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How to address group member's poor writing skills
I am a STEM undergrad. Many of my upper division assignments are group reports with a lot of writing (literature reviews, lab reports).  A lot of my cohort does not seem to have college level writing skills. Their tone is too casual for scientific writing and oftentimes their writing is convoluted with no logical progression. In a few of these classes, the TAs and professors will give general writing advice but it doesn't seem to be enough.
To deal with this issue, I will usually:

Rewrite the worst portions for them, and overlook other sections even though I consider it unacceptable quality (gets the point across but is difficult/frustrating to read).
Ask them to do non-writing tasks like data analysis and I'll do most of the writing

I am now with another group member whose writing skills are not the best. I don't think it's efficient for me to redo their writing and they might feel like their contribution is being ignored. Their writing is bad enough that I might need to rewrite most if not all of their sentences. Should I give them writing advice and ask them to rewrite? How should I bring this up with them?
I don't think my standards are too high but should I just lower my standards?

Talk to them.
If you want to help them/they want your help
First, do make sure that your writing skills are as good as you say they are (I have no reason to doubt this, but it is important to verify this yourself!). If this isn't the case your advice will be ignored/deemed arrogant.
Then, talk to them about it. Be clear, in a non-accusatory way, that this might be an issue for the grade and since it is a group project, you want to ensure this is handled properly. So, don't do this:

Your writing is not good enough. I'll rewrite your contribution later.

But word it like this:

Hey, I've noticed that we can still improve the writing in our paper. Do you want to work on this together to make sure we catch everything?

You are in university, and this is a collaborative effort. Make it a learnable moment for you both! They can learn more about writing. You can learn how to teach/collaborate more effectively. Of course, they can say something like "no, just rewrite it yourself if you don't think it's good enough". But then your message didn't come across.
Because your current strategy, while perhaps efficient, is not always sustainable in a post-undergrad (be it industry or academic) setting. You will always have to collaborate, so preventing colleagues from working on certain tasks will ensure that they do not improve. Helping fellow students to improve is probably not your main priority right now, but if they are open to it, it can be valuable for you both.
If you don't want to help/they don't want help
If they are not willing to learn from you, and your grade is in danger, then you need to be more direct and confrontational. Do emphasize taking their contributions into account. It will be a bit more straightforward:

We need to fix the writing, otherwise our grade will suffer. If everyone is okay with this, I will do this. I will make sure to keep the concepts that you contributed in there as clean as possible. I'll share the final version X days/hours before the deadline, so everybody can check if I didn't change/remove anything important.

There are a couple (at least) of mistakes that novices (say, undergraduates) make about group work.
The first is to divide up the work and then later integrate the pats written by individuals. this actually adds work to the process, rather than simplifying it, since the integration is a significant step.
The second mistake is to assume that everyone takes the same role and does the same thing (on their piece if the above division is also assumed). People work alone on their own part and do the same tasks that "team" members do on theirs.
This is counterproductive.
One of "my" favorite papers was a group work. Two of the team developed the pedagogy and explored it. The rest of us analyzed it and gave them feedback. One of us did the actual writing over several iterations with feedback from everyone else. He happens to be the best writer in the group. Note that everyone took a different role and the role of writing went to the best writer. The author order listed the two that developed the structure as "first".
The second feature of the above is that we all worked together, with frequent (constant) communication. There was no "integration step" and each author played a role best suited to their skills. My role was quite minor overall, though I was able to contribute some insights.
So, my suggestion is to not divide a group project into "chunks" with people taking the same role as everyone else on their chunk, but to divide it into roles that contribute to the whole. Also, to work together, closely together, throughout the process.
If you really want to improve the writing skills of someone else and you have those skills, then I'd suggest that you pair up with them on writing a piece. You do most of the actual writing, and your partner asks questions and contribute things from their primary skill set, whatever it is. Or let them write a bit and comment as it goes along, suggesting alternatives as they go. And, yes, this is really pair programming adapted to writing.
But improving their writing may not be essential for the project if you give appropriate roles to people rather than "chunks".

Hint: You won't improve someones writing (or other) skills by complaining that they do it poorly. Not in the short term anyway, though some kinds of criticism can result in a long term inward look and commitment to change in a person. This has happened to me a couple of times. I recall one in math and another in taichi. But the process it induced in me took a long time to come to fruition. But neither of these was from teammates in any sense, but from teachers. That is their proper role - to induce change and improvement.

This may not be an easy task but a man must try his best for the better of himself and hos fellows around. I am saying that the way you care about their feelings is nice but with that there are ways you can speak to them that they would understand what you are passing across. All this are interaction techniques one needs to apply when working with people. I didn't know this techniques when I was the leader of a group assignment  which needs enough research, so I ended up doing the whole group work on my own and delivering it for them to access.
After they told me they read it, they did not even give any feed back on it to show that they did not have enough reading or writing skills to correct any mistake even when there was one. After this group work, I went further to understand how to interact with people like that during a group work. Here are some important steps:

Understand the kind of people you are working with: This is to say take your time to understand the kind of person you are working with (if he or she is an understanding one or arrogant one), know the level they are on compare to the task at hand and throw crazy ideas that would not hurt the individual but would bring out the serious part of the individual.
Don't make your self the boss: Do not let your group mate or the person you are working with notice your presence or don't try to be right every time. Give each member time to talk if they want and ask if the are ok with what is to be done or there are any suggestions or contributions. Bring your self down to their level to understand or get their plight and bring them down so they can also know what is on the table and undertaand your own plight.
Correct with care: What does this mean? When you have done the above, your group mate will understand that they need to work and if a work is now brought to you for your opinion, you can now correct them calmly by teaching them and referring them to materials that would help them during the course of the group work.
Lastly, decide: Decide what? Decide between your partner the result from all your collective research and bring them together to get the final result. This can only be achieved if step 1,2 and 3 are carried out appropriately.
It should be noted that step 3 can not be carried out without accomplishing the first two steps. In conclusion this step will be accomplished if one know the signs that give an accomplished group leading such as sincerity by partner, respect from partners and so on

Although no one really likes to be criticized, I think it is better for all parties involved to tell the people in question that their writing skills are subpar (or at least that you think they are). Try to be nice about it though, and be aware that poor writing skills (either in one's native language, or in English, the lingua franca of the academic world) are not uncommon (even in higher level positions).
It is exactly for this reason that many universities offer scientific writing courses. Maybe you can see if your institution offers them as well, and provide this info to your coursemates. Significantly improving writing skills is a lengthy process and will not happen fast enough for your course, though.
In my experience, it is often easier (and less time consuming) to write a completely new text, instead of trying to rewrite an already badly written one. So why not play to everyone's strengths and do as you suggest: if no one objects, ask the others to do more of the practical work and concentrate on the writing yourself.


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Diversity Statement for Faculty Position in the US?
I am crafting applications for US faculty positions and Californian universities require diversity statements. Now, the problem is I have no idea what to write in it, since diversity can mean literally anything. I've seen various examples that are all based on personal struggles by people belonging to minority groups or active in some program related to mentoring/teaching to minorities, which makes writing such a statement much easier.
Now, I've never been involved in any "program" of this type. There's no research/teaching about minorities in my field (science). I'm no minority, since I'm a white european. I've lived here and there for various years (outside of my homeland) in my early life and to work these last 5-6 years, so I'm technically an emigrant, but I guess it'd be offensive to people emigrating due to serious reasons to pick on this to develop the statement.
I was wondering whether anybody can give me a solid to develop something tasteful. I thought about something about multidisciplinarity since I've worked and studied in various fields, but I think the purpose of such statement is to address racial/gender/sex diversity.

most of the links in those questions are dead, and thus useless.

A reasonable statement might be about how you consider the diversity of your students on your teaching

Google will tell you a lot. See, for example https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2016/06/10/how-write-effective-diversity-statement-essay

I've read that. I've read tens. Not helpful, imho, but thanks anyways.

@Anon I'm not really sure what you are expecting beyond the advice already provided.

Dawn's comment is a good suggestion. I'm expecting more of those!

If English is not your native language, perhaps you could discuss your challenges and lessons learned regarding being a non-native speaker of English.

I'm pretty baffled by the sentence "There's no research/teaching about minorities in my field (science)."  There's lots of programs at every university related to teaching STEM subjects to underrepresented groups, lots of student groups, and plenty of research being done about what works and what doesn't in broadening participation.

This comes off a bit to me like "this application asks for a teaching statement but I haven't ever taught or thought seriously about teaching, so what do I write?"  Well, if you haven't done anything or thought seriously about it, then you're not going to be able to write a very good statement.  The first steps (which it's probably a little late for) are to start thinking about issues around underrepresented groups and getting involved in some way.  Barring that you just have to resign yourself to this being a very weak part of your application.
That said, there are some other aspects beyond racial/gender diversity which you might think about and might have something to say about.  For example, maybe you have relevant experience concerning teaching ESL (English second language) students, or first-generation college students, or students coming from underrepresented rural areas.

