field; strike up a collaboration or two. Good luck.

Also -- if you really solved a famous problem, then "a decent job" is too modest of a goal. Identify a handful people who would be the best mentors in the world for you, who do work that fascinates you, and aim to get a postdoc with one of them. You might or might not succeed, but in my opinion this is a more worthwhile goal than graduating as soon as possible.

And -- (sorry to write so many comments!) -- if you want to switch gears and find a job outside academia, then that would also benefit from substantial time and preparation too.

Things have changed since I was about to finish a PhD a long time ago, but the fact that you are unknown outside your university would have been common then, perhaps even now.
What you suggest seems to me to have two downsides. First, you are putting all your eggs into one basket (the conjecture) and second, you are entering into a time consuming process where others will need to verify your work. But beyond that, those others don't really know much about you beyond this one thing.
I would suggest, instead, that you depend on your advisor for a very strong letter and on others (professors and such) with whom you have interacted and who can speak now to your general mathematical ability and future potential. That can all be done quickly and can get you into what may be just the first round of applications.
But don't abandon your stated idea here to reach out to those others who have seen your work and might also help with an application if the more common approach seems not to be working as well as you hope.
You can get started early and if it doesn't work out, then the longer term solution may start to fall into place for the next round.

Congrats, you are excited about this breakthrough and that's understandable. Nevertheless the only way to have your work properly evaluated and validated is to submit it to a reputable journal. Yes, it takes more time, but that's how you maximize the impact of your work.
You indicate in the comments that you can do one more year but you don't want to because you set yourself the ambitious goal of "solving one of the conjectures in [your] field in a timely manner". Well good news: you did solve the conjecture in a timely manner! You reached your goal, now you should make sure that your work gets the credit it deserves. Trying to cut corners for the short term goal of getting LORs for a postdoc position is a big risk and a potential waste of opportunity:

If you are interested in a career in academia, it's worth taking the time to do things carefully and reap all the benefits
If not, then why do you care about getting a postdoc position in the first place?

So are you suggesting that if I'm interested in academia I shouldn't bother applying this year?

I think you can apply this year, but imho you shouldn't rush the process on your discovery in order to get LORs. This might make your application less convincing for this year, but it's worth risking not getting a postdoc this year in order to have much better opportunities later.


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Should I cite pubpeer comments?
My background is in biomedical research. Citing preprints seem to be an acceptable practice now, which are non peer-reviewed materials.
My question is: what about pubpeer comments? They are also not peer-reviewed. Although most of the time they are anonymous, and do not have a DOI.
Can, and should I cite pubpeer comments? How about academic social media / forum discussions? If I am not allowed to cite them, how do I properly credit their content?

Cite them for what, and why? Who will vouch for their reliability or validity?

Cite for opinion and critiques mainly. Anonymous materials may be difficult, but influential scientists do occasionally share their views on social media platforms. These named scientists will vouch for the validity of what themselves have said.

@Buffy cite them for where you got an idea from?? If you write a paper about a new theorem that you found in a youtube comment you'd STILL have to cite that source. The onus of proving their reliability is on you as the author.

If you use the material, no matter where it comes from, you need a citation. Identifying the source to your best knowledge.
Not being peer reviewed would tell me that I don't need to believe that what you quoted was correct (I trust you to quote it correctly, but what you quote might be wrong), but if this non-peer reviewed article was just your inspiration, then you need a citation to avoid claiming it was your idea, and getting inspiration from an article that turns out wrong is just fine.

Exactly this. If you got inspired by a Youtube comment you still need to cite it. The only benefit of citing peer-reviewes sources is that you can largely forgo checking their validity yourself (though you definitely still should)


