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Tips for being the first graduate student of a PI?
I have a very high expectation of a lab that I want to join and It's highly possible for me to eventually do that after my rotation period ends. The PI is the kind of person whom I have been looking for for so long. The only concern is that the PI doesn't have previous grad students and if I join I will be the very first grad student. I know there're a lot of benefits for being in that position and that's what I want. However, for being the first grad student, what issues/problems should I be careful about since I have no senior grad student to talk to for more experience? Thanks
NOTE: in Canada and the US, the term principal investigator (PI) refers to the holder of an independent grant and the lead researcher for the grant project - source: Wikipedia

Does the PI also have postdocs (who in terms of seniority would be between you and the PI) or does it start out with just you and him?

PI? What is that?

@RedSonja, it stands for the principal investigator, it refers to  "the head of the research lab".

@sapienswatson "PI" used to be a fairly technical project-specific descriptor that had a meaning only within the context of a particular grant.  These days (unfortunately in my view) its meaning has expanded to mean something else.  Maybe kind of like how "Senator" had one meaning in the Roman republic, and another quite different meaning in the late empire.

Every graduate student's needs are different; it takes a good deal of experience to pick up on them quickly. So, in your situation the "Three C's" are especially important: "communication, communication, communication" -- ask for (and give!) expectations and feedback early and often (until you two hit a groove).

If you need to ask people here for advice, maybe the job isn't for you.  This is a position that will require you to be able to think for yourself, figure things out by yourself, and teach yourself.  Your PI may not even have the technical laboratory experience necessary to set up the lab (they may have been supported by a larger team in the past) - you will be expected to pick up that slack.  It's a fantastic opportunity for a self-starter and driven autodidact.  It could be a nightmare if you expect or need support, help, and advice at every step along the way.

@J... What? How could asking this question mean this position isn't right for the OP? How would a new grad student know all this valid points you've made if they haven't worked with a new professor?

@AzorAhai I only mean that the position will require OP to frequently solve problems on their own - everything will be new and they will have a minimum of support.  A new grad student could deduce these requirements from context, but not all have that aptitude. Seeking affirmation and advice here possibly betrays a personality that may not be comfortable taking initiative and making decisions when there is nobody else around to provide support and reassurance. You're right that we don't know for sure - I'm just saying OP needs to be considering this seriously about themselves.

@J... I guess I just don't agree that "asks a question about having a new PI" is the same as "not suited to be advised by a new PI."

@AzorAhai It's not.  It may suggest "not suited to thrive in an atypically independent environment", however.  They haven't even started and they're looking for support and advice here.  It's only going to get worse in a lab with no postdocs, no senior students, nobody to buy, set up, automate, and repair laboratory equipment, and only a single, very busy, professor who will have limited time to spare supporting them.  Honestly, I think a minority of graduate students would be well suited to this role.  OP needs to figure out if they belong to that minority or not.

@J... Okay, I'm sorry I said "the same as." I disagree with your assertion, in general.

I never did any PhD research (though I worked through 2 masters programs).  If I were you, I'd ask to sit down with him/her and spend a lot of time talking.  Talk about what the PI did in grad school, what the research was like, what he/she like about his/her PI (this is very important), what expectations are like, what problems the PI foresees in having his/her first grad student, etc.

Speaking from the US perspective, there are a couple of pros and cons I can make:
CONS:

You will be the one who sets up a research environment (especially if you are only grad student of your PI, and no postdoc involves). Setting up the lab, the equipment, learning softwares, training newcomers will fall on you. And you will be expected to keep up with classes at the same time.
If your PI hasn't written a grant proposal before or doesn't have the grant to cover most expenses, you will feel the pressure getting useful data to support the proposal. This pressure will be more than what your peers feel. If their grant is not enough to fund you until the end of your MS/Ph.D., you will most likely end up in a stressful situation financially.
Even though you did your rotation with them, you probably do not have a clear idea about your PI's personality and won't have any students of them to ask.
Since your PI will not be tenured yet; if they cannot get tenure on time or their position is ended earlier than expected by the university, you might have to find another PI and even change your project completely.
The entire grad school experience might be lonely and isolating for you.

PROS:

You will have a lot of room to grow, and you will have more freedom about what you are doing compared to other graduate students.
You will learn the skills that other PhDs will probably learn in their postdoc years or later.
You will be involved and exposed to all aspects of research. This would be very valuable in both academia and industry.
New PIs are most likely to collaborate with other PIs, so there is a chance your name will end up in more publications compared to other graduate students.
Your PI will also grow with you, and there will be a learning curve for them too. It can be an excellent chance to establish a great friendship and support each other.

Overall, it is essential to establish a good working relationship and learn to say no when necessary. Do not be afraid to say when it is overwhelming or if you cannot handle it. In the end, you are the student, and they are the PI. They are there to support and advise you. I hope you have a great graduate school experience. :)

Adding on to this, one other pro is that often brand new professors have a backlog of ideas/projects from their postdoc times - the kinds of things they put in their research plans to land the professorship. Thus, your PhD project may be fully fleshed out and fully realized by the PI already. Students of more established faculty may have to drift for a while before finding a topic, or may be asked to do more incremental work based on the PIs existing research directions.

A few things come to mind:

after you've graduated their recommendation letter (if you need one) may carry less weight than that of a more senior academic with a longer track record.

They probably also have a smaller professional network and cannot help you as much with finding opportunities afterwards than a more senior academic could.

they may have less influence in the department

That generally shouldn't affect you, but if for some reson you ever get caught up in department politics it might.

since they're just starting out, they may struggle to provide adequate facilities (if you're doing any experimental work) and you may need to spend part of your time setting up the lab.

The first aspect (and potential minus) can be encountered by involving more senior collaborations in parts of the PhD research, who are then also potential recommendation letter writers. It might be a good idea to discuss this aspect with the advisor.

I am in a similar situation, whereby I am my supervisor's first PhD student, and she has just started out as head of department. I find myself agreeing with the comment of Vibex, in the sense that your supervisor may struggle to support you with non-scientific endeavours, such as access to facilities and so on. I know this has been the case for me, even though my supervisor has introduced a lot of good change in the department.
With regards to the recommendation letter, I shouldn't worry too much, because you will work with other scientists of varying experience levels over the course of your PhD, and most senior scientists, if you have worked closely with them, will be happy to write you a letter of recommendation for jobs further down the line.
The one thing I would say is the worst about being the first grad student of a new faculty member in a senior position is that they may not be able to find as much time for you as you might like. I am lucky in the sense that my supervisor meets me (quasi) weekly. However our conversations are almost completely confined to this hour or two a week, it's not so easy to go and see her on a whim just in her office, like it is for the students of some of the less senior faculty members.
Nonetheless, it is impossible to have a perfect grad school experience without some mishaps, there are positives and negatives to every situation regarding supervision, research and training for the full 3-5 years! All the best :)

I was also in a similar situation but one of the best things about my supervisor was that she always found time to discuss things with me. I don't think I would've got as much help from a more senior academic with a larger group.

This may be country specific, but there are a couple of points I would make.
First, in the (UK) departments I know, there must be more than one faculty member involved in the supervisory team, and a completely inexperienced faculty member would not be allowed to lead (officially). It would be worth checking beforehand if there's a plan to have more faculty involved in the supervision, in what roles, and at what level. If possible, suggest faculty yourself (this could be difficult to do tactfully, as it may suggest to the PI that you don't trust their abilities and expertise: I would suggest something like "With our project, it might be interesting to consider doing X, but I know nothing about it. Could we involve Y in the supervision from the start so I can learn?").
Second, there are a number of directions that a lead supervisor should push a grad student on (such as day-to-day research, big picture research direction and future careers, profile raising activities like talks or posters, communication activities like papers, administrative issues and hoop-jumping like performance reviews or qualifying exams). The advantage of experienced supervisors (IMO) is that they are better at knowing what to push on and when. When less experienced, supervisors can put too much weight on everything at once, leading to too much pressure on the student.
One step to checking this is to have more experienced faculty involved with the supervision, as above. Another, particularly for the administrative hoop-jumping steps, is to have a strong network amongst the other grad students in the department or faculty. You mention that the PI has no other students: I assume the lab, or department more broadly, does. If so, make it a priority to connect with them, to find out timings and expectations, and build a support network. If there are no other students in the department I would say you're taking a very big risk joining the lab.

In addition to some of the main points in the other answers, namely:

a junior faculty might not have as strong as an academic network as a senior faculty, which possibly limits your opportunities for conferences, jobs, etc down the line
from lack of experience, a junior faculty might be more at a loss of how to best guide you and help you through struggles
a junior faculty might have less lab resources, and in particular no senior students/postdocs to help guide you (this also limits a source of people for your network in the future)

I would add that, at least in a tenure-track system if the professor is pre-tenure:

a junior faculty may be under more pressure to produce for grants/tenure, putting extra pressure on you
if the junior faculty is denied tenure, you may either have to find another lab or move to another university

Choose your committee wisely and be close to them. Many of the possible shortcomings of having a new advisor can be overcome by more established committee members. Example problems and how I've seen committee members help out:

Your advisor does not get tenure and needs to leave before you can graduate: You can get handed off to a senior committee member.
You need specialized resources such as lab tools: A more established committee member can share theirs.
You want or need introductions for your network: A more established committee member can introduce you to their former students and other connections.
Your advisor doesn't know how to mentor well:  A more established committee member can advocate for you.
Your advisor doesn't know how departmental policies or politics:  A more established committee member can help guide you.