One of those Californian colleges prepared a useful page discussing How to Prepare a Diversity Statement: https://www.pomona.edu/administration/academic-dean/faculty-jobs/how-prepare-diversity-statement
FWIW, Diversity statements are becoming pretty common beyond California. My Midwestern regional comprehensive requests them now.

You say what you want is to write a diversity statement.  What you actually need is the training and experience to support a statement.  Some examples for how you can get training:
Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning
Journal Articles
You also need to do some teaching at a diverse institution.

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Research institute reluctant to provide recommendation letters. Should I persist asking them?
I am applying for a very competitive grant call for PhDs and I need as minimun 3 letter out of a maximun of 4.
I have already 3 from different professors but a 4th would come very handy so I decided to ask for it to my master's thesis supervisor.
He had not replied yet. For 2 weeks approximately.
This kind of questions has been answered here but with a difference, this mail was a first approximation so I don't have any previous agreement with him.
Recently I asked to other professor at the same institution and he has not answered yet either.
I finished the master in a friendly way, is it possible that the institution has decided not to support me?. When I was doing the master thesis I moved onto a different internship because I didn't see much of future prospects at what I was doing neither any salary. Even though I got a grant from that institution to study their master.
I'm applying for these grants with a project deeply involved with what I am working now, but absolutely nothing to do to my previous "research".
Is it a good idea to send a last email or to look for another professor at such entity/another? Deadline is within next week.

Without a letter from your master's thesis supervisor you shouldn't apply. If the deadline is next week, your are way too late. It seems that you left a bad impression, for otherwise he would reply.

@Rüdiger I'm not sure that this jump from "no reply" to "bad impression" is justified.  Never blame on malice what could be incompetence, professors are mostly notoriously bad at answer mails. OP should have asked personally (or by phone, at least, if personally is unfeasible). Mails are a very unreliable way of doing important stuff.

Also, even if you don't have a letter from your master's thesis supervisor, while this may harm your application, it doesn't mean you have no chance. So saying "you shouldn't apply" is not good at all!

Professors are very busy. I wouldn't take "no reply" as "don't want to do it", your email may well be sitting in a folder labeled "look at these later" somewhere...
Send both professors another email, and begin the subject line with "Time sensitive" to get their attention (eg. "Time sensitive: Letter of recommendation"). You might also try calling, although if all you have is an office phone number, many profs are even worse with their office voicemail than they are with emails.
When you email, include your CV, and a separate document with some bullet points about yourself and your achievements (both during your time with them and since your graduation if applicable). The less work they have to do to write the letter for you, the more likely they'll be able to fit it into their busy schedule.
Keep trying -- but do NOT worry too much if you can't get a letter, that does NOT automatically disqualify you. Unlike with a PhD advisor, who only works with a few students and works with them for several years (it would be weird not to get a reference there), a masters' thesis advisor works with many more students and for a shorter period of time, so it's not that unusual to not be able to get a reference (especially if it's been a few years - mine barely remembered me when I contacted him for a reference three years later).

Thank you for your message and the support. Since I already asked to another professor and I got the same (non) response I have declined to try to get a letter from them. As you say where I study most of master works take only few months, not a whole year. Even when I was doing the master some professors were reluctant to write a letter being asked personally.  So today I imagine it could be an institution rule. I hope I am lucky enough.

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Is second authorship good for an undergraduate student planning for masters admit?
As an undergraduate student, I worked along with my professor and his PHd student on one of the projects that comes under his thesis. We shared the work equally and now I'm being offered 2nd authorship. Does it add value to my resume or will the evaluvators assume my contributions were less.

Does this answer your question? Is it better to have no publication than having you as second author?

The question situation is different, but I think the answers apply.

Any research experience is good for an undergraduate in the US, and likely elsewhere. Don't worry about author order too much yet. The doctoral student probably has a good claim on first authorship in any case.
But a publication on your CV is definitely a positive thing. Most people in the US start a MS or PhD with little or no real research experience.

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Applying for Masters Program at University I work at as a Developer
I am currently a developer for a middle tier software company in the US. I have this job despite a bachelor's in economics. With my employers blessing, flexibility with working hours, but with my purse, I have been taking CS classes at a flagship state school here while working. I found that I really love taking CS classes and the formal learning!
Mean while, I have an offer at another uni as a full time developer as part of a grant funded team. One of the perks is covered tuition. My question is, should I decide to apply to graduate school for a CS Masters, does working as at the university as a developer affect the admissions process at all? For example, make acceptance somehow "easier"?

The answer should be that it doesn't matter, but it's probably up to the program to decide.  Ask them.

That depends on the university and its rules. General advice is probably worthless. It may be more lenient for an MS than a doctorate, perhaps. But the competition will still be there, and there may be specific rules about candidate selection.
I would expect that most places tuition reimbursement is a complete separate issue than placement into a program.
My advice, if you want an MS is to apply to more than one university. Include this one, of course, but don't cast a small net.

Unless the asker plans to move jobs, I would say heavily favor working and studying at the same institution. Just the lack of commuting time in the middle of the day will be invaluable.
Of course, whether the MS program or job is more important depends on the asker's priorities in life.


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Is a PhD from a weak university worthless?
I did my PhD in pure mathematics at a university which does not have a good reputation in
mathematics. At that time, I did not know that most British universities are quite weak
in maths. Apart from that, my PhD advisor is not a great mathematician.
After graduation, all of my applications for a postdoc position failed. My advisor was not helpful
in the application process. Could the reason for this be the fact that my PhD has been awarded by a weak institution? Do they consider it as worthless? If so, how can I overcome this problem?
A second PhD is not an option for me.
At this point I should mention, that my all of my PhD colleagues (working in the same field as me)
who were at strong and famous universities were successful in finding a postdoc position.

Does this answer your question? University rank/stature - How much does it affect one's career post-Ph.D?


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My professor wants someone else to be the first author
I started working in an NGO mostly to write and publish their finished projects, with the condition of me being in charge of authorship (Who is first, who is corresponding, etc). After a while, I received a previous yet-unpublished article on one of the main projects of the organization that they concluded 5 years before my time. The article was objectively very poor, so I decided to write it again from scratch. It took me one full year, considering it was a sensitive subject and also required non-routine statistical analyses that I had to learn on my own, while no one helped me in writing the manuscript or anything else.
Afterward, as I was ready to submit the article, the head of the NGO, that used to be my professor, excluded this article from our initial agreement and insisted that the person with the original idea 5 years ago should be the first author, and she herself should be the corresponding author. Additionally, the person who wrote the original poor article should have a place in the authorship too.
Now I am not happy with this. As while I understand they had the idea and managed the project, I think they should be co-corresponding authors and I should be the first author. Also, I don't think the previous author has any rights to be in the authorship of the present article. However, the terms are non-negotiable to them and they won't accept anything else. Am I wrong? What should I do?

Well, not much if you have given them the re-write. If you have not then keep it safe until this is sorted.

I don't think the previous author has any rights to be in the authorship of the present article, why? They wrote the foundation.

@user2768 not even a single word is used from the poor original article. Should she still be in the article ?

@Solar Mike I haven't given them the tables and the figures which are central to the study and the references. But they have a printed version of the first unedited manuscript I have written.

@Etem You took her intellectual property and built upon it, you cannot claim the resulting work doesn't belong to her in part. If you were to give me the current draft and I didn't use a single word of yours in a new draft, could I drop you as a co-author? I don't see a difference between dropping her and dropping you.

@user 2768 I get your point of view. First I must add that I really don't care about her being included. My real problem is the other two people who reserved first author and corresponding for themselves. Second, the first article was really a disaster and I'm not being mean. She herself didn't submit it and didn't intend to, considering she wrote it 5 years ago. It was full of grammatical and vocabulary errors. Many methodical biases were evident. Also, she didn't use any acceptable study design and just reported whatever she wanted without support. So I didn't even use her as foundation.

@Etem So I didn't even use her as foundation. To exclude her you'd need to argue that her work had no impact on the results (or get her to agree to be excluded).

Also the issue of who is corresponding author is of practical relevance. Say, at least in principle, you could leave tomorrow.  Will you forward enquiries to them for the next years? From your description they aren't to wrong except for the fact that you might indeed be the first author.

I do not believe this can be answered accurately without reading both versions of the manuscript.

Time is not a real concern. Having some draft written 5 years ago, or 5 days ago should not make a difference. So, the original author should be on the author list.
Another option: You may go with your own publication while citing the original (unpublished) version. In that path, you need to describe what you add over that unpublished version. If you have not added much in terms of contribution, you cannot use that option.
Being the first author is a different concept. In most organizations, the author list is sorted by contribution levels of corresponding authors. I assume that is the same in your case. So, according to your words, the manuscript is written almost completely by you, analysis and other supporting work are done by you. If that is correct, you should have the right to be the first author.
What can you do? You need to convince others to be the first. Well, that is not the only thing you need to do. Other authors should approve the whole manuscript, not only the order of authors.