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PhD Advisor Slander to Postdoc PI
I recently, successfully defended my dissertation (2 months ago) and have been working as a postdoc in one of my committee member's lab since then.
My PhD advisor is a malicious person who enjoys being mean to those who can't fight back. I had, apparently foolishly, thought that leaving her lab would remove me as a target for her abuse. She told me many times during my studies that she would not let me pass my quals/defense. Fortunately, both only required a majority of my committee, not unanimous, to pass so I eventually tried not to worry about this. During my defense, she failed me, one committee member failed to show up due to a death in the family, and the other three members passed me and had very complimentary things to say about the quality of both my written and oral defense. I then went to work as a postdoc in the lab of a committee member who was actually helpful during my PhD, one of the three who passed me.
In the past week at my new job, new lab/building but at the same university, I have been told twice that my PhD adviser is telling people that I am a bad researcher and that I made a coworker in my PhD lab do all of my experiments for me.
This is categorically not true. In fact, the coworker who supposedly did all of my work is a friend who I know is not encouraging this story. We became friends when I trained her after she joined the lab. Additionally, multiple people (PhD students, lab techs, etc.) have come to me asking for help in several experimental planning matters that they have been unable to resolve on their own. So apparently, the PI/professor level at this school all think I am incompetent because of my PhD advisor while the students/techs all think I can help them resolve issues.
I hate this. I deeply regret joining my advisor's lab for my PhD, but not the PhD itself. I had thought I was finally free to develop a healthy mental state about my work and future career plans, but she has managed to once again undermine me. I am now beginning to regret even continuing on at this school. While the work I do now is great and I do enjoy it, I do not enjoy being bullied from afar by my former advisor.
As I see it, I have two options:

ignore the PhD advisor who is actively trying to ruin my career and future prospects at this school while maintaining my own personal work ethic and hoping that people will see the truth...or
try to fix my reputation among the professors, but this is highly problematic and may end up labeling me as a troublemaker or something

I see no "good way" out of this mess, but am leaning toward option 1. However, my partner is pushing me to start option 2.
What should I do?
Thank you in advance to everyone for your input.

Third option: a lawyer.

...or ombudsman

I've seen pretty much this exact thing unfold with a close friend in a non-university research facility. The good news is that the PI was known to do this sort of thing, so her attempts were generally ignored. My friend did not lose any relationships over the incident (but one) and simply went to work for a different group. The PI even attempted some false accusations, but those were immediately shut down by her own group and her bosses. Eventually she moved on to undermining other, more important people. No one ever thought worse of my friend because of this incident.

@DonQuiKong The legal system is not fun or cheap and doesn't exist to right all wrongs. Unless there's a very specific cost incurred or specific ongoing behavior to change there's nothing to sue for, and it's definitely going to get someone labeled a troublemaker because it'll cost a lot of people time besides the problematic professor.

The dog barks. The caravan passes.

This professor sounds like someone whom other people would not pay attention to. The evidence for that is that she sounds like an awful person who has nothing good to say about anyone, and the fact three of your seniors agreed you had met the requirements for a PhD. Can there be a reason as to why she is so hostile to you? Does she treat other students with the same malice?

Option 3(b): Move to another institution ASAP. -- I wonder if bad-advisor's gaslighting degraded OP's confidence to the point where they didn't think to search for jobs outside current university, and so stay in bad-advisor's sphere of influence?

@joseph h The only thing I can think of is that 2.5 ish years ago I stopped covering for her when she was being unsafe. I did not report her, because I still wanted to graduate, but I ordered my own dosimetry badge/EHS pick-ups etc, because she would tell me its fine to just pour down the drain or not to worry about the radiation badge because it never leaks gamma rays. But, I do not think this is it either, because she told me before my quals earlier that she wouldn't pass me. My grandma says its because she's jealous that I'm smarter than her, but I don't think its that either.

@Baffled Don't psychoanalyze your former supervisor (FS). They may do this because of this or that; the only person who would care is their therapist. Crucial, rather, is the following: do other professors indicate that they take FS seriously? Or do they know that FS is a baby-beating bully (someone who punches defenseless people)? If they take FS seriously, find your way out. If not, erase FS from your awareness. Yes, it is possible.

@Baffled: I had the same experiance. Don't invest any effort in option 2. Take option 1 and keep in my to constantly extend the network of people that may testify in your favor.

Do you have any idea on why she acts like that? Is she a mean person by nature, or she is only hostile towards you? If the former happens, probably others know about her bad behavior, thus will not take for granted all the bad comments she makes about you.