What is this comittee? I had some referees coming for my phd defense but it was decided a few months bsfore the defense who they were. Do you mean something similar?

Most PhD programs in the US have a committee for the PhD student who must approve the person's progress at different points. For example, see Oregon State's page on the topic or this page for a UK example.

Congrats!  This can be a very rewarding path to your degree, and you might learn to build a lab from the ground up.
Aside from all the great advice you've been getting, I would urge you to form your committee early, and meet fairly often -- at least once or twice a semester.  This is always a good idea, but it's particularly important here.  It can prevent unpleasant surprises, and bring in the benefit of more experienced investigators.  You might also try to get at least one person with broad experience on to the committee.

What is this comittee? I had some referees coming for my phd defense but it was decided a few months bsfore the defense who they were. Do you mean something similar?

@user111388 It varies by program. For mine (in a biological science in the US), I was supposed to have a committee of at least 5 faculty members (including the primary advisor and one of which had to be from an 'outside area' though inside the institution) assembled by the end of the first year (for an avg 5-yr program); they were involved in key early stages like approving the preliminary examinations that include a planned outline of the projects that will lead to the final thesis.

Could you explain this in the answer (or state the country where this is the case)? Right now, I read it as such a comittee would exist in OP's program, but I cannot find a hint for that.


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Sending M.Sc. dissertation to a big conference
I am a very recent Ph.D. student (since October 2014), and the deadline date of the conference in which I want to participate is quite near.  I don't want to miss the conference, but as I am so new in my Ph.D. program, I don't have something really concrete for the moment.  For this conference, however, it is possible to revise the paper until 15 days before the conference.
Accordingly, I am thinking of submitting my M.Sc. dissertation to the conference. As I think I will have an improved version of my M.Sc. in 3-4 months (at least, I really hope), I suppose that it is worth doing this.
Is it really a bad idea to submit a M.Sc. dissertation to a conference? Are there some ethical issues to consider?

I did a grammatical cleanup; please revert anything that I got wrong with respect to your original intent.

Typically a dissertation is not considered to be a peer reviewed publication.  This means that the material in it can be extracted and turned into conference or journal publications.  In some fields, this is a typical practice after completing a dissertation, where in others it goes the other way (the dissertation is assembled from peer-reviewed papers).
You cannot, however, just submit your thesis directly as is.  A dissertation is generally much longer than conference or journal papers.  A dissertation typically also has much more freedom in style, and does not have to be targeted at the biases of a particular community.  Thus, to make a credible conference submission, you will need to compress or extract a nugget of contribution of an appropriate size, and may also need to tailor its focus and language to better match that of the conference where it is being submitted.

I agree with what jakebeal says in his answer about ways to make a submission based on your Master thesis, and I would like to add that you could talk to your former Master thesis supervisor. Maybe he or she is interested in drafting a submission together with you. As your supervisor, they are probably more or less interested in the topic.
For example, everyone supervising a graduation thesis in my own department is always strongly encouraged to create at least one paper out of that thesis, and while mostly, students are not interested in writing anything themselves and we only present refactored parts of what they created (which ultimately means that their effective contribution warrants co-authorship among the less significant positions), we are always entirely happy and supporting if a student actually wants to become one of the main authors and writes parts of the paper him- or herself.
Like this, you could benefit from writing together with someone more experienced who can help you create a submission that has a certain chance of being accepted.
(All of the above is under the assumption that your Master thesis topic is somehow related to your PhD research, so both are somewhat compatible with the conference in question.)
Furthermore, I would like to respond to the following statement you make:

I don't want to miss the conference

This sounds like your primary objective is to attend the conference. That is a legitimate desire, for reasons such as getting a good overview over the state of the art in your field, getting some first external contacts in your field, or simply for learning how conferences in your field look and feel in general.
You may want to talk to your supervisor exactly about that wish, as there may be various options:

If your department's finances allow for that, you might be allowed to attend without presenting anything. At my own department, new doctoral candidates are often allowed to attend one conference in the very beginning of their career even if they do not have any submission, just to learn how conferences work (preferrably, that is a conference that is attended by at least one other member of the department, so they also have someone to "show them around").
Even though you have nothing "really concrete for the moment", if you have started looking into some things, defined something on an abstract level that you are about to try, or have a certain plan, you could think about preparing a minor submission to the conference, e.g. a poster or a workshop paper. On this type of papers, it is often acceptable to present work in progress, as one of the main goals is to discuss and possibly refine an approach or model.
If your work is not concrete enough for that, maybe you could participate in a doctoral colloquium, which is an event somewhat similar to a workshop that is frequently integrated into conferences, as well. Such events are sometimes meant for doctoral candidates to present and discuss their ideas and plans for their upcoming research.

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Forgot to finish final paper submission in a conference
I just realised that I forgot to submit the final version of a paper for a conference, and the deadline just passed last week. What should I do in this case? I contacted the publishing office but they said they are not accepting paper submissions.

Learn from the experience, don't make that mistake again

quite so..Thank you!but is there any way to save the paper?

To save the paper, rework and submit to another conference.

Some conferences accept late papers for first submission (esp. if they do not have enough submissions), but if this is a camera-ready version (is it? What do you mean by "final version"?), it's probably too late.

yes it's the camera ready version.

@Ethan Then it's probably over, unless you can sway the editors. If not, treat it as a costly lesson. Anyway, the work is done, modify and send it to some other conference, as Patricia suggested.

@CaptainEmacs Thanks man. My friends told me usually they got remainders from conferences on deadlines, it's a little strange this conference didn't give any..this is not an excuse. the problem is I'm too careless

@Ethan get yourself some electronic calendar and set the alarm for a few days before important dates - strictly without exception! When reminded, re-set it to one day before the day. That should help, if you strictly adhere to it. I found that, once an important date appears in my agenda, email, discussion, etc., I immediately, without regard for decorum, politeness, put it in the calendar [of course, that does not hold when you cross the road, drive a car or similar, but you should not be checking your mail/phone at that time, anyway]. Make it a strict rule, no exceptions.

@CaptainEmacs that's a great idea, thank you!

You're probably out of luck here. You can try to email one of the conference chairs or whoever might be higher up the chain than the publishing office, but that's a bit of a long shot, especially a week after.
I'm so sorry this happened to you. I've come close to missing a deadline once or twice and I now set days worth of reminders just to be sure I don't mess anything up.

Agreed: it sounds like once the mistake was made, the OP did the right thing to try to salvage the situation, but the situation was no longer salvageable.

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Piece of identification needed at first registration day of a US conference
I will soon take part in my first congress in the USA.
What piece of identification is needed to register on the first day?
I don't want to carry my passport with me all the day of the conference so is a driver licence sufficient?

I think this is a question you should direct to the organisers.  You'll only get speculation here based on prior experience, which might be helpful, however you could run into issues if there are genuine ID requirements.

If you're registered as a student (or some other role that gives you a discount) then you may need to bring proof of that, but otherwise I've never attended a conference and had to bring anything in order to register.
If the organisers of the conference expect you to bring something then they'd almost certainly tell you. Check the information you've been given, and if they say nothing about bringing proof of ID then you don't need it.

Right.   I've been asked for "some form of ID" at a few conferences, but most often it's juts walk up to the desk, say your name, and get handed your badge.

Even though rare, there are some conferences where ID is required, but generally any government-issued form of tamper-proof picture ID should be sufficient.  There are exceptions, but those exceptions generally involve the US government and should be clearly stated on the conference registration page.

I have attended a few conferences or workshops held inside (US) government owned facilities, and for those I had to show ID at the gate. In the case of the site where highly classified work is done my foreign colleagues had to provide extra documentation before coming and we all I had to promise to stick to certain parts of the facility and to return our temporary badges before leaving.
That's the only circumstance in which I've been asked for ID on showing up for a conference.


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What is a PhD forum? Is it similar to short paper submission?
I am a Ph.D. student in Electrical Engineering and I have been looking at submitting a paper to one particular conference I wanted to go to. In the end, I have missed the deadline for full paper submission. However, I still can have the option of doing a Ph.D. Forum submission. I been to several conferences already, but I am not really familiar with a "Ph.D. Forum".
What is a Ph.D. forum exactly? Is like a short/poster paper? (2-4 pages?) Is work still publishable?
My advisor tells me that it could be good idea for me to do it anyways, if I want.

Right.. but what is "PhD forum"? Just another name for short paper / poster session? Or does exact definition depends on the conference?