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Sharing the data and code "after" acceptance?
Is it common practice to make data and code available only after manuscript acceptance in academic publishing?
Basically, I intend to provide a link to an OSF repo for my data and code, but leave it empty and only upload the necessary material after the journal accepted my publication. Describing it as:

All data and code will be publicly available
on the Open Science Framework repo (link) after
acceptance.

Is this acceptable for journals (especially top tier ones)? Are there any downsides to this?

The question you're really asking is: "Do reviewers actually care about data and code being distributed with papers?". If I saw a "promise" to distribute those kinds of resources as a reviewer, I'd understand that those resources will not be distributed if I give a positive review. The promise is immaterial to this assessment-- the content is simply missing.
Not including essential data is quite a risk, I think. I've seldom heard of this being omitted. Code seems more variable by field.
You don't say exactly why you want to hold back this data and code. Perhaps you're paranoid about plagiarism, but that's deeply unlikely to happen via reviews at a reputable journal.
Perhaps you're worried that your code isn't currently as presentable as you'd like it to be, but don't want improvements to hold up starting the review process. My recommendation there: Make a "frozen" version of your code and data that you won't be modifying during the review, then send it off. Make any improvements you'd like in a different instance of the project, and you can link to this software in the final paper version if it's accepted. If you don't want the versions you give to reviewers distributed widely, host them via some reasonably private hosting service and maybe mention this wish in your cover letter with the submission. If you're a field which does double-blind submissions, perhaps you can distribute a copy to the appropriate editor for them to anonymize when they allow reviewers access.

"essential data is quite a risk, I think. I've seldom heard of this being omitted." What field are you writing from?

Ok I didn't expect this to be this vital for the reviewers as the majority of studies in my field don't even publish their data, let alone their code. I am now leaning towards sharing everything in the submission as I have come up with some code templates that will be useful in the field. However, I am unfortunately a bit paranoid, mostly because I don't know how many times this submission will change hand before it is finally accepted somewhere given how much I worked on this project.

@AzorAhai-him- Computational math, blends into machine learning/robotics/bio imaging from time to time. I'm maybe being a bit glib, but it does seem to me like omitting data is considered increasingly less acceptable in recent years.

@The_old_man Maybe the data isn't considered essential in your field! But if you think it's important and intend to distribute it, what's a few extra reviewers receiving it to you? If you want to be particularly careful with it, find a distribution system that lets you stop distributing, e.g. via a particular link, if the paper gets rejected.

@user176372 Thats an excellent suggestion! Thanks!

@user176372 For sure. In my field, data is expensive and difficult to acquire and so people are reluctant to just share their hard-won data.


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Is it okay to ask your professor about the final exam that I took 3 years ago?
So in my first year of university, I failed one class. I was really good at that subject and had great grades but because of my final exam, I have failed it. I felt discourages and thought that maybe I deserved it because I did not prepare for it as much as I could. I thought that I did okay on the exam but there was a thought that maybe I am just thinking that I did well but actually I didn't? Not sure how to describe it.
Next year I am going to graduate and this thought still bothers me, like did I actually do that badly on the exam? I keep thinking about asking the prof for my final paper but I don't know if that's okay. I checked and he is still teaching at my university.
Do you think it is okay to ask about the exam even if it's been so long?

OK to ask, okay for the professor to say no.

Depending on your university's policy for storing exam papers, that exam paper may no longer exist after 3 years.

It is completely fine for students to request to see their final exam scripts. As a lecturer, I am actually surprised and slightly frustrated that many students seem to be only interested in their mark, not the feedback.
However, asking for an exam dating back 3 years may be a bit more difficult. Exam papers are only kept for a particular amount of time, often ~3 years. So if you want to ask, do it as soon as possible before your exam paper is discarded.

Most universities specify in the policy / rules / regulations the amount of time between the exam taking place and any review permitted by the student.
Usually this is a few weeks to a few months after the exam board has sat and the official marks sent to the students.
Also, "odd" performance by any student will normally be noted and discussed as part of the exam board - any extenuating circumstances etc. But if the other subjects were fine then they may have simply concluded you had "had a bad day" for that one exam.
So, ask but do not be surprised if the answer is no. If you were asking about the final exams you just took then the answer would probably be an easy "yes".
I have students asking each semester - hoping for extra points... but it does not happen, because I mark looking for reasons to give points not remove them.
But instead of posting here, you could have emailed your professor directly and had a response already - which may have been that they will give you a run down of the questions / answers even if you are not allowed to physically see the script anymore.


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Is it a good idea to approach professors on LinkedIn about an internship?
I am trying to land my Ph.D. internship through contacting professors on LinkedIn. Is this a good approach? If not, what would a better approach be?

I would say email is better, for three reasons.
The first is that email is the preferred, standard way of contacting someone in academia, no matter who you are. Now with covid- everything is through email.
The second is that I do not know of many professors keep track of their Linked-In profile. And if they get a message on Linked-In, they will get a notification through their email anyway!
Lastly, and perhaps the most important, a professor could have a bias after seeing your Linked-In page. This is touchy topic but this has happened to many of my friends before, so I'll leave you to decipher this.


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I am a PhD candidate and I have been offered an internship that I want to take. My advisor objects. Should I take it anyway?
I am a PhD candidate in computer engineering. I've just finished my 2nd year. I finished all courses and passed the comprehensive exam. Currently working in a nice research project in collaboration with a big company but I haven't published yet.
I applied and got accepted into a one-year-long internship at the same company (20 hours a week) in the very same topic. I see it as a great opportunity because I want to work in the industry after my PhD and the internship fits perfectly with my research and thesis. But my supervisor disagrees with me and doesn't want me to take it. He thinks that it will compromise my PhD and told me if I take it, that will be at my own risk.
What should I consider when making this decision? How should I weigh this opportunity against my supervisor's advice?

What does your supervisor mean specifically with "it will compromise your PhD"? Have you asked?

Yeah. He told me that based on his previous experience, he had 2 students who did an internship and got a job offer at the end of it and then they made their PhD part-time. Also, he told me that I will be given so many tasks and I won't be able to progress in my research because of it.

Sounds like his worries are justified based on experiences. Whether and to what extent you will face tasks that are outside the scope of your PhD research, that should be very clear upfront, based on your communication (and negotiation) with the company.

Yeah. What is special about this internship is that it perfectly aligns with my research work. They are in the same specialization but the tasks will be mostly coding something that can't contribute to the thesis but I will be gaining more practical insights about the same problem I am trying to tackle in my research work

A company's plans can change. Make sure to have their word (ideally in written form) that you will get to work on this particular problem for the entire time. Before you agree, you can prepare a summary of the conditions and send it to them, so you can come back to it later.

how much does that year long internship pay you?

This discussion shouldn't revolve around pure logic and what is reasonable.  You have your ideas of what your project is, but your supervisor's project is you.  If he thinks the project isn't going well (main resource shows lack of commitment, unreliable, etc.), then it's pretty much a self-fulfilling prophecy that your PhD will be "compromised".

Keep an eye on the big picture: if you want to work in industry, then start to work in industry as soon as possible, with, or without having a PhD degree. But, please be prepared, that you might never earn a PhD.

You've left out a lot of important information.  For instance, is your supervisor going to be paying you anywhere near what the company would?  Do you need the money, or would you be able to survive without?  Would the internship be likely to lead to a full-time position with the company, whether or not you finish the degree?

Your advisor wants to exploit you for papers, I would mostly disregard their advice.

".. if I take it, that will be at my own risk." What's that supposed to mean?

You had garnered a few close votes, so I suggested a minor change to the title. Also: there are many good clarifying questions in the comments; I encourage you to edit your post to add some of the requested information.

Do you still have to take classes?

@Karl sounds a bit like a threat to me. OP should always remember that the supervisor is acting in their own interests. To the extent that something comes along which might benefit you more than working for the supervisor will, they will logically throw whatever arguments might stick at you for not doing it. Come to your own view and bear in mind at all times that what your supervisor says is their view, benefiting them. Academics at supervisory level are experts at concocting arguments to serve their ends, after all. Be mindful of the real motives and power dynamics

@benxyzzy That's what it does. Typical reaction of a supervisor who has difficulties finding new and good people.

Have you consider that there could be confidentiality agreements? You might end up doing a lot of work which can't end up in your thesis. Or worse existing work you've done could become company IP. The possibility for cross fertilization might not be what you think it is.

Make a decision. Do you want a PhD or not. If you do, then make that the priority. Such opportunities as the internship will probably come along later. The doctorate would probably be harder to restart if you stumble.
Your advisor is giving good advice provided that the PhD is what you want.
Slowing down your research may get you scooped before you complete it, requiring at least a partial restart. Why take a chance.

I want to do a PhD but also I want to gain professional experience for my career development. My end goal is to work in the industry, and what is special about this internship is that it perfectly aligns with my research work. I guess I may not be able to find another internship that is the same in the future.