Your grandmother could be right. It also may be that when you made an example of her regarding the safety issues, she has held a grudge ever since. I did not report her, because I still wanted to graduate. Remember that your health and safety come first, especially when working with substances that emit $\gamma$ -rays (or any kind of radiation). If not for her, you and others.

@Baffled - Your Grandmother is correct.

Why is it you think all the other professors there think you're incompetent? The three of them that know your work best, besides your advisor, all thought you earned a PhD; one of them hired you to work with them as a post doc. If your PhD advisor is a malicious person, it's quite likely this hasn't escaped everyone else's observation, and they may already know to ignore her. At least in my world, it's incredibly unusual for someone to earn a PhD without their advisor's blessing, and it would be quite a statement about what other professors thought of her if they were willing to override their decision. Professional politics and courtesy may prevent them from stating this more explicitly than they already have.
Anyways, I don't think there's really a right or wrong answer here about how much to push back. You could take the "high road" and let the people who know you best speak for you when you need it: when you're asking for recommendation letters, for example.
If you do feel it is necessary to escalate, your post doc advisor is probably the person best positioned to help advise you on how to proceed. Since you're still at the same institution, if you choose to escalate I would recommend doing so within the reporting structure of your institution. That may involve going to the department chair, or it may involve a separate third-party review process. At some point, you may be in a room with the chair, your former advisor, and your current advisor, and there will be an expectation of some adult professional conversation among you, which your former advisor may or may not be capable of.
Try to stick to what is meaningful to you going forward, not payback or revenge against your advisor. It's quite reasonable that you value your professional image, and are proud of your integrity and the integrity of your school. It reflects poorly on the whole department to have unfounded accusations that graduates have not actually performed the research that earned them a degree. Your advisor looks especially foolish to make this accusation about her own student, since monitoring your progress is her job. It would be as if the chef were whispering that the food they serve is expired. They are also implicitly questioning the professionalism of the other professors on your committee.
Likely a process like this will have the most value if there is some specific behavior you would like to stop; you won't be able to order your former advisor to change her opinion of you as a researcher.

I hadn't realized it until you pointed it out, but you are correct that I am just assuming the professors dislike my work. I will try to be more level-headed in the future about that. Thank you also for putting it into perspective, I had never looked at it from the angle of the other professors not believing her, But again, now that you point it out, she is well-hated by everyone I've met here, prof/students/janitors etc. Thank you for your input, and I will just continue to do my work and let both of our reputations grow as they will.

@Baffled No problem. Probably worth a conversation with your current advisor (assuming you have a good relationship), even if you don't plan to escalate anything, they'll probably be able to reassure you. You could phrase the conversation as "I've heard these rumors about what my former advisor is saying, and I don't think anything needs to be done but I wanted you to be aware", unless you do decide something should be done.

We do get along well, he is actually one of the ones who informed me what she was saying and I guess it just blindsided me and I got all dramatic this morning

@Baffled It's very reasonable to be upset, you haven't done anything dramatic unless there's been some incident with spraypaint and the former advisor's car you're not telling us about. Sounds like you got out of a bad situation. Best of luck in the future.

@Baffled Well-hated, even by the janitors... that's quite an accomplishment.

Excellent answer (+1).  A great aspect of this answer is that it points out that her accusations (if true) would reflect terribly on her own managerial competence as a supervisor and on the competence of the university in awarding the degree.  For that reason, the accusations in question are virtually self-defeating.

Also I think it would be good occasionally to directly ask other senior people OP works with, and whose opinion they value, "How do you think I'm doing?". We should probably all do status check-ins like that anyway, and build confidence for OP.

Now on the faculty side, I can confirm that faculty know who the shitty people are that they work with. It's not a secret. Students talk, faculty talk. We try to be as professional as possible when listening to complaints or stories, so you won't necessarily hear a faculty member outright tearing another down in front of a student.

@Mentalist That's one of my favorite stories! Our breakroom developed a ceiling leak, and until they could fix our new water feature, they put a trashcan under it to catch the water. They did not use either of the cans in the breakroom itself, or the cans in the breakroom across the hall. No, they went down the hall, past 2 other rooms/offices, and used their keys to get into her office and take her office trash can.

The thing about malicious people is that, since its not at its root about you, its never just you they're doing it to. In the long run, the truth will out.

