text:
After my PhD supervisor left, I was assigned to a new PI who has little experience in my area
I am halfway through my PhD (given 3-year contract) and I feel I'm in my worst phase. The PI (let's call this PI X) who recruited me as a PhD student left my institute for a better position somewhere. Before X left, X assigned us (Ph.D. students under X) to a new PI in our department who is not yet all experienced in the work I'm doing. Once in a while X is talking to me through skype but now X seems to be mainly interested in authorship of the work we have done together and also a project we planned to do.
The main problem I'm facing now is, I don't have anyone to give me feedback on the analysis/interpretations I'm making from the data. If I don't get any critical comments/feedback on my work, I'm feeling I'm not learning anything new. And, this will also be a problem in the long run, when I make my work into a manuscript. Our department head, who recruited X seems to care about the situation but I didn't discuss it with him. As I have this new PI (who is also recruited by dept. head), if I discuss the situation with the department head, things will get more complicated. I know as a PhD student, I should be more independent but if I don't get enough feedback on my work, how can I improve my critical thinking.
Any suggestions on how to deal with the situation is greatly appreciated. I can provide any additional information if required.
Thank you.

Why do you think that discussing the situation with the department head will make it more complicated? It may solve problems, and the department head might be able to make sure that X will take proper care of his/her old PhD students.

Isn't it typical to take your PhD students with you, when you change positions (and can pull this off, of course)?

@OlegLobachev, May be, if a PI cares about his students and their career.

@Mark, I don't I have a feeling that it sounds like I'm complaining about the new PI. I think (my guess depending on the meetings we had in the past when X was leaving. Head frequently said to X, that you will not be able to supervise the PhD student's projects while establishing your own projects in new lab.), dept. head doesn't want to X to know the projects that are going on with us or he doesn't want to involve X anymore. But I'm not sure what he has in mind.

I don't understand why this sentence has the word "but":

Once in a while X is talking to me through skype but now X seems to be mainly interested in authorship of the work we have done together and also a project we planned to do.

Without the "but," that would sound great!
In principle, your choices are:

Transfer to X's new institution
Stay where you are but continue collaborating remotely with X (with lots of email and some occasional phone calls and video conferences).
Allow yourself some travel to where X is for some in-person collaboration (this has to be done with consideration for X's schedule and preferences, of course).
Talk to the department head and ask for advice.
Talk to someone else in your department and ask for advice.

Another thing you can do is basically choose option 2 (and perhaps 3), but try to be more independent than before, so that you don't need to take up so much of X's time.  Here are a couple of tricks for doing that:

Have a dialogue with X in your mind, where you lay out a question, and then you imagine the discussion that would ensue with X, based on what you know of X.  This works best when you're almost asleep.
Rubber duck your problem with a good listener, as programmers do when they're having trouble finding a bug.  Walk the listener through the background to your question, and the question itself.  Often, going through this careful exposition with a human being who at least looks like he's paying attention will get you unstuck.

Thanks a lot for your suggestions. 1 is not possible in my case as my fellowship is from my institution. I still have to check with dept. head regarding 3. But I hardly think head will allow that.  I'm left with suggestions 4 & 5. Thanks a lot for the last 2 points. That will help to some extent.

@user92916 - I wouldn't rule out 3 so quickly.  It's remarkably common. // How do you feel about 2?  Have you contacted X directly?  The worst that can happen is that X says no.

As a PhD student, you should start building your network of colleagues, and X might be a good person to suggest people you can network with.  See this as an opportunity to grow your own reputation and collaborate with others outside of X.  You might be able to keep X as an external advisor or your thesis committee, while having an academic advisor at your current institution that helps you more generally with the requirements of graduation.   Sounds like you want to get feedback-- and one great way to do that is to go to conferences, present your papers and share your own feedback with other people working in your field.
If you are near graduation, or post-general exams, you should submit to a doctoral consortium where people of your cohort can share what they are doing. Also, the advice that is given at the DCs is helpful to guiding you onto the job market. In my experience, the DCs gave great feedback on what directions they would be interested in for your research, and also notes that might be more generally applicable to the job market that you should keep in mind as you pursue your research.


text:
How to stop sexual harassment by teacher?
I'm a student in India.  My music teacher was kicked out of the school about 1 month ago due to sexual misconduct.
Today, he messaged me on Instagram with a fake ID and started talking nastily to me so I blocked him. He again messaged me with a new ID and asked for pictures and so on. I had to block him 3 more times.
He again messaged with a new ID of a girl.
I gullibly replyed to the message but again he asked for pictures and some sexual chats so I blocked him once more.
This is not ending. He was my teacher and this attitude of his is not good.
What should I do to stop him doing this?
And to prevent many girls from getting affected by this teacher?

Can I ask what the downvotes are for?  This is a serious issue which all academics can suffer with.

@Chris (1) We do not handle high school problems. (2) The post contains sh*t qualified for rude/abusive flagging. The question is automatically downvoted by the flags.

@scaaahu so easily edited that word - hope the OP accepts it...

@Chris I really hope she gets a solution...

@SolarMike - I hope so too

@Chris "10 std" in the question presumably means "10th grade" rather than "10 years old".

Ah I see @Pont.  So 14-15 years old.  Still has a right to be treated well no matter what age.

@Chris I feel this is probably a case that needs to be thrashed out on meta, since the question is blatantly off-topic as far as I can see. If there's a consensus that "anything is on-topic if OP's problem is drastic enough", I'd be happy to abide by that, but it would be useful to have that discussion in a single place on meta, rather than repeating it in the comments every time there's a similar case.

@Chris An additional problem is that, due to the asker's age, the appropriate solution and handling would likely differ from how an adult should approach this.  For example, young abuse victims would probably be well-advised to find a trusted adult as their primary response, whereas an adult going through a similar situation would be better advised on how to deal with it themself (even if that solution pathway would still be to, say, call the police or otherwise seek help from other members of the community).

@Chris All academics can also suffer from cancer, or a car accident. This is not a reason for a question to be asked in this site. The context must be relevant to academic issues.

Meta discussion: https://academia.meta.stackexchange.com/q/4003/20058

I suggest you should report it directly to the police.
Why, well, as he has been dismissed from the school they have no control over him, so reporting it to the school will only be for information.
You can choose to tell or not your parents but you may value their support.
I hope this sorts itself out. Best wishes.

Reporting to Police is definitely an option and so is reporting to the school.  The school has a responsibility and duty of care to their students.  They can support the student whilst reporting the teacher to the authorities and notify other child safeguarding authorities.

@Chris I agree that the school has a duty of care to their students but they don't control an ex-teacher. The police will know of all the possibilities of what support organisations exist, however, not all police forces are the same.

Tell your parents.
If my Googling is accurate, then 10th grade in India is about 15-16 years old. That's below adult age. Accordingly, don't try to resolve the problem yourself, tell your parents (or guardians) and let them resolve it.

Following points may help you to get rid of it:

First and most important step is stop communication. Never reply to calls nor messages. Also never accept any kind of request from strangers in social networks nor reply to their messages. If they send message from a fake ID which looks similar to someone you know, then first confirm about it from the mutual friends or by phone calls before paying any attention to them.
Second step is tell to your parents, brothers and a lady teacher with whom you feel comfortable.
Third step is inform to your friends about it and tell them to stay away from that person and maintain distance.
Fourth step and may also be the very first step is inform to the head of your School about this matter and request to take possible action against him.
Last step is if nothing works for long time and things go to extreme, then report to police.

Hope this will help ....
Stay blessed!!

She has had enough slready - your point 5 is wait for a long time - really?? She has had enough and it needs to be sorted now at a different level than just ignore the messages...

There is only one thing anyone can suggest and that is to report it.  Tell your parents or tell one of your teachers, and if they don't do something for you, then tell the Police.
You should not have to accept this behaviour.
The school has a responsibility and duty of care to their students.  They can support the student whilst reporting the teacher to the authorities and the school can notify other child safeguarding authorities to prevent them working in other schools

Report this to the police.
If you live in a place without legal protections in this regard, it's still helpful to push the boundaries.

It would have been helpful to apply a consistent non-response policy.  Given that you had trouble with this, I suggest handing your phone over to a trusted adult temporarily.

Please learn some basic online self-protection measures.  I noticed that you created a StackExchange user account with a first and last name, and you posted your age and the name of your town in your question.  Also, I wonder how the teacher found you online.  Here's a starting point: https://kidshealth.org/en/teens/online-id

source: Stack Exchange

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text:
Journal copy-editors: why is their work productive?
You worked on your manuscript and its language for a year and a half, carefully choosing every word; what is there left to do for the journal's copyeditors after acceptance? What is the point of copyediting your manuscript?

You seem to assume that everyone else has submitted absolutely perfect papers as well. After you have reviewed a few, you may come to a different perspective.

Great point! But my concern is, do they always feel that they need to change things?

I don't really recall any journal messing much with my words, except perhaps the occasional British vs American spellings...

