text:
Who deserves to be first and second author? PhD student who collected data, research associate who wrote the paper or supervisor?
I am composing a manuscript using data collected by a PhD student over two years. She doesn't have enough statistical or analytical skill to publish her work. On top of that, language is also a huge issue for her.
I redid the analyses, created the graphs and started writing with my own flow and conclusion. I am also receiving supervision from a post-doc who got his PhD in the relevant field as the topic of the paper while I don't have much experience on the area.
I am quite confident I have the right to claim as the first author but when I allocate the second authorship to the post-doc, the student was acting up with me. Without me writing and the post-doc supervising, she will never be able to publish her work. So, who really deserves which?
Updated : Let me clear a few things here. I understand the conventionality of assigning authorship here in the US or other advanced countries. PhD student is from a country where even young faculty doesn't know what peer-review publication is. Post-doc(the supervisor) and I (research associate) are based in the US. PhD student collected the data 3 years ago and she and her adviser came up to me to collaborate on research projects and she handed the dataset to me to write. She has no interest in taking part in the writing process (no phone call, email or no showing of desire to learn anything from the process). When post-doc and I started writing, there is not even a promise of her data and research design can produce anything. We had to recraft research questions, redid analyses, graphs and everything. It was much like you download the someone esle collected data from public website, you write analyze and write a paper on it. During my Master year, my US adviser used the 10 years dataset from a peer who collected the data but didn't express interest in writing it. The guy offered us with the data, we wrote it and his name came as 3rd author. Seriously, we don't even know this paper can even be publishable and we are just making the best out of it.

I'm pretty sure the answer will depend on your particular (sub)field, as different fields have different conventions.  I would suggest that you all agree on several senior people in your field to ask and abide by majority opinion; if you don't know anyone the editor of the journal you submit to is a good choice.

We don't have enough info to judge entirely, but this would depend on factors such as if the PhD student directed the research or was simply obeying orders. However, usually "just writing" a paper does not warrant authorship, e.g., people who correct English/write as researchers are not native.

@CloudChem I'm surprised - I'd have expected the people who write the paper to be authors. Those who edit it are not usually authors, though.

I'm not sure I understand the situation correctly. Did you give her the chance to write the paper herself, but then were unsatisfied with her work? Or did she ask you to write the paper because of the language barrier?

@CloudChem I don't understand. "Author" literally means "person who wrote this stuff." How can the person who wrote the stuff not be an author?

Lurker here.  Just want to say your lack of empathy is annoying.

Typically, whoever wrote the first draft of the paper is the first author.

In a lot of fields, especially in the sciences, authorship is assigned primarily to reflect credit for the research being reported, not for preparation of the manuscript itself.  Under such a scheme, the main claim I would see for you having any authorship at all is that you redid some of the analyses.  It is not at all clear to me that your work justifies first authorship.

@JohnBollinger And some would argue that collecting data isn't research but the analysis of the data is. Ordering authors is also highly dependant on the research discipline, e.g. hard science, mathematics and others.

This depends so heavily on the field that I do not see how this can be answered without knowing the specific field. Voting to close until OP supplies this information. (Incidentally, @JohnBollinger: in psychology, the person writing the manuscript - which typically involves far more work than "just redoing some of the analyses", in particular digging through the literature, will indeed have primary authorship.)

Indeed so, @PeterPaff.  As I said, it is not clear to me that the OP's work justifies first authorship, but of course neither is it clear to me that it does not. The OP seems not actually to be in a position to judge, since they posed the question after all.  I make no assertion about what is conventional in their field.  For that matter, I also take the OP's characterization of the distribution of work at face value, but others involved in the situation might not see that the same way.

How do people find such collaborators? I always follow the advice to discuss authorship order in advance, never actually needed it, and the only disagreement I ever had was when I was trying to convince my collaborator that he did more work and deserves first authorship instead of me (it was close to a 50-50 split; so we had arguments either way), and he wouldn't take it.

Oof. Why didn't you teach her the analyses instead of yanking this paper from her and trying to claim it as your own and slapping your buddy on before her?

Related, if not duplicate: https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/644/ https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/2467/ (and several more)

Also voting to close until you add your field. || To be extremely clear, you are acting like a huge jerk. Please reconsider your actions.

"Without me writing and the post-doc supervising, she will never be able to publish her work. "
And without her collecting the data you would never be able to publish her work.

"I understand the conventionality of assigning authorship here in the US or other advanced countries. PhD student is from a country where even young faculty doesn't know what peer-review publication is." Flagged.

@YYY I would go even further and say, she could have published her work without his writing and the support of the post-doc supervisor. Because she could have gotten anyone else do it. While he would never have the slightest chance without her work.

Did you ask her if she wanted to take part in the writing process? (it's not clear to me) Email works both ways.

the student was acting up with me. Without me writing and the post-doc supervising, she will never be able to publish her work.

That's a quite serious issue here: as a PhD student she's supposed to learn to write papers. Otherwise how is she even going to write her own PhD? Maybe she's acting up not only because of the order of authors but also because she wants to be more involved in it, and I'd say rightfully so: a PhD student is not a research assistant, they are researchers at the training stage. It is the duty of the supervisor to provide them with this training, and that includes writing papers.
In my opinion, ideally she should write a significant part of the paper and get at least first or second author. This might involve a lot of back and forth with the supervisor until her part reaches adequate quality standards. If time constraints make this option unrealistic, I would suggest planning a future paper where she would do most of the writing and get first authorship. It might take some time and effort, but it's the right thing to do.

She could also find someone else to do the writing, or at least polish her first draft, and help with the statistics.  I did that for several fellow students whose first language wasn't English, and never even expected to be listed as an author.

Generally the PhD student would be the first author, because it is her research. You would be the second author and the other postdoc the third. But typically she would also write the paper herself, and I do not understand why exactly this is not done in your case - whether she gave this job to you or whether you told her that she is not good enough herself. If she has at least tried it, but then "failed" in some way according to your assessment, she still deserves to be the first author.
If she however communicated clearly to you that you should do the writing part, then it would be okay that you are the first author and she the second author. But in this case, you should have told her that and talked to her about it. As her supervisor, you should be invested in her scientific career, and you should have told her how not being first author negatively impacts her career. In my country, it is often necessary to publish at least one paper as a first author if you want to get a PhD, and since this is a paper about two years of her work it sounds like this should be an important paper for her.
So in this second case, I think that the question shouldn't have come up for you, because you should have had a discussion about it with her. And you should have pushed her to at least try to write the paper herself. It seems weird to me that you don't mention a conversation like this at all.
Frankly it sounds like you just don't like her and don't want to give her proper credit, but I realize that I do not have enough information to make this judgment. I'm just going by the way you phrase it as her "acting up". Currently the opposite seems true to me - you are taking away her research and then you even consider to not even give her second authorship. It sounds like you are the one acting up.

I edited and provided more info. We already discussed I or post-doc will be the first author. Since I haven't heard from her or any interest at all since she handed me the data, I really got to the point to make the hard decision choosing between her or post-doc for the second authorship. Would you write the entire paper for someone who just handed the data and left the rest of us to do the job?

@RyanR88 Who discussed this with whom? What was her reaction, did she consent? What were the conditions under which you were allowed to take the data and publish it? How was your institute even involved, did the student take the data there? Why are you writing the paper and not her direct supervisor? You're still leaving out crucial details.

@Spectrosaurus, she took the data from another country. Her institution has no interest in that matter as far as I know. I discussed with both her advisor and her that I or the post-doc will be the first author. It was much like you download the data from public accessible website and you write a paper on it except that we know the person who collected it and she is complaining for getting the third authorship instead of the second.

In my opinion, I do not feel she is in the wrong. A reasonable authorship order would be Her, You, Postdoc, PI. Or perhaps with an asterisk that says the first and second author contributed equally.
She collected the data, it belongs to her. She needed help, turned to you. Now, she is having people step in on her data and publish it without a discussion on authorship. And do not be so certain that without you or the postdoc, she would never publish. That is not an attitude you want to cultivate in yourself.
Can you imagine if you did this to your PI and their grant funded data?
I will also give a word of advice about this behavior- this could have short term benefits but long term damage to your reputation. Nothing will make potential collaborators balk at working with you like being unfair with authorship. Be very careful about the reputation you cultivate. Having a reputation as a positive, fair, and reasonable collaborator opens many doors in academia.

Indeed. Glory is not a thermodynamically conserved quantity. Sharing credit reaps more credit long term.