@Baffled Here's the rule of thumb: if the rumour does not spread (i.e. is not believed), let it run out on its own. You reacting here may actually pour gasoline on the fire (Streisand effect). If the rumour takes on force, though, and threatens to expand, then you'd better act. So observe and see in which direction things go.

Don't worry about it. It makes your PhD adviser look worse than you.
If people work with you and know you're good, and your old PhD adviser randomly has it out for you they will ignore it other than maybe feeling sorry for you. Maybe they would even feel all the more impressed you got to where you are with a lunatic PhD adviser.
Even if my PhD student was bad, I wouldn't try to hurt them. I take a responsibility for them when they become my student. Good or bad, I want them to succeed.

Thank you for your comments! I will continue with my work and do my best to ignore her in the future.

@Baffled I'm sorry this is happening to you. It is unfair and childish which unfortunately happens in our profession sometimes...

Trust me on this, I've been a faculty member for 35 years.  We know some of our colleagues are crazy and abusive (and who they are). We sometimes take concerted steps to protect students from these kinds of people, and from what you say it is clear that some people took steps to protect you;
during your qualifying exam and during your PhD defense. So don't worry about any of this, it is just extra stress that you don't need in your life. Get on with your work, protect your mental and physical health, and try to enjoy your life. I don't know where you work or in what field, but if you were in the US and in my field I would strongly suggest to you that it would be a good idea at some point in the not far distant future to find a position at some other university-- not because things are bad with your current post-doctoral advisor, mainly so you can get a fresh start in your own mind as much as anything else.  Obviously I know nothing about your other circumstances or even how realistic that is, I just thought I would throw that out there. But that is not to imply that you should be concerned about whatever crap your PhD advisor may be throwing around. It's more to help you put the stress of what you put up with behind you. By the way, that advice comes from personal experience (even though one difference is that my struggles at that same stage of career development where mostly of my own making).

Thank you for your comments! After I complete my postdoc here, I am hoping to get to another university. I had thought that leaving her lab would be enough, but I miscalculated.

Let me guess... it's really difficult to unseat these “crazy and abusive” faculty members? (Short of them being found guilty for some some large scandal or legal fiasco.) It's really too bad that there aren't mechanisms in place for either removing such people or shutting down their abuse with certainty, while protecting others from retribution. I can imagine it being a real energy drain for both students and other faculty. Meanwhile there are probably more qualified people out there for whom there is unfortunately no position open. A problem for society at large: jerks flying under the radar.

It may be worth talking with the chair of your department in private about this, if only to make them aware.
During grad school, I had a somewhat similar experience. There was a particular professor who, for reasons somewhat beyond me, did not care for me and failed me on orals exams where other professors gave me a pass with flying colors. This set up a strange situation where I discussed with the chair whether I wanted to leave with a masters or continue my PhD. I stated that I wanted to stay and the chair suggested that I simply avoid this professor when it came research. My impression is that they recognized that this professor did not care for me, but given previous behavior of this professor this didn't mean I was a bad student. I told the chair I did want to continue and life has been fine since.
It's unkind that a professor would treat you this way but if they start to get a reputation for picking odd battles with students, very likely other professors will take their gossip with a grain of salt. If you can find a group that you can productive with this is likely to be more important than what your advisor said.

To start with, overall I agree with this answer: https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/202469/13240
If your goal is to get this person to stop slandering you, your supervisor, chair, and omsbudsperson may be able to help.  However, in my opinion, someone who has been

abusing you for many years
continued abusing you after the end of your professional relationship

is unlikely to stop simply because the university says to stop.  Even if the professor is fired and banned from campus (a very unusual outcome), the abuse might continue.
I am not a fan of lawyers as a way to resolve disagreements (for one thing, they are expensive).  However, for persistent abuse they can be helpful.  I suggest you talk to a lawyer about

A restraining order.
Seeking damages for slander.

This person's behavior sounds more similar to domestic abuse than the typical "PhD supervisor is a jerk" situation.  Of course, we might not have complete information about the situation.