The nature may vary from conference to conference, but in my experience a Ph.D. forum is typically an event intended to help graduate students learn how to present and how to shape their papers to fit the expectations of the field.  It is often a place for students to start getting advice and feedback on their work from the larger community, and for the larger community (who may be interested in hiring the student in the future) to start getting to know them.
As such, it is typically very lightly reviewed and only sort-of counts as publication.  As such, it is not worth very much on your resume (the value is in the networking and feedback), but it will not usually prevent you from later publishing a full version of the same work elsewhere.


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Why can't you get an E on a test in the United States?
So, in testing in the USA, an A is the best score you can get. Then comes B, which most students desire, and then comes a C, where you're on the verge of shattering your gradebook by getting a bad grade. Then there's D (even worse), and an F, where you will surely be very ashamed of yourself. Then, there's this alphabetical pattern, A, B, C, D, and then F. But where's E? Why isn't there an E in it?
In an answer given, I want a historical explanation of this question that tells how these letter grades popped up, and why E dropped out (or was never included) in the USA.
Thanks in advance!

A possible explanation I have seen that it is trivial to manipulate when an E is there. If you get an F, simply add one bar and you got an E.

For what it's worth, a lot of schools (particularly primary/secondary schools) don't even use "D" any longer.

I haven't located a super reliable source, but from Slate:

The earliest record of a letter-grade system comes from Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts in 1897. [...] The lowest grade at Mount Holyoke was an E, which represented failure. [...] One year later, administrators changed the failing grade to F and tweaked the other letters. The new scale offered better symmetry, since each grade represented five points, with scores below 75 resulting in failure. [...] Over the next two decades, variations on the letter-grade system spread across the country and into primary and secondary schools. It’s hard to put a date on the end of the E, but it was gone from most colleges by 1930. Apparently, some professors worried that students would think the grade stood for “excellent,” since F stood for “failure.”

Basically, four grades (and plus/minuses) and a fail option seemed to work out well from the instructors' perspective, and F was picked up for "fail."
Possibly the concern over "E" was affected by the ESNU system (according to an uncited paragraph on Wikipedia):

At one time (until roughly the mid-20th century), the most popular grading system in the United States used four letters, which ranked in descending order:

E (Excellent)

S (Satisfactory)

N (needs improvement; "NI" was also used interchangeably)

U (unsatisfactory)

Also worth nothing the "ESNU" system: excellent/satisfactory/needs improvement/unsatisfactory, which is probably the actual reason for the concern about E being misleading.

Okay. That actually makes a lot of sense when you think about it, since in one system, E means failure, and in another means excellent. It can be quite confusing.

I've also seen Excellent, Good, Fair, Unsatisfactory in primary grades. Which might muddy up what both E and F mean.

Maybe another concern was that an F could be easily turned into an E by a cheating student, if both existed in the same grading system, when grades were recorded in paper. I do not have a source, though; I am only speculating.

The use of the past tense in the Wikipedia quote there seems to imply that ESNU is no longer in use, but it is the norm in lower-elementary schools (roughly K–2 ish) around where I'm from

@Elizabeth Henning: I've also seen Excellent, Good, Fair, Unsatisfactory in primary grades. --- My first few years of elementary school grades had this format. I'm not sure for how many years (I thought I knew where my school report cards were and was going to find out more definitively, but they're not in the first, and only, place I looked), but this was in the mid to late 1960s.

in NZ E does stand for Excellent (technically Excellence) and A is merely "Achieved [the required standard]". The other passing grade is M.

For what it's worth, my High School in Pennsylvania did in fact use E instead of F. This was in the mid 2000s.

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Is it ethical to copy a research idea?
I am a high school senior. One of my friends did a research project in a certain field of Computer Science 2 years ago and it won a lot of awards. He is now at university. I read his paper and relevant work in the area and the research area looks really interesting. I want to do research that's closely related to this idea and I have a few ideas on how to extend the research. Is it ethical to do this project? My main concern is that he/other mutual friends will think that I just used the same idea so that I could win as well.

Awards are won for doing the project well, not for having the best idea.

It’s not just ethical- it’s literally how scientific progress works! Find existing ideas, build upon them, make better ideas, repeat.

If you explicitly cite it, it's ethical.

@AnonymousPhysicist That is only half-truth. It's for a strong idea, well executed. Both are essential. There may not be a "best" idea, but mediocre ideas, executed well, are still mediocre.

@CaptainEmacs: Mediocre ideas executed well are perfectly OK for high school seniors. You don't need to learn all skills at the same time.

@MSalters They are "perfectly OK", but one can aim higher. I have seen some of the very best ideas pop up at high school level. It seems that at uni some people lose originality.

@Spark Indeed, Isaac Newton put it well when he wrote, "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants."

Yes, you can do this. You are not taking his ideas, you are using your own (note you wrote "I have a few ideas").
Basically, once a paper is published, all the ideas within becomes public knowledge and you are free to build on them. You should still cite the original paper if you are building on their ideas, but your extensions are yours and yours alone.
By the way, many authors will be quite flattered if you work on their ideas - it implies that you find their ideas interesting.

+1 The citation, in a case like this, also critically provides the person grading the project with a reference for the original work, so this lets them have a clear view of what aspects were previously reported and what content the new project adds to it.  When grading what they will be looking for is the quality of the new work, so as long as the new project makes sufficient additions to what is already there this should not be a problem at all.

Good part of research done is based on or similar to many other studies done before. Actually, most papers cite and compare the results with many other similar researches. If you do another research and cite them properly they should feel honored unless your are really just copy-pasting / plagiarising. In fact, research papers' quality and influence is generally measured by quantity of citations it got in other papers.

This is of course not a problem! In fact, it's exactly how scientific research works. I would say there are two things you definitely should do to avoid any ethical concerns:

Clearly cite your friend's previous work.
Provide a fair review of the work your friend did as a part of your project and presentation. Emphasize what they accomplished and how your work fits in or extends the existing research.

As long as you do those two things, there are no ethical qualms with doing this project.

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Is an original refinement of a theorem eligible to be published on some journal?
I am an undergraduate student majoring in math and economics and I managed to prove a theorem (10 page long theorem) that was only stated for functions in the real line with valures in the real line, and I generalized the whole (pretty convoluted structure) to a general topological space. The proof is pretty the same, but what I am showing is that all the passages can be done and my original contribution is to justify all the passages that in the real line were for free, while in a general topological space they needed at least 2 or 3 intermediate lemmas that actually account for 3/4 pages of original proofs. Working it all with the nitty gritty details, the whole paper becomes 30/40 pages long (with intro and related literature, proof, lemmas and conclusion).
My question is the following: My field is mathematical economics. How can I be sure my generalization can be submitted to some academic journal? I am sure no one has ever done it before but I do not know how important my contribution can be. Probably it is not worth to be published in Econometrica or Journal of Economic Theory (two of the best econ journals), but I am asking here:

How can I understand if my generalization deserves at least a try to some medium/low-rank journal?
How can I understand which journal best fits my work?

Please, do not answer referring me to some professors in my department, since I would rather not risk to go to their office and feel ashamed to have proposed a work that actually is not worth publishing (I mean, I do not want to be "that one" with too much self-esteem). Thanks in advance!

You cannot be sure without consluting an expert in the field.

Did the original theorem you generalized appear in one of your course? Then the professor of that course would probably know what your generalization is worth. Or a topology professor at your university could judge the value of the generalization.

@the L, what if I try to read some papers published in some journal and I try to understand if their work (with different results) is in principle similar to mine?

@Taladris, in reality not. I found the general result is some lecture notes of a Professor in another university: he stated the theorem and he referred the reader to the original paper, arguing that the generalization I worked on is still not present in the literature.

"Please, do not answer referring me to some professors in my department, since I would rather not risk to go to their office and feel ashamed to have proposed a work that actually is not worth publishing (I mean, I do not want to be "that one" with too much self-esteem). " This attitude may stand in your way. Communication and asking questions of this kind is essential to professional improvement. I don't think you'd need to "feel ashamed", and if you do, that's rather something to overcome.

Generally, an extension of a theorem is valuable. But whether it is publishable is up to a publisher. The way they make a decision is to have submissions reviewed by experts. But you can, in most cases, also seek expert help in evaluating the work you do. As suggested in the comments, local professors might be good for that.
But you can just write it up and submit it. To find an appropriate journal, you need to find a few candidates and, at least, look at the index to see what sorts of things they publish.
However, it may be that your work would be considered a trivial extension rather than something with value. That would hinge on one or both of two things. First, the theorem statement itself might provide insights into understanding topological spaces. But, and probably more important, the form of the proof you provide might provide insight into the solution of other problems. Often the proof is more important than the theorem itself. Your suggestion that you needed additional lemmas to extend an old proof might be your key to success.
If/when you submit you will get feedback on the work and possibly suggestions to improve it. But it takes reading of the paper to decide on its value.


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Is it possible to face future problems performing calculations based on possibly wrong data from the paper of other authors?
I published a paper and measured the environmental impact of some chemicals based on parameters published elsewhere by other authors. They are reputed and reliable but I suspect of some inconsistencies in their calculations and I based the mine on the values measured by them .I cited them and said that the calculations was "performed using the original values calculated by Author et al." If their calculations were actually wrong, can I face future problems even the mistake is not mine? Thank you in advance.
EDIT: For the last time, there is not misconduct, fraud, bad faith or carelessness involved. Please ignore my question if you plan to advice me to not be dishonest when the scope of the discussion is not this.