If, as according to the edit, the PhD student handed you the dataset to work with (with apparently poor explanation, purpose, or quality), and you recrafted questions to ask based on the data, analyzed, summarized, and drew conclusions from your data, that is your paper based on her data. Since she provided a comparatively small portion of the work (since she only collected data, not did anything with it), and you did a larger portion, at the University I am going to (University of Washington - Bothell Campus), you would be attributed first.
It's also worth noting that, if we use pre-compiled datasets, we cite where we got the dataset from, but don't include them as an author. In this case you and the post-Doc would be the only authors of the paper, and citing the PhD student as an author at all would be up to you.
Additionally, if the paper were to be presented at a conference, it is the first author who is invited to present (according to my research professor). Since you said that you were the one to come up with the questions and analyze the data, it would make more sense for you than her to present, and it also indicates the work done, so you should go as first author.
You can also look at it as the definition of author(n) a person who writes. As she did no writing, editing, proofreading, or such, she is not an author in general, and wouldn't receive any authorship credit.
You can also always ask the post-Doc, or your college's Research Board (or equivalent, whoever is in charge of releasing research papers), or put names in alphabetical order and specify who did what.

Of course, I will be giving her the authorship. We already discussed with her before we started taking on this. She knew that me or the post-doc will be the first author. I ended up working on majority of it since post-doc has been busy. I am right now deciding on who should be the second and third.

Not sure “only” collecting data is such a small task...

@RyanR88 Advisors tend to go last at University of Washington, anyways, but if she just handed the data over and walked off, then put her as third

@ZeroTheHero Collecting Data in a research environment is perhaps the least significant task - it's the analysis and application of the data where the work comes in

Assuming your are coming from a STEM field (or any other field) where the rank of authorship is determined by how much every author contributed to the publication, the PhD student who drafted the paper should be first author.
Here's why: You do not only have to think about the work load every author had, but also keep in mind the creative work, i.e. doing an outline, drawing graphs and so on. Apparently, you did some analyses, graphs and minor text contribution (compared to the rest of the text). Proof-reading should not be taken into account, since somebody who only proof-read an article would not deserve any authorship, some might argue not even an acknowledgement (but rather nice "Thank you" in person and a free coffee or something similar).
It seems like the PhD student did most of the manuscript which you then revised by adding your analyses and conclusions. This is a substantial part in writing a paper, but it does not grant you the right to take first authorship.
Now to your post-doc supervisor's role: Even if this would not have been able without the post-doc, merely being in a supervising role and giving advice or guidance will put your name at the end of the author list, where the supervising professor is usually the very last author (as this is the position that most likely tells the reader who is the big supervisor behind the research effort).
To summarize:

Lots of experimental work and drafting the paper: First author.
Additional work and revisions: Second author.
Supervisor who is not the professor: Second (or third, fourth, ...) to last from the professor.

What is MINT?..

@AzorAhai My bad, MINT is the equivalent of STEM in my language and I forgot that.

Another possibility is to list the authors alphabetically and state this choice in the acknowledgements or in a first-page footnote, if the template allows that. Although this may not be immediate to grasp, the readers who really bother will easily deduce that this means equal attribution. (*)
This way out of the sorting dilemmas requires that everybody buries the hatchet, and that each understands that the paper could have not come to light without each of the authors: no properly collected data, no thoughtful interpretations, no accurate information delivery. Effectively these are the three pillars of a well-written, say also 'well-readable', good paper.
The first author in lexicographic order will be perceived as the main one in plain references, wishing for you all that you get spades of them in the first place. This is a little advantage but not a substantive or lasting one. The other authors may still direct their own readership to the equal-attribution statement when this is appropriate, say in their own résumé, with a side annotation or the like. Really interested readers will find out the disclaimer while reading the paper.
Also, there are the other marks of seniority such as who is the corresponding author. Without using the above disclaimer, you might trade the first author position -- ownership of production -- for the corresponding author position -- ownership of communication. Ideally nobody should really 'own' the paper (and factually copyrights are being hander over), rather feel like a steward/stewardess of the findings and achievements in it. Ideally.
Let the emotions simmer. Then double check with the journal information, and possibly with the responsible editor, if your preferred option is feasible. It would be a pity to waste the negotiation efforts for a plan that is not implementable.
(*) Actually you could also plainly write: X did this, Y did that, etc. Each part demands responsibility and professionalism, so no-one should feel vilified for dealing with the lesser, menial tasks. This goes well with the alphabetical order.

The answer depends on the quality of the work the PhD student and you did. I would recommend to read Recommendation 12 (english version on p.82f) of
https://www.dfg.de/download/pdf/dfg_im_profil/reden_stellungnahmen/download/empfehlung_wiss_praxis_1310.pdf
which gives very good guidelines.

Hey, providing a link in an answer without at least summarizing what the link says does really not make for a quality answer (for one, the material you are linking to might one day be removed, and then this answer conveys between zero and very little information). It's great that you provide your source, but could you at least summarize what your source says (and possible, add your advice to it explicitly if it is anything more than "read the linked document and think about it")?

Recommendation 12 does not say anything specific about authorship order. It gives a recommendation for journals (they shall "make clear for authors that they are committed to best international practice with regard to [...] the criteria for authorship"), which does not answer the question.

My own view is that every disciple's professional societies should settle the entire issue by moving to alphabetical by last name.
There will be complications for some names, but that can be settled best by a committee of those affected.

I agree! That's how it is in my discipline.  Really helps to calm down the ego problem some people have. :)

Professor Aabenraa agrees...   :)

While it might or might not be beneficial to switch to this system within all the disciplines, I do not see it happening in the next few days/months, and as such I really don't see how it answers the OPs question or resolves his situation at all.

While your opinion might be valid, this site is not about exchanging opinions. Your answer does not contribute to OP's problem.

This doesn't solve the problem at all. The problem is to establish contribution relationship. The point is not to be 1st on the name list, but to be recognized as the principal researcher for the problem. In fields with alphabetical ordering, the order doesn't mean a thing and the lead author is recognized by other means. So, unfortunately this is not an answer to the question.


text:
Is it possible or common to receive a scholarship from home country for international students?
I'm looking to pursue my Ph.D. degree in a different country.
Currently, I'm working on my Master's thesis.
The major challenge for me would be to receive a tuition fee waiver from the University I'm applying to. Moreover, I know that some PostDoc students are sometimes able to receive a scholarship in their home country for the duration of their postdoc.
Has anyone heard about similar cases with Ph.D.? is it common?
In my case, my home country is Israel, and the one I'm applying to is Australia.

Two important bits of information missing: which country are you from and which one are you considering applying to? However, this is likely to be closed as it depends on personal factors.

Added the missing info in the post, I'm trying to get an understanding if it's a possibility in general. It's clear to me that the answer depends on many personal factors, but would just be happy to see if it's an option

Why does it have to be from the home country and not the host country? Australia has some options for incoming students.

As far as I understand, when applying for a University I will also be able to apply to the possible scholarships that exist in it. But I'm also curious to know if I have more options that I should check in order to increase my chances

Contact the universities - they will know the exact options...

Australia universities have agreements with many different universities around the world.  They include joint PhD programs.

Some countries (most notably developing countries, such as Vietnam or Pakistan*) have such grants available. I am not convinced that the same will be true for Israel, but it can't hurt to ask. Your best contact point may be the grant office of the university in your home country. They should be able to point you in the right direction.
Note that such grants often have stringent rules about returning back to your home country after finishing your PhD (i.e., they are sometimes constructed as a "loan", which is only forgiven after you have worked back home for a certain number of years). This may not be what you want.

*These countries offer such grants mainly because they themselves lack internationally well-established research universities to train their own scientific next generation (it's essentially a bootstrap problem). The reason why we don't typically see similar grants in developed countries is because they don't need for their young scientists to be trained elsewhere - they can also just study in their home country to similar effect. Given that Israel has a number of strong universities of its own, I doubt that they provide such a mechanism.

I think this is correct. It is, however, more common to find stipends that can cover a shorter period (usually  up to a year). Such opportunities could still be worth looking into, as it can help fund the initial move, or a research visit somewhere.

+1. Just to add a few countries as examples: very common in Arab Gulf countries, quite common in Latin America (at least Brazil and Mexico). Overall it's quite common, in my institution I'd say about 10-20% of the PhDs are funded by the country of origin.

@Erwan Yes, in my old alma mater we also had a few such students, typically from Pakistan and Vietnam (hence my examples).

Canada also does that, with no string attached (see Postdoctoral fellowship http://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/Students-Etudiants/PD-NP/PDF-BP_eng.asp) and for totally other reasons.

Singapore, my home country, does this. If you break the terms of your scholarship, you may well get shamed in the newspapers. I remember reading about several people on the receiving end of this treatment going up. They generally got offers that were very difficult to refuse (e.g. research fellowship at a very prestigious lab in the host country).

I wouldn't necessarily restrict this to developing countries. Germany for example has strong universities, but still there is the DAAD, which also offers grants for Germans going abroad.

@mlk that's great! following the answers here, I should definitely look for grants in my home country

@mlk All DAAD grants I reviewed so far (and there were a few) were for postdocs and short-term visits, though. Do they actually sponsor entire PhDs abroad?

@xLeitix I was pretty sure that they did, but to be fair, on a cursory search I can't find outgoing phd-grants for longer than twelve months right now. However it probably doesn't help that their homepage is quite a mess and doesn't really allow to search for older programs.