Sounds like a common thing in graduate school these days. I've failed out of 2 master's programs and 3 PhD programs. Today, I am a PhD candidate but it was because I got out of a toxic work environment and joined a new group. Show her that you're stronger than you think and keep working there. If you quit, it means she wins. I'm preparing for the day I graduate to notify the ones who said I would continue to fail in graduate school and life.

I was in a similar situation with one prof when I was starting my PhD and I chose the "fight back" way. I was as mean as the prof and was openly ridiculing him during meetings. Not very mature, maybe, but quite efficient.
One of the exchanges I remember was him saying "all these simple researchers who belive in simulations really do not understand physics", to which I replied "you know, it requires some intelligence to understand simulations so I get it that you are completely lost".
He was 80, I was 20.
This is definitely not for everyone and is tiring.
I also had a friend who was in a similar situation. She initially wanted to fight back the same way but knowing her very well, I told her that she would be spending her time wondering how she could have handled it better.
She eventually decided to openly call the disciplinary group/court at her university and officially raise a harassment case. She made it very public and people were called as witnesses. It ended well, there was an official warning for the other party and since the prof was a coward (as in your case), he never tried again.
These cases are draining energy at an alarming rate.

If your PhD advisor has tenure, then she most probably has a group of faculty members who will support each other through thick and thin, like if one of them have committed research misconduct or misspending of research funds. This means, you probably won't get anything in your university that requires a vote by tenured faculty. But this will not affect decisions that are taken individually by faculty who are not in her group.

That assumes that that faculty member managed to accumulate a clique/club around them. Which is sometimes the case, but all the OP has said indicates this is not the case here. This response is therefore not suitable for the present question. There are many questions on SE where this might be a more fitting scenario setting, but not here.


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Does a professor respond to my request to work with me?
I would like to write an article and present it to a professor abroad. Does he accept my request to read my article and submit it in the name of both of us as a co-authors (if he agrees with my article)?
In fact, I'm looking for a way to both publish my paper and use a partnership with a professor at  the other university. Is such a collaboration common and does the professor respond to my request?

A decent professor will not submit your article under their name if they only read it.
You could ask.them if they want to work together with you on something (but you shoupd probably not contact them out of the blue, especially if they are higher ranked as you).

Can you explain more how I can work with them?

@Roja: you can discuss problems with them via email or skype, or divide your problem into two parts where each of you is an expert in exactly one.part.

Thank you so much for your response, user 112604

@Roja I don't know your academic "rank" but as master's student I was looking for internships in research and found that I had much better chances of getting a response when contacting less senior people, than professors, e.g. group leaders, post docs who are more involved in the research day-to-day anyway.


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Combining bibliography styles
For a few documents I have to write during my internship I have been told to use APA notation for citing my sources and building the bibliography.
Now, my problem is that some of the quotes or information comes from multiple sources, so I'd like to use IEEE notation in-line with the text, for example:

A quote about principles concerning the hierarchy of an organisation. [1, 2]

instead of the APA style, which would look like this:

A quote about principles concerning the hierarchy of an organisation. (somesource, 2001, p. 22) (anothersource, 2005, p. 5)

Is this acceptable for a research paper (Bachelor level at a university of applied sciences) or should I just stick to APA notation for the entirety of the paper?
Thanks in advance!

Not really an answer to your question, but I think that APA style is much more reader-friendly, at least for readers who may know some of the cited papers. So my vote would be, use APA wherever you can (and of course consistently)! In my view people focus too much on "what is acceptable" or "what do I have to do", instead better focus on being nice to your readers! (Happier readers => better reviews.)

@Lewian Thanks for your feedback, I agree that the APA style is more readable when actually going through a paper, however I find that it gets cluttered relatively easily when multiple sources are used for one citation or paraphrase. For now I'll do what you and en woke suggested and just consistently use APA throughout the paper!

Also, with APA or similar citation style, multiple sources should also go into the same parentheses: (somesource, 2001, p. 22; anothersource, 2005, p. 5).