The writer of a document is often the worst person to verify its wording. There are two reasons for this.
Often, when we write something we have a certain mind set. But we aren't perfect, so we occasionally make mistakes. Then, when we revisit it, we make the same mistake again, "seeing" on the page what we thought we wrote, rather than what we actually wrote.
Second, and more important, the author of a manuscript has a lot of background knowledge that they bring to bear on the subject that isn't actually written in the document. The reader, on the other hand, may not share this background, and usually won't to the same degree.
An informed copyeditor can correct for both of these situations.
I've learned that I can't really reliably proof my own writing and make both of the above "errors".
But copy editors don't just make changes without the advice of the original author. They provide a new version and the author gets to approve, reject, or improve the "corrections". It is a very valuable service.
But even just in the use of language. A good editor can improve the presentation of ideas by improving the structure of complex sentences and suggesting where the statements made could be confusing to a reader.
It does require some subject level knowledge to do it well, of course.

I worked for a year and a half on a paper and I dare say it was in good shape. Nevertheless the copy-editor found two embarrassing  mistakes. In this case the copy-editor constitutes just another barrier for mistakes which tend to be invisible to the author after some time.
From a technical perspective one also has to consider the workflow of the respective journal. Some publishers use LaTeX to typeset their articles, some use other tools. In most cases (in my field), Microsoft Word documents and LaTeX are accepted. As a consequence, converting text and  graphics may be necessary. In particular, assuring the graphics quality is quite an issue (I would guess).
Finally, as Jon Custer already stated: There are submitted and accepted manuscripts with quite some quality issues ranging from typos to inconsistencies in typesetting. If your submitted manuscripts are in better shape, good job :-)

converting text and graphics may be necessary --- no, it is not necessary. Journal publishers care too much about appearance. Personally, I don't mind if some articles published in a journal look slightly different from the others.

@Federico Poloni Well if the author submits a Word document and the journal is typeset in Adobe Suite there must be some conversion in file format, right?

And why must the journal be typeset in Adobe Suite?

Very good question, but this was just an example. If the  publisher decides to accept both Word and LaTeX documents, then at some point someone has to do some conversion.

No. We don't need this kind of typesetting. Take the Arxiv as an example: everyone submits their papers in the format that they prefer. They don't look all the same, but they are perfectly usable and no one cares. We researchers are used to seeing papers that look different from one another. Journals can just take the author's files, add some basic proofreading and formatting, and stop charging ridiculous money for "high quality typesetting". Even if they take what we provide, print it to pdf, and concatenate the pdfs, it's perfectly usable. I don't care if it looks like a high-school journal.

@FedericoPoloni, hmmm. Typesetting is very different from copy-editing. The former is a technical process (and can, itself, introduce error). The latter is an intellectual process that seeks to reduce error.

@Buffy I agree completely with this. Did I use these terms incorrectly somewhere above?

The previous version of the answer also addressed issues with typesetting, which I assumed to belong to the the chores of the copy-editor. This part can be ignored.

Here're some things a copyeditor can do to the text of this page:

You worked on your manuscript and its language for a year and a half, carefully choosing every word; what is there left to do for the journal's copyeditors after acceptance? Why is their work productive?

This phrase is awkward since almost any work is "productive". Why is their work productive -> What is the point of having copyeditors?

Often, when we write something we have a certain mind set. But we aren't perfect, so we occasionally make mistakes. Then, when we revisit it, we make the same mistake again, "seeing" on the page what we thought we wrote, rather than what we actually wrote.

mind set -> mindset

I've learned that I can't really reliably proof my own writing and make both of the above "errors".

This sentence is ambiguous; it makes it sound like the author can't reliably make both of the above errors. ... I can't really reliably proof my own writing; I make both of the above "errors".

In particular, assuring the graphics quality is quite an issue (I would guess).

...ensuring the quality of the graphics ...
I think I can honestly say I've never seen a journal article which didn't need at least some changes during copyediting.

Touché. But I've read some anecdotes of copyediting work being counterproductive.

@Philosopherofscience it certainly can, but I venture that copyediting is helpful much more often than it is counterproductive.

I've edited my original question inspired by your comment.

I know I was being a little cocky. I will let you know if the copyeditor founds problems with my article.

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text:
I read online that one should wait at least 1.5 months before submitting a revised article. Is this advisable?
Otherwise the editor and the reviewers will think that one's work was rushed. Do you concur?

This is likely to depend on the field...

Don't believe everything you read online. Do a good job revising, and send it back.

I don't concur.   You can spend 1 year to address reviewer comments, and the paper could still be poor.   At the end of the day, it's about how well you've addressed the comments.  This could be one day or x years.

That sounds like astoundingly bad advice. There seems to be no limit to the foolishness of some of the misconceptions one can encounter online. In general, I suggest ignoring any advice that smacks of “gaming the system”. Such techniques have no place in academia, and are followed only by mediocre researchers who are insecure about the quality of the work they produce. Perhaps worst of all, these academic “life hacks” almost never work. This one certainly won’t.

I am not saying the Q is particularly smart but it does not necessarily deserve down votes.  Down votes should be for the online source of such a bizarre statement, not for OP that apparently doesn't trust that much.

Yeah, I didn't think that you could downvote questions...

I suspect this may depend on the field.
It also depends strongly on the nature of the comments that you received. If the comments are something that are easy to address (adding some refs, clarifying some points in text, etc.), then there is something to be said for resubmitting as soon as possible (while seriously addressing the points made by the referees). Your referees will typically be thankful for this, since the article (and their own thoughts on it) will be still fresh in their mind. This means that it will be a lot less work for them to reassess the article. (I often aim to resubmit in a day or two in these cases.)
On the other hand, if the referees have more profound comments that may require you to produce new results to address (new experiments or new calculations). Then, of course, you should take as much time as is necessary to adequately address the comments.
The most important thing in any case is to take the referees seriously. Even if you think that the comments of a referee are misguides, that usually means that you have not explained your point clearly enough.

Submit it when it's ready: that would be the actual interval of time to complete the work, along with all the competing responsibilities you or your coauthors may have.
What I've read is typically to submit a revised article in less than a month: although, where I read this was in emails from journal editors. Of course, those editors are flexible when the work will take longer to complete (for example, if new experiments are necessary) and different journals have different expectations.

I've got a deadline of three months.

@Philosopherofscience Then I'd suggest completing it in less than 3 months if possible, asking permission if you need longer than 3 months, and not worrying about the timing besides that. Certainly not delaying submission simply to make it look like you are working hard (though it can be a helpful editing strategy to re-read your own writing after letting some time pass - that's not delaying for the sake of appearances, though).

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"Editor Assigned" for 12 days after acceptance. Is this normal? If so, how long can this step take? When can I expect the proofs?
A manuscript of mine was accepted by a Springer journal on January 2020 provided that I executed some corrections indicated by one of the reviewers in the second round of reviews. No further reviews or responses were requested by the reviewers. They told me that the manuscript was going to be passed to Production after that. I submitted my final version on February. The next day, the status changed to "Editor Assigned" and has remained unchanged for the last 12 days. Is this normal? If so, how long can this step take? When can I expect to receive the proofs?

They know. Ask the editor. But the term "editor" is applied to a wide variety of positions.

Thanks a lot Buffy, you are always here giving great answers. So I shouldn't wait like one more month? Would it be OK to ask the journal already?

In "editor time" a week is like a nanosecond. Patience is good unless you have a reason for knowing - i.e. you need to take some action based on the answer. But patience is finite, also.

I'll be patient! I suposse they need to see my last revision, because reviewers aren't going to see it...


text:
Is it "inappropriate" to write in a manuscript "this problem is unsolved, though arguably progress has been made" and then reference your own work?
Is it considered inappropriate to write in a manuscript "this problem remains unsolved, though arguably progress has been made" and then reference your own work?
Because you would be saying that your own work is the only progress being made on a subject... Is not it too arrogant?
The phrase is already written with another bibliographical reference. My question is just about whether I should replace and older reference with my own new work, which I of course think advances towards a solution.

Why should it be inappropriate?

This is hard to answer without more context. Especially as a yes/no question. Say more about your real concerns. And this isn't a polling site.

Because you would be saying that your own work is the only progress being made on a subject... Is not it too arrogant?

@Philosopherofscience If that is your main concern, why wouldn't you simply cite additional works by other authors who have also worked on the problem?

Ok, I will do that.

I don't think I'd call it inappropriate, exactly, but I don't think it is the best way to word it.
Your use of the word "arguably" signals that the phrase "progress has been made" is subjective - and in particular, it's a subjective opinion coming from a source that is clearly not impartial (you).  Also, "progress has been made" is vague and not very helpful to the reader by itself - you're forcing them to go and look up your other paper if they want to know what kind of progress you mean.
So why not solve both problems, and replace this unhelpful subjective statement by a helpful objective one, that briefly describes what you actually did:

This problem is unsolved.  However, in previous work [14], we showed that in the special case where the graph is symmetric, the conjectured statement is true to within a factor of 20.

Of course, if there is relevant work by other researchers, you should cite their work here as well, with a similar brief discussion.

That's a great answer! The suggested phrasing is perfect.


text:
What is the most effective way to publish as much of your PhD thesis as you can?
Is it to try to summarize many chapters in one article, or you would try to publish standalone articles for each chapter?
I'm in Philosophy in the UK.
I have read that one should not try to squeeze an entire thesis into an article. In my case I have already published the long introductory chapter, so what's left are a list of criteria, case studies, and a conclusion.

What field and country are you in? Have you asked your supervisor about this?