You have to be careful and more specific when you ask and answer this sort of questions, to avoid the so-called survivorship bias. Basically, there are two ways of measuring it:

Of those who are currently students at the HE, which fraction is supported by a studentship from their own country?
Of those who wanted / applied for such a studentship, which fraction is supported?

These fractions are not the same. University data may provide answer to (1). However, the answer to (2), which is more relevant to you, can only be obtained from organisations providing the support. It is recognised that funding mechanisms  in some countries may be not very transparent and/or not equally fair to all applicants, which makes statistical based approach less effective. In case of Israel this is probably less of a concern, but you may confirm it with your local network to get more reliable information.

Thanks for your answer @Dmitry, but my question wasn't about getting the exact percentage. It was more directed to receive an answer from people that had such personal experience or of someone related to them.  In this case I'm actually looking for such "survivors" to see if they exist at all.
Nevertheless, your answer is helpful and I'd vote it up if I've had the option :)

source: Stack Exchange

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

sort: votes


text:
Should I warn new/prospective PhD Student that supervisor is terrible?
My supervisor got some funding and is hiring new PhD students. Today one of them came to an interview and we told him about the things that we do.
The main problem is that my supervisor is a terrible supervisor. He wants to lead the research project but has no idea on how to work on real implementations. He does not help or even provide feedback although he still is the leading author of all the publications we do. He does not want to spend money on us or on equipment, but expects results as if we were using high-end equipment. He treats us plainly wrong, taking credit for our accomplishments, humiliating us when possible, not helping or leading in any way and not allowing as to grow as researchers.
I know that I could be biased for some personal bad experience but 100% of the students at my research center (both his students and other students) agree with me that he is, by far, the worst possible advisor that there is in our research center.
My question is: should I warn a new coming PhD student about this so that he can take his decision taking this into account, or am I supposed to say nothing because it is not my business?
On one hand, when I was where he is now I would have LOVED if someone told me about this situation, but on the other hand as a PhD student I'm risking a lot by saying this and I don't know if I should get involved.
EDIT: At the end I did it. I called him as it was impossible for me to see him face to face. I basically explained him several facts (not opinions) and my personal view of the situation, trying to be as much understanding and empathic as possible. Luckily he has done research before and understand me very well. He thanked me for the honesty. On one hand I feel that I did the correct thing, but on the other one I think that this situation is a time bomb that could explode at any time... But today I slept like a baby, which I think is a good sign. Thank you all for your answers, they helped me a lot.

Seems risky. But why are you sticking around? I hope you have a path to success here.

Related: I am a PhD student and hate it here. How can I warn prospective students during admit weekend without ruining my reputation? . In particular, I think the first answer there, which is basically "state facts not conclusions", applies here as well.

Have you ever watched a friend head into a doomed marriage?  Did you try to warn your friend?  Didn't work, did it?  And you lost a friend in the process.

@BobBrown It works when you're still seeing multiple people. It also works if the candidate has experience with bad work environments and a bad boss before, among the reasons is why I strongly believe that grad students should have work experience first.

As your username says, do use an anonimous email account to send this person an email in which you are careful not to reveal any detail that could point to you. To do this, it may be best to reveal only what other people in your research centre or even administrative staff have witnessed and think of this advisor.

If you looked for a supervisor and everything looked good, would you have listened to a stranger telling you that it's bad?

I'm staying because the matter has making worse over the time and now I'm too close to finish to quit. And yes, I would have taking into consideration all the feedback that I could get

@Buffy most PhD students stick around because of fear of being labelled as a drop out. Professor will still remain professor if he fails but the PhD student will be "the PhD student who failed". Wait you really are a professor and you don't know this..? Unbelievable...

@mathreadler, for many it is possible to move to a new program with a new professor. There is no stigma attached. Some are bound by family or other reasons, of course. Dropping out shouldn't be the first thing that comes to mind.

@Buffy In my experience such transitions are often very troublesome and sometimes student even has to start anew with all credits reset..

@mathreadler, I understand, but there are programs not like that. Some (in mathematics, say) only require that you pass exams and write an acceptable dissertation.

@BobBrown "Have you ever watched a friend head into a doomed marriage?" Yes. "Did you try to warn your friend?" Yes. "Didn't work, did it?" No. "And you lost a friend in the process." No, she's still a good friend of mine.  Her now-ex husband... not so much.

For all that’s holy yes please do. One of the biggest problems in academia is that this doesn’t happen nearly enough.

'warn them' in the interview? after the interview but before they've got an offer? after they've accepted?

I would 'advice' the new student to talk to other students to get a sense of the supervision style in your group.  You don't have to be direct or provide negative comments yourself.  Let the truth reveals itself.  Hopefully, when the new student is able to collect enough 'samples', he/she can draw his/her opinion or get some hints what he/she is in for.  It is possible that he/she may be OK with your supervisor's style.

Thank you so much for posting the outcome.  I am always curious what the asker decided to do and I love it when we get to find out.  Also, you might consider making a second update if the time bomb never blew up (or if it did, even)--people would like to know that, too.

You should. As you mentioned yourself, you would have loved it if someone had warned you about things before you went, and "do unto others as you would they do unto you" is a good maxim to live by.
Having said that, you should also take steps to protect yourself. Talk to the student in private, and ask for confidentiality. Do it face-to-face or via telephone/Skype if you can; if you must use email, avoid using your institutional email address. You've already acknowledged you might be biased, so tell the student the facts only and don't add anything that you inferred from the facts. For example, instead of "He does not help or even provide feedback", say how many times you meet him or attempt to contact him a week. Describe how those meetings went - what did you say, what did he say, what did you do next? Try not to say "he does not help" as though it's a bad thing: it's actually possible he is expecting you to work independently for various reasons (e.g. you were so good he doesn't think you need close supervision).

I'd say face-to-face only. Emails can be forwarded. Any information stored electronically can potentially be exposed.

+1 If communication that leaves any kind of trail is used you should absolutely only state facts. Neither draw your own conclusions nor express opinions as fact.

I don't have PhD, because I bailed out after completing requirements for MS.
If I go back to school, I would definitely want to know who is helpful and who is not. So I would say it is the right thing to do to warn the student.
However, be careful, because some professors can be very vindictive, and can cause serious damage to your academic career, so:

talk to that student face to face
no electronic communication of any kind
no written communication either
try to find an opportunity where nobody can see you talking to this student
keep it short and factual - absolutely no venting
think in advance what to say, so you can be as brief as possible

First, to disqualify my opinion, I did not go through a Ph.D. program.  I am far from being an Academic.  I have helped friends with their Ph.D. research and had things been different I would have loved to spend years in the Academic lab.  Instead, I've spent my time in corporate offices doing commercial product development.
Second, warning someone off is a bad thing -- especially for you.  There are very few circumstances under which you can save someone else trouble, and avoid trouble yourself.  The candidates you are talking to are anxious to have a slot -- almost any slot.  Your warning won't put them off if they are otherwise interested, or desperate, and you will have marked yourself as someone they have material to use against later.
Third, don't start a palace revolt and rebel against the person in charge unless you are certain that you can bring them down, and that you benefit from the change.  The new person can be worse, or the lab can be disbanded, or someone new can be appointed who just doesn't understand your work.  No problem, right?  Just start over.  Big setback.  Or, worse, you don't depose the leader.  Be ready for the purge.
If you have unassailable evidence of sexual exploitation or severe financial malfeasance you might stand a chance.  Micromanagement, gruff temper, credit-stealing, incompetence, surly disposition, bad advice, or absentee guidance -- you don't stand a chance.  The institution probably already knows and yet he remains in place.  You are unlikely to be the agent of change you would like to be and still preserve the work you are doing and the progress you have made.
Your best bet is to get out.  Ideally, you get out by finishing, accepting the degree, and finding a wonderful postdoc situation.  If the PI's reputation is so negative, they may drag you down even after you are finished with them.  Not ideal, but perhaps better, is you find a lab where you can thrive and move there.  Network with others.  Reach out where other's have shown interest.  You will be better losing some time and having the right, enriching experience.
Summarizing, I suggest that you do not attempt to dissuade the candidate from joining the lab.  Not in a selfish sense, but with a sense of self-preservation, watch out for yourself and your best interests.

Not sure I agree. For your point #2, students often have multiple, ~equal offers, and would appreciate the warning. The part about "marking yourself as someone they have material to use against later" seems particularly far-fetched -- it's not Hunger Games. For #3, it is possible to quietly give advice (or better yet, state facts) without trying to "take down" a professor (which I agree would be hard).

I feel this is horrifically bad advice. Having a corporate paycheck, you would never know how it is to be stuck after year 8 with absolutely no degree to show, little experience desirable to employers, no savings or heavy undergrad debt, and no friends around you. Unlike a job, a grad student whose stuck in a bad situation has very little out, and it's well known this leads to mental health issues. It's something you haven't seen from a stable corporate environment.