@RamyFouad I guess one problem is also the specific setup of this internship. I'm very open towards my students taking internships, but a year is a very long time - I would also be nervous. A more common setup that I would feel a lot more positive about is 3 months during summer and full-time rather than a whole year 50%.

@RamyFouad do not leave this decision on a guess. Try to gather data on how many job & internship opportunities there are in this field. Contact your professor's network, recruiters, search people on linkedin and the company's main competitor. You may find the market very different than expected.

In general, doing an internship around a 3rd year into the program is close to ideal as many people agree. But doing any internship in graduate school might not be ideal in the first place, thus you have to carefully think this decision through.
In the comments, you mentioned the details of the conversation with the advisor, which I summarized in two points:

...based on his [advisor's] previous experience, he [advisor] had 2 students who did an internship and got a job offer at the end of it and then they made their PhD part-time
...I [the OP, the PhD student] will be given so many tasks and I won't be able to progress in my research

Neither of that "compromises your PhD" directly. Both part-time PhD and temporarily (within the internship duration) slowing down the progress to your research — is not the end of the world.
However, it is a matter of priorities:

Will the internship contribute to your experience and\or PhD thesis?
Do you have a goal of finishing PhD in a specific time frame?
Do you want to risk potentially not completing the degree due to many unmentioned but probable issues?

Also, consider if you are currently involved in other research projects (individual or group) within your university and have any responsibilities, deadlines, funding issues. For some of them, you might not be directly and legally responsible, but your advisor might be. This also has to be taken into consideration.

I assume you mean, in the first paragraph, that the timing is ideal, if an internship is to happen at all.

@Buffy yes, I slightly reworded it based on the fact you added the comment.

It's tough to pass on opportunities, but I have to second what your advisor said (or third, given Buffy's answer saying the same).  The situation you describe is very common in my field (economics), and both I and a lot of my classmates got offered very good jobs as soon as we were ABD.
The PhD-completion rate of classmates of mine who took jobs is far, far lower than those who buckled down and finished their dissertations without taking a job.  Of course this is certainly not an unbiased sample, which makes Buffy's comment about deciding your priorities even more pertinent.
Just don't underestimate how much harder you'll make it on yourself to finish if you end up with other commitments, especially if those commitments end up being lucrative.  I personally both took a job at ABD and finished my dissertation, but I'm in the minority and it added probably two years to the dissertation process.  Other classmates ended up with very good positions, chief data scientists and researchers and such, but every single one of them I've spoken with wishes they had finished their PhD too.  It's very hard to work a full day and then come home and work some more, especially when both require a lot of similar brain power.

Other answers haven't directly addressed the duration of the internship or the relevance to your dissertation. In for example Computer Science, it's totally fine and encouraged for students to take shorter, summer research internships (3 months) where the goal is to produce publishable work related to their thesis topic. That's a win-win.
Here, the first problem is that one year is a really long time, and it's not clear if a nominal 20 hours/week will really leave you plenty of time and brainpower to do other PhD stuff. You could consider reaching out to your contacts at the company to see if a shorter internship is available, like summer-only at 40 hours/week. Your advisor might be happier with that.
The second problem is whether the work would be helping you toward graduating or publishing. I'm a bit confused about this because you said you're currently doing publishable research in collaboration with the company. But your advisor is skeptical that the work you'd do there would help you toward getting your PhD. Maybe it would be proprietary? So figure out whether the internship would contribute to your PhD objectives or not. But again, even if so, one year is a long time.

It comes down to whether you want a PhD or not. If yes, then as Buffy & Jeff have already written, you should decline the internship because it will distract you from your thesis. 20 hours/week is a substantial demand on your time, so you will undoubtedly take longer to finish.
However, and especially since you've said you are looking for an industry job afterwards, there's a real chance the answer could be no, you don't want a PhD. That's because one of the biggest reasons to get a PhD is as an enabler for a job - it provides you with the skills/qualifications to do something you wouldn't otherwise have been able to do. If you've already been offered what you consider as an ideal job then that's a big reason why you might not need a PhD. I certainly know many people with PhDs in industry who think doing their PhD was a mistake because of the opportunity cost.
Ultimately it's a decision you will have to make for yourself. One thing you could try is postpone the decision - see if you can negotiate the internship for a shorter time, say 3 months, and at the end of those three months decide if you want to convert to full-time.

I did an internship as a PhD student and it was very beneficial for me.  I was able to earn more as a student, I got great experience working on a problem relevant to the company I interned for, and I got a great job offer after graduating.  One thing that was key to all this working out is that my department was supportive of it. I had to get a second co-advisor to do the internship, because it was in a different area of study than my first advisor was working in, but she was supportive of still working with me to finish the project that we had started, and both co-advisors were supportive to continue on as a co-advisors until I defended my mixed thesis.  The department chair was also very understanding and willing to sign off on an unconventional path towards graduation. They saw it as an opportunity to fund another student (since I no longer needed/qualified for support through a teaching assistantship), and as a way to secure good placement for one of their graduates. The nature of the work I was asked to do by the company was also legitimately research that led to a couple publications.
I mainly decided to write this to offer a contrary view to most of the answers here. It can be a very good thing to do an internship during a PhD program.  I've known several others that have had similar experiences to mine at the company I work and at other research focused companies in industries related to mine.
The advice that I would give is that if the work that you would be doing for the internship could result in publishable research, then it might be worth the effort to talk to somebody more than just your advisor.  See if the department chair would be supportive, if they are then see if your advisor might reconsider, or it might be worth talking to other professors to see if they would be willing to support such a project.  If on the other hand the internship would be work that would be distracting from your PhD, then I totally agree that you should probably not do the internship if you are serious about completing the PhD.

I think you leave out important details about your experience: how long was it and how many hours. In my opinion, the issue is not if an internship would be helpful, but if a one year long internship is too long. Working 20 hours per week will definitely slow the PhD down, and it is very likely that the student will actually work more than 20 hours per week. Many students can overcome doing this for 3 months, but I am not convinced that many students can overcome doing this for 1 year.

For me it was 3 years, 40 hours a week, but the company was effectively paying to influence my research direction to answer a question they were interested in. For them it was a lot cheaper to sponsor a graduate student to do it than have their full time staff spend time on it.

Taking a long year Internship, depends on many conditions. For example, currently an experience is offered to you while many people are spending money for COVID-19 situation.
Other conditions are the relations with your current situation (the country (or place) that the offer has emerged, the relation of the career with your university, etc).
Are these conditions i line with your current situation? For decision making you can vote each of these conditions in a list.
Here the experience of others is more important than a spectral specification. Speeding in gathering information about the career is more important than every comment without experience from that career.
However, having a way step by step is better than doing some special steps together at once, without quality.
About decision making, if you are in PhD state, it seems you want to be in relation with universities than industry. Hence at first finishing the PhD step, then do other works.

During my PhD, in the third year (out of 4-5 planned), I got the opportunity to be hired by an large international high tech company for a great position. I took the opportunity and agreed with my supervisor that the thesis would take longer.
Like you, I wanted to go to industry after my PhD so I could not pass on that opportunity, I would rather resign from the PhD (with much, much sorrow).
The difference is that it was a job, a long term full-time position.
If it was an internship then I would have passed and followed-up on my PhD. Internships are great, but they are just this: internships. You do something loosely related to the announcement and then maybe you get an offer to be hired, or maybe not. There are plenty of internships.

Do not assume that you have to choose between the two options.
First explore the ideal scenario, and only if that fails, consider choices.
Communicate with the company (not the HR, but with the employee who interviewed you / was interested in you / your research), and explain to them, that while you really want to do the internship and the position is exactly what you're looking for, it would be ideal if they could wait for X months for you to start it. Work with your professor to find some arguments about why it would be risky to your PhD to undertake the internship.
Best case scenario they will tell you that you can finish the PhD (or be close to it), and then get the internship.
Another possibility is that they will not be able to guarantee you the position after a X months (3-6 is a commonly accepted waiting time for a new employee joining), but still this does not mean that you will not be able to get the internship.
Depending on your field, it may be time critical to start as soon as possible, or it can not matter too much (they can wait a year). In addition keep in mind that internships are effectively free labor for the company, meaning that it's unlikely that they would not extend the same offer in the future (unless the team/department gets disbanded for some reason). Finally, when getting new employees or potential employees, what matters most is mindset/personality fit with the team, if you have that, it's likely they can wait.

If it turns out that you cannot get an extension to the offer, you can think of the following:

How easy is it to get similar internships? Try to apply to some, or at least discuss it with other companies in the field. If the field is extremely niche, then it might be hard because there are too few companies, or easy because there are too few candidates. This will help you evaluate the opportunity cost.

What is your end goal? If it's academia, focus on the PhD. If it's research/knowledge and working in the industry is a happy opportunity to do that, then you have options.

Taking the internship and not completing the PhD, is this an acceptable outcome?