Philosophy. UK. I have, but many answers and experiences are always better.

This depends on the dissertation and the field. Publishers want to publish significant results, not chapters. If you have several independently important results you can publish a lot of papers. If you have a dissertation with many results building to a main result, then maybe yes or maybe no, depending on the importance of those intermediate results.
But it is up to the editors and reviewers to make a judgement about publishing.
In some cases, a journal will be willing to publish a long article that contains all of your important results in a single paper. This gets the essence out without trying to salami slice the dissertation.

It is amazing how I can expect to receive a great answer from Buffy 5 minutes after asking, at any time of the day!

Actually, I'm a bot bot bot....cyborg that never sleeps.

LOL! Appreciate it.


text:
Could a teacher or the university be legally liable in this situation? In which countries?
Could a teacher or the university be legally liable in this situation? In which countries? Could the teacher be reprimanded by the university?
The situation is the following: A teacher wants to show students that what's legal is not always ethically right. As an example, the teacher tells the students that to free slaves was illegal. Therefore, the teacher says, sometimes to break the law would be the right thing to do. So the teacher is literally and directly telling the students that sometimes the right thing to do might be to break the law.

It doesn't seem reasonable to me to scope a question on legal issues so broadly.

Ethics are subjective, the law is not. I cannot believe the teacher would say, "sometimes to break the law would be the right thing to do", he is far more likely to say that breaking the law can be considered ethically right - but it is still illegal. If you are drawing from a real-life situation here I think some artistic license has been employed.

@C26 Law can actually be pretty subjective and often contains a lot of subjective language.

@C26: I can totally believe it - there used to be laws which everybody in today's western world would see as ethically wrong. Laws like "killing those kinds of people is okay" would today be seen as wrong and in no way subjective. Indeed I had a teacher who said "sometimes to break the law would be the right thing to do" (quoting the Nazis regime as an example). And even today, there are dictatorships with questionable laws..

@Captain Emacs There is currently no country with legal slavery.

@CaptainEmacs "countries with slavery exist, even if it's not called that way". E.g.?

@Philosopherofscience You can google it, as this is a discussion point I'd rather not open up here. I merely wanted to give an illustration. I think the water one is perhaps even better, because it's a newly established law and quite unambiguous.

Philosopher: U.K. most definitely. It’s illegal, but the punishment is definitely not enough to stop it.

@gnasher729 Interesting. So, also in Western democracies. What law in the UK would prohibit it?

The questions seems purely hypothetical and a bit recursive. If a country has repressive laws, as some do, then it could well be that discussions of breaking the laws, even unjust ones, could lead to legal jeopardy.
A strange story recently came out of Thailand, where a person was threatened with jail for leaving bad reviews online about a resort. Saying bad things about Royalty there is very dangerous and so, I would guess, would be discussions of breaking such laws. Not to single out a single country, though. And, while the story is "strange" to me, as a US person, it might seem totally normal to someone else.
When laws are unjust, who can say where it ends. You can't depend on free-speech guarantees unless there is at least a strong societal norm protecting them. And even then, some people are willing to break norms, as I'm sure you can notice all around you.
Was it once true in the US that discussions of ending slavery were forbidden in some jurisdictions? I seem to recall that it was.
In any case, if a jurisdiction has unjust laws, making discussion of breaking them illegal might well be an additional unjust law. Unjust laws all the way down.

That's why I specifically asked in which countries.

Hmmm. And it might be that those with personal knowledge can't answer without putting themselves in legal jeopardy. Catch 22. And beware of blasphemy laws wherever they occur.

Good point, Buffy!

Those who know and love Thailand were not at all surprised by that case and mostly agree with what happened.

I disagree with "Hmmm. And it might be that those...". Human right organizations have data about bad human right situations. And for a westener, to point at this data and conclude that e.g. the situation of the question was the case in North Korea would be possible and no Catch 22.


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Should a PhD Supervisor have a PhD in the same research subject, as the PhD student?
Is it generally accepted in academia, that a PhD supervisor should have a PhD in the same research area as the student's PhD research area?
For example, let's assume that my research area is the ACM subject area "Information Systems" and the supervisor's research area is in Sociology > Psychology.

Down-voters should comment so that the question can be improved. This seems like a reasonable question to me.

@WetLabStudent I'm not the downvoter but downvoters aren't obliged to explain anything and shouldn't be pestered into doing so.

@DavidRicherby He is just asking their inputs for the question, politely. This is not pestering. If they don't want to, they can just choose to ignore it. If you don't know what is wrong with your question, how will you rectify it.

@WebLabStudent fyi, the help center > model says, "If you see misinformation, vote it down. Add comments indicating what, specifically, is wrong."

The word on your PhD doesn't mean that much. I have been doing gene therapy research for 5 years, my PhD will say "Pharmacy", but I won't be qualified to sell pills, and I most likely will not be teaching pharmacy students.

It doesn't matter what the supervisor's Ph.D. was in, originally: fields are protean and careers take all sorts of strange paths.  What really matters is whether the supervisor's knowledge is sufficient to supervise the research that the student will be conducting.  That depends on the path of their career, the precise focus of the student's research, etc.
My advisor, for example, had a Ph.D. in mathematics (since computer science didn't really exist as a separate field yet), but has worked in artificial intelligence, electrical engineering, physics, VLSI, biological modeling, and astronomy, and would be quite appropriate to supervise students in projects in any of those fields, if their focus and his background had sufficient overlap.  Likewise, my background in artificial intelligence was no barrier to supervising a biology Ph.D. (which I have done), given the path of my own research over time.

It would be impossible for all PhD supervisors to have a PhD in the same field as the PhD candidate is studding. If this would be the case there would never be PhDs awarded in new fields.
However, your supervisor should have a track record within the field. (S)he should have studied it and should have published in the field.
Sociology is a very broad field, and there are surely sociologist who have extensive knowledge about information systems and who have published about it.

+1 for "If this would be the case there would never be PhDs awarded in new fields."  Affinity with the subject is preferable and perhaps even required, but a PhD in the exact same field has never been a requisite as far as I am aware.

A supervisor needs to be able to coach you through your research and your entry into academia. This typically requires that she knows something of the field. She needs to know the important conferences to go, introduce you to the important people, have a realistic idea which journals are a realistic outlet for your papers, etc. etc. etc. This knowledge does not necessarily come from her PhD education, she may have specialised later into your field. The problem is not going to be your committee complaining, but you not getting the right couching and thus making wrong (career) decisions.
So I would say that it is necessary that your supervisor is embedded in your field, but not necessarily through her PhD, and this necessity is unlikely to be enforced by your committee.

This is quite interesting, only in that with my experience, while I had good supervision relating to my thesis work, neither of my supervisors directed me to specific journals, introducing me to important people or which conferences I should attend. That kind of coaching was not part of their job description and it was expected that I do this myself. This isn't to say that they didn't help me, both of them helped me get work in academia regarding teaching, but I'm not sure if the above coaching is an absolute requirement, or something some supervisors do while others do not...

It is certainly expected in my field, so any PhD student who does not receive that type of coaching has a severe disadvantage. These students exist, and some make it and become successful in academia, but most just cannot compete and are forced to leave academia after finishing their PhD. It is sad and wasteful, but it is certainly something the OP should consider when choosing what to do. How important this is depends apperently on what the norm is in his field, not just in Sweden but also internationally.

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Is there any ethical issue which prevents me from paying high quality authors monetary compensation, to agree to write papers with me?
I've recently started a PhD.  I'm having trouble getting high impact authors to agree to write papers with me.  Is there any ethical issue which prevents me from paying high impact authors monetary compensation, to agree to write papers with me?  I of course will obey any and all paper writing requirements, such as both must substantially contribute, etc...
Also, my original intention is that the monetary payments would be fully disclosed before the transactions, to all relevant parties, including my University, supervisors, opposing side in the final PhD, etc...
I kind of do the same thing with my daughter.  I hire a tutor, but ask them to help provide her with the required knowledge, but require her to do any and all actual work.

Most academic authors that I know are not particularly motivated by money (at least, not the kind of money your average PhD student can afford to offer).

I'll throw in that if you have trouble getting high impact authors to co-author that probably means (1) they don't know/trust you, (2) your work is not high-impact, or (3) they are your competition. I'd work more on figuring these out if you want to boost your academic career, rather than relying on money.

If your work is sufficiently interesting, they should be willing to write papers with you without any compensation from you.

Why would a high-impact author write papers with a new PhD student, (except for their own PhD students, of course)? There aren't enough hours in the day to write papers with every student who comes along. Build up a reputation for producing high quality work (e.g., with your own advisor) and then high-quality researchers will want to work with you.

In my academic papers, everyone had to list the source of their financial support for that topic. But, your university should have a person who knows the answer for your institution which may be different than other institutions. If you haven't already showered your department secretary with bribes and gifts, this is a good opportunity to start that.

I signed up on this stackexchange just to inform you that many people, me included, won't justify buying credit and reputation in academia or anywhere else! Thank you for helping the world become even more distorted by dishonesty, greed, and politics.