Good candidates have multiple slots. Candidates may also be accepted by the school and have multiple advisor options. My lab's had an offer acceptance rate of about 40% in the last 5 years. I had 3 offers going into grad school and 3 for a postdoc.

It is interesting how strongly others disagree with this position.   I can only assume that academic humans are fundamentally different from high- tech startup humans.   One may not be 8 years in with no degree,  but one can be years in with invested stock options, no money to exercise, and nowhere to go.  I have had my attempt to help someone be used against me (#2).  For #3, in the long term,  nothing is quiet, and everything you say is eventually heard exact where it will hurt you the most.   Sounds paranoid,  is a bit hyperbolic, but is true.

Re: @user71659 's comment about the "stable corporate environment".  From this side, it has never been stable.  Great technology fails because something inferior gets to market sooner -- and the entire team developing that tech, and perhaps the whole company, is unemployed.  As a worker, or manager, or even a founder, there is no surety, no security, and no backstop.  I suppose the corporate environment looks idyllic from the academic side, and I know the academic life looks like nirvana from the corporate side.  Academic funding is at the whim of the government.  So is regulation and policy.

@cmm What startup job in California requires you to work 6 years at $24k? End of story.

@user71659, I have not lived your experience, and never will.  IMO, regarding your comment about corporate vs. academic life, an H1B visa holder (which I am not) is bound very tightly to the company.  Layoff results in deportation, including the rest of the family.  As for money, $24K is a low salary.  Are other benefits available to a Ph.D. student? Travel? Tuition? Intellectual engagement? Fulfilled curiosity?  Living a certain lifestyle -- house, car, spouse, kids -- is nearly impossible.  I get it. There is brown grass everywhere. BTW, I didn't mention California.

@cmm No different from a student F visa, you leave school you get kicked out of the country. You don't think there's no "layoffs" for grad students? Another group ran out of money and has to cut 3 students by the end of the year. And $24k is an overestimate, just looked up the numbers for Berkeley, and first two years they're at $21k.

@user72659  It seems that I have romanticized the academic life, and I think you have overstated the "stable corporate environment".  In neither life is it good to be low on the food chain.  If you are near Boston, I'd be happy to meet up and discuss over food and/or drink.

I think one of the big differences is that is much easier to switch jobs than switch advisors/universities and the costs for doing so far much less. Switching jobs often (but not always) comes with a raise. Switching advisors often comes with having to throw away years of work. Had grad students been making a decent wage, maybe that wouldn't be a big deal. But when it adds 3 more years of eating Top Ramen to one's life, some people get bitter. Plus, you don't just leave like a job, you try to tip toe around the department and quietly finish before Mean Advisor makes things worse for you

Actually, you probably don't have that much to lose.
You are probably thinking that if your supervisor was to ever hear or read about your warning the candidates, s/he would prevent you to finish your PhD and/or to get a job.  In most cases, this is attributing him/her much more power that s/he actually has.
You may not be well aware of that yet, but your statement that

100% of the students at my research center (both his students and other students) agree with me that he is, by far, the worst possible advisor that there is in our research center

holds true for researchers of your research center, your university and most researchers who have worked with him/her.  Need proof ?  The students you are mentioning will likely become researchers, and so have the ones before…
So s/he can't get in your way to get a job (unless you really want a job in this very research center, in which case politics will interfere…).
As for preventing you to finish your PhD, if things go that bad you should be able to seek conciliation into your university or school, which may eventually find you another supervisor.
Really, the worst that can happen is that s/he makes your life at the lab a nightmare — but then the previous sentence still applies.
And remember that all of this assumes that your supervisor finds out your warning, which is not very likely.
Still, is warning the candidates useful ?
Some first-hand experience : before I started my PhD, my Master internship advisor advised me to inquire about the PhD advisor before accepting any offer.  However people were very reluctant to say anything about them, or were being quite suspicious about such an inquiry.  Fortunately, by insisting I finally managed to get a few facts about how bad the advisor of the PhD I was about to choose was.  I eventually decided to go for it anyway, because the quality of the supervisor is not the single criteria a candidate has to take into account (actually I barely worked with her, exactly as someone told me).  But all in all, I was able to make my choice fully informed.
On the other hand, nobody warned my wife about the terrible environment she was about to join.  She ended up leaving her PhD unfinished, having lost 6 years of her professional life and tearing down her self-esteem, and eventually going into depression.  I'm not sure if she encountered anyone who could have warned her about this very toxic environment before signing, but I would find it criminal to not having done so.
Such labs and/or advisors feed upon unwarned students.  Don't let them live.
Delegate – advice for prospective students
If you don't feel like giving your own opinion, you can still give them useful advice to find it by themselves before signing anything.
Actually, I think prospective students should inquire not only with the prospective supervisor's entourage, but also with students of other departments in the same lab, who will be more free to speak – not necessarily asking directly about the prospective supervisor, but e.g. asking for "supervisors to avoid", and preferably in a informal situation with several students (keeping in mind that such a situation is also more prone to gossip).
So you could get along with something like

I don't feel at ease speaking about my team or my direct supervisor, but it might be a good idea to ask students from other teams, their external look may be very insightful for you.

And you can even recommend a friend of yours who knows your opinion very well…

As others say, state the facts not conclusions. However, this is easier said than done, because every time you think about the fact your emotions will show up and cloud your mind, so what's left is only the conclusions, and all the facts are unable to be recalled.
This is indicated right from this question. Instead of providing the facts the main impression left in my mind after reading your question is "he is terrible". There is a paragraph describing how terrible he is, but then again it is all conclusions, not facts.
I find the Socratic questioning useful for this. By assuming that you have an ignorant mindset, you can take the perspective of a naïve person, who is curious and opened to everything about him, and can ask non-judgmental questions. By answering those questions, you can now provide the prospective students with facts, not conclusions. For example, here are some of my questions to you:

He wants to lead the research project but has no idea on how to work on real implementations.

→ What do you mean by "have no idea"? What are the implementations you talking about?

He does not help or even provide feedback although he still is the leading author of all the publications we do.

→ What kind of help that you expect him to do? How many papers is he the leading author?

He does not want to spend money on us or on equipment, but expects results as if we were using high-end equipment.

→ Can you compare the results you have and the results of the high-end equipment?

He treats us plainly wrong, taking credit for our accomplishments, humiliating us when possible, not helping or leading in any way and not allowing as to grow as researchers.

→ What are some examples of this?

Write the answer to a note, but don't send it yet. Leave it there for a couple days, until you have finally remove all your conclusions. After that, you may even send it to your department if needed. Or if you want to change his behavior, you can wait for the right moment and mention one of these points fleetingly, as if it's not a big important point. Hopefully he will be embarrassed.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
What should I do if I end up without an adviser?
I am a 2nd year PhD student and I have passed all prelims. However, I am facing a problem: I may not be able to get an adviser.
There were several potential advisers I was trying to approach. One of them suddenly left, others are either "do not know anything about my topic", "too busy to take a student", or simply ignored me at all (It seems that they were always not in their offices, and they simply ignored my emails.)
And now I have trying my last shot on one of the faculties, but it seems that (s)he is not willing to take me and (s)he claimed that (s)he may not be a good adviser.
I talked with my friends and we got possible solutions. However, I am not sure if they are good or possible. So I would like to get some advice here:
(1) Switch field:
(I tried approaching all faculties with similar interest.) The problem is I know nothing about their fields and I didn't take any basic courses related to these fields.
So the two problems are:
(a) I know nothing, is it too late to start over now?
(b) To be honest I am not interested in these fields. However if I stay here I think I need to switch my field probably. Is it really a good idea because I may need to face something I don't like for 3 to 4 years.
(2) Staying in my school and try to get an adviser elsewhere:
Is it hard to do so given that I am not a brilliant student? Since they do not have the burden to take a student from somewhere else.
If I approach them, how should I explain my situation? Since there are some faculties working on my field.
(3) Transfer to another school:
If I am going to apply another school, how will they think of me? Will they think I have no adviser because I am dumb? Or will they think I may end up without an adviser again?
Also, in general, do I have to restart everything again? (Including the prelims.)
I know that some schools will force their student taking the prelim courses irrespective to their background, in this case, I think I will waste time on the same material.
[Added] And one more problem for (3) is I doubt I can get 3 reference letters again...[/Added]
Finally, is it good idea to reapply those school who accepted me before?
Do you have another possible solution? And how do you think about these solutions? And if it is field dependent, do you mind indicating which field you are talking about?
Sorry about my poor language and thanks a lot.

Talk to the department chair and the graduate coordinator of the department, not random folks on the internet...

I would like to collect as many possibilities before going to the graduate director as I do not want to bother him/her too much. I asked him/her too many questions before and I felt (s)he is annoyed already.

My advisor changed schools in the middle of my degree. I felt fortunate that he wanted to keep working with me, but the logistics were really difficult. I really don't recommend doing this.

@corey979 It is very common for my field that you are admitted without an adviser. And one more funny thing are some 3rd-years in my school have no adviser as well.