Can you clarify: you trust their measurement, but not their calculation, so you redid the calculation?  If you use your own calculations, how can mistakes in theirs be a problem for you?

What sort of "future problems"?

The original data for the calculations they performed are avaliable in their Supplementary Material. This data was used to calculate parameters in two of their papers. I reproduced all the calculations. For one papers, the results were reproducible. For the other one (the main one, the one with this original data in supporting material) they were not. I am afraid to face a future corrigendum (retraction would not be the case, I guess) because I trusted in literature.

What sort of error are we talking? You got 16.1 and they got 17.0? Or 5.0 vs 17.0?

They got 14.1 and I got 17.0

Ultimately, it is your responsibility to check the information that you use in your paper. If the data that went into your paper was wrong (even if you or your co-authors didn't take that data), then you have some obligation to correct that error. It's may not be your fault, since obviously there are finite resources to check things and you may not even have had all the details necessary to reproduce the data you used, but it is now your responsibility as a scientist to set the record straight about the consequences for your work. (It is also counterproductive to worry too much about whose fault an unintentional error is.)
Deciding what action to take about your paper is similar to deciding what to do about any other kind of error. For a minor error that does not affect the main conclusions, but changes some details, you might add a comment to a future paper updating and correcting the result. For a major error that changes a key result significantly, you might submit some kind of erratum. For a truly egregious problem that invalidates the premise of what you did or your main conclusions, you might need to retract the paper.
In addition to correcting your paper, you should also try to fix the underlying problem with the source of the data. It is a good idea to contact the authors of the original paper so they are aware. If this is a minor issue, you might want to add a comment in one of your upcoming papers where you point out the issue with the data in the Supplemental Material. If this is a major problem, you could imagine publishing a paper refuting the data in the original paper (although I doubt this would be reasonable to do in this case, based on your description).
These things happen. There are certainly many cases of an error in one paper being carried on and used in future papers. The main thing is to try to clean things up, so there is a record correcting the problem in the literature.

I could agree - actually I agree with the major points- but first of all I'm not saying it is not my responsibility. I would not even asking this question if I thought like this. I'm sorry for the possible rudeness, but I can guarrantee the question does not involve lack of care or bad faith.

@OAS I wasn't intending to imply you didn't already know this or are acting unethically. I was just trying to lay out my point of view from a logical starting point.

If you know something is wrong, you should not use it.  You could present your own calculation as a "reevaluation of the data in XXX".  It might also be good to discuss things with the original authors.

You are asking the wrong question.

If I [do something in bad faith], is it possible to face repercussions?

Maybe, but why would you want to do that in the first place? That is, why would you try to pass off these results as legitimate when you believe they are wrong?
You should not be afraid of publishing a corrigendum - it is not "future problems" by any stretch of imagination. Contact the authors of the original paper, try to resolve the issue with data. Sweeping it under the rug is no good.

How can It be the right question if I did not do anything in bad faith/ dos not practice misconduct? It is ok to tell me to send a corrigendum if there was a mistake or even contact the authors to get the things straight or correct the record but I honestly do not think I gave no reason to extrapolate this to bad faith.

@OAS I think Lodinn was responding to one way you could read your question: "if I don't correct the error in my paper because it was not my fault, will I face consequences?" I don't think this is exactly what you intended, but this sentence could be interpreted that way: "If their calculations were actually wrong, can I face future problems even the mistake is not mine?"

Believe me, I know Retraction Watch, I know what is an erratum, a corrigendum, a retraction and I follow Elizabeth Bik on Twitter (lol, and I love her work in image forensics). And of course, I know the taboo and the involved stigma. However, I appreciate your advice (the accusation was not necessary, but thanks).

@OAS Basically what Andrew said. You phrase it as "face future problems". How is submitting a corrigendum "problems"? If you are aware of an issue, it's somewhat serious (not just a rounding error, has a potential to affect interpretation of the results) and are willing to just let it go because doing otherwise means extra effort - that's misconduct. Not sure what kind of taboo and involved stigma are you talking about in your last comment - is it about data manipulation/fabrication? No one is accusing you of this. It's not like that is the only kind of misconduct out there.

I'm not aware about anything, I was SUSPECTING of a problem. You would appreciate to know that I talked with the authors and all is fine with the data. This was just a misunderstanding. Your assumptions are not my problem. Everything is fine. I just made a pragmatic question.Misunderstanding is not a problem. Unfortunately, I can't say the same about judgment without knowing all the details. Regardless of this, my raw data is avaliable and I appreciate if you confirm the reliability of the results by yourself.

I can assure you that be a scientist in a emergent country and not no speak english fluently do not make me dumb or unaware about COPE rules. Guess what? My concerns were about the data published by authors from UK. I appreciate your advice but a passive-agressive action is not necessary.

@OAS First of all, good to know you have cleared the air. I have not made any assumptions you seem to be so hell bent on, the only assumption I am operating on is the one you have provided yourself in the question: data values should be X but seem to be Y when recalculated, and are considering to not act upon this discrepancy. You wanted a "pragmatic" answer, I gave you one: this is misconduct. Simple as that. Couldn't care less about the who authored what or anything of that sort (and it is a bad thing to make it affect judgement!). It is misconduct all the same. You have acted, so all good


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How to assess prominence in non-STEM research
I'm interested in how I could assess prominence of specific scholars outside the STEM (science, tech, engineering, math) fields. As a scholar in the humanities or social sciences, how do you gauge the prominence of another scholar you previously never heard of?
Note: This question is a genuine curiosity of mine, and comes with no intention of denouncing or belittling another research field.

In math, engineering, computer science and physics (I'm an applied math PhD student), a lot of papers are are available for free (as a preprint) on Arxiv and a lot of researchers are thoroughly catalogued on Google Scholar. So if I encounter a new academic "Ms. A", I can look up her work on Google Scholar to quickly skim her h-index, total citations, and read her most popular research works. This gives me some (but not all!) understanding of how reputed she is in her field. Skimming her works on Arxiv allows me to understand some subtleties of her work that aren't normally articulated on the news media. [Edit: I initially wrote here that apparently Google Scholar isn't extensively used in non-STEM fields. But I did some searches and it seems to be popular there as well.] I'm curious of what an analogous "usual" process would be in non-STEM fields.
My motivation to find out about this comes from the self-proclaimed experts appearing on media. Reputed public intellectuals aren't necessarily great academics, so I'm interested in finding out how I would go about and assess prominence of scholars in a non-STEM field.

Pretty much the same way. You'll have two challenges though: The first challenge is that H-indexes are not comparable across disciplines. So as long as you only look within one discipline, you are fine comparing them. However, what is a great H-index in your discipline may be a horrible one in another, or vice versa. The other challenge is getting access to the publications. You may need to get that through your library, especially if the predominant way of publishing in that discipline is books instead of articles.

Thank you. Would you say that copies or preprints of recent research works in sociology are usually not available for free online?

It is pretty rare for free preprint to be available for books. Also for articles there is less of a culture of preprints in sociology.


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Arxiv after acceptance
I had submitted a paper, say X-1, on a reputed Springer (Birkhauser) journal of our field. After two major revisions I received an Ad hoc email from the editor which says that the paper is accepted, however the journal can only sent the formal acceptance mail on coming months (March 2022) due to the excessive congestion of articles.
Now, I have completed a follow up article, say X-2, based on X-1, which is ready to be submitted. Since I have cited X-1 in X-2, I need to make it available for the referee and reviewers of the journal where I am planning to submit X-2. Can I put X-1 in arxiv now? At least the primary version, where the revisions was not incorporated?
I read the publication ethics but that does not address my query. For reference https://www.springer.com/gp/editorial-policies/ethical-responsibilities-of-authors

What do the submission guidelines of the journal for X-1 say?

I checked it after your comment and found several points. It says it will follow the COPE guidelines under the section "Ethical Responsibilities of Authors". The submission guidelines are similar to that of most other Springer Journals. Thank you @GoodDeeds

Ask the editor that sent you the letter.

Most journals will not explicitly prevent you from putting a revised version of X-1 on a web page of your choice (including arxiv.org) provided it meets some conditions. For example, you need to use a "generic" style (like article style) rather than the journal's style file which may be copyrighted.

It may be possible for the journal which accepted X-1 to give you a unique journal-based identifier for it so that you can use it in your references. It would then be possible for you to use that reference in X-2. The journal will probably be happy to do this as it improves their citation rates.

Note that the editor/referee of your paper does have access to the arXiv, so they will be able to access X-1 in its most recent form if you follow (1).


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Is it plagiarism to submit the same work in a course after withdrawing from the course on a previous occasion?
I took a course a couple years ago and was doing well until I could not attend any longer and abruptly had to stop. I am currently retaking the course and wanted to hand in the work I submitted years ago since I worked hard on it and did well. Is this plagiarism or against some academic code?