Stick to one citation-style throughout your paper.
Do not combine different citation styles!
The pros of being consistent:

Paper looks nicer and more professional, i. e. like a real scientific paper
It's easier to read, because the text is not interspersed with different kinds of foot- or endnotes (reduced cognitive load)
Makes checking your sources easier

Cons of being inconsistent:

Some professors are quite allergic to inconsistent notation (I know of fellow students who learned it the hard way).
It gives a very bad impression

It wasn't understood how citations work and what their purpose is.
Perhaps, at least some material was just lazily copied from different sources (each using different citation styles) and you didn't do it yourself. Not the case, for sure, but you don't want to create that impression and have to prove your innocence. And it really looks like a good explanation for the strange mixing of different citation styles.

In general, stick to one style. If you have been told which one to use, then use that one. Else, choose one you like (sometimes you are free to choose a style) or ask. But mixing them has no benefits, just downsides. In your case, use APA notation throughout your paper, just as you have been told.

Thank you very much for your answer, it makes quite a bit of sense.
I'll wait to see if others wish to contribute differing views before marking an answer as 'accepted' :)


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Citation of different types of sources
In my small research paper (Bachelor level, university of applied sciences) that I'm writing for my internship, I want to make use of certain frames from videos that have been published by the company I'm interning at to showcase their product.
Now I'm wondering how I should go about including the source for the still (and while I'm at it, different materials).
Currently APA is used for all citations, now I'm left wondering how I should incorporate sources such as:

A frame from a video (the timestamp might not be accurate enough, considering the video's are 30 frames per second?)
Internal documentation/communication/imagery which will never be released to the public
screencaptures of 3D models

the question is quite straightforward for source number 1, however, for sources 2 and three it might not be so simple.
Source types 2 & 3 have either a group of authors, no authors mentionned, or a single author.
They also are highly confidential, and it is quite a lot of material.
So, my questions are:

How do I go about citing a specific frame of a video?
How do I deal with citing confidential information

Another consideration is the sheer amount of information, we're talking hundreds of documents, images and videos. Do I actually have to cite each one individually?

Considering most imagery used in my research will be put in the appendix, with it's own caption, do I need to incorporate the citation part ((company name, author, year)) within the caption? Or how should I handle this?

There's APA rules for in-text image citations. You might want to look those up, if you're going to be including those frames as images in your paper.

That's the thing though, do appendix references count as "in-text image citations"? Because the images themselves are in the appendix at the end of the document, they just have a reference, such as see also Appendix 6 or  see Appendix 10 for the visual representation of x

You can use Microsoft Word on the add reference tab-new source (Im using Word in another language, so the term might vary in english, and click on the extended info. There is an option for multimedia/digital mediums.

You dont need to add the specific frame. You cite the entire video and where you retrieved in case it's online (or as movie if its a movie). The reference to the frame or the second where it was paused goes in your text, not your cite or reference (at least not in APA).
Cite the manual normally but the author is a corporate author.
It's still an image and the citing/reference so t depends where you saw took the screen-cap. You cite is as multimedia/digital medium and rather than 'retrieved from' you can say 'captured from' , otherwise, the normal way works and you ad din your text when describing the image directly as a screen capture.

And yeah... generally you need to cite individually if you are using them individually. You dont need to cite 10000 articles, just the ones you are specifically using. If they form part of a collection then you cite the collection but add the specifics of what you are using. In this case, APA might not be the best citation style, so consider using another one if you are not required to use APA.
Regarding the confidentiality of documents, it is very situational.
For example, there are articles/papers that cite for example a prehispanic codex of which there is only 1 copy in the world and the author has that copy in it's personal library, so it isn't really available for others to revise.  However, when it comes to 'confidential docs', if you have permission you can mention it in your text as "Personal Communication", or as the type of document from company X (if you have permission for it) , but the thing about citing is not only to give credit tot he original authors, but to lets other researches be able to peer review your work too.
So, if there's a way to retrieve that confidential doc (like when it is going to be declassified at some point) you can cite is as the type of document it is with a corporate author. If it can't be retrieved/revised by anyone else then just mention it in the text but don't make a reference out of it.

Thank you very much for the comprehensive answer! You haven't touched upon the confidentiality aspect of the question, I'm wondering if you have any advice concerning that as well :) I'm going to follow your advice with regards to the collection!