I think that your best option is the first, but that is based on my personal preference and may not be yours. So let me explain.
Many students choose an advisor late and are then guided by ideas of the advisor. There is nothing wrong with that.
Finding an advisor at another school will cause lots of complications both in the short term and in getting everything finished up.
Moving to another school may not find you an advisor for "your topic" in any case. It will require a new advisor.
As a student, your short term goal is to get a degree and then move on. There is nothing to prevent you from then going back to your original ideas and developing them. There is nothing but time and hard work to keeping your hand in on those ideas so that you don't get too far out of the current loop if the topic is popular.
To expand on the first choice, I would choose a highly regarded advisor who has a lot of ideas. Work with him/her on something that is as close as you can get to what you really want to do, but, primarily, work to finish and move on. Your career will last beyond your student days, but you have to get there first.
I didn't have an advisor (in math) until about your stage.

I'll note that there is another option that may be open to you. I mention it for completeness, but it is a difficult path to follow. Some students work without much of any advice from an advisor, being very self directed. They need a formal signature and some letters at the end, but the behavior during the course of studies is more like that of a colleague, rather than as a student. You need to arrange this sort of relationship in advance, of course, but it works for some.

"work to finish and move on"
do you mean I should forget looking for a research position in this way?
and the remaining faculties are working on topic completely different from my interest...I doubt I could find something that both of us are interested

@E.G. You've made a bit of a mistake if you have such a narrow focus of topic that you've chosen a university that has no one interested in your topic for graduate school.

Estimate the time it would take you under the various options. I will guess that choosing a different topic for now is the quickest. The others would seem to need a start up period.

@Buffy If I switch the field, how should I say to that faculty as I have no background on his topic.

My field was math. At the time I picked an advisor I had a fairly good knowledge of the larger field (Analysis), but none, really about the specific topic. But the background made it possible to move into it. Perhaps your field is similar, but if it is too different, maybe my advice won't hold up. It wasn't like moving from Analysis to Algebra, for example. That would have been very difficult.

I believe my case would be similar to "Moving from Analysis to Algebra but never studied any Algebra." facepalm

Is there any chance you can follow your old advisor to the new place? H/She might be able to facilitate it if the other conditions allow.

My current school is where my old adviser suggested...


text:
Why are our responsibilities and duties centralized instead of more evenly distributed?
I understand that academia is a very competitive place where motivated people are always trying to get ahead of the others. What I have noticed is that few famous/known/recognized people tend to commit to more and more duties, some of them unpaid, to the point that they have very limited time to perform  some of these duties.
For example head of departments are also main editors of famous journals, may be a member of an international panel, on top of all the other duties. Then what I read and hear is that we are overworked, but it seems that many duties which bring prestige but involve a fair amount of work are centralized.
Because people tend to say "yes" then why is not all this work more evenly distributed? It seems that this would benefit more people and make the system less cluttered. I am referring for example to journal editors, or having 50 phd/post-docs and not being able to properly supervise any of them, etc.

Because many people find it difficult to say "no" to things they want to do.

@ff524 I understand that but it is not a one-way decision, people  who manage journals should invite editors that will actually have time to do their job.

What gives you the impression that the current system isn’t working just as it should? So people are complaining that they’re overworked, so what? To me that’s just evidence that people like to complain (while enjoying the prestige of being very busy, important people). 2. What better system do you propose? There are lots of people who aren’t busy but they don’t have a good reputation as serious scientists so would not be qualified to be editors of prestigious journals. The fancy jobs go to those who have the credibility to do them well - there isn’t anyone else.

@DanRomik I completely disagree, there are plenty of good scientists that would do a great job if involved or given more responsibility, it's a chicken and egg story, important people had to start somewhere, and many good scientists are excluded because someone is hoarding all resources and jobs. One of the reasons the EU has tiered grant application is to avoid this vicious circle.

@DanRomik I get that impression because for example the peer-review process is incredibly slow and often gets stuck with editors, because it takes 1 year to get a response for a grant application, etc.

@user4050: That's because you misunderstand the main job of an editor.  It's not to process manuscripts efficiently.  It's to be famous.  An efficient journal with unknown editors is one that no one reads and no one cites because everyone thinks it is no good (and probably, it will be no good because its editors don't know who the good referees are and can't tell good papers from bad ones).  An inefficient journal with famous editors at least gets the papers it publishes some recognition.

One way to answer this question is to borrow a concept from economics known as the Pareto Principle. This principle, slightly reworded, states that 80% of the work is done by 20% of the people. This concept plays out in many different fields beyond your question in relation to academics. The talented people tend to do produce way more than the average and not so talented.This gives the appearance of centralization when it is really just the 20% producing 80% of the results

this is true, and I agree with you, I saw same thing in academia also, but I dont think talent have to do anything with productivity

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


text:
How can I improve the effectiveness of my literature searches?
OK, I know this is a pretty basic question but I haven't been able to come up with any really satisfactory solutions. (I have searched around on this site, but none of the related questions precisely answer my problem.) I'm a first-year PhD student working mostly in evolution, phylogenomics, and conservation biology. I'm looking for basic tips on how I can become more effective at finding papers when I need to research a subject for any of the usual reasons like developing a methodology or drafting a proposal.
Right now I seem to be pretty bad at this. My search strategy pretty much consists of putting likely keywords into Web of Science and Google Scholar, and then looking at whatever papers appear that seem like they might be relevant to my query. Frequently this fails to yield satisfactory results, even when the subjects that I am researching seem like they ought to have a significant body of existing work behind them. I know I must be able to do better, because I see other people coming up with papers that I don't seem to be able to find.
What are some basic best practices for conducting a literature search? I feel like this is a big gap in my existing skillset, and something that will really hold me back if I don't get on top of it soon. Again, I realize that this is a pretty remedial-level question and I appreciate your patience and guidance here.

My blog post on this topic.

why is that your advisors are not great enough to provide guidelines on this. My prof . came with awesome references, but I did what you did and got small pointers from papers here and there, while my advisor came with full research thesis totally relevant to the field! Whoa!