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

Whether or not this is a problem probably depends more on the goal of the assignment for the purpose of this course rather than plagiarism as a general academic concept, because in both cases the work is your own sole work for a course assignment (the same course even), and is not owned by anyone else, published, etc.
The only thing you can do is to ask your instructor for guidance. Depending on their goals for the assignment, they may be okay with a re-submission of the previous work or they may want you to complete a new assignment; they may even want you to pick a new topic if the assignment allows for a broader interpretation.

I was once given credit for a paper that I'd submitted to a previous school after I moved. However, there were two considerations. I moved before I completed the first course so wasn't given complete credit for my work previously. Also, I asked the instructor beforehand whether I could submit it, as the assignment was nearly the same.
Even if I'd written it from scratch, it would have had the same ideas, and because thought and language patterns are fairly consistent over a short period, it might have had much of the same phrasing unless I'd tried to obfuscate it - a stupid practice.
Note that the earlier work wasn't published, so it really isn't a technical case of plagiarism to reuse your own thoughts. I also, I suppose, revised a bit to include more recent ideas (this was more than 50 years ago). But complete honesty with the professor isn't likely to hurt you here even though the professor isn't likely to know of your earlier work unless you tell him/her.
However, revision is worth doing in any case. Presumably you have learned some things since the work originated.

"Published" is a bad metric for plagiarism in the context of a class assignment. Many universities will consider the unreferenced reuse of previous assignments to be (self-)plagiarism, regardless of whether the work was 'published' or not.

I tend to fall more into the line of thought that such use of your work is not plagiarism. A key component here though is disclosure. I would speak with the professor about re-use of your work. If he or she approves re-use of the work, I would find it to be perfectly allowable to re-use that work.
I have had a few instances where my students have re-used work even from other classes. Insofar as it fulfilled the assignment, I was okay with this. It saved them from a busywork-like rewriting of an assignment into slightly different language. In each case, all I asked is that students indicate that they were re-using the work.
Some slight caveats would be cases where the student does not retain sole copyright of the work, or cases where the work was a collaborative effort. These cases require much more care not to plagiarize. However, in cases where a student is the sole author of the work and they have not assigned the copyright to any other party, I allow students to re-use their personal work.

I wouldn't focus too much on the label 'plagiarism'.  I'd suggest focusing on acting with integrity and honor and in line with your personal ethics.  Not everyone understands the word 'plagiarism' in the same way (as is evident from the answers here), and the specifics of the academic code might vary a bit from university to university and from class to class, but regardless of whether it counts as plagiarism or something else, you can still be sure to do the right thing.  Even if it is not 'plagiarism' per se, that doesn't completely settle the question; you should still ask whether it is right and acceptable to do this.
I don't know whether it will be considered acceptable in your particular class, but let me suggest some questions to help guide your thinking.  What would the instructor say if they knew that you were re-using your answer to an assignment from when you took the class earlier?  Would they be happy with it, or would they consider it unacceptable?  What would they say if they discovered that you had re-used an old assignment, without indicating that you had done so?  Would they feel deceived?  Would they feel like you were trying to hide that fact?  What would a disinterested third party think, if they learned that?  Your answers to those questions might help guide your thinking about what to do.  Of course, you might not know the answer to some of those questions, in which case the natural solution is to talk to your instructor to find out the answers.
In particular, I have some concrete suggestions:

Ask your instructor. Find out what their standards are.  This may make it clear what to do.  And I suspect the instructor would prefer to be asked, rather than discover it on their own after the fact.
Be honest about what you are doing.  Disclose on your assignment that you wrote the essay the last time you took the course and turned it in for credit then.  That way, no one can claim that you are hiding what you are doing.  (If you are thinking that you shouldn't need to do this, well, you totally might be right; but it's also worth considering that when we are tempted to hide some facts, that can sometimes indicate that we know or suspect it might be wrong.)  And it helps protect you: if anyone later accuses you of plagiarism or wrongdoing, you can point to the fact that you proactively disclosed it on the assignment, and I expect that would count for a lot.

In general, you need to understand the rules at your institution.
In broad terms, what you describe broadly fits the definition of what is called "self-plagiarism". I.e., using your own published work in a subsequent publication where there is an expectation of originality and you do not acknowledge that part or all of the new publication is taken from the earlier publication. Of course, in a student setting, replace the words publication with assignment.
At all universities that I have worked at (Australian context), there has been a rule that treats submitting assignments used in previous units without acknowledgement as academic misconduct. I imagine this is in place for pedagogical reasons. You are meant to learn by creating a novel piece of work, even if you happen to have done something similar in the past.
That said, your case is a little different. You are not taking an assignment from a different unit. Rather you are taking your assignment from  the same unit. This scenario is presumably fairly common (e.g., students that fail, students that drop out of a unit, and the re-enrol at
a later date).
I would seek explicit guidance from your professor about what is their policy.

Since you don’t mention how long ago it was that you dropped your class, I would say no, don’t laze your way through your first assignments. Man up and work hard again. I am a retired teacher and I agree with @louic. You are there to learn and to PROVE what you have learned. Use your past work as a study guide and fulfill your new syllabus again. If you are truly a learner, you will enjoy getting back into the swing of this class and breeze through the portions you completed earlier. Then, you will be prepared for the part of the syllabus that you dropped and have not done the work for. It sounds like this class is one you need for your major, so cutting corners will only hurt you in the long run.
It also sounds as though you submitted some of it for a grade already. In my opinion, it would be unconscionable to RESUBMIT ALREADY SUBMITTED AND GRADED WORK, whether it counted on your transcript or not. You would have an unfair time and learning advantage over others in your class that could skew the curve (if there is one).
At any rate, you’re already ahead of the game by even considering the question, so best of luck!

My daughter received an F on a paper in college that she had self-plagiarized from a paper in high school. Best to check with the instructor and confirm their policy.

Sounds like she got an F for submitting the same work for credit in more than one course.  The academic honor policy at her school probably specifically forbids that in those or very similar works.  It benefits no one to use loaded phrases like "self-plagiarism", stick to the much more clear and accurate verbiage the policy uses.

Both the question (plagiarism) and the current answers (yes / no / ask your instructor) are not in line with what a typical teacher would expect: the purpose of the class is that you learn something.
Unfortunately a past achievement is not necessarily the same as something you can still do now. So the question you should ask yourself, and also what your teacher wants to see is: are you capable of completing this assignment TODAY.
In other words: you are not in university to pass exams. You are there to learn something. So the solution is simple: do the assignment again.

If you already know how to do it you will get it done quickly.
If there are details you forgot, you will learn something which is the purpose of attending the course in the first place.

Good luck!

Given that the OP seems to have dropped the initial class without credit, and is retaking it, I think it very possible that the repeated assignment is fairly narrow and there's little value in attempting to redo it. The most extreme example would be a math problem set.

@AndrewLazarus I'd argue that a math problem set might be at the top of the list of things I'd recommend redoing. On some written creative or analysis assignment particularly if you feel the same way about the subject and would come to the same conclusions as previously, it may be difficult to come up with completely original output, and redoing the assignment is likely to result in just rehashing the same arguments, but with math problems, you don't really do them as proof of your capability, but for practice.


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How to deal with unavoidable failure in my first year of tenure-track applications?
I got my PhD recently. I applied to many tenure-track positions and got selected for several onsite job interviews. Yay. However I have actually been told in no uncertain terms by several trusted people that this year, my chances are extremely close to zero, considering my short track record.
I cannot help but get my hopes up. How do I deal with this upcoming unavoidable failure and put a good spin for myself on my situation?
It may sound stupid but like many people in academia, so far I have been quite successful and have not had to deal with professional failure much... (Consider this: good in school, good in university, graduated with honors, got accepted to masters, got accepted to PhD, got the PhD - most people in academia follow this kind of path. I hope this does not come across as immodest, I am very aware that I am just a cog in the grand (grant?) scheme of academia. I am good at what I do but not at the rest.) Of course I met failure very often in my private life, but this does not feel the same.

At least in my field, it's quite unusual to land a tenure-track position right after PhD --- usually, one or more postdocs is the norm.

It is the case in my field too. This is why the trusted people say I will almost certainly not get the job. I ask how to deal with that. Getting selected for the onsite interviews put unachievable hope in my head.

I'm not sure this is on-topic, as your basic question (how to deal with failure) is not really specific to academia. My advice is to go and play some sports, hang out with friends, watch your favourite TV show, call your mum, let yourself feel sad for a while. Failure is an important part of life as an academic and you kind of just have to get used to it.

It is contradictory that you say this question is not on-topic and at the same time failure is an important part of being academic.

In my field (mathematics, U.S.), also, it would be unreasonable to expect to get a tenure-track position immediately after PhD. Happens to virtually no one. Post-doc first.

@user91750- I didn't understand why you get your hopes up- you've only got interview calls, do these interviews have very high selection rates?

@user91750 the point is that it's not specific to academia.

And dealing with discouragement is also not specific to academia but the question is one of the most voted question.

I passed the first round of applications and now am going to do a research presentation in front of the jury. Only 8-12 people get to this phase. There are no statistics but usually there are around 50 applicants in the first round from what I am told. Of course only one is selected in the end.

grant scheme of academia -- that's beautiful.