How easy is it to find a job in the field? Try to actually do a job search, contact people working in the industry (or use the network of your professor) or at the very least have a talk with a recruiter. If there is demand for people with your expertise, losing the internship is not a big deal, as a job is incomparably better than an internship.

Good luck, don't stress about it too much, but try to gather as much data as possible to make an educated decision, hindsight is 20-20.

You have already invested the years to get your doctorate. Don't throw that away, because you'll need it.
While actually doing things in industry you will run into obstructive people. When managers don't know enough to make an informed decision they cover their butts by siding with the most formally qualified opinion. Being right won't help you when the referee doesn't understand the argument.
I took the other path a long time ago and learnt this the hard way.


text:
Are PhD re-applicants disadvantaged in any way?
I am currently applying for couple of PhD programs in the US at top Ivy league schools. I was originally supposed to receive letter of recommendation from well known professor in my field. The professor, however got ill in late October, his letter was not submitted at any institution. Deadline is at 1st December and I do not think he will be able to make it anymore.
I can get a substitute letter of recommendation from an internship supervisor at an institution that is locally well known in my country but is not well known world wide. I think this seriously weakens my application.
I wonder whether I should still apply this year to just try my luck, or wait a year to see if the said professor gets better or secure other letter of recommendation by doing more RA during the summer.
On one hand I already collected all the documents so applying now is in essence cost-less and I do not want to waste year of my life. On the other hand I worry if universities especially Ivy league ones  that get extremely large number of applicants treat reapplication with a prejudice given the person was already once rejected.   I am specifically asking about the situation at the US Ivy league universities. I do not know if it matters but the field is economics.


text:
I refused adding a gift author to my paper and my advisor threatened me that he won't let me graduate
I am a phd student and I am writing a paper with my advisor, which is also part of my thesis. When we were going to submit it for publication, he asked me out of the blue to include in the paper the name of another phd student, who had just started a phd with him. This person had not done any work for my paper in any way. Once I refused, he threated me that he won't let me graduate, but I didn't cave in. Then, he started saying that this paper was no good and had to be removed from my thesis, otherwise I won't be able to graduate. If I comply and I exclude this from my thesis, can he steal it and publish it without my name? On the other hand, if this paper remains in my thesis, and my thesis is officially submitted, would he be able to steal it?
Update: Thank you all very much for your answers! The paper is completed, there isn't anything the new PhD can do to contribute. What I would like to know is if my advisor can take my paper and publish it without my name. Can he do that if my paper is included in my thesis?

How can these horror stories be true? I'm not doubting OP, just thinking that I have been very lucky so far with the people I've been under.

Regrettably, sometimes there is strategic thinking behind all of this. Say for example, the new PhD student is applying for a fellowship/scholarship and this would reduce how much your advisor would have to spend to keep him. Adding him on an additionnal article would really help his/her chances, hence you are thrown into this situation. It is very unethical, but I am not surprised to see it happen.

@Julia Have you considered including some useful work done by the new PhD student so you can both enrich your own work and give them co-authorship legitimately? You could do that by using just a few of their paragraphs.

@Philosopherofscience These horror stories are probably true, but as little as your local hospital is a reflection of the health status of your town (let's forget the pandemic for  a moment which is everywhere), so is academia.SE a reflection on the depravity of academia. People come here because they have problems, not if everything is fine.

@Captain Emacs Good point, although I came here just because I had questions when everything was fine.

@BlaB Cannot one report a Prof to the Uni authorities if the Prof threatens that they won't let you graduate for some illegitimate reason?

@PhilosopherOfSciencd: One can report, but the most likely outcome is the the prof will get offended and does not graduate you.

Time to fire your advisor.

Do you have some of this conversation in writing (email)? It would make it much easier to report your supervisor.

Just here to fully quote the first comment by @Philosopher of science

@Alchimista Fully quote me? Where?

@Philosopherofscience meaning "How can these horror stories be true? I'm not doubting OP, just thinking that I have been very lucky so far with the people I've been under.". ;)

@Alchimista Ohhh you mean "quote" as in "to second".

It would be serious ethical misconduct for your advisor to try to publish your work under his own name. If you find that it has been done, a note to the journal editor or conference chair would have serious repercussions for his career. You could also, then, file a claim with the university, perhaps resulting in his getting reprimanded or fired. It is serious enough that few would be willing to risk the harm it would cause themselves.
However, that doesn't help you a lot at this moment. I've written in answer to many other questions here that it is very seldom profitable to fight with your advisor, even when they are clearly wrong, as here. In the end, you might have to yield on this in order to graduate and get on with your career. He holds an inordinate amount of power over you at the moment.
Let me suggest, however, that you might be able to defuse the situation if you can find allies among the students or other faculty to intervene in this on your behalf. It is hard to fight against powerful people alone. Even if someone else knows of your situation, a faculty member, it would, perhaps, make retaliation against you more dangerous for the advisor. In reality, they should let you publish with proper authorship and graduate based on qualifications. If they do anything else, then it would be appropriate to bring an action against them.
But, I suggest that you don't make a formal complaint based only on threats of bad action. Choose as you think best about the advisor's demand, and if he then takes action against you in any way, complain to whatever authorities are open to you.
You might be able, also, to find some middle ground, such as offering to help this other student in some other way than giving them authorship that isn't proper.
No one can promise that anything but submission will result in a successful outcome for you. Having a paper with a phony author is still having a paper, which is a good thing. It won't be your last paper. It likely, over your career, won't be your best paper. Don't let the short term considerations negatively affect your long term career goals, even if you have to submit to an unethical advisor. Get done. Get gone.

Removing an author from a paper is a very sensitive topic. If that is done without the consent of the author, then this is a serious violation of research regulations. In your case, it does not matter if the paper is included in your thesis or not. Authorship of a paper does not depend on the thesis inclusion. As far as I know, these are standard research regulations. If there are specific regulations in your country or university, that can provide further insights to your situation.

I understand what you mean, thank you for your comment, Francesco. I am more concerned about the proof that I will need, in case I find out that he has indeed published my work without me. I mean, if I keep it in my thesis, it will be easier for me to prove that this is my work. But if I leave it out of my thesis, I will only have emails and drafts to prove my contribution to the paper. So what I am really asking is if the inclusion of the paper in my thesis somehow protects me. Regulations are actually kind of loose in my country.

I think the emails and drafts are enough to prove that you are author of the paper. I think that any journal editor would halt the review process if you send them your emails. Do you have an email with your supervisor saying that the paper is approved and asking to include an author? Your advisor has attempted what is known as coercive authorship. In addition has taken retaliation by questioning the inclusion in your thesis. All these actions can fall within academic misconduct, which is not the same as research misconduct.

I appreciate that you did not cave. But, I would consider, just saying consider, including some useful work done by the new PhD student so you can both enrich your own work and give them co-authorship legitimately. You could do that by using just a few of their paragraphs.

This is a phony non-solution. Almost as bad as the behavior of the advisor. Authorship should be honest.

@Buffy Oh, that's hurtful my friend. It would be honest if it had work by both and mentioned both as authors. The purported conduct by that Prof. seems to be really unethical, so I think my proposal is not "almost as bad".

@Philosopherofscience I would agree with that had you not included the "You could do that by using just a few of their paragraphs" at the end. What you are suggesting sounds a lot like trying to find a way to give away the authorship as cheap as possible.

@user2316602 Why? Surely authorship should be recognised to anyone satisfying its minimum necessary and sufficient requirements.

@Philosopherofscience If the new co-author could contribute something valuable that the OP could not (at least not easily) then sure. I have a hard time believing that this would be the case if you invite someone to contribute a few paragraphs. Otherwise, the main contribution of the would-be co-author would be being on the list of co-authors. This is just trying to game the system.

@user2316602 My first premise was that the other student's work had to be useful, i.e., valuable.


text:
Is it perceived poorly if a young master's student dates an undergraduate or occasionally attends a college party?
Someone mentioned that grad students who dated undergraduates are looked down upon and not invited to events. So, in your experience, are the younger grad/masters students (22-24?) who have dated undergrads looked down or isolated/avoided by their peers? Were they emotionally stunted and failures/sleazeballs?
Someone told me they knew a 30-year-old grad student who went to undergrad parties on the reg and her maturity regressed and wasn't able to socialize with adults professionally. Consequentially, she wasn't able to get a summer internship because she struck out on every single interview and thus, it isn't good for your professional and academic development.
As well, they mentioned that they know people (grad school and workforce) that struggled to leave college. They either hung out near their college and basically extended their college life while having a job/grad school or tried to live the college life away from their alma mater. Yes, this often meant dating college girls. Right now, these are the people are struggling more in life with relationships, career, and etc. because they didn't lean forward to grow up beyond the college world.
So based on that, is it risky and should be avoided?

Hi Zain, welcome to Ac.SE. I edited  your question to use typical English formatting. You mentioned freshmen specifically in your title, but not the body of your post. What did you mean?

No, they are not.