Literature search, to me, is like the recipe of potato salad: everyone has at least one, and they always claim that theirs is the best. In fact, we just use what we feel comfortable and, so far, has not caused any major meltdown. So, bear in mind that these are just what work for me, and you should modify them along the way.
Schedule a meeting with a librarian, now
Talk to a librarian at your institute. In our school we have a medical librarian and perhaps you may find one specialized in your field as well. They are trained to locate useful information and are up to date with related technology. Give them a clear field of study and even a gist of your research, and ask for a good list of databases. I may go so far to say that a good database list is half of the game. Apart from the list, learn Boolean and learn them well, pick up a good electronic reference manager software. Your library should have these resources.
Also, ask your library if they have any library consortium. Some major institutes have large amount of subscriptions which open the gateway to many full articles. If your institute is tight on budget, a lot of the time you can just find abstracts sans full text. Having a consortium library card may grant you access to other bigger institutes' library, in which you can print or photocopy their articles. On the same note, ask for an introduction on doing inter-library loan and how much you're supposed to pay.
Learn systematic review
Systematic review, simply put, is performing literature review as a scientific research. It's problem-based, protocol-focused, and the process is meticulously documented and hence readily replicable. There are plenty of publications about this skill. I have been using Booth's Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review and so far it serves me well.
Focus on the chapters about question formulation and ways of collecting data. I think even we are not heading for a formal systematic review, learning how to keep a clear search records, draft a conceptual framework, and maintain a paper trail would still be very beneficial.
Understand the cataloging system
In biomedical field (where I work) we have MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) which shows the hierarchy and grouping of keywords. Consult the librarian and see if such thing exists in your field.
Read a few systematic reviews or literature reviews in your own field
To get the general picture, I actually first start from Wikipedia and encyclopedia. If you already have some background knowledge, you can probably skip the first phase. After meeting with the librarian, use the new-learned technique to find a few literature reviews or systematic reviews (hereafter "review") in your field. Review articles provide general scopes and a rich pool of keywords for your later use. You can also perform a reference tracing technique on these articles because they usually have unreasonably nice and comprehensive bibliography.
Spend some time with the online search engine and really read the "read me first" and "how to use this site" links. Learn how to massively download cited articles from a hosted article and export them to your manager software of choice.
Another good reason to start with these articles is that they are all required to report the information retrieval in details. Which engines were used, how articles were screened, what were the criteria, etc. You can get a good sense of how researchers do it (or appear to want to be seen doing in order to look trustworthy.)
Start casual
Through this snowballing technique, a small body of articles should start to form. Pay attention to their use of words, keywords, etc. It's still somewhat a toying phase but you should start using your tools seriously. The only recommendation from me is at least one electronic storage/manager software should be used. Make sure you can integrate this software into the word processing software in a harmonious manner, and be able to export a formatted document on the fly. For the rest, it's personal choice: index cards, Post-it notes on the wall, writing on a poster size paper, etc.
Now, many fun tools are available... mind map allows you to cluster the ideas and words, citation map allows you to trace the ancestors (cited) and offspring (citing) articles of any indexed articles, word cloud allows you to identify the most frequently used words, some of these functions are also embedded in manager software such as Qiqqa, which is largely free and powerful.
Then get serious
After a week or so, you should have a good command of the tools, the software, the databases, and the keywords. Now you just need a question. Personally, all literature review should be problem-based. If someone asked you to "go and understand the field," that is just simply absurd. It's like searching an encyclopedia without anything to search; while there may be people who enjoy randomly reading wikipedia entries (I do, to confess), but that's not the best use of PhD time. Isolate the questions from your study before doing any literature search.
Now, what to search? I work in biomedical field so your and my paradigms may differ. For me, I usually go by this sequence as a starter:
Definitions: How does my field define XYZ? What are the controversy of the definitions?
Operationalization: How does my field capture/measure different contexts? How do we approximate "poverty"? How do we call a good "user experience"? etc.
Data source/Research design: What does my field do when they study the phenomenon of XYZ?
Analysis: What is some specific analysis for a certain type of design?
In a way, use the first literature review to solidify and fortify the understanding of every single phrase in your research questions and specific aims. Then expand to other questions (you WILL have branching questions along the way, trust me. It'd be hard to suppress them). Stop when you feel you have somehow exhausted the answers, and/or you're happy with the results.
Never start a literature review without a question, or you'll find yourself still only reading paper 18 months into the PhD, and that is probably not good.
PhD is not a between-people competition
You mentioned that sometime you saw others finding stuff that you did not. I'd suggest just ask them how they did it. Just because you asked them doesn't mean you're worse than they are. If they found something you didn't, get the references, read them and incorporate them into your manager, and instantly you're as well informed, if not better informed.
Talk to experts
Find some prolific faculty members and researchers, and ask them for tips. Collectively you should be able to get something more out of just talking to the librarian. Experienced researchers also tend to know more about the seminal work. And if you can get that list, compounded with the ability to trace the work's offspring, you can pretty much recreate the family tree of a particular key research theme.
Use crowd-sourcing
Websites like Mendeley and Research Gate utilize social bookmark approach and you can refer to other people's collections of articles/citations. If you have a good peer in your team, you may also divvy up the work and then evaluate the findings together, exchanging references, etc. Also some young researchers may be on other social sites such as Reddit (but refrain from checking funny videos) or crowd sourcing sites such as GitHub... you may consider setting up an account and set up a chat thread or a project for others to contribute.
Exploit all services of journals
There are at least a few services that you should see if your field's prime journals provide:
1. Mail alert: Some journals or search engines will send you e-mail when an article containing any of your preset keywords is available. Get like a weekly notice from them, and you can keep yourself somewhat up to date.
2. Twitter: Same as above, but through Twitter.
3. Digest: Some journals may boil down their published works into short pieces then feature them in the form of an online billboard. Occasionally a third party may do that as well for a nominal fee. For example, MDLinx summarizes key medical journal findings and e-mail them to subscribers as a 5-minute digest every day.
Pay attention to "grey literature"
Notice that in some fields there is a tendency to favor publishing results that are statistically significant. Relying solely on literature database is only unbiased in the domain of the published literature. Sometimes, grey literature such as conference abstracts, documentaries, unpublished papers, white papers, proof-of-concepts, blog posts, grant proposal archives, trial registries, patents, personal communications, and general mass media may needed to be explored as well. Each field has their own literature graveyard and atypical channels of documentation, you'll need to talk to some specialists in your field.
Be always on
To me, literature search is really more of a lifestyle change rather than an activity. Now I have camera to take snapshots of posters, take verbal and written notes. I bring index cards for writing. Etc. When talking to people I often drive the topic to what cool papers they recently found. That's my best way to deal with potentially tricky water cooler conversation; either I'll learn something or they'll leave me alone.

Very nice answer. I'd just like to add one point: do not talk to a librarian, talk to a e.g. biology librarian. All university libraries I know have librarians specializing on different fields, so get to know the one who is specialized on your field.

great answer. Could save me at least 1 year in my PhD if I read this on-time. :)

If you limit yourself to only internet searches, your success will depend on your key search words as you mention. Doing such a search is of course an integral part in the approach but what you also need to do is the following

Try to figure out what constitute key journals in your area based on your web searches and start browsing the table of contents of the journals for articles. Start from the latest issues and go backwards (as far as you find useful). You can either find out new search terms for additional web searches and/or find other key publications on the subject. Keep an eye out for upcoming issues and new manuscripts accepted by the journals since they are often posted online once accepted.
Once you find recent published papers, check their reference lists for other relevant literature (papers/books/proceedings). This way you will start to get an overview of what other find of interest. Just remember you cannot find anything more recent referenced than the paper itself. In other words this is a way to search backwards in time.

Now put all this together and work on all fronts in parallel and your overview will grow rapidly. Doing literature searches will inevitably take time but you will learn to find your way through the mass of information more and more quickly.

I addition to going backwards by references, use databases to go forward by citations to a relevant paper.

You've got some great answers here. What I can suggest is trying Scizzle, where you can set up your feeds based on the things you always search for. It's more of a tool to keep up and stay on top of the literature rather than previous literature search, but it will help you going forward.
The problem with only using eTOC is that you limit yourself to just those journals and may miss something that is still important to you just because it was published in a journal you don't follow. Not to mention you might flood you inbox with all those alerts.
I love the analogy of the potato salad, it's so true, you just need to develop your own workflow and practices that fit your own style.

True, to start off we need some monkeying(read existing method) to make our own methods.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


text:
How to cite when writing a paragraph in my history paper that is composed entirely of historical facts?
Since almost everything I have found is something I pulled from a source, how do I write my essay without citing basically every single line?
Edit: Yes, in my paper I am arguing something which will be said in my own words. I am writing a few paragraphs about the historical background of the situation, and that is where my question comes into play.

Then what is the point of writing it?

This might be helpful to you: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/67459/do-statements-giving-background-about-a-problem-require-proper-citation

In addition to Pete's answer, I also want to mention that well-known historical facts generally do not require a citation.
For instance:

The American Civil War was fought from 1861 to 1865.

This is well-known enough to be assumed as "general knowledge." On the other hand,

The average Pennsylvania farmer in the 18th century did not leave an estate worth 400 pounds, as de Crèvecoeur reports in his Letters from an American Farmer [citation needed].

is sufficiently obscure that it cannot get the same treatment.

As a slight addendum, if you assert anything that goes against CW, you'll need to cite it too.  So even if you have clear documentation of the fact that (hypothetically) the US Civil War was from 1858-1866, since that differs from CW, citation is necessary if you're going to cite it as such.

@guifa what's CW?

@SergeyDymchenko conventional wisdom (that which is generally held or considered to be true)

Your question suggests that you think that a "history research paper" is entirely comprised of assertions of historical fact.  This is not the case.  I strongly recommend that you read some history research papers in order to see what they actually involve.  Then look back at the directions for the paper you're given: were you not asked to argue for something or other?  If things are still not clear, you need to talk to your instructor: far better to do this than to try write a paper having no idea what such a paper should be.

Generally, in a history paper, you not only state facts, you ought to describe and derive insights from those facts -- that is where the novelty part comes in. Hence, you only need to cite first instance of the distinct facts in your content.
You should assess a set of research papers on history (as Pete suggested) to understand the flow of citations the convention follow. Apart from that, look for places that deviate from conventional wisdom (as commented by @guifa), i.e., statements that contradict widely accepted knowledge. Such instances should also be cited.


text:
How is life as a PhD research scientist/staff scientist in academia?
I am a PhD student in genetic epidemiology. When I started my PhD, I was certain I wanted to be a professor - three years into my degree, I am seriously rethinking that choice.
There are parts of my work now as a grad student that I love -- reading articles, putting what I’ve learned together to design studies, doing the analysis, writing code... I am aware of job titles like "research scientist" and "staff scientist" that sound like they might get to spend more time on these things than professors do, but I have some questions about how this works.
(These questions refer to positions in academia or similar settings like NIH intramural - I know industry is very different so I won't try to cram that into the same question!)

When/why do people hire research scientists/staff scientists instead of postdocs, and how do the positions differ from being a postdoc?
How is job stability? By this I don’t mean job security, so much as “How often do people end up having to find a new job?” “How easy/hard is it to find a new job when that happens?” and “Can you usually find a new job at the same university/in the same city?”
How is geographic flexibility? Would I still have to be willing to move anywhere in the country like I would if I were looking for a tenure-track job, or would I be able to choose where I wanted to live and then look for jobs there?
Do people in these positions first-author papers?
You do get paid more than a postdoc... right?

Basically, if you don't want to teach, or don't get hired to teach, then a position such as research scientist would be a good thing to aim for.  Most likely you would be on soft money. // Unless you get your own grants, you probably wouldn't have a lot of geographic flexibility. // Try to find some people with the target job description to do some "career exploration" visits and interviews with.  That's really the best way to get the kind of information and "feel" I think you're looking for.