@astronat but academic failure is different (and fear of failure is a recurring theme that's typical of academia -- see imposter syndrome and some of our most upvoted questions).

@henning interesting food for thought, this has prompted me to ask my own question on the subject.

If you had some job interviews straight out of a PhD, you a waaaaay better than most.

Tenure.. you usually don't get that until at least 5-10 years after your finished PhD, do you? You will typically work as research engineer / post doc / lecturer / docent / assistant professor and some other stuff first.

Failure is not just an important part of academia—it’s an important part of being human.

I suggest dealing with the situation by revising your (misguided, IMO) definition of “failure”. Even if it is, as you say, “ineluctable”, that you will fail to land a tenure-track position this year, you will still be a highly qualified and highly successful person with excellent career prospects. To refer to this as a failure is itself a failure - a failure of the imagination, that is.
I and most other successful academics had to spend multiple years after graduation to get a good tenure-track position. Almost all of us struggled with repeated rejections, job uncertainty, and geographic dislocation before arriving at a good place career-wise. Keep your eyes focused on your long-term goals and on the fun and passion of doing research, and given your description of your situation I predict that you will be fine. Regardless of what happens with your current job search, a “failure” you most certainly are not.

+1 It is especially misguided to consider it a failure if most people eventually getting those jobs have held postdoc positions, and you (i.e. OP) haven't. If anything, it's an achievement to get to the interview stage without that background.

Those initial years of uncertainty and dislocation can be rough.  I've known a few people who otherwise seemed to be great (or at least good enough) researchers who enjoyed being in academia that couldn't handle those years and left.

I cannot help but get my hopes up. How do I deal with this upcoming unavoidable failure and put a good spin for myself on my situation?

One way to put a good spin on this is to consider these interviews as free practice with no real cost associated. If your chances are basically zero, you have nothing to lose by attending, right? But you have a lot to gain: experience with how such interviews go, what to do and what to avoid, how people respond etc. It's also an opportunity to make all the first-timer errors in a situation where they don't matter much (because they can't really lower your chances).

This is absolutely the right spirit. Unless you have a great mentor training you for interviews, your first few job talks and on-campus interviews will be miserable, and just getting the chance to train this while you are still young is already a big success.

At some point, someday, everyone fails to meet their highest targets and is disappointed. Even the most successful people. Don't worry. Keep doing your job and setting high targets for yourself.

A tenured position is a senior one and – as everyone has said – it is not available for new PhDs.
Apply for junior positions – "Assistant" Professor/Lecturer or Research Associate.

There are tenure-track assistant professor positions. That said, I agree with the general point that it is rare to get such a position straight after one's PhD, although I do now of some cases

I just edited OP's question to reflect "tenure-track" rather than "tenured," an important distinction you picked up on. (Mentioning in comment so no one asks you, "What are you talking about? The question clearly says...")

Apparently, i'm not a mind-reader. I didn't know what you two seem to.

Mind reading here at Academia SE will come with practice.  It's such an international site, with all flavors of English.  You'll get the hang of intuiting what the OP meant (often but not always).

Now that the question is clarified this answer should be deleted.

"I cannot help but get my hopes up. How do I deal with this upcoming unavoidable failure and put a good spin for myself on my situation?"
Part of the difficulty is that the process of applying and interviewing is selling the employer on what a good match you are for them, and how well you will do there. To see and describe that match requires you to spend time imagining your future there, and it would be extremely hard to sell the employer on that future without selling yourself on it and getting your own hopes up.
Perhaps you can deal with managing your expectations by telling yourself, "Wow, I really can imagine working in a place like this." There's a whole collection of colleges or universities that will have similar attributes to what you like there, and your interviews this year will help you recognize and appreciate what you're looking for in the future. (You can similarly be excited about the people you meet and like at your interviews. You're lucky to have people like that in your field, and you will hopefully cross paths again.) Good luck!

Are you a bigger failure if you do not get it than if you had not applied at all?
No?
Well, then that is really your answer: You gave it a shot with a high risk of failure, and you are not worse off because of it.

There are two possible ways you can approach this.

Trust the multiple trusted people, and don't apply to positions that they say are beyond your reach at this stage.

Or, you could use the applications as a barometer, a measuring stick.  If you get offered a job of the type you would like, then you are one in a million.  If you get shortlisted but not hired, then you are pretty close to your goal.  If your applications don't resonate with anyone yet, that shows you your next steps to take, to work towards your goal.  It's like the elves cutting out the leather for the shoemaker to sew together the boots.  Once you have that feedback (the lack of resonance), that gives you the cut of the cloth.  You know what to do next.  You know how to sew the boots together -- that is, you know how to find topics, do your research, do your writing, submitting, revising.
Focus on those things.  Focus on the timeline that you are ineluctably marching along.  Focus on goals and work and progress.


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Can I use the mm.dd.yy date format in academic writing?
The date format is usually written as mm/dd/yy and sometimes the month written out followed by the day followed by a comma and the year. My question is: is it academically acceptable to write the date in mm.dd.yy format? I like the . . . format better than the / / / format, which is why I ask the question.

There are only a handful of countries that use the MDY format. Unless whatever you're writing is intended for the US only and not for an international audience, you should better use the much more common DMY (with whatever separator you like) or the Y-M-D format (ISO 8601).

This seems entirely language dependent. Dates are not usually "written as mm/dd/yy" in academia, but in American English. If you write in a different language, you will have to follow the conventions of that language, whether they are "mm.dd.yy" (not sure which language uses this format), or anything else.

German uses rhe dot notation, at least in Austria

@Llopis: Well, being German myself, I have to nitpick here ;) At least in Germany, strictly speaking, a "ddmmyy" format is used, where "dd" and "mm" happen to be ordinal numbers, which are indicated by a trailing dot in German. The dot is not a delimiter in the date format; it is a part of the "dd" and "mm" components (as becomes apparent when skipping the year - skipping the year in 11/15/2013 yields 11/15, but skipping the year in 15.11.2013 yields 15.11., not 15.11).

What does "academically acceptable" even mean?

At a minimum, "academically acceptable" would imply that a competent reader knows without doubt what the author meant. If you write for example "05.07.15" then I would guess that it might be a German date in July, but used within English text I would then think that this guess isn't very justified and I have actually no idea whether this is a date in May or July. So not academically acceptable. I would then also be left wondering what else in this text I cannot trust.

The International Standard ISO 8601 is YYYY-MM-DD.
See Wikipedia and A summary of the international standard date and time notation.
Sadly this is not used by everyone as can be seen in this article about date formats per country:

The most popular order is day-month-year (Little-Endian, cyan in the image), used by about 57% of the world population.
Next is year-month-day (Big-Endian, yellow), used by about 29%.
Then month-day-year (Middle-Endian, magenta), used by about 6%.
The remaining 8% use a mix of the above.

But, in the end the most important is the standards used in your university or the conference or journal you are sending your papers to.

Obligatory xkcd retort against ISO 8601 (I'm just kidding, for what it's worth)

@ChrisWhite: Eh no many of us are actually competent and knowledgeable, as well as being comic fans :)

As a millennium programmer the only way to remove ambiguity I've found is that you spell out the month and use 4 numbers for the year:
December 4th 2015
4 December 2015
2015 December 4

This is the definitive answer in my view. The point of writing is to convey meaning. If the meaning is unclear because different people may interpret things differently, then you made a mistake in your choice. So, rather than trying to ask what is "acceptable" or "typical", the question you need to ask is "How do I unambiguously convey what I want to say to the reader?".

If someone else has authority over your format, for example your advisor or the publisher of the journal you're writing for, then follow that someone's format requirements. If there's nobody with such authority, or if the person with authority doesn't care about the format, then use whatever format you like (but make sure you use it consistently).

I would agree with the recommendation to use ISO8601.  Not only is it an recognized international standard, it's logical, it removes ambiguity, and by using it, you'll help to spread awareness.  The sooner all of the other formats for date and time die off, the better for everyone.

I upvoted this because I agree with promoting the ISO format, but I still think your expectation that "other format for date and time die off" is unrealistic. Note that it is not because people are averse to change and the usual excuses, but that various other formats for date and time are closely linked to the way date and time are spoken in the respective languages when read out loud. Taking the example of German dates mentioned above, German speakers will not just write "3.4.11" because that's the convention for writing dates, "3.4.11" is literally read out "dritter vierter elf" ...

... (in English: "third fourth eleven"), which is simply how a date is pronounced in German. Even when writing "2011-04-03", the date will still be pronounced "dritter vierter [zweitausend]elf" and not "zweitausendelf null-vier null-drei" ("two thousand eleven zero-four zero-three"), because that's not how a date is indicated in German. Hence, I do not expect other formats for date and time to die off, at least not when used in a sentence.

I would agree that it is unlikely that other spoken and "long format" written dates would die off.  Hopefully though if ISO8601 gains enough traction it would become the norm in technical writing. It's such a simple way to end the ambiguity.