Seems to me like there's a pretty big distinction between "dating an adult a couple years younger than you" and "continuing to attend undergrad college parties after graduating".

One of my best friends from grad school dated an undergraduate while there. Now married 30 years...

@BryanKrause is it ok for someone straight out undergrad to head to a college party occassionally/normally

@ZainAlleck Yes.

I updated the title to remove the confusing reference to "not freshmen" and add the part about college parties. Perhaps that will help with the downvotes...

In general, this is actually a question about separating your professional and personal life.  It all depends on how this is handled by (I assume) you, the master's student.  From the perspective of professionalism, who dates who (whom?) is not relevant to the professional conduct of either party and is, in short, nobody's business but yours.
However, there are some special cases that need to be considered.
First, you already mentioned that the student is not a freshman, which I assume is code for "the undergrad is of legal dating age for the age of the master's student".  However, as you can imagine, in the general case one must be careful not to do something illegal.
Second, a master's student may be a TA for a course the undergrad is taking.  This, again, isn't automatically a problem per se, but it is a conflict of interest that has to be disclosed and managed professionally.  You may not, for example, mark your partner's work, even if you are being totally objective, because of the perception of the conflict of interest and favoritism.
To the point of acting poorly because of attending undergrad parties, that has nothing to do with whether the students are in different levels of degrees, nor does it have anything to do with which kinds of parties the person attends.  It is your responsibility to be able to interact with your colleagues professionally.  If you then go to parties after working hours, that should not affect your ability to work.  Who you socialize with and how you act around colleagues are not related.  The person in the anecdote needs to mature and learn about appropriate behaviours, and it seems that going to undergrad parties is a symptom, not a cause, of this problem.
Not leaving college is again not a reason to act in a way that is not acceptable to your colleagues.  I don't know how many of us have this problem, but I personally "never left college" in the sense that I did all of my degrees right after the other and now work at a university.  However, I also do not act like I did when I was doing my undergrad.  Similarly, those people who are having trouble moving on are not having such trouble because they never left college, they are not leaving college because they have trouble interacting with the world outside of college.
To the last point above, I'd like to distinguish between not leaving because you can't handle the outside world, and not leaving because it's where you want to be.  I like to tell myself that I fall into the latter category, and I'm sure that many lifetime academics do as well.
So, to the real question: is it "risky"?  No.  If you are the type of person who will act inappropriately then it doesn't matter who you date.  If you are not that type of person then it's no one's business who you date.


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Mental Health and Reading Papers
I am a first year PhD student, and since starting, I’ve had worsening mental health problems which I have tried to deal with to no avail. I ended up failing quite a few things in the second term earlier this year and am on a very very fine ledge with the exam board.
One of the biggest factors upsetting me during this time is my inability to read a paper. It’s incredibly important to read as many papers as I can in my field, and I find so many excellent and relevant ones, but once settling down to read them, I just don’t. My brain refuses to take in the words. It causes me a lot of pain and sadness and makes my mental health worse. I found that I am self sabotaging myself on an extreme scale especially when I need to have read it by a certain time, but I just don’t. I focus really hard on objects on my desk and end up breaking down and taking a long time to settle myself down.
I have spoken long ago to the universities mental health services and the counsellor was very vague and seemed to skirt my immediate problems instead offering suggestions that didn’t really help. I don’t understand what is happening to me so I don’t know how to speak to colleagues or advisors. I’m just a poorly performing student right now who doesn’t seem to know what’s going on in their field.
I don’t know what I am suffering from, but I feel like I’m slowly drowning in despair. I am on here to ask for advice. This website has helped me a lot.

I strongly suspect that the benchmarks would be field-dependent, location-dependent, and X-dependent. In my own case, (US, math, high-end...), I could not understand the meaning of the thesis-question posed to me for at least 1.5 years, despite very aggressively reading available sources. Apart from the possibility that you do have literal "depression", there is also an all-too-real possibility that you are encountering "genuine professional difficulties" for the first time... which, as in my own experience, is a complete surprise for people who've always been "exceptional students", etc.

I don't think it is good to "read as many papers as you can".  You are not at a point where you need a broad overview over your field, that's your adviser's job.  (Though this partly depends on the local culture. In which country are you?)

@paulgarrett thank you for your comment. I considered depression, however I am tentative about using that term as i know a few people with it. I still want to do things, I haven’t lost all hope. It’s almost localised to certain scenarios and situations. I don’t understand what you mean by benchmarks? I do not consider and have never considered myself an exceptional student. I am quiet average grade wise, so I am sure it’s not a surprise that I’m not as good as I thought.

@user151413 UK. I am not even looking to get a broad overview, for sure the fields too big for me right now. I just need to read the necessary few papers to at least know what’s going on.

You should rely on mental health professionals, not people on the internet.

Have you tried any relaxation and focusing exercises, such as breath techniques and intention setting? Do you exercise? Do you get enough sleep?

@AnonymousPhysicist I am seeking professional help, but also want to hear online opinion.

@henning--reinstateMonica yes I have tried meditation. It helps with some deeper problems, but it takes a while for it to work especially if I have a short time to get a task done.

I edited your question slightly to bring it more on topic -- we cannot offer a medical diagnosis, but might be able to give advice on the academic issues.

Maybe find a study partner (for a specific paper), or a "book club". Sometimes this setup is a lot more motivating...

It’s three years later now. It would be interesting, to me at least, to learn how things have turned out for you and what insights you’ve gained.

Let me make a few comments from an academic point of view:

Make sure you pass your classes. You say that you have failed some classes and imply that your position is in jeopardy. Given this, you should feel free to focus entirely on coursework and give yourself a pass from reading papers. There will be plenty of time to read papers later, but continuing to fail coursework could be a major problem for your career.
Make sure you are reading the right papers, at the right level of depth. At this point, you are probably better off reading survey papers (or even textbook chapters) rather than specific journal articles. Further, it is better to understand the "gist" of many papers than to spend weeks trying to understand every detail of a single paper.
Discuss your paper reading with your advisor (or another professor familiar with your situation). Your advisor may be able to suggest more appropriate papers. Make sure you're willing to take advice, even if the advice is to do something other than read papers.
When reading papers, consider taking notes. If you can afford it, an iPad is a great investment for note taking. But changing your goal from something abstract ("studying") to something concrete ("a few paragraphs that summarize the gist of the paper") may help. Further, allowing yourself only a few paragraphs per summary may ensure that you focus on seeing the big picture rather than getting into all the details.

Of course, this advice is from an academic, not medical, perspective -- we cannot give medical advice and I would defer to your therapist or doctor in any case.

As far as taking notes goes, remember that there are many ways of doing this: pick whatever works for you. (I am personally horrified by the idea of using an iPad to take notes, and even using a pen and paper is not nearly so nice for me as typing at a keyboard into Markdown files that I can then commit into Git. I recognise that others may find this unusual.) I find it's usually the process of taking notes that gives the majority of help, anyway, rather than the result.

For note taking, I usually highlight important sentences in pdf, write comments on pdf and save papers in single folder which can be easily accessible from mobile, computer, or any electronic devices you have. Creating bookmark in google scholar and adding papers in “my library” in google scholar is another good way of keeping important papers together.

In a graduate student's life (or any person's, for that matter), going through a mental health crisis is very common nowadays. Things have been worsened due to this pandemic (but, that is not the point of discussion here).
Instead of focusing on "why" part of your question (i.e. why are you feeling this or that?), I would suggest a few things:

Do regular exercise: Exercise is something that always brings back the mood. Start with small sit-ups, jogging some miles, pushups and you will see that you sweat. When you sweat heavily, your mood tries to come back.

Go somewhere and cry if you have to This is a bizarre suggestion but this one always removes so many things from our conscious mind. So many things start to matter that wasn't.

Eat good food Eating is most important. I am sure, you must be feeling like there is a knot in your stomach, but, force yourself to eat at least 4 times. Avoid coffee or tea or any drinks that affect mood.

Create a study environment You must create an ambient environment that you love to stay in. You like sitting there like there is peace.

Just sit and relax Just "sitting" is a problem for many. Sitting without doing anything has been big stuff now given the emergence of AI and technologies. We are always with something in our hand. But, try to sit "yourself". Let all thoughts come, that's ok. It will vanish, or find its route to go away.

Writing helps Writing stuff or even drawing, scribbling do help the mood. Nothing needs to be meaningful. Just random also helps e.g. An ant talked to me today and said my stomach is full. I was delighted to listen to him. He was indeed full with sugary paste.

Remember this is not the end of the world Nothing is the end. You may feel like not good enough, but, that is okay. Nobody is perfect or good at anything. People become good at things eventually. Takes time. Perserverence and focus is the key. Just remember that no matter what, this is not the end that can end things.

You mean something in this world You are here for something. May be just to "live". Just live as you wish. If you have to read a paper for that, why not?

Read slow and small Read slow and small amount every time you sit to read. Not to think anything other than that small amount. Try to bath that, sleep with that, eat that, and run that. Then you will see things are getting back to normal.