I think, although I'm not sure and hence this isn't an answer, that a key issue here is that high-impact authors are usually quite free to work on anything they like. They're funded by some institution or grant that gives them considerable discretion in their research, and although they may have teaching or other fixed-time responsibilities, they will write whatever papers they think are the best use of their available time. Using payment to affect that decision will undercut people's assumptions about what the person thinks of the merit of the particular research (yours).

... which still isn't to say it's necessarily unethical: after all if industry funds a particular research project then nobody is fooled into thinking the researcher would have worked on exactly the same thing had they not been funded. But it's certainly likely to make people angry, or to consider that if it wasn't improper then everyone would be charging PhD students for collaboration. Which they don't, and if you think they shouldn't charge then it's perhaps not proper to offer them payment either.

If this practice were allowed, what would stop high demand authors from being hired for many papers? I think it would end up driving their impact factors even higher and making the impact factor even worse to measure an author's quality, as well as labeling the high impact author as an author-for-hire, which would probably hurt their reputation more than the increased impact factor could help it.

The answers mostly focus on whether this meets various standards of ethics, but I think an important point is that, whether or not you think this is ethical, it simply isn't done.

People, in academia, would always be suspicious of you and your work.

@kundor  can happen http://jrichardstevens.com/articles/monastersky-ebay.pdf

To the OP: In his answer, Alexandros says that based on reading your LinkedIn profile, you are a ">50 year old CS professional serving on many CEO roles." If that is indeed the case, why do you want to get a PhD? I ask this because the reason you are getting a PhD may be atypical. If you were to explain your motivation, this would help us to better address your situation.

@user137: You make it sound like "high demand authors" were sitting idle and not producing any research output as long as they're not "hired for many papers". Participating in a paper in a meaningful way takes a fair amount of time, and there are only so many papers you can work on in any given amount of time.

@ff524: I agree that most high quality co-authors would not be motivated by money ..., however I only need to find one motivated co-author.   Perhaps I have more money than the average PhD student.  Even if I was average, the normal PhD student rate for Harvard, is about 50,000 USD/year.  By going to a University with no tuition, perhaps I can cut out the middle man (Harvard), and I'll have 200K to pay the same Harvard professors.  (I of course understand all the other advantages of Harvard).  So I don't think lack of money is always an issue.

@che_kid: (1) yes, I was hoping, by paying money, I could get higher quality authors to get to know me.

@David Richerby: thx but I'm interested in writing extra papers which are not required (or counted), on a slightly different topic, as compared to my advisor.  It is not always true, they don't have time.  From time to time even high quality co-authors end up unemployed.  During that time, perhaps they will have enough hours in the day, to co-author with PhD students who don't have access to Harvard quality co-authors.

@Boyko Perfanov: see above, students already pay, at Harvard, 50,000 USD / year to work with high quality authors.  I was just thinking of cutting out the middle man.

@Steve Jessop: thx but even if people were suspicious, because I paid a high quality co-author, since there is a peer review process, and since a higher quality co-author signed his/her name, perhaps less people would be less suspicious.  Even if they were still suspicious, my consideration was to work with higher quality co-authors, and then with my new knowledge, write papers on my own.  If they were suspicious, they could then simply judge me, on my own papers and ignore all paid co-author papers.

@user137: Great reflection, "If this practice were allowed"!  However, to the extent that this practice should not be allowed, there should be some kind of a "generally accepted PhD student code of ethics".  (Maybe a non-profit organization).  I'm not aware of any (other than at each University).

@user2379888: If they are suspicious, then they can always ignore all my paid co-author papers.  Then then can judge me on the merit, of my own solo papers.

@I Like to Code: As you asked, my interesting background, to be over 50 and go for a PhD follows.  My Swedish University had a major issue trying to find a teacher for a computer networking class.  They hired me, on a temp. contract.  During my first year teaching, I won the University teacher of the year award.  The University requires a PhD to be hired on a permanent employment contract (for teaching).  So I decided to study for a PhD.  My most recent two papers that I co-authored, were in 2012 (before my MSc) and averaged 10 citations per paper (Google Scholar).

If you are simply writing scientific papers, I don't think it is inherently wrong about hiring a collaborator. I do it all the time when I offer a student an RAship to work on a project and the student ends up as a co-author. It's a bit unusual that the student would be paying the professor, but I don't think there's an ethical problem there. (And in fact I do know of a few cases where a well-off individual has worked out an arrangement of this sort, albeit with a postdoc rather than someone more senior.) The only ethical issue I can see is that if the authors are required to disclosure their funding, the hired author might have to disclose that you had provided the funding. My student RAs always do so, after all -- we acknowledge the grant that supported them.
If the work is to be part of your thesis, things get more complicated. You would want to be very clear that you had not violated any university requirements for the preparation of the thesis. My gut feeling is that paying high-impact coauthors to help with the chapters crosses a line, but I can't nail it down to some particular rule. And obviously (I hope), paying anyone on your PhD committee would almost certainly create a conflict of interest that would be a significant breach of ethics.
All of that said, there most definitely is a reputational issue here. Word will get out that you are paying people to collaborate. Depending on your goals, this may not be in your advantage.

+1 for mentioning reputation. In my field (and probably many, many fields), a person hiring/paying a senior researcher would certainly be treated with disdain and not be good for one's career.

I think the other answers are way too nice. As for myself, I have never heard of such a insulting / distorted idea about what a PHD is. Do you want to buy yourself a PHD? There are countless diploma mills for that, so you could hang a useless paper on your wall to claim you have a PHD without doing all the necessary work / research yourself. Do you want to buy yourself an academic career by hiring established professors to write papers for and with you? That is even more insulting. If that was the case, every rich kid could tell his / her dad. "I want a PHD for Christmas. Buy me some high impact authors to write papers with me. Pleaaase..".
It does not work that way. And the fact that you are at the beginning of your PHD and you are even considering this, is even more infuriating for people who have busted their behinds to get a PHD (and some of the people in Academia SE still do to this day). Reconsider why you want a PHD and what you want a PHD for. I am mostly sure you want it for the all the wrong reasons and not because you actually want to do research. In that case, you should probably spare yourself the agony, because without a passion for research your PHD road will be a long, rocky one.
UPDATE: In retrospect, the tone of my answer is pretty hostile. Still, the upvotes showed that my initial reaction to the OP's question also expressed an important part of the Academia SE community. In this sense, my answer might still be useful if it makes the OP reconsider his "thought" of hiring "high-impact" authors to write papers with him, since such an action will probably cause much more damage to him than my "harsh" words.
Moreover, since we had a previous question about "Is it ethical to hire a programmer for ... my CS PHD" and now "Is it ethical to hire high-impact authors ... to write papers with me", I sincerely hope that in the future we do not get any other questions like "Is it ethical to hire a professor to write my PHD thesis if I still do the typesetting in Latex and all spell checking" or "Is it ethical to hire a professor to do my PHD defence, since I will still bring the pizza and the drinks".

Don't confuse published research with the thesis.

@briandfoy In my discipline (CS) without published research there is no thesis. And most theses there are "stapler" and basically present what you wrote on the papers. So, there is no confusion on my part.

Not only is this rude, but you seem to assume a bit much here. Assuming that he simply want to buy a PHD is a bit much. The OP explicitly stated " I of course will obey any and all paper writing requirements, such as both must substantially contribute, etc..."  I agree that the student may not understand "the point" of a PHD, but tearing him to shreds doesn't help him, and only makes you look rude.

@Eric If you look at the LinkedIn profile of the OP (which I did before answering - did you?) the OP is a >50 year old CS professional serving on many CEO roles. So, give him some credit that he can handle harsh criticism. I am trying to protect him from doing such a horrible mistake, because the academia world is not the corporate "if we can't do it ourselves, hire someone that can" world. Also, the "tutor" addition to his question shows his obvious misunderstanding. He already has a tutor (his supervisor) ...

...(continued) and he has the capacity to learn from all those "high-impact" authors by simply reading their papers. But he must be the one to come up with the way to extend them and learn how to write a high-impact paper from simply reading many of them and consulting his supervisor, instead of hiring "tutors".

Hang on, PhD students often collaborate with co-authors on papers that they publish prior to their thesis. Nevertheless, they do the necessary work and research for themselves. They aren't saying "Pleeeease, I want a PhD for nothing at all", are they? Suppose the questioner pays the collaborator, and also contributes just as much to the paper as a typical PhD student?

@SteveJessop Sorry to have to break it to you but as a wild analogy,  dating a woman and paying a woman to "date" you is not the same thing. It is the payment that makes the difference and not the hours or the effort you spend at the "date".

Then I guess the question is whether the PhD is awarded for persuading women to date you, or awarded for dressing smartly and eating at fancy restaurants. If it's for the work, then it is the hours you spend on the date (and the quality of the output) that the PhD committee will judge, and not why your date was there with you or how desirable she is. Perhaps it's for both things, although PhD students aren't explicitly assessed for how high-impact their co-authors are as a condition of awarding the degree.

People complaining that Alexandros was "mean" are ridiculous.  Perhaps he should have put a "Trigger Warning" on his post.  The OP isn't saying he isn't able to get published, it's that because he's junior, his stuff doesn't get as much attention.  Welcome to the club.  Most PhD students, and even junior faculty, are not high profile.  Part of the career is working for it.  I wouldn't respect someone who bought his way up the ladder.