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Am I plagiarising if I publish something that has been independently discovered since?
My field is primarily connected with computer networks. Sometime in 2016, I discovered a vulnerability which at that time was not known (I searched a lot to make sure). I experimented with it and got exciting results. However, I couldn't publish it immediately due to some-other work my prof gave me.
When I was looking for good conferences on this subject I came across a GitHub repository exhibiting the same concept but it was created just months back. The work has not appeared in any conferences/journals.
I was wondering, since I thought of it and implemented it first, can I send it to  a conference or would that count as plagiarism?

"...since I thought of it and implemented it first" That is a bit difficult to prove now. Don't get me wrong. It's not plagiarism but certainly affects the novelty aspect of it.

Whether or not it's plagiarism, you might want to acknowledge the existence of the other work that was released between your discovery and publication. Doing so would certainly make it easier to explain why your result is novel or interesting.

No, but how much proof do you have that you discovered it first? (e.g. an email to self or others from back then?) It's highly useful to state you discovered it on date X, other named researchers subsequently independently discovered it on date Y.

@smci Yes, I have emails. However, the absolute proofs have legal ramifications since, this is after all pertaining to vulnerabilities and you do know what follows when a vulnerability has been discovered.

cite the other work as addressing the same problem, but mention that you thought of the same problem independently and add any of the ideas you came to think of which the other paper may have missed. it is quite rarely that even if two people come to think of something independently that they make exactly the same deductions or have the exactly same approach to deal with it.

@Aakusti: network security's not my thing, so I don't really understand what legal ramifications there are to being the unpublished first discoverer. Did you mean you had an obligation to disclose it earlier?

@smci what I meant was the majority of the proofs that I have are not legal since the vulnerability has worked and that means compromised data and so on and so forth.

Plagiarism is the explicit use of someone's work without attribution or permission, usually with the intent of passing it off as your own.
In the present case, the mere existence of the same work elsewhere does not make your work plagiarism. If you used their work and did not give them credit, that would be plagiarism.

Note: permission is irrelevant to plagiarism, that's an issue of copyright. If you hire someone to write your PhD thesis, then you obviously do have their permission to use their work, but it's obviously still plagiarism. Conversely, if you steal someone's work, but properly cite and attribute it and give credit, then it's not plagiarism but still a copyright violation. The two concepts are orthogonal.

@JörgWMittag  "If you hire someone to write your PhD thesis, then you obviously do have their permission to use their work, but it's obviously still plagiarism." Actually I do not think this is considered as plagiarism; it is in a still different category of usually inadmissible practices. (This is tangential though.)

@quid I think it's plagiarism because you present the thesis as written by you when in fact your ghostwriter wrote it. If you commissioned a thesis from me, and said to your university, "Here is my thesis (all work done by amalloy)", that would not be plagiarism but would not generally earn you a PhD. But people usually don't advertise that they used a ghostwriter, so this kind of cheating is usually also plagiarism.

@amalloy to be sure, there can be no doubt that it is very severe academic misconduct to hand in a thesis written by somebody else. For one thing it is common that one certifies that the work presented in the thesis is ones own, which in that case would be a lie.Thus it is of course cheating. Nevertheless it is according to my understanding of the word just not plagiarism. It is a different form of problem. But there may be different usages (some broader some more narrocw) of the word plagiarism in common use.

I think the definition is quite clear. Merriam-Webster's definition of plagiarize: "to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own; use (another's production) without crediting the source".

In my opinion, the word you want here ("If you hire someone to write your PhD thesis...") is collusion. Several universities have webpages informing the new students about "plagiarism and collusion". For instance: https://www2.le.ac.uk/offices/sas2/assessments/plagiarism . It's worth mentioning that you are guilty of collusion if you both hire someone to write your thesis or if you are the one hired to write the thesis for someone else.

Nominally, "plagiarism" is stealing. Now the question is what is stolen: authorship or the work itself. With ghostwriting the work is obviously not stolen, it is bought. But does the authorship get "stolen" from the real author? I don't know.

@amalloy well, but does it cover a case where one arguably did not steal the ideas of words of another since one paid for them or  even commissioned the work? It seems to me quite clear that it does not. If you search for "is ghostwriting plagiarism" you'll find plenty of discussion.

Note that A) they may have worked on this prior to uploading code to github, and B) could have their results 'under review' somewhere already. Worst case, they submit to the same conference as you.
Since you worked independently it by definition is not plagiarism.
It may nevertheless be good to acknowledge their work as independent related work. You have seen it, you have noticed the overlap, and you claim that your solution existed before you found theirs.

Another voice for "acknowledge the other work". If you don't and others know about it, you look like the one who swiped the idea. That person in this small field (and all their friends) will not be impressed. Having seen it, you can't unsee it.

Well, you look like you either swiped their idea, or are genuinely unaware of publicly accessible, directly related work in your field. You'd have to be ignorant or feigning ignorance - neither looks good.

My understanding of coding Plagiarism would be trying to pass off another person's work as your own. In this case, two people identified a security vulnerability independently and at different times.
Given the 'niche' nature of the exploit, it will be up to you to demonstrate original research on the topic matter. In your paper, I don't see why not you can't reference the work of the other person and postulate that their conclusions weren't the same as yours.


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Department member forwarded complaint about professor to that professor
I am an undergraduate at a US college. I wanted to take a course in a specific area of my major so that I could do better research during the summer. I do not have the prerequisite courses but I have extensive industry experience in this area so they are much less relevant. The course instructor (A) was ok with allowing me. I tried to respectfully ask permission from the department undergraduate advisor (B) but he refused permission right away and wasn't interested in what I had to say.
In a last-ditch attempt to be able to take the course, I emailed a higher-ranking professor (C) in the department explaining the issue and asking if she could help. This professor (C) forwarded my email to the original advisor B, who immediately sent me a nasty email saying that I don't dare ask someone else after I asked him.
While I can understand why the advisor reacted this way, why would a department member forward an email explaining a problem between a professor and student to the professor? I cannot wrap my head around it. Is this normal behavior for academic faculty?

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

While I can understand why the advisor reacted this way, why would a department member forward an email explaining a problem between a professor and student to the professor?

Is it the senior professor's formal task to handle complaints about or escalations from the advisor?
If yes, the senior professor indeed acted fairly unprofessionally, although it is a reality that in most cases the person that you complained about will learn about who complained about them as a matter of practicality (see some other answers for why this is).
If no, then, well, I am not sure what you thought would happen. Then you sent a random (presumably busy) senior person a mail about an issue that is in no way relevant to their tasks, and they did the only thing that makes sense from their perspective: glance the mail and forward to the person who is actually in charge for the request.
Look, I get that the first instinct when you get an unsatisfying decision is that you "would like to talk to the manager", but this is not how academia (or, really, any business) works. Department administrators delegate specific types of decisions to individual faculty members so that they don't have to deal with them one-by-one anymore. This is arguably not helped by the fact that faculty in academia tend to be very wary to step onto each other's toes. Hence, you will need to work with the undergrad advisor on these issues, even if you don't care for him much.

I've definitely heard stories about businesses that do work that way, where managers can and do override decisions by their employees to make a customer happy. So I don't know that "any business" is really accurate. But you're right that academia doesn't work like those businesses.

To the student, academia is a business, particularly in the United States where undergrads are often paying tens of thousands of dollars a semester to be there. If a student doesn't think they're getting adequate "customer service," damn straight they're going to complain to anybody they think can help; they're making one of the most expensive purchases of their life. That you prefer academia not operate on such crass terms is irrelevant unless you're the one making the loan payments. That, of course, is different from whether such an approach is effective (in this case, it clearly was not).

@DavidZ fwiw, I was thinking about the business analogue differently: if you are an employee and you go to your boss about a decision and don't like the outcome, you can't go to that person's manager for a re-ruling either (because OP said he was working in industry before). I understand that this isn't a great analogue, but neither is seeing studying at a university as a business transaction, no matter how much money you pay.

@xLeitix What makes you say that studying at university isn't a business transaction?  Failing to recognize it as such makes it difficult to identify with where the OP is coming from.

@ZachLipton The view you present of academia makes some sense from an undergraduate perspective, but many or most graduate students are just as much "employees" (i.e., research assistants, GTAs, etc.) of the university as they are "customers" (i.e., students). Just because large amounts of money are involved, doesn't mean all the concepts that work in other businesses apply to academia. One easy way to understand this is that students are actually paying to be judged on their work and merits, and sometimes harshly. A normal customer service approach would have all students get straight As.

If the student wanted to "speak to a manager," they should have sought out one of the professional administrators whose specific job it is to manage undergraduate education. One reason for rising tuitions is (thought to be) the fact that there are now so many more student-facing administrators, so I suppose they might as well get their money's worth. Typically there's a separate office for undergrad ed in general that's not affiliated with any particular department.