Remember to call friends for a meetup Just try catching up with friends and families for small random talks. Not necessarily stuff related to yourself, but, sometimes nonsense also helps.

Last but not least:

Piling up research papers creates guilt If you are not reading at all and just piling up papers starts adding extra burden on the head and you start feeling guilty about it. That you are not doing anything for this, you can't do it. So, when you pick a paper, make it a commitment to finish it up. At least read the abstract and conclusion of any paper that you pick. That is enough.

I don't know whether this would help the OP, but when I was studying for my PhD I rigged a stationary exercise bike with a reading stand attached to the handlebars. I could fit an hour of exercise and an hour of paper reading into one hour of elapsed time.

@PatriciaShanahan That’s sounds like a really good idea, thank you. I have been thinking of going to the gym and taking my iPad with me so I can cycle and read


text:
I noticed an error in a graded exam during office hours. Should I give the student the lower grade?
You are a professor. A student comes to you with a question on an exam they have taken and received back. The student wrote 5 as the answer to a question, and they want to defend why 5 is a correct answer and they should receive full marks. Their argument is invalid, but you notice that the answer was misread as 9 and the student was given partial credit (5 is entirely incorrect and they should have received zero credit). Do you regrade the question, giving the student zero points, or do you leave it alone?
Arguments for regrading the question:

It would be unfair to the other students to give this student marks they did not earn.
Pursuing accurate grading is what is important and is the objective of the course.

Arguments for leaving the question alone:

The student came forward with a good-faith intention to learn why their argument wasn't correct, and shouldn't be penalized - this would break an implicit contract, and encourage students to not seek further feedback.
The unfairness actually stems from the misgrade itself, and there isn't anything wrong with leaving the misgrade alone now that it already exists. After all, if the student hadn't come forward, the misgrade would still have been left alone.

FYI, my policy has always been: One policy I had and which I often reminded students about was that they should never be afraid of asking me about a question for fear that their grade could decrease. This policy is described in more detail in the 3rd paragraph of this answer (the last sentence of which is your situation). This answer is also somewhat related, since in it I discuss some things relevant to the previously cited answer.

From my experience as a student in a very similar situation, regrading did actually taught to not seek further feedback, or at least seek it from other sources. As for the fairness, we (students) did feel exactly as @Heutl mentions.

Note that this depends on your local laws. When I set grades in my country, I'm legally speaking "exercising public authority". There is a principle that such decisions in favour of the individual cannot be changed to something less favourable, which means I cannot lower a given grade once the grades have been entered into the official system.

It really depends on the student's attitude. Are they kindly coming to try and understand what the correct answer is (to be encouraged)? Or are they aggressively coming to demand that they should get full score? In that case, they need to know that asking me to re-grade comes with a risk.

Pursuing accurate grading is what is important and is the objective of the course. I hope in most courses it is to teach the students something. Maybe somewhere  it is also important to distinguish better student from worse once, but it should not be the object of the course. Some areas are more competitive, some are less, I get that, but the education should be the first.

It would be amusing to ask the student.  "I just realized that I actually DID make a mistake on that question you asked about--do you think it should affect your grade?" (And then probably allow him to talk you out of it when you point out that correcting the mistake is not in his favor)

@VladimirF made the comment I was thinking about. I feel like the grade is a red herring. Yes, we want grades to be accurate, but that should not be a distraction at the cost of a learning opportunity. When the student walked out of the office hours, regardless of what number was on their exam, what did they know? Did they walk out having learned why 5 was not correct? Can they now explain why?

Let the grade stand, but point out your error.
The principle I try to follow is that students shouldn't be negatively affected by faculty mistakes (or that such effects should be minimized).
I wouldn't suggest adding an additional assignment to maintain the grade, since this is effectively another kind of penalty.  But I would suggest being transparent with the student, explaining your mistake, and showing them where they went wrong (otherwise they are deprived of the feedback that the correct grade would have provided).
If the exam were graded on a curve and re-grading this one question on Student A's test would materially improve other students' grades, I would give other students the boost (i.e. the grade they would have received had Student A's exam been correctly marked the first time) but leave Student A's grade intact.

Actually, I don't look on it as a penalty, but as an opportunity. I hope the student really wants to learn. And, grading on a curve has ethical issues. The grade of a student should not depend on what other students do or do not do.

I also hope the student wants to learn, but if I were in their position I would see having to do extra work to maintain the grade I already received as a penalty.

I agree that grading on a curve has its own problems.  But even if I think using a curve is often a bad idea, once a teacher has chosen to use a curve (or has been  required to do so by their institution), then I think it changes the circumstances for this question slightly.

I could not agree more. Penalizing students for asking questions is likely to discourage them from asking at all, which means they learn less. And make no mistake: after the first student gets whacked, the others will hear about it. Encouraging dialogue is more important than perfectly fair grading---if perfectly fair grading is even possible in the first place.

You should never penalize a student for taking the time to come to office hours (or whatever) and seeking additional help or clarification.  Not only would it make it less likely for that particular student to ever ask you for that type of help again, but it could very well disincentivize other students as well.

I wouldn't recommend regrading just based on the student asking you to explain it, but the student here was specifically asking for a regrade. In that case, it's reasonable to have a policy (in place ahead of time and explained to the student!) that if you are regrading something, the points could go up or down.

@user3067860 As a student, I viewed those sorts of policies in a somewhat "I'm contractually obligated to admit I can make mistakes, but if you waste my time, I'll nail you to the wall (evil cackle)" sense  -- That is, the policy comes off as less about fairness and more about explicitly disincentiving people for asking about regrading. It may be "reasonable" if explained ahead of time, but keep in mind that cautious students will likely avoid talking to you about test results, lest you come back with a "Nope, nope, I have to now - it's on the syllabus!".

To me, it is actually odd to see all answers but one say that you should leave the points as is. I do agree however that this situation should be handled somewhere in the policy, shared with the students at the beginning of the course, and this particular instance handled leniently if no such policy exists.
When I studied, it was (implicitly) understood for all courses that when asking for a re-grade of a question, it will be examined with additional scrutiny which could result in the final marks for that task to go either up or down. Several of our instructors repeated this explicitly as well.
However, I can see how different approaches might work better for different cultures. In my country, we typically call after-exam consultations "complaints" (even though there is a second valid word translating to "insight" or "inspection"). The majority of the students came in to see if they can "find" an extra point or two, and very rarely to actually understand where they made mistakes.
I don't think there was anything inherently wrong with such a system, as it was a good fit for the culture: the policy was there to discourage "begging" for points, but there wasn't any negative consequences to asking the instructor to point out where you went wrong in your partial answer to question 5A. Additionally, for explaining whole concepts that the students did not understand, they were always welcome to come to regular consultations (not related to an exam), and ask away whatever they have trouble with.

I have the same perspective. When students come at a "complaint" session contesting their grade, it happens that I lower grades when the allotted total is too high.

From where I'm from, the entire value of a student as a human being is their academic performance, gauged entirely by scores on countless exams. It is pathological. Even though we don't exactly call regrading "complaints", it is essentially what you describe. Fitting as it may to the culture, I find it extremely distasteful. This is not a culture I would encourage.

It never made me not want to go. I had my mother laugh at me for going to complain after every exam, and in 5 years I didn't manage to convince her that I am just going to see how I've done and understand my mistakes. Actually, all the students I knew that cared about learning rather than their grades went more often than not - since respectfully asking the TA to explain was never punished. Rudely arguing that you deserve a point on question 3 (because otherwise you will fail the course) was what prompted the policy of "If you insist we look into it again, we'll give it a thorough look".

For many of the reasons you state, I would let the original grade stand. I viewed my job as one of teaching, not grading. Overall, the change in the grade will probably be a minor thing, but the effect on the student's psyche should be considered.
However, you can also take advantage of the situation to create a teaching moment. It may be too late for this already, and I'm not sure if I'd have been thinking fast enough at the time, but I would suggest making a deal with the student:

You know, I should really change this mark to a zero here, but I'll make you a deal. If, over the next week, you write me a one page summary of the problem and the correct solution to it, I'll let the grade stand as is.

This changes the equation. The student gets a bit of hope. And maybe a bit of respect for you and your willingness to "go the extra mile" to help them. It also, sends them off to do a bit of research that can only benefit them.

I'll add that as a normal part of my teaching, I always let students redo work that they want to improve their grade on. Not so much on exams, but in general assignments they could always earn back part of the lost marks by providing a better solution. I would permit this even after discussing the question in class. The educational philosophy behind it is that if you "engage" with the work you will more likely learn it. Just getting marked down for errors doesn't let you integrate the learning. No student ever suggested that this was a form of "punishment".

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The tone of this answer and the suggested communication with the student, especially "I'll make you a deal", is utterly unprofessional and has no place in a teaching setting. It belongs in a mafia den.