Universities pay famous non-academics (CEO's, actors, musicians, athletes, etc.) and grant them professorships just so the school can advertise that they have so and so on the faculty. These professors rarely if ever teach a single class. How could they when they are touring with their band or filming a movie? Television commercials have historically paid well known personalities endorse their products. Why is it wrong for a PhD student to align themself with and pay a well known........

.........researcher to co-author a paper? It seems more unethical for the "expert" have their grad assistants and students conduct research and take full credit for the work. @corvus below does it the correct way.

This isn't overly hostile. It is spot on. If a PhD candidate is this clueless about what academia is, he needs to be told sooner rather than later.

@JJLL It's wrong for a PhD student to pay for co-authors because it undermines the integrity of the academic profession. The purpose of getting published is to further the academic field first, and demonstrate one's dedication to the field and intellectual merit second. Collaboration is an implicit peer agreement that someone has worked hard for the right for their ideas to be recognized. Paying for that right throws all merit into question, and skews everything the system stands on. It's akin to buying grades on an exam, or paying for desired results on a drug test.

@JJLL There is a huge difference between paying someone for commercials and paying someone for what is supposed to be a non for profit collaboration. As for your last point, with all due respect arguments of the type "this is OK because there is an even bigger problem" are junk.

@Alexandros Point well taken. I hadn't  realized is business background.

@NickS. Actually, there isn't. Switching ethics as it suits is what is junk. Universities give professorships to well known people so they can claim them as  faculty to lure students.  The "professors" rarely if ever teach a class. A well respected university near me claimed an Oscar Awarding winning actor and world-class classical violinist as their own. Neither taught because........they were acting and performing. In this case, if you read what the OP wrote, is in no way shape or form dishonest. He CLEARLY stated that he would reveal all to the school. He also stated that HE was going to

conduct the research. So again, how is that different than hiring an actor to represent your product even though you researched and developed it, marketed it, distributed it, etc. How different is it from schools that "hire" high profile celebrities who never teach to enhance the legitamacy of their faculty. And by the way, it is a fallacy of logic to reject an idea because one element may be wrong or because a person (like me) can't articulate as well as another. Peace.

@JJLL I have never run into the issue you mention, and I think it is usually not done in my area. But I can see how in other departments this could be done. Anyhow, the question i have for you is the following: in your opinion is it ethical for Universities to do that?

@NickS.   Hey Nick. Good question. My comments were offered as an example of how universities behave.  If it is universally acceptable/ethical  for professors to use paid graduate assistants to conduct research and only the professor's name goes on the publication, then how much more or less acceptable/ethical is a student doing the research and paying a professor to claim co-authorship. Yes, I understand the directionality, professor to student, student to professor.  I don't have the answer Nick but, at least on the surface, it seems hypercritical to accept one but not the other

Don't know how legite the site is but check-out Professors  Oprah Winfrey and Jesse Ventura:  http://www.earnmydegree.com/education-resources/career-info/7-celebrities-who-have-taught-as-college-professors/.     New York Magazine: http://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/topic/celebrity-professors-2013-1/. And huffingtonpress:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/07/celebrity-professors-whic_n_805542.html

@JJLL What do you mean by "It is universally acceptable ..."? Again you use examples of unethical behavior, as it is the norm. Doing that is unfortunately happening in some fields, but again your examples are unethical and many if not most professors disapprove. Yes there are some unethical universities and some unethical profs, but you are generalizing. And I, and most profs I know, don't accept either, how does that make me hypocritical?   As for the articles, these are exceptions, not the norm...

@NickS.  I agree with you Nick. I always worked independently and whatever my grades they were my grades. But I am not certain that these behaviors are not more common than you think.  And to be fair, aren't you also generalizing when you say "most professors"?  The original poster obviously (?) is highly ethical or else he would not have asked his question. It is my understanding that "ethics" is quite complex. Does acting in such-and-such manner hurt anyone physically or mentally? Is it illegal? Does it violate norms? Does the section violate, say in this case, the universities policy ......

......on research and plagiarism? Will the action provide an unfair advantage or disadvantage? We don't know where the poster attends school so we can't fully understand the standards of that culture. I would like to know who would agree to the OP's proposal. Would that possibly harm their reputation? In that case, it would be unethical because of the potential harm to the "experts" reputation. Once again Nick, I essentially agree with you, I just like looking at situations from different perspectives. This originates from me always trying to do the right thing and being told "don't look....

......at the other guy." I have realized late in life that doing the right thing is innate to me, but I am no longer convinced that it is always practical. Perhaps this realization comes from the fact that I hold a doctorate and work outside an academic setting. Book knowledge is not always the same as real-world knowledge. For example, if the OP asks university administrators his question, he may receive a different response than the book publisher which sells the text books used by his university.

@JJLL You misquoted me I didn't say "most professors" which would be a generalization, I said "many if not most" and especially  "most professors I know". It is true thought that in my field, mathematics, this type of issues don't appear as often as in other areas. In mathematics it is hard to fake research, and it is much more rare for students to make research, and profs just to add their names on the paper. It does happen, but from my experience the community dissaproves. Again, the point I am trying to make is that one should not start any argument with "this is less worse/unethical than".

I agree with the statements given here. I have been down the rocky road of relying on a crutch to obtain an inappropriate grade. It's much easier for me to just do the work myself; then I not only have the knowledge that I am capable of conducting the applicably necessary effort, but moreover I have learned the skills necessary to ensure successful results.

@JJLL: they never actually called them "Professors" Oprah Winfrey and Jesse Ventura. You don't need a PhD (or even any credential) in order to have some useful real-world knowledge worth teaching. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are college dropouts, etc. http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1999-05-19/business/9905190198_1_stedman-graham-kellogg-oprah-winfrey

But no one is on the more interesting point: If I pay someone to work with me, and at the end of the day I didn't really make any significant contribution, is the other person going to point that out and take all the credit? Is he going to refund me my money? Come on, this won't happen. What happened is that I just bought a Phd. Nice!

I think @Alexandros understood OP as "I want others to do work instead of me", while what I think OP meant is "I want my work to be taken more seriously". Therefore Alexandros' fury is both understandable and out of place.

@Alexandros: I didn't say, "write papers for and with you".  I only said write papers with me (co-author).  As I said in the comments, to my question, Harvard students are already asking their dads for 50,000 / year, because they want to work with high quality co-authors.  I'm just cutting out the middle man.

@caseyr547: It does appear rude and insensitive, however this is exactly the type of feedback I really like.  I don't always think from all perspectives and Alexandros (and 77 others) have really helped me look at the situation, in a new way.

@JJLL: You mention that it is more unethical for the "expert".  I thought the same.  However, high quality authors would not risk their reputation being unethical, so I was assuming that, in general, the high quality author would act as the police, and make sure that I contributed substantially to the paper.  If I didn't contribute, I should write in the agreement, that they get to keep all of the money, and I have no right to dispute it.

@CodeMoose: You mention "Collaboration is an implicit peer agreement that someone has worked hard for the right for their ideas to be recognized".  To the extent that Harvard's students can more easily access high quality co-authors, it appears that there is not equal opportunity (for the students who can't pay 50,0000 / year).  So I don't think it is always unethical, under all circumstances, for someone to pay the minimum, to have equal access to the same high quality co-authors.

@Ant: I don't agree, that the money would never be refunded.  To get around your valid point, I could simply put in the agreement, that if I don't substantially contribute to the paper, they can keep the money.  I could also agree never to see them in person or talk on the phone (and make all our email correspondence public).

@ToddBooth. Your Harvard 50,000$ argument is invalid. Tuition fees are for undergraduate education. Contrary, PHDs are usually funded, so you cannot just buy your way to a PHD in Harvard and buying access to "high-quality" authors. Also, USA <> Entire World. There are many high-quality European (probably Asian as well) public universities without tuition that produce high-quality research.

@Alexandros: The Harvard PhD education is about 50,000 USD/year tuition.  Thx!, I now see that some fellowships, will cover the tuition and fees.  You said "argument is invalid" ... "PHDs are usually funded".  For the other case (not funded, PhD student pays full tuition), do you think my argument is valid?

@ToddBooth, you would be hard pressed to find many self-funded PhD students at the top tier American universities in STEM fields.  If the school admits someone without funding, that means no one there was interested enough in the applicant to want to support them.  Why would you go to a place where you were only wanted for your tuition dollars?  Many places won't even admit unfunded students for this reason.  I challenge you to find a single faculty member, anywhere, who self-funded his PhD education.

@user237988: Your comment was very helpful.  My original question was based on my incorrect assumption, that most all USA PhD students paid a very high tuition.  Thx so much!  It must be very hard to get in, so the students should be very proud.

Is there any ethical issue which prevents me from paying high impact authors monetary compensation, to agree to write papers with me?