Maybe I am wrong, but I got the impression that you want people to share their personal experiences. Well, I have shared mine in here.

Answering as an epidemiologist who knows a fair number of staff scientists, and took a good, hard look at the option myself.

When/why do people hire research scientists/staff scientists instead
  of postdocs, and how do the positions differ from being a postdoc?

Postdocs are supposed to grow into independent researchers and eventually leave the nest to become PIs in their own right (or do whatever else they want to do). A staff scientist is someone who will stick around presumably for a longer term. As such, they have the time to build very intimate expertise on what your lab does. For example, they might know the workings of a long running cohort study, or a complicated code base inside and out. A postdoc, on the other hand, I'd have to retrain every two years.

How is job stability? By this I don’t mean job security, so much as
  “How often do people end up having to find a new job?” “How easy/hard
  is it to find a new job when that happens?” and “Can you usually find
  a new job at the same university/in the same city?”

This will depend very much on the lab you're working with. I know some staff scientists who have worked in the same position for essentially their entire professional lives, as the lab itself is stable. I know some who have been "inherited" as one PI retires and another takes up their lab, long running studies, etc.
Good staff scientists are often extremely valuable, and may be able to find new jobs in the same university, but this is highly variable. For example, if you work in a somewhat specialized lab it might be somewhat harder than if you do something lots of faculty in the school work on or near.

How is geographic flexibility? Would I still have to be willing to
  move anywhere in the country like I would if I were looking for a
  tenure-track job, or would I be able to choose where I wanted to live
  and then look for jobs there?

Technically, you can pick where you like and look for a tenure-track job there, you just might not be successful at it. The same is pretty much true for a staff scientist position - they're not often open enough that you can just rely on bunches being available in your area, depending on where "your area" is and what the demand in your field is there.

Do people in these positions first-author papers?

Depends on the lab, but I have known a number of staff scientists with either first or last positions on papers.

You do get paid more than a postdoc... right?

Usually.

In my experience there are two types of staff scientists.
The first are people who go out and get their own grants. Basically, if an institution thinks you have a legitimate shot at acquiring funding, they will give you access to their grants office to allow you to submit a grant to cover your salary and lab space. If you are good enough to bring in your own funding, life is good. You can live/work wherever you want and more or less name your own salary (of course you need to bring in the grants to cover the salary). As your salary is tied to your grant(s), there is a lot of stress associated with going down this road. A six month funding gap can be disastrous.
The second are people who work on the grant of someone else. This puts you at the same risks of having a funding gap, but know you are not responsible for getting the money, but someone else it. It requires a good working relationship with the PI as they have to be able to justify why paying more for a staff scientist is needed. It terms of flexibility/security, if the PI loses funding, leaves, or retires, getting another job can be really difficult and you should not expect to really have choices in where you will end up. Often grant funding, especially NIH funding, needs to be planned 18+ months out. People just don't have unallocated chunks of funding large enough to cover a staff scientist.

When/why do people hire research scientists/staff scientists instead of postdocs, and how do the positions differ from being a postdoc?

People in sense of institutions, like research institutes. At institutes you for as your own PI and at postdoc you work for another PI

How is job stability? By this I don’t mean job security, so much as “How often do people end up having to find a new job?” “How easy/hard is it to find a new job when that happens?” and “Can you usually find a new job at the same university/in the same city?”

so many answers on this question

How is geographic flexibility? Would I still have to be willing to move anywhere in the country like I would if I were looking for a tenure-track job, or would I be able to choose where I wanted to live and then look for jobs there?

Ideally good, honestly, I dont think anyone have that chance as you assumed, especially in your field. only if you published good articles.

Do people in these positions first-author papers?

first and senior,

You do get paid more than a postdoc... right?

yes

Thank you for your reply! Could you please try to address the "job stability" question? I know there's a wide variety out there, but if you could at least share your experience or the experiences of others you know, that would be very helpful to me! (I am worried if I go for this career path, I'll be constantly worrying about my next job/next meal - if it turns out that either there are long-lasting jobs, or that there is enough demand that you can easily find another job when your current position/project ends, I will be very relieved!)

@Tapeworm everyone that I know, would like to work in institutes because of faster possibility of advancement and focus is on research,in faculty you need to teach and have administrative duties that drags you from reserch.

This is my personal experience:

When/why do people hire research scientists/staff scientists instead of postdocs, and how do the positions differ from being a postdoc?

Most "research scientists/staff scientists" are actually postdocs. Do you mean research assistant?

Assistants are cheaper
They don't have a PhD and thus more tolerable to dumb jobs
Many smart candidates fresh graduated from university
Postdocs shine in research (e.g. writing papers), otherwise there's no reason to hire them

How is job stability? (as a postdoc)

That depends. Generally, academics is competitive. If you can't publish good papers, you won't survive. If you fail in your grant applications, you may need to find a new job. Not many full time positions, unfortunately there is not much job stability.

How is geographic flexibility

As a postdoc, you should be prepared to relocate yourself.

You do get paid more than a postdoc

Who is "you"? I don't think postdocs are well paid. If you want money, don't do a PhD. Being a trader!

Thank you for your reply. I actually did mean research scientist/staff scientist, as in a PhD-level person who works as part of a research team but is not the PI and does not hold a tenure-track position. Someone who is very good at coding/analysis/etc. and who does it as their full-time job. I was under the impression that this was a career path some people took, but given replies here I'm starting to worry maybe it's not as common as I thought...

@Tapeworm Everybody is different. That's only my personal experience. You might be smart than everybody else!

@Tapeworm It absolutely is a career path that some people pursue, but it is less common. This type of position is more usually seen in very large laboratories that require highly trained support staff.


text:
Where to ask for more detail of a paper?
I'm reading some papers and I think some of them are not clear in some parts or I want to know more in detail in some points to replicate, etc...
Also some papers I also notice (still not sure) some suspicious results or unfair comparison in result section.
Do you know where good websites/forums to ask or discuss about papers in general? (Certainly after I tried other ways like sending email, try to contact them via LinkedIn and so on).
I tried research gate and here but it seems like the researchers are busy with their work and never pay any attention on their accepted paper (I'm in Computer Science major).
(Edited) I mainly expected the help/hint/explanation from other researchers who also share the same research direction/paper on the paper I wanted to learn. (I knew no way the authors know/get notified someone ask/discuss their papers on somewhere on this big Internet)

The authors, reviewers and editor(s) worked hard on the paper - perhaps you need to do some more reading around the topic.

If you're hoping to get a reply from the authors by posting comments on stackexchange or researchgate, I think that's a very long shot.  I would email the authors directly.  They may not reply, but you have much better odds than by hoping they will notice your comment on some website.

What field is this? What sort of thing is missing?

have you tried https://pubpeer.com?

First, you should always try to find answers on details and your questions on a paper in the references of that paper. It's also easy to overlook the supplementary material of a paper, when available. If your questions/details are very fundamental and basic, it's likely these issues are resolved in those sources, otherwise it's unlikely it would have passed the review process of a good journal.
On average (even on researchgate (imo horrible to search this website)) you will not find many readers interested in a particular article, as not many read an individual article, and the likelihood that you meet at the same time/spot in the WWW is low. If the article has an higher citation count, your chances are better to discuss via googlegroups/stackexchange/boards a paper with other being interested, but also the chances that you missed or misunderstood something reading the paper.
Another option is looking into papers citing the particular paper, via google scholar you can even search only within such papers and using the right keywords.
One imho very unused option is looking into a related thesis to that paper. In depth explanations, technical setups, formulas are often described there in detail and often the thesis is freely available in the www or the server of the university. In Germany all PhD thesis are freely downloadable.
If your confusion and questions are not answered by those methods, you should contact the corresponding author of a paper via the given mail adress. But keep the length ouf your mail short and the questions clear, especially and even if you think some results are "suspicious/unfair". Here you can also ask if a thesis exists that gives more details than the paper. It's only your suspicion and maybe wrong. Rather ask how than why questions, especially under such a suspicion.
Personally, if I ask a corresponding author something I'm missing or not understanding after applying above methods before, it's how they did something (technical measurement, simulation details). Why questions are mostly all resolved by authors, journal editor and reviewers during planning, writing and reviewing a paper. The details of how are quite often missing, due to limited space/interest or to keep an advance. In the latter case, if no other researcher/group can reproduce specific results in a paper (this happens quite often), at some point the authors will/have to reveal some secrets, before being suspected of pseudo-science and I have experienced also several times that results/methods of paper have been doubted directly after presentation in the questions time at conferences by the audience. If you can meet an author of a paper which is important for your research on a conference, take the opportunity, asking someone direct critical questions in a talk or poster presentation will often reveal much faster, if something is made-up or the well thought out.

Nice comprehensive answer. One more possibility: if the paper is published by a journal that allows comments (such as PLOS ONE), ask the question publicly as a reader comment.