@R.., do I read you correctly that you think it "utterly unprofessional" that I push a student to learn something that they should have known earlier and might need later, and that I'm willing to let them keep a few points that they really didn't earn. And that this is somehow a Mafia move? Do I get it right? Yes, I pushed students to learn. I didn't think of learning as a "take it or leave it" proposition. If you were in my course, you might well hate it. But you wouldn't get much support from the students who wanted to learn.

@Buffy: It's utterly unprofessional to act like you're doing the student a favor that you shouldn't (which implies they might owe you something in return in the future) rather than that you're doing what you're doing because it's the fair and just thing to do for any student in the situation.

@R.., why do you conclude that I wouldn't do the same for another student "in the situation"? I'm not doing them a favor. I'm pressing them to learn and providing a bit of incentive. I don't treat my students as a "group" but as individuals, each with needs.

@Buffy: I can't conclude that. I'm saying that the language you proposed strongly gives that impression to the student, and that doing so is unprofessional.

I don't think this is unprofessional at all.  "I'll make you a deal" is a common informal saying that just means a compromise.  Like something a parent might say to a child.  It doesn't imply a quid pro quo or a bribe or anything of the kind.  (However, personally I'd just let them keep the points rather than giving them extra work for a mistake that I'd have never noticed if they hadn't come to office hours.)

The key to answering this question is what the syllabus says.
The syllabus is like a contract between the professor and the class describing what happens in different situations that may occur during a term. If the syllabus or departmental guidelines say how to handle the situation, then it makes things easy. (e.g. if you ask for a re-grade in one question, the entire exam is checked)
If the syllabus doesn't handle this case and you want to handle it in a non-standard way, make sure it is handled in the future, and then I would advise handling this situation in favor of the student this time. (That is, don't take off additional points this time.)
Note that this does not mean that every professor should explicitly spell out every possible situation in detail. It means establishing principles so students know what to expect from reading the syllabus, and if you want to do something differently, you then need to spell it out. For example:

If you want to limit how long students can come back asking for exams or homework to be re-examined, it should be stated clearly.
If you have a unique policy on how questions are re-graded on an exam, it should be stated clearly.

But, if you have no such limitations, you are always willing to make decisions interpreting rules in the best light with favor to the students, or you put appropriate instructions on each assignment, then this is unnecessary.
Ultimately you should not make a habit of contradicting your syllabus, so that should be the first point of reference in answering such questions when they arise.

How universal is the existence of such a syllabus?

And if you were writing the syllabus which way do you think it should be handled?

@gerrit Do know of examples of universities where there is no syllabus or other document describing how a course is run? (The link you provided does not currently discuss the syllabus in any way.)

@Aaron To be clearer, I don't think you have to spell out every possible case - particularly if you have a general principle that governs all such cases well. But, if you want to handle things like this in a stricter way than might be expected, you need to communicate it to the students.

@user253751 I don't put it in my syllabus because I would not lower the students grade if a mistake was made on our end. But, I have had professors who re-grade the entire exam when grading is disputed, and they did discuss this clearly up-front with the class.

I think it is actively unhelpful to maintain a syllabus that spells out this level of detail. I don't believe this is a problem that should be solved by updating future syllabi. Rather, there's some behavior during grading that should be corrected (i.e. skimming too quickly through work, which is an understandable mistake that is almost certain to be made once in a while by even seasoned veterans).

@NathanS ... so you say that the OP should put this in the syllabus, but you also say that you would choose not to put this in the syllabus? Why give that advice to the OP then?

@NathanS. I don't know example of where there is no document at all, but in most cases I have experienced the documents I have seen falls well short of a contract between professor and class of what happens in different situations; what I've seen tends to be a rather short document covering course content, homework, examination, and how the final grade is calculated.

Nathan, I see now. Essentially you're putting the onus of burden on the teacher, which is probably where it should be at that point. @user253751 it seems to me Nathan's point is more "If you want to be able to lower the student's grade in that matter, you should have put it in the syllabus. If you didn't, then you shouldn't lower the grade." So Nathan wouldn't put it in the syllabus because Nathan wouldn't lower the grade. Seems reasonable to me now that I understand it.

@Aaron Yes, this exactly. I tried to update my answer to reflect this more clearly.

I don't know why there are so many negative comments on this, I have seen this done by professors and it worked fine. In one case the motivation was that they were getting too many requests for "it can't hurt me, so why not?" re-grades, and this limited re-grade requests to students who were confident that there was a problem. (Btw, it's not that much of an edge case to have a grading error in the student's favor, there are always some grading errors and usually just as likely to be in the student's favor as against. They just tend to be unreported!)

You could consider this not just from an ethical standpoint, but also from a statistical one. I remember I overheard a podcast where the commentator couldn't understand "how could correcting an error in data ever be wrong, if you know it's an error?"
They gave the example of looking at temperature data, seeing something was off, finding a 37 entered and referencing a video of the thermometer and seeing it was meant to be 73 (so clearly someone had mistranscribed the temperature entering it in, flipping around the digits on accident). The podcaster meant this as an example of something that "surely couldn't be wrong to correct", and implored (rhetorically) "how could it be wrong to change that back to 73?"
You may not know, but that actually would be wrong. And the reason is roughly as follows: you expect errors like transpositions to be essentially random; sometimes they'll write a 37 for a 73, sometimes they'll write a 97 for a 79. But the correcting of those errors could be systematic, e.g. someone noticing the temperatures seem too low and referencing some unusually low temperatures against the videotape. This bias in error correction would introduce an overall bias in the data.
In the case of correcting errors in exams after they show up to office hour, the bias that is introduced will only harm the honest students, and won't genuinely do anything to make overall the grading more accurate.
If you are concerned with improving the accuracy of your grading, do so by changing the procedures you use for grading. Don't do so at office hours.

This. OP writes "It would be unfair to the other students to give this student marks they did not earn". But it would be equally unfair to fix only some of the mistakes. If OP lowers student's grade, they should re-check all other students' works.

Let the higher grade stand but point out that it should have been given no points.  You do not want to punish the student for coming for help but also want to let them know that what they answered should be given no marks so that they expect it in the future.

You should clearly state the policy in the syllabus and verbally on the first day of class, and when you hand back exams. A reasonable policy is that re-grades may well result in a lower grade. In my 7+ years of college teaching, I didn't do that. I would do so today.
I found students to be very persistent about getting that extra point, in spite of the fact that it won't help their final grade. Since others got two points off for the same mistake, I wanted to stand my ground. Basically, the student was telling me I was wrong for taking off two points instead of one. I was not very pleased with that assertion since it's my decision to make. I know the goals I want to achieve by taking off more points for particular mistakes, especially later in the term.
It is unethical to give a few persistent students a higher grade, just as a reward for being persistent.

When marking student work I have always told them that if they believe I have made a mistake in the marking then they should identify the error and then discuss it with me.
If, after working through the question, it is shown that I have made an error and they should have received a higher grade then their grade is adjusted.
If it is found that I made an error and they should have received a lower grade, their current grade stands and is not revised downwards.
I believe that generally this encourages them to review their work in comparison to what they have been told and leads to better understanding of the material. If they find or believe they have found an error they should not be afraid that a risk exists of receiving a lower grade by doing so - in effect this would be that there is a risk of punishment for coming forward.
Furthermore, if in reviewing the work together it is found that I have made an error and given a grade that is too high, that is also a learning opportunity.
The actual desired end result of a course is not the actual grade - although that is the metric used for academic success - but knowledge and competence.

It is totally fine to give the student the lower grade once you find that thee initial grade was a mistake IF AND ONLY IF this policy was clearly stated beforehand and publically (meaning all the students of this class have been warned). In fact, I would recommend doing this since it would help to prevent students going to you to try to increase their grades just because they have nothing to lose (except their time) and, on most cases, they would only go when they have some confidence they have a good justification.
Even when the student is "demanding" a better grade (and recognizing it is very tempting to reduce their grade once you find out the first grade was mistakenly high), it would not be a behavior expected from a professor, so would advise against it.

I agree with the general consensus that it is best not to penalise the error in this case.  My view is that it is best not to create a disincentive for students to come to you to review their marks.  For this reason, I make it a practice in my courses to explicitly set this as a marking rule in the course outline.  That way the students are put on notice of my marking practice.  For whatever it is worth, here is the blurb I use in my course outlines:

Review of Marks and Consistency of Marks
The course lecturer will make every effort to mark all assessment items in a manner that is consistent from student to student.  If students believe that there is an inconsistency between the marking of their own work and the marking of another student’s work (e.g., they get different marks for an answer that is substantively the same) then they should raise this with the course lecturer for review.
The only exception to this consistency principle is this: if the course lecturer finds that a student has accidentally been awarded a higher mark than should have applied for a question, or overall, during subsequent inquiry on the matter by students, the mark will not be reduced, except on request from the student.  This is done in order to avoid creating any disincentive for students to discuss marking issues with the course lecturer (i.e., students do not have to worry about raising issues of consistency and then being marked down as a result).

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