Assuming you are honest and open about what you are doing, and you don't violate any of the usual ethical rules about collaboration and authorship, I doubt you can get in any trouble for doing this.
However, your collaborators might get in trouble if they accept your proposal.  If they are already being paid to do this work, then their employer or funding agency will be unhappy to hear that they are making side deals for extra money, so you'll have to be careful in how this is set up.  Furthermore, being paid by a student to collaborate looks terrible, since it suggests they are exploiting you or extorting money from you.  Even if they insist it was your idea, I'm sure administrators will be unhappy with them.
In any case, this would be bad for everyone's reputation, as Corvus pointed out at the end of his answer.  You'd effectively be announcing that you can't convince people to work with you without offering them money, and your collaborators would be announcing that they sold out and decided to earn money via a project they wouldn't otherwise consider worth their time.  Unless you work in a field with an exceptionally strong commercial ethos, neither side would end up looking good.
Instead of offering money, it's worth rethinking how you are trying to attract collaborators.  For example, are you trying to recruit people to work on your own ideas?  That can be a tough sell, since they probably have lots of exciting projects already taking up their time (otherwise you wouldn't be interested in them in the first place), and they have little idea of how skilled you are or how good your ideas are.  Instead, you might start by seeing whether you could contribute in some way to their current projects.  If you impress them by doing so, then they may be much more open to other ideas you have.

"their employer or funding agency will be unhappy to hear that they are making side deals for extra money" That is not necessarily true: the last (UK) academic job description I read in detail explicitly said that the person was allowed to spend up to X weeks a year on external consultancy without needing specific permission. As I recall, when applying for a UK research grant, you state what fraction of their time the PI will spend on the grant. That's usually less than 100%, to allow for teaching, which allows scope for side projects. (But +1 for the rest of the answer.)

@Anonymous Mathematicia: Wow, your  comment really helped me!!! rethink ... attract collaborators ... own ideas  ... tough sell ... contribute to their current projects.  I had not tried that and I'm sure I'll have a much better chance with your great strategy!!!

If you are lining their pocket with a secret bribe, then of course it is wrong on several levels. If you are offering to hire them in an openly declared consulting role on a problem, and willing to pay their rate and deal with the appropriate paperwork, that's more plausible.  Note, however, that anybody actually high quality is likely to have a consulting rate in excess of $200/hour, and you probably can't afford them.

Especially since a decent research paper is going to need at least 100 hours of work.

Luckily, there is no genuine issue here, since, I'd wager, none of the people you'd fancy paying to collaborate would do so, even for significant sums of money. This is lucky for you, since if any such thing happened there'd arise many problems... first about whether you earned a Ph.D., second, about your own fitness for the academic milieu...
So, in brief, don't do it, don't try it. Even a failed attempt would be so operationally unfortunate for you that the ethical issue wouldn't even get to the front of the queue.

TLDR You can hire researchers to work with you,
but you still need to do independent work for your PhD thesis.
I am unsure if you understand what is the typical research process
for a PhD student.
Based on my observations of my PhD classmates,
I would say that this is a more or less typical PhD experience
in an applied math PhD program:

A student would have a professors as his/her PhD adviser,
and meet the adviser approximately once every one or two weeks.
(Some students have two PhD co-advisers but the process is similar.)
The adviser would give high-level input such as:
why don't you read this paper,
can we build a mathematical model of this problem?
The student would do the work,
and discuss his/her findings with the adviser during the next meeting.
At the end of about two or three years,
the student would write the paper,
with the adviser providing some feedback.
After 4-6 years, the student writes a thesis
which is basically stapling 2-3 of his/her research papers together.

In our field, basically the student does all the tedious work,
while the adviser provides high-level guidance.
I think that it is basically impossible
to hire anyone to do your PhD work for you
because you are awarded a PhD
when you can demonstrate through your independent work
that you are capable of independent research.
(Caveat: Among my classmates,
occassionally one of the 3 chapters of their thesis
was joint work with a fellow PhD student.
Nevertheless, at least the other 2 chapters were his/her independent work.)
Finally, perhaps your expectations are unrealistic.
I think it is fair to say that in almost any field,
most PhD students do not co-author a paper
with a professor in the top 1% of their field
during the course of their PhD studies.
You don't have to co-author a paper with a famous professor
in order to do excellent work.
In fact, if you do co-author a paper with a famous professor,
people might discount your contribution to the paper
because they think
"This is just another one of Professor X's amazing ideas
that Todd Booth just latched on to."
This thinking would be further reinforced
if they found out that you paid for the collaboration
as this is extremely unusual in academia
for a co-author to be paying another co-author out-of-pocket.
(Usually funding comes through grants and not personal funds.)
Instead of trying to pay a famous professor to work with you,
why not work to become a famous professor in your own right?
If you do excellent work and become known for it,
it is extremely likely that chances will arise
for you to work with other famous professors.

@i like to code.  Hello Coder. Is it possible that people would question the expert thinking he had a student do all the work and he took credit for it? Why would he (or she) need a student collaborator?

From my understanding (others can confirm or deny this), when a paper is written by a professor and a PhD student(s), people expect that the PhD student(s) did most of the tedious work while the professor provided high-level guidance. This doesn't mean that the professor's contribution is less important, just that it is different from the student's contribution.

@i like to code. But are you sure it isn't the professor who gets the credit. Do the students get credit as co-authors. I really don't know.

@I Like to Code: You wrote, "if you do co-author a paper with a famous professor, people might discount your contribution".  Great reflection and extremely helpful.  My new plan is to get someone, just a little bit higher quality than me.  You wrote, "hire anyone to do your PhD work".  If I worked with a high quality co-author, I would assume their standard is higher, and I would in fact, do much more work (and learn more) than with a lower quality co-student.

@JJLL From my understanding, all of the authors get recognition for a jointly published paper. How much "credit" a student author gets may depend on how the professor speaks about the student. For example, if the professor says, "This student was extremely creative and hardworking and it is really his/her work, with minimal contributions from me" then other researchers would have a much higher estimation of the student's ability.

@ToddBooth Based on what you said about your situation, I am wondering why you feel the need to write a paper with a famous professor. If your goal is to take the job at your Swedish university, isn't a PhD from a "good enough" school sufficient? Does it make a difference whether you got a PhD from a top-5 vs a top-100 school?

@ToddBooth It is hard to say what is the best type of collaborator for you. Working with a fellow student or less famous professor may mean that you get more time and more help, but when working with a famous or more senior professor, you might get better guidance but less help. You have to figure out what is better for you.

@I Like to Code, As I understand, my PhD can even be from a top-1000 school.  However, I have a passion to learn and I thought it would help by working with the top% of authors.  Thx for the helpful comment that, by working with authors who are not in the top%, they will have more time to help me.  So I'll start lower and try hard to work my way to the top% (via hard work) without payments.

This is not the same as hiring a tutor.  I suppose its possible that you could find a retired or semi-retired academic who is interested in your work.  That said, the usual course of action is for you to find a researcher to work for or with, and write your own paper with their advice (and their name on your paper so you can publish).  I don't know what your field of study is, but the route you are suggesting doesn't sound like it will help you get grant funding in the future.
I think the problem you are having is related to the expense of running a research laboratory, and the way researchers are judged by their peers.  I am not a researcher, but I have had a front row seat for my lab's struggle for research funding - so here is some perspective.
The cost of running a research lab can be huge.  For instance, the cost for some types of microscopes can easily be 6 figures.  And the yearly maintenance contract for a microscope can be 5 figures.  And of course most labs employ lab technicians and/or post-docs.  On top of this, research groups pay their university a percentage of some of their expenses - salaries and some purchases.  For a "wet" lab, this is almost 50%.  In other words, a researcher's time has to equal a lot of money.
So a lab has to get some grants, and researchers must have published research in order to get those grants.  An experiment with negative results, even important and valuable negative results, generally cannot be published.  So successful, accepted research is the indirect source of almost 100% of the funding of many labs.  Sound like a crapshoot?  Yes it is.  Encourages bias?  Ah hum mumble.  Do researchers generally give into this bias?  I think most of them try very hard not to.
The grants that a lab receives are peer reviewed - that is researchers are on each other's grant panels.  Researchers cannot afford to be involved in a research project unless they can defend it.  Research can be highly specialized, and this makes it difficult to defend against critics who are experts in something slightly different.  Researchers I know always hope to get panel members who do very similar work - if not, they are likely to get turned down.
There is a lot of pressure put on researchers, and they value their time and reputation highly.  Unless you can substantially contribute to funding a lab or have a project which the researcher really understands and believes in, they won't risk working for you.  And there's no denying that there can be a status thing here - they would rather work with you then for you.
http://www.nature.com/jcbfm/journal/v30/n7/full/jcbfm201051a.html
http://acfnewsource.org.s60463.gridserver.com/science/negative_results.html

Thx for the incredibly helpful comments.  I now plan to do the following.  I'll look for co-authors, who need papers concerning their funded projects, and where I can use my skills to help them, on their ideas.  This will be much, much easier than what I've been doing, which was to get co-authors to work with me, on my projects, which have no funding.  Instead of trying to get the top high quality co-authors, I'll shoot for co-authors who have higher quality than me, but not so much higher.

This sounds like a much more effective approach.  Good luck!!

You say you have "recently started a Ph.D."  At that stage, you're only expected to be gaining your bearings in the field the Ph.D. is about.  You shouldn't jump ahead of yourself.
Typically, your connections with other researchers will come from your advisor at this stage.  Later, as you learn more about the field, you will develop more independent relationships with other researchers based on your level of scholarship.
In many fields, it is common for top Ph.D. candidates not to publish until towards the end of the graduate program, after they have actually produced valuable research.  The research tends to define the authorship, not the other way around.
Furthermore, single-authored papers are arguably more prestigious than those with collaborators, all else being equal, because they reflect a higher level of intellectual independence.  Caveat: Single authored papers are only possible in some fields.