If your complaint was framed as a request and didn't state that you already tried and failed to get a positive response from the responsible undergrad advisor, it is normal and efficient from the higher-up's perspective to send it to the person in charge.
If your complaint indeed stated that you are unsatisfied with the response from the undergrad advisor and are seeking redress, then it's normal to involve the undergrad advisor but unprofessional to forward your mail without at least masking your name. However, it would still be easy  for the advisor to infer the author of the complaint, unless this is a huge department with many similar complaints coming in at the same time.
The reason why the higher-up forwarded your mail can only be guessed. Either they misunderstood your mail, thinking it wasn't a complaint but a request in line with the first paragraph, or they were unprofessional. It is within your rights, in any case, to seek redress to administrative decisions like the waiving of requisite courses, and therefore incorrect if the undergrad advisor tells you not to 'dare ask someone else'. If they don't leave it at an angry email (but I think they will), you still have the option to bring the matter to your university's ombudsperson.

The text of your question implies that you are supposed to take some requisite courses first to be able to take this specific course. I don't think it is the advisor who established this policy, probably this is a policy of your college, so he just enforced the policy. The fact that you asked the advisor "respectfully" does not mean that he owes you anything. You call your letter to the senior faculty a "complaint", but what exactly were you "complaining" of? That the advisor followed the policy and did not want to open this can of worms (I guess they get an awful lot of similar requests)? Neither the senior faculty was under any obligation to make exceptions to the policy for you. I suspect that (s)he concluded that the advisor had acted within his rights, so there was no formal basis for your complaint and thus no reason to overrule the advisor.
My answer may look rude to you, but maybe your life will become a bit easier if and when you understand that nobody owes you anything (unless they do owe you:-)).

I think one thing missing here is that the OP felt the undergraduate advisor "wasn't interested in what I had to say." Nobody is owed a policy exception, but it's not unreasonable to be upset when you don't feel you've been listened to before a denial is given, particularly given the professor's statement that the student is overqualified.

@ZachLipton : It is not unreasonable to be upset about bad weather that ruined your plans for a picknic, but is it productive? So the advisor "wasn't interested", the senior faculty wasn't interested, still they acted within their rights. Maybe the advisor was not going to grant the exception to the policy under any circumstances, why would he be interested at all? And I am sure many other things are missing in my answer - it was not meant to be a treatise:-) I just wanted to say that maybe the OP should not be too thin skinned for their own good.

@akhmeteli The point is not that the student was denied something procedurally owed them. The point is policy exceptions exist because policies are not always in everyone's best interests. The policy exists because it makes sense the majority of the time. For the times when it only makes things worse, not better, policies can and should receive exemptions. The advisor does not owe the student an exemption on procedural or legal grounds, but one is owed on moral grounds unless there is a good reason to be denied, in which case reason should be explained. Otherwise we would not need advisors.

@Aaron The main purpose of an undergraduate advisor is not to grant or refuse exceptions.

@Aaron: And, in my book, "this is against the policy" is a good reason to be denied, sorry.

@akhmeteli Policies frequently have exceptions, and if the professor believed the OP was "overqualified" for the course, that could be good justification for an exception. It also might not be, which is why anyone in the OP's position would want to feel listened to rather than summarily dismissed. You seem to believe the student is acting overly entitled for seeking admission to a course after such encouragement from the professor. I would encourage you to think about how it would have felt from their perspective.

@ZachLipton : Maybe it is not important, but it was not "overqualified", it was "somewhat overqualified". Moreover, the advisor is not bound by the words of the course professor. You want me to empathize with the OP, whereas I am trying to explain to the OP that it's just business, nothing personal, so it is in the OP's interests not to take it personally. Maybe the advisor intentionally ignored the OP's rationale to discourage similar requests in the future. At the end of the day, the advisor acted in his right. It is highly unproductive to elevate this to a "childhood trauma".

@cfr For some people, maybe. Not in my case. That was all I ever needed mine for. Granting exceptions was the only use I had for mine. I knew the path I wanted to take, so I always ignored my advisor's class recommendations and enrolled in what I wanted, and if he enrolled me himself I would un-enroll and re-enroll in what I wanted. Granted, I did extra meta-research just to make sure I optimized my university path for myself, but that's my prerogative. The main purpose of an advisor is different depending on the student. Some need exceptions.

@akhmeteli "You are denied an exception to rule X because what you want violates rule X." That is false logic. In general, rules are made to improve society, but when abnormal circumstances cause the rules to degrade society instead, that is precisely what exceptions are for. "I am a Comp-Sci major with 5 years of work experience in electrical engineering; it's my last semester, and if I skip electronics-101 it will allow me to take a course which I will actually learn from instead" is a perfect example, and it is negligence to deny such a request that is in the student's best interest.

I could make an even better case for this if you want to take this to chat.

@Aaron You said 'Otherwise we would not need advisers.' But now it seems that at most you are saying 'Otherwise I, and a minority of students like me, would not need advisers.' That might be true, but it is certainly a very different claim. For one thing, it is unlikely to put undergraduate advisers out of their jobs should their institutions prohibit making exceptions.

@cfr True. You are correct in that assessment. Still, I think "will prohibiting exceptions put advisors out of a job" is very low on the list of considerations. Hopefully "is this in the students' best interest" is very high, perhaps #1, on the list of considerations for allowing or prohibiting exceptions.

@Aaron Obviously I didn't mean that the purpose of exceptions would otherwise be merely to keep advisers employed. It was just a way of dramatising the point that advisers do many more things than grant exceptions, both for the students they advise and for the institution more generally.

@Aaron : OK, so we disagree.

It doesn't strike me as normal, ethical, or sensible... but awkward things like this happen sometimes.  Email etiquette isn't universally defined or followed.
When trying to persuade an administrator to take a certain action, it can be helpful to have a live conversation (phone or in-person).
A side benefit of this approach is that there is no potentially embarrassing email trail.
Moral of the story: you should never write anything in an email that would cause embarrassment if it were to fall into the wrong hands (e.g. through some thoughtless forwarding).
Right now I suggest your main message, to anyone you can get to talk with you, is to persuade them that you have enough of a background to be able to do well in this course.  From your description, I would think any reasonable administrator would waive the prereq.

I think this is terrible advice, unless the OP wants to permanently alienate the undergraduate advisor, the senior faculty member and probably a bunch of others. The only person it might be worth going back to with this request would be the class instructor, who considered the OP rather overqualified. However, the OP should be prepared to be told that the instructor can't do anything.

I think you were mistreated to have that email forwarded.  Don't at all agree with the answers here saying you could not go to someone else.  And you HAD already had the discussion with the given professor.  It is your life, your time.  That said, I also would have gone in person to have the discussion, not sent an email.  Lesson for the future.

Don't at all agree with the answers here saying you could not go to someone else. - There is no such answer here.

I don't quite get the point you're trying to get across, you don't think the email should have been forwarded but you do believe that the higher ranking member should have contacted the professor ?

@henning Actually, the currently top rated answer does say essentially that. "When you're upset you want to speak to the manager. That's not how academia works. You need to work with your advisor."


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Editor assignment pending after "review competed"
I submitted journal in the field of psychometrics about one year ago.  Three weeks ago, the status was changed to "review completed".  However, today it is changed into "editor assignment pending".  I am not sure what this means. Can you help?

It's usually best to try not to infer much from the status of a paper listed in an electronic editorial system.  These tools are intended more for the editorial staff than the author, and are often used inconsistently or inaccurately.  If you feel your paper is taking an inordinate amount of time to review, then contact the handling editor; otherwise, just ignore and be patient.

@NateEldredge: Actually, for all the editiorial systems I have been dealing with, the information is correct as far as I can tell and if they did not want authors to read this information, they would not give it to them. Moreover this information can prevent useless communication with the editors: For example, there is no point in asking the editor why the reviews are taking so long in the situation described in the question. In another example, I would complain if my paper is still not under review after one month, but it’s fine if it is under review at that time.

It's not certain what it means without knowing the particulars of the journal's internal handling, but a likely meaning is that the paper has been handed off from the associate editor who has been handling the reviewing to a senior editor to finalize the decision.  In many journals, an associate editor provides a recommendation for the decision, but a senior editor actually makes the decision; if there are multiple senior editors, then a brief gap before one of them takes up the paper would create the observed behavior.
Bottom line: you are likely to see a decision shortly.

your answer make sense if article is in initial stage. I am facing similar problem. I submitted an article to springer. The article took 5 months and I got decision with minor revision. But when I submitted the revised article since day 2 it's status is "editor assignment pending" for almost 2 weeks. What does it mean?
The article will be handled by new editor?
Or the editor is making final decision based on our revised manuscript? Bearing in mind the decision was minor revision.

@MBK It's unusual to have such a delay, but could be any of those.  More likely than anything else, it means "the person supposed to handle this is badly distracted or on vacation right now."  Since it took 5 months for the first round, you're dealing with a process that's not overly concerned with speed. If it goes for a full month, then I would recommend emailing the editors, but not before then.


text:
Which authors should be listed in a conference presentation?
I asked a poorly-worded question previously, so I'll try again.
Suppose someone is submitting an abstract for a talk that is based on joint work with other researchers. Further suppose that the other co-authors will not be presenting (or even attending the conference). As a matter of attribution, should all authors be listed on the talk?

The practice that I have typically seen is to list all authors, but highlight/bold/underline the name of the speaker.  That way, credit is given both for speaking and for production of the material being spoken about.