Make really sure that you're right - that something really is unclear and it isn't your inexperience or lack of knowledge that makes it so. Ideally ask your advisor about it.
If you're still confident, then email the corresponding author directly. As the other answer says, be brief, respectful and concise. If you think they have made a mistake, do not accuse them of it straight away - start from a position of trying to understand.


text:
How competitive is it to get Google Cloud Platform credits for research?
The Google Cloud Platform (GCP) offers cloud credits for PhD students who submit a research proposal through their website:
https://edu.google.com/programs/credits
Does anybody know how competitive this competition is?

Competitive in what sense, exactly?

@Buffy competitive in the sense of how difficult is it to get? Is the selection committee highly selective when reviewing and choosing applications to give credits? Relative to the number of applications received, do a large proportion or small proportion of applicants receive the credits (i.e. is there a relatively high acceptance rate or a relatively large rejection rate)? I could not find any information like this so I posed this question hoping that someone with more knowledge and experience could help.


text:
Scholarships or bursaries specifically for software for scientific research
I am a graduate student in statistics at a Canadian University and I have a desktop computer in my office which has software installed that I have used for my research. The software is proprietary and the license is for a local machine so I can not access it remotely (via ssh or otherwise).
Due to the current situation with COVID-19, I am working from home. I am able to conduct most of my research using open source software (such as python and R) however I would also like to use some of the software which I had access to on my desktop in order to complete my research since I had code that was working on the proprietary software. I would save a substantial amount of time by running existing code compared to rewriting it in another language.
Unfortunately I can not access the software on my desktop remotely due to licensing issues and I do not want to visit the university since the government has asked us to practice social distancing and the University has also requested that only essential personnel be present in the interest of the safety of the general public.
Therefore I was wondering whether there were any scholarships or bursaries available specifically for students who would like to use scientific software for their research (in Canada or in North America in general)?
I understand that research and education requires sacrifice and I might end up asking my supervisor to help me out with buying a license and I also understand that a lot of software is available at a discounted price for students (however the student price is still non-trivial). Before I try these options however I was wondering whether the community might be aware of some resources for scholarships or bursaries specifically for software that I could apply for?
Moderators, if this is off-topic, please direct me to the relevant stack exchange so I can post my question there.

Just to be clear, remoting into the machine and running the software on the machine is not an option? You are still running it on the licensed machine in that case. Give that is what a large percentage of the workforce at my national lab is doing this very moment to run a wide range of pricey licensed software on their office computers, I think you need to rethink remoting in.

Seconding @JonCuster's point: isn't remotely logging in to the licensed machine possible?

@JonCuster The desktop machine in my office is a Mac with MATLAB and Mathematica installed. Do you know whether it's possible to access either of these software packages using the terminal? I wasn't able to find a definite answer in the faq or discussions to help me out.

Yes you can access them with a terminal.  Many universities have licenses for those software packages which will let you install them on your home computer at no extra charge.  Also consider GNU Octave and the Mathematica web application.

If properly set up, macs can talk to one another. You can operate one machine remotely from another without issue. See this, for example: https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/allow-a-remote-computer-to-access-your-mac-mchlp1066/mac.

While our buildings are completely locked down, badge access still worked (the situation has changed here). I was able to retrieve my equipment a couple weeks ago with no issue. If you're just picking up equipment in an already vacant building, you aren't violating the spirit of the order IMO, unless you're under stay-at-home, which is different from social distancing. That may be different if your computer is in a building full of people working for whatever reason.

Not sure on the terminal. I can use a 'remote desktop' connection to display my office screen on my Mac, and then use the office computer that way. Many of my folks are doing that, even for intensive CAD programs (although that is less useful since resolution counts). Something like Matlab or Mathematica would be quite easy.

@NM_ You can absolutely use MATLAB in a "headless" (terminal-only) environment on a Mac. See "Start MATLAB Without Desktop" on this page. You can log in to your computer via SSH and use MATLAB that way.

@ff524, thank you for the suggestion. I used the information on the page you provided. I am able to ssh to the machine, however when I try to open MATLAB in the terminal (using multiple options provided on the page), I get the following error message: 2020-04-01 19:29:24.936 MATLAB_maci64[7432:2038194] This process is attempting to exclude an item from Time Machine by path without administrator privileges. This is not supported.

@NM_ There are a variety of solutions on this page, depending on whether or not you have sudo privileges on your Mac. Running it once with sudo should fix the issue. Even if you don't have sudo privileges, you can just hide the error messages as shown there (it's not a fatal error, MATLAB is still running despite the message).

In your case, you should have a person who is "essential personnel" send you the computer.  For example, security or safety personnel.  This would meet social distancing requirements.  I am assuming that the premise of your question is correct.
More generally, supercomputing centers purchase software licenses.  You can apply for free access to many of these centers.  I'm not familiar with the ones in Canada in particular.

It may not be that simple if access to the local network is required, but not available remotely. Also, it might not work if the OP is in another province or across a national boundary.

Is that something essential personnel have been doing?

@AzorAhai Essential personnel are not limited to essential duties.  Security has to be there even if there's no security problems, so they can do other tasks.

International mail works fine.

@Anon I guess my question is if essential personnel have been asked to do tasks for faculty and staff like that. I'm not sure I could have that done at my school

I have two suggestions, one of which is an answer to the actual question.
Contact customer support at the vendors of the software, explain the problem and ask if they can provide a solution. Since the machine in the office isn't being used, they might, given the right appeal, grant you a license for the home machine. It would be good advertising for them, actually. Good karma, at least. Given the chaos of the current situation they might be inclined to do something that they wouldn't otherwise consider.
The other is to use the remote access capabilities of all networked macs. You can completely control one mac from another (or even a PC) with the built in software. You can actually see the desktop of one machine in a window on the other and operate it in the usual way with mouse and keyboard. It is a bit finicky if the OS versions are different and you may need one time access to the distant mac to enable access, however. But that might be arranged without physical access over something like a telnet connection.


text:
Would it be alright to break down the Acknowledgements into sections?
Would it be alright to break down the acknowledgements of a thesis into a few small sections with individual section headings?
For example:

Academic and Professional Acknowledgements
Personal Acknowledgements
Funding Acknowledgements

This is because I have seen some long acknowledgements and I was wondering whether breaking down the acknowledgements in this manner would help organize the components better?
In the event that someone plans to read my thesis (such as for a potential post-doc position), I assume that they might at least skim through the acknowledgements to see the academics/researchers I have worked with and also the funding received. Therefore breaking down the acknowledgements into smaller sections might make it easier. However I have not seen this done so I was wondering whether it would be an acceptable thing to do or whether it might be frowned upon?

Most people probably only read the acknowledgements!

... on a different note, I'm not sure if your organization makes sense: What about office mates with whom you both had valuable discussions and who were good personal company?

@user151413 I would expect that people who are not interested in the work or familiar with the subject matter to only read the acknowledgements. In my case, I would thank my office mates under the personal acknowledgements section since I was in an office where I did not really discuss my research or get help from them since they were all in slightly different subject areas with different supervisors.

Generally you can put whatever you want in the acknowledgements section of a thesis, within the bounds of general good taste and your university's formatting requirements, and nobody is likely to care or "frown" in any way.

Provided that you don't get pushback from your advisor or committee, I think it should be fine. Those are the main concerns about style for a dissertation. If you send it out for publication, the editor may accept it or not.
But write it they way you think it should be and consider any advice you get from folks that have influence over you.

I'd add that I recently discovered a prestigious journal where separating funding acknowledgements from other acknowledgements is mandatory.  This is odd.


text:
Proper way to Format text related to Functions in an Article about a Computer Package
I am new to software development and my background is not in computer science. I am writing an article about a software package I developed with some collaborators and I was wondering about the proper way to format the appearance of certain text in the body of the article. The article is being written in latex. It is not technical documentation, just the proceedings from a conference.
My understanding is that the package should be written in typewriter text font:
We developed the \texttt{Package Name} package to solve a problem
The issue I have is the correct formatting for functions. Should we include parentheses or not when discussing functions in the body of the text?
Should I write the form without parentheses:
A useful function is \texttt{ function1 } which performs a task.
or should I write the form with parentheses:
A useful function is \texttt{ function1() } which performs a task ?
Unfortunately my collaborators are unable to assist me right now and I have heard conflicting arguments from different graduate students and I have not been able to find a journal article which discusses a function in the body of a text.
I am not requesting information about the format of code or output, just the proper way to write about a function in the body of the text (i.e. inside a paragraph).
Thank you for looking at my post.

Have you tried asking the conference organizers?

First, as I argued in this answer, I suggest you to not use directly the command \texttt but to define a new command reflecting its purpose.
About your specific question, a common way is as follows:

Don't put parentheses if you are declaring the existence of a certain function  or making a reference to it (example from the Matlab documentation):

The inv function and the expression A^-1 both compute the matrix inverse.

Use the parentheses with the input argument list  when you want to describe the details of the function and its calling syntax:

The function max(a,b) finds the maximum between the variables a and b.