The relative prestige of single-author papers varies from field to field. In my own field (theoretical computer science), single-author papers are rather rare and I've not noticed anyone attach extra prestige to them.

In my opinion it would be unethical to do this, as it would mean that students or researchers from richer backgrounds would have an unfair advantage over those from more working class backgrounds. In some ways it could be seen to parallel the idea of unpaid internships which give an automatic head start to young people from richer backgrounds who have the freedom to focus on obtaining key skills relevant to their desired career, while others have to take whichever paying job that allows them to subsist themselves/ their families.

You don't know anything about the posters background, and >50 year olds usually don't rely on their parents money. I would assume that he worked hard to make money, and has the right to spend it however he likes.

@gnasher729 How do you define entitlement? A person can work very hard for many years as a cleaner or in some other low paid job, reach their 50's and have nothing to show in monetary terms for all their many years of hard labour. Why should someone who has had the good fortune to have obtained a high paid job or perhaps who has not had dependants to provide for (regardless of whether they're hard working or not) be more entitled to such perks that give them an advantage over their less well off peers? I think the perception that some are more "entitled" than others is a malady in the world.

Taking this question seriously, since you appear to be independently wealthy, you could establish a research foundation (The Booth Foundation) and announce grants in your particular area of interest. I still doubt that you will get listed as a co-author but your foundation will at least get an acknowledgment.
Or you could set up your own own research institute, in which case you might get courtesy last author depending on your field.
Neither option guarantees that anyone serious will actually want to work with you, but you might attract some mercenaries or cranks. Cf. Discovery Institute.
Ps Neither of these will get you anywhere near a PhD at a reputable university.

authors: Vladimir F Героям слава


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Can I include an author URL as part of the affiliation block in an IEEE Conference Paper?
I have an OrcId.  When I publish papers, for example to IEEE conferences, I'd like to include my OrcId URL, in addition to my email in the author block in the document (in case my email changes and for collecting search results).  Is is allowed, for example with IEEE "related" events, to include an author URL, in addition to, an author email?

Sure. The IEEE conference template even includes an example of an author who gives a web URL in the affiliation block:

Michael Shell
  School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
  Georgia Institute of Technology
  Atlanta, Georgia 30332–0250
  Email: http://www.michaelshell.org/contact.html

The variety of examples in the template further make it clear that authors can choose whether or not to include details such as email, web URL, address, telephone number, and fax (!) number in the author affiliation block.


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How should I refer to non-permanent Web Pages, via Web Pages saved in PDF format?
This question is only concerning references to non-permanent (and even semi-permanent) information, for example, Web pages (but not limited to web pages).
I understand that some researches post the normal author, year, time, etc... and the URL of a referenced non-permanent Web Page.
I've heard that some readers or reviewers may object to reference any non-permanent source.  To eliminate these complaints, am I allowed to simply include the original web page, saved as a PDF file, as as an attachment, with the research paper? (to, for example, IEEE)?
Can I include the PDF referenced web pages, via arXiv?  (as part of the published research paper).
Can I reference the PDF referenced web pages, via PDF files I host on Google drive (or something similar)?
I'm aware that in certain situations, you should not reference a Web page. However, that is not my question (and in certain situations, it is OK to reference web pages; for example, if your study is showing how the web page changes over time :-)  ).

Are you wanting to reference the unpublished material as a primary source, or citing it as a previous intellectual work?

@jakebeal, thanks!!!  I am interested in both referencing 1) "unpublished material as a primary source" and interesting in 2) "citing is as a previous intellectual work".

Generally speaking, many web pages are protected by copyright (including any web pages that do not explicitly specify a more permissive license) so redistribution of a page in PDF form may not be legally permitted.

@ff524, good point.  I'm also interested in including or referencing my own created Web Page PDFs, for sites that allow it, such as WikiPedia.Org (ex: see http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Terms_of_Use).

I think that there are three main cases to consider here:

The web pages are aggregated data, e.g., in your example of a study that quantifies change over time.  Collecting web pages as data is routinely done in scientific studies, such as complexity studies that track a lot of pages.  In this case, the pages are not generally cited (and any data from them is likely to be at least partially abstracted and de-identified, to deal with a variety of legal issues).
An individual web page is a subject of study, e.g., for literary or intellectual criticism.  In this case, the standard references to the URL with time accessed is appropriate, along with block quoting of critical passages as part of your analysis.  You should save full copies yourself, and share them upon request, but likely cannot publish them unless you obtain permission or unless the source has explicitly adopted a copyright that allows republication (e.g., Wikipedia).
The web page is being cited as a scientific work (some overlap with the last case).  In this case also, the standard reference of URL with time accessed is appropriate.  This is unusual, since most scientific works go into archival papers of some form, but does happen---I've certainly done so, when that is actually the right document to cite.  This should still be a document with some expectation of longevity, e.g., a blog post on a scientist's established site, the archives of a mailing list or discussion group, a manual from a piece of software's distribution site.

First of all, there are two common usage cases of referring to web pages. There is use like any other reference - in which case you refer to mainly the written content on a particular web page (hopefully, and in many cases, this is dated). The other case is when you refer to a website such as academia.stackexchange.com.
Websites are inherently dynamic and their use is not as a reference (a footnote may be more appropriate here).
The primary factor in deciding how to use the materials is by looking at their role within the paper. In your case you are looking at specific parts of dynamic web pages. These pages would in effect be illustrations, not unlike pictures of observations or experiments (say a set of photo's from microscope observations in the case of a biology paper). The papers/pdfs should be treated as such and either included in-line, as appendices, or made available as separate download (preferably through the publisher).


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Terrible grade in undergraduate research project, how will this affect graduate admissions?
I have graduated this year with a second class first division. In addition, I ranked sixth. However, the problem is that I scored a D+ in my undergrad research project. Now I am aiming to pursue a masters degree at UK. My supervisor did not show up regularly plus he was 2 hours far away from my place.
I am really worried if this is going to ruin my chances into getting accepted in a good university such as Glasgow, Sheffield, Bristol or Bath. Do you think I have a chance?
BTW: I am an international student majored in engineering.

Related (though sadly, unanswered) question: How to mitigate bad grade in research on PhD application?

Are you worried about admission to PhD or masters? A good masters project should (at least partially) compensate a not so good undergrad.

I'd be careful with the explanation "My supervisor did not show up regularly plus he was 2 hours far away from my place." Yes, it's unfair and understandable, but it also sounds like blaming others. As trite as it sounds, I'd focus on the lessons learned here. Also: Is there a way in which you can show that you acquired the necessary skills later? Personally, I got the worst passing grade in stats (undergraduate psychology -- due to a week of caffeine, which keeps you awake but turns your brain into concrete) and used my diploma thesis to show my competency in this area.

Do you think I have a chance?

Yes.
I was accepted to a masters program with some bad grades on my undergraduate transcript, some courses with less then 40% marks. In graduate school I got a distinction and now I'm a postdoc.
Doing poorly in a single course won't ostracize you from all graduate schools.

Except at a handful of schools, taught MSc course in the UK are generally unfunded and not selective. Full fee paying international students are essentially the holy grail of students in the UK. With a 2.1 and 5-10k for fees you should have a large choice of good schools.


text:
send a language document after phd interview?
I did the PhD interview two weeks ago, and in the application before I mentioned French as a language I speak, but in the interview they only tested another language, and in the application, I didn't include the language certificate, as it is not required, but I nevertheless had it available, now can I send it to the committee after the interview? It might say something.

Why do you think it might be necessary or even useful to do this?

Ok, it might work to my advantage if someone else provided it or provided a lower level

Unless you are seeking a PhD in a French-speaking country or your research area is directly related to French, I'm sure nobody cares about it.

My research area is related to French, my point is that how it would be perceived after two weeks after the intevriew?

Unless there is a lot of competition I would say that if it were the deciding factor they would ask for it. You can of course send a brief email to state that you realised that it might be relevant and you would be happy to provide your certificate if needed.


text:
Is it possible to have the contract starting date before actually starting to work?
I got an offer for an assistant professor position in the USA starting on September 1st. Classes start on August 21st. So I am expected to start teaching at the university before I'm actually employed. Until this point, ok, I don't mind.
However, as I am a foreigner, I can enter the USA with my H1B visa (work visa sponsored by the university) only 10 days before the contract starts. 10 days before will be August 22 (remember: classes start on August 21!). I would prefer to enter the USA before August 22, to organize my life before I start the full-time position (rent a house, buy a car, hire internet, electricity, do all the moving, etc).
Is it possible to ask the university to sign my contract starting 1 or 2 months before September 1st so I can enter the US before August 22? I wouldn't ask for more salary for that 1st year, of course. It will be only an administrative solution for me to have a visa earlier.
Is it possible?

"So I am expected to start teaching at the university before I'm actually employed. Until this point, ok, I don't mind."
Stop thinking of teaching as a moral mission. Teaching is only a small drop in the way you help students, but it is a job you perform for the university. If it is a private university, even worse: you are paying some big head salary with your free work. If you really need to volunteer, find more meaningful way to do it :)

Are you expected to teach a class that semester?