@FMashiro I edited the answer to answer more concretely about confidential documents, if you find the answer satisfactory you can accept it :) Remember that your references should be directly relevant to your work and should be retrievable for others  to revise.

amazing, thanks à lot for your time and insight

@FMashiro Try to get away with as little references as needed. John von Neumann's PHD thesis was only 26 pages and had only 2 references. Also, the current standard for APA at this moment is APA 6 . If you need anything else feel free to ask another question on the site. Good Luck.

“there are articles/papers that cite for example a prehispanic codex of which there is only 1 copy in the world” Sounds like a job for Google Books.

@nick012000 Im not kidding.  You can check on google scholar citations. The author (a relatively famous one) got the codex in an auction. Possibly the same has happened with manuscripts.

@deags I didn’t say that you were, but isn’t one of the reasons that Google Books exists to assist in the preservation of rare books through digitalisation?

@nick012000 I agree. However Google book s has been suing by things like the 'Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers ' and similar.
Also exists project Gutemberg and the Internet archive, but there are barriers. The owner of the codex would probably have to digitize the codex him/herself (and the technology for handling such old and delicate tomes is expensive, just like there is a risk transporting them).And it is worse to achieve in development countries where the technology isn't there, worse when it depends on bureocracy. Latinamerica is a living example.


text:
Messed up my PhD. Hope for academia lost. Not attractive for industry. Hoping for some advice
My civil engineering PhD got extended to 5 years due to my lack of commitment during the early years and lack of interest in my research area on part of my advisor.
I feel that I made a mistake by joining under the advisor in spite of having good profile in masters degree. Though I was initially interested in the research topic, I lost interest in it as it became a solo journey right from the start. My advisor's interest area do not align with my PhD thesis. I believe he had to work in the field because he was part of a grant. My lab colleagues work in different research area in alignment with my advisor's expertise.
Now, I am stuck with a PhD degree that couldn't get any rigorous due to personal limitation. I obviously can't conceive, execute complex research ideas absolutely independently. Also, my advisor did not push all my manuscripts for publication till date. I have only published 2 papers in the 5 years of PhD.
Now I am applying for postdoc positions, and I am receiving no suggestions from my advisor. He has no contact on my research area. I am getting no response from my applications. My defense is due in December. And I am panicking about not having anywhere to go from here.
I am overqualified for most of the industrial positions and those positions where they need a PhD, my research appears underwhelming.
I really messed up, I don't know what should I do. Academia seems closed. Industry a far fetched dream. I am in the US and I am an international student. Sorry for the rant. I really can use an advise. Is it possible to come back from such a disastrous profile?

How do You know you are overqualofied?

Academia encompasses more than postdocs.  Have you considered applying for more teaching-oriented faculty jobs?

Have you applied for work in industry? Your visa and green card status would be more of a hinderance than being overqualified with a PhD.

First, you didn't really "mess up your PhD" if you get your diploma at the end, something which seems very likely in your case. The main goal of doing a PhD is to get a PhD diploma, so you should evaluate success by this criterion even if it's not everything you had initially hoped for.
What you're going through is a period of low self-esteem/regrets/depression, a very common symptom of finishing a PhD (see for instance here). It's normal but be aware that currently you are not completely rational in your self-evaluation, and don't hesitate to seek professional help if you feel like you need it.

I really messed up, I don't know what should I do. Academia seems closed. Industry a far fetched dream. I am in the US and I am an international student. Sorry for the rant. I really can use an advise. Is it possible to come back from such a disastrous profile?

These interpretations are the result of your low self-esteem at the moment. For example you will know if academia is closed to you only if you apply for academic jobs. Sure you might not get a position in a prestigious institution, but there's a lot of postdoc opportunities everywhere and if that's what you really want you should definitely apply. A year or two of postdoc in a different place, on a different topic and with different people could completely change your perspective and your academic profile.


text:
Toxic former PI trying to block me from publication
I was a Master's student and worked as an RA for a professor. I signed a contract and submitted. The professor would assign me work on a weekly basis. By the end of my RAship, I asked the professor to get paid. The professor told me that the RAship was never formally established due to administrative reasons, and he thought "I never worked for him as an RA", and I was merely working on my own project in his lab. At the same time, he suggested that he would write me a strong LOR. At this time, I was working on one paper with him, and the paper is based on the work from my RAship. He even told me to note the funding grants in my paper. I finished editing the paper and added more information based on the things he told me. He promised me that he would edit the paper in several emails in the span of several months and promised me to publish the paper on a good journal, but he never edited it. At this time, I thought he was just using the publication and LOR to blackmail me so I wouldn't ask him for the salary. So I filed a complaint letter to the head of the department. Shortly after, the head of the department told me that the department will compensate me for the salary, despite the fact that it was funded by his grant. Right after I filed the complaint and had a meeting with the head of the department, the professor started to retaliate against me. He removed me from the lab and any information I have on his website. Removed all the publized work I had and banned me from accessing the documents he and I wrote when I was an RA. I then asked him about the publication. He told me that he never planned to work on the paper and the paper has nothing to do with him, which is a lie. I then asked if I could publish the paper alone without him. He told me that the data I used doesn't belong to me and because I have already graduated, I don't have the authorization to use the data. I told the retalitary information to the head of the department. The head said that he can't do anything about it because I can't force the professor to work on the paper.
I don't know what to do. I feel like I am dealing with a gang, and the whole thing has made me depressed for a long time.

which country? it looks like a question for Law_SE rather than Academia ...

United States of America

If you signed a contract that makes you employed as far as I know, I don't think employers are allowed to make administrative errors without telling an employee to avoid paying. Talk to a lawyer.

I’m voting to close this question because it is a much better fit for sites giving information on legal proceeding or workplace issues, like Law or Workplace Stack Exchange

@DanielHatton - given the professor was assigning the work weekly, that seems a pretty clear contribution.

If the professor does not yet have tenure, not paying your RA and making the department pay instead is probably a good way to throw a monkey wrench in his tenure case (especially if you are not the only one he's behaved done things like this to).

Wait you signed an RA contract with the professor? That is odd. Are you sure it wasn’t some sort of independent study agreement? At my university, only HR can do this sort of contract, not the professor. You would be filling out W2, submitting copy of ID etc.

I am not a lawyer and this is no legal counselling.
Big part of the question deals with legal matters, i.e. the agreement you signed.
Another big part hinges on the petty behavior of your former boss ... all my support regarding this, unfortunately it is nothing unheard of, in academia or outside of it. Academia is much worse because of the byzantine referral system.
The third part is common and fair in academia: you may have access to some data as long as you are part of a research group and as long as the research group agree in you accessing them.
Here there is probably a power-sharing/responsibility management issue, i.e. the professor does what they want.
The professor ousted you, so you are no longer part and you have no more access to the data/infrastructure. The head of department is probably too busy to deal with your case (it is no excuse, just the cause of his behavior).
In short and sadly: nothing for you there. The bridges are burned, it is up to you to decide if you want to stir the mess (supported by legal counselling) or let it go. We do not know the details of the agreement, you may legally force your way to access the data you worked on during your RA time, but this is just my speculation, I am not a lawyer and this is no legal counselling.


text:
Online Computer Science Masters as PhD Prep
I have recently completed my undergraduate degree, and am interested in pursuing a master's and potentially an eventual doctorate.
I have been looking at affordable online degrees such as the following:

Georgia Tech | M.S Computer Science
U of I | Master of Computer Science
University of Texas at Austin | M.S. Computer Science
ASU | Master of Computer Science

Are these types of degrees (all of which are purely coursework and do not require a thesis) considered to be more "professional" masters programs that cannot lead to a PhD or could one get a PhD after the completion of one of these programs?

These are professional masters programs.
My department (Illinois) does not consider even our own online MCS program to be preparation for a PhD, because there is no requirement—and therefore in practice almost no opportunity—for research experience.
Moreover, it is unlikely that any instructor of an online course can provide useful recommendation letters for their students for PhD programs, because useful letters generally require direct, personal, one-on-one interaction.  Sure, they can write a letter describing your class performance, but such letters are nearly useless; we can already see your grades on your transcript.

I think a "no" was missing; apologies if I was incorrect.

@JeffE Thanks for your response! If an online master's program did include a thesis option, would the fact that it is online still preclude it from leading to a PhD?

@JaredForth I’m not aware of any online masters program with a thesis option, so I think the question is moot.