Have you actually confirmed with them in writing that they expect you to start teaching in August? I highly doubt they'd do that, which means you start teaching not earlier then Sept. 1st.

This may be a silly question, but are you absolutely sure that the start date of your contract is September 1, not January 9?  I'm sure you're aware that people in the United States write dates differently from almost every other country in the world.

I've started jobs before there's work to be done, sometimes by up to 1-2 months. Typically they give you busy-work to do, like reading contracts and training

Hi all, yes, I asked for confirmation, and the head of the department confirmed that the contract starts on September 1st, but classes start on August 21st.

Of course you can and should ask the university to help you deal with this problem. They have done all the work so far in the hiring process, arranging the visa and writing the contract. It's in their interest as well as yours to straighten this out.
Let us know what happens.

You surely can ask, but I suggest that you do not ask for an earlier contract date, but for a solution for the real problems that you have.
That is, do not ask "can you just put a different date on my contract". This smells bad for me, especially if it is done explicitly to mislead border control. (Although if the university indeed wants you to start teaching before the contract starts, this smells equally bad for me.)
At the same time, the date on the contract is not your real problem. Your real problem is organizing your life. So, just explicitly tell the university that you need time "to organize your life", mention the visa problem, and ask for suggestions. You may find that the university has standard policies and processes regarding this.
Also, are you sure that the university actually expects you to start work before the official contract start date?

Thank you for the reply and suggestion! Yes, the head of department explained that to me more than once. Everybody starts on mid-August and finishes mid-May, while everybody's contract goes from September to end of May.

"This smells bad for me, especially if it is done explicitly to mislead border control."
I'm not sure I agree that that is what is going on here. If one starting to teach on date X, one will be prepping for classes weeks or months before hand. So one is going to be doing work for the new job well before the first date of classes.

You and your new department are now partners: They want you to succeed in your job, and they need you to do what is necessary for their teaching mission. As a consequence, nobody is well served if the earliest you can show up is a couple of days after classes start.
So write your future department head an email explaining the situation: That visa rules say that you can only get there by a date after classes start, and ask whether the start date of your contract can be changed to make it possible for you to be there when you need to be there. That is clearly also in the department's interest, so should not present any difficulties.
(There is an ethical issue about an employer expecting you to teach starting ten days before your contract starts: They expect you to work for free for a third of a month. I consider this unethical. Whether you want to press that point is of course an entirely different question, but you don't have to: You have good other reasons why you can't start teaching when they want you to teach.)

I totally agree with you about the ethical issue. I thought it was quite strange, but it is the same for the whole university: everybody starts teaching on mid-August and finishes mid-May, while everybody's contract goes from September to end of May. I don't know why...

@Lis True, and my contract works the same way. But I do think that the year I was hired, I was paid for that half month, as should be.

Not knowing which university you will be employed at, I looked at several university websites regarding protocol for new employees requiring an H1B visa, including Boston University, UC Berkeley, and Missouri University, among others.
What I have  learned is they have an International Student and Scholar Office or something similar, that petitions the US Citizenship and Naturalization Office for the H1B visa on your behalf. They  supply information regarding you background, qualifications for the proffered position, and the position begin and end dates. They subsequently  receive the approval form, Form I797, and send you copies of the petition, approval Form I797, as well as any information you might need navigating the process for obtaining your visa at the US Consulate or Embassy in your country, as well as information about  traveling to the US.
Have you received these forms? If not,  I would immediately get in touch with your contact person at the University and inquire when you will be receiving the forms, and if there's any other information they may be able to provide to streamline the process. They have advisors dedicated to international students and scholars and you may already have one assigned. I found departments dedicated to international students and scholars on the university websites. If you don't believe you have been assigned an advisor, you should check the school website and find that department.
From what I have read, the process to obtain the H1B Visa can take several months when everything is going smoothly; it can take much longer should an issue arise. The sooner you can get it done, the better.
When reading the information provided, it does sound like there may be an employment begin and end dates as well as contract begin and end dates provided on form I797. The employment dates may differ from the contract dates. I can only guess, maybe the contract runs by fiscal year, or maybe there's an onboarding type class you have to participate in prior to having your contract become effective, you have a different employment designation until then. It doesn't sound like a critical issue, just something needing clarification.
I hope this helps. Hopefully, if you have not yet received it, you will receive the petition, the approval, and an employee information packet that explains everything very soon.
Good luck!

Thank you for your reply. I haven't been assigned an advisor for the H1B process yet, but the head of the department told me that it is the next step after we have signed the contract.


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What is the difference between MRC Postdoctoral Training Scheme and Career Development Fellowship at the LMB (Cambridge, UK)?
I'm applying for a job at the LMB in Cambridge, UK. I am aware that the LMB offers two paths for a postdoc: an MRC Postdoctoral Training Scheme and a Career Development Fellowship.
I am unclear of the implications that each one entails.
For the postdoctoral training scheme, I will receive a settlement allowance of £1,000 that is taxable but not pensionable. I will have to find a mentor in the institute and will receive an allowance of £850 per annum in year 1, increasing to £1,300 per annum in year 2 and £1,800 per annum in year 3 and beyond. This allowance will be taxable but not consolidated for pension purposes and paid on a monthly basis as a normal salary throughout the year. No redundancy payment is made at the end of this fixed-term contract.
While with the career development fellowship, I will have no formal mentoring and will not receive the allowances but will be eligible for a redundancy payment at the end of your fixed-term contract.
What are the pros/cons of either?

"£850 per annum" or "£850 per month"? Anyway, it seems the heart of your question is financial, not so much academic.

Do you have links to the details on these schemes, since otherwise it's a bit hard to answer by anyone not based there? In particular, an MRC 'Career Development Fellowship' usually refers to the MRC's independent group leader career establishment fellowship. This would not be an either-or comparison with a postdoc training award, as they're for quite different career stages. But perhaps LMB have some alternative local usage?

Last time I checked Career Development Award fellows are seen as junior PIs, and a CDA is the first step towards having your own lab. As such you will likely employee your own postdocs and technicians, and follow your own science, and be awarded substantial research costs to fund the research of you and your team. You will be paid on a salary scale similar to that of a tenure track professor likely somewhere in the £40k-£50k ballpark). The scheme is administered at the national level. This would count as a "first major funding" and you would not then be eligible for further funding schemes targeted as "my first grant" style awards (such as the MRCs NIRG, the BBSRCs New Investigator Award, or the Wellcome Trust's Career Development Fellowship).
I've not come across the MRC Postdoctoral Training Scheme and google doesn't turn anything up, but my guess is that it is an internal LMB scheme. You would be "someone's" postdoc, working with them on topics that are related to the areas their lab researches. You would not have your own team (although you may be given technicians or grad students to supervise on a day-to-day basis). You would be paid as a postdoc (probably somewhere in the £30-£40k ballpark).


text:
Cancelled PhD Study ended my career plans
I work as an R&D engineer in the Automotive industry. In 2018 My Supervisor(boss) approved my application for a PhD program based on a 5-year distance learning model, with a UK-based University. I subsequently went through the official UK application procedure and was given a non-conditional offer from my university of choice. The planned start date was Feb 1, 2019, with the final submission date being fixed for Feb 1, 2024.
The PhD research activity was planned to be the majority of my daily work schedule and would consist of several internal work packages or projects. The goal of the PhD was to establish me as a resident expert in the field of Orthopedics and Ergonomics in Automotive Seating Development.
Unfortunately, my supervisor was then fired in November 2018. Shortly afterwards my new supervisor stated he had no funding available and forced me to cancel my PhD program. I was then unable to start in 2019.
Now 4 years later, my supervisor is trying to recruit a new Candidate, to pursue a PhD study based on my core Ideas, which would have been central to my research activity. I have actually filed patent applications on several solutions to be evaluated in the proposed new research activity.
Am I being plagiarized here and is my supervisor's activity unethical and/or illegal?
Also, can anybody advise me on what I should do in this situation? Could this be perceived as a breach of contract in my job, as the PhD activity was approved as part of my professional development Plan?

Have you talked to your new supervisor about this? It does sound like a course of action a supervisor that likes to keep their reports happy and productive would not lightly pursue. It may simply be a misunderstanding, with your supervisor assuming you are not interested in this option any more, or thinking that you are so busy with your current responsibilities that a concurrent Ph.D. is simply not realistic.

Who is "my supervisor" in the penultimate sentence? Your old boss, your new boss, the academic at the partner university?

"I have actually filed patent applications" On one hand, get ready to involve lawyers. It will be expensive. On the other hand, your supervisor maybe does not want to involve lawyers. Make a signal to them that you already started working on the PhD topic in the past and you have a couple of patents that are a big part of the development of that PhD. See how receptive they are ...

Hi Brian. I would be careful and avoid the use of real names in a public forum.

Aggravating: Yes. But I fail to see what about the situation might be illegal or unethical. Your new supervisor might not know the history, of if they do, they may have decided that someone else is the better candidate for this. Just because you once were that better candidate 5 years ago does not mean that you are now -- and that might include that your new supervisor thinks that you already have all the right knowledge and that you are needed in the company.
Of course, all anyone can do with your question is speculate. As was pointed out in the comments, the first step to figure out what your new supervisor's thinking is is to ask them!