text:
How to cite and reference forthcoming sources to appear in a Festschrift
It’s not uncommon, at least not in my field, to refer to articles, books, chapters, etc., which have not yet been published. In in-text citations, these simply appear as Author (fc.) (or forthc. or forthcoming) instead of Author (2020).
Generally, in bibliographies, you’ll write as many details as you can about where the source will appear – often you can write either “To appear in Journal Name” or “In Editor Name (ed.), Book Title” since these things are generally known as soon as the source in question is accepted for publication.
But what do you do when the source has been accepted for publication in a Festschrift? Naturally, the details will likely have been worked out already, but an essential part of the nature of a Festschrift is that its existence must remain a secret from the person it’s dedicated to until it’s handed over to them. So you can’t just write “In Editor Name (ed.), Book Title, Festschrift to XYZ” in a bibliography, because that would likely spoil the whole thing (and you likely don’t know the editor(s) and title anyway, since such details are kept within as small a group as possible up until publication).
I am co-editing a volume in which one chapter refers to such an article. At the moment, the bibliography simply says, “To appear in a Festschrift”, which strikes me as rather… clunky and odd. Somehow both too vague and too specific. I considered leaving it out altogether, so only the author and the name of the article remains, but that would imply (to me, as a reader) that the article had not yet been accepted for publication, which I do believe it has.
Are there more or less standard strategies for informing the reader that an article has been accepted for publication in a specific location, but without actually giving that location?

If the downvoter would care to leave a reason for the downvote, I’d be happy to try to improve the question accordingly.

Why not just "to appear"? In the age of Google, it would be easy for a later reader to find the paper and then also understand why the volume title was not disclosed.

Although you ask specifically about a Festschrift (i.e., a commemorative paper or publication) the problem of wanting temporarily to hide some details of a publication does also occur in other contexts.
To me, this seems like an ideal situation in which to make (non-obvious) use a repository like figshare or Zenodo. Both those repositories — and there are probably others more oriented towards the kind of content that you are thinking of — will allow you to obtain a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) for an as-yet undisclosed publication. With a DOI at hand, you can indeed write "to appear", or "to appear in a Festschrift",  as you see fit, but you can also provide a DOI which will only work properly once you decide to make the Festschrift content public. That way, the reader will not have to undertake a haphazard search, and nor will you have to try and amend or update missing reference information. The DOI will do the job for you.
Note: Both figshare and Zenodo are primarily research repositories but there is a great deal of content on them which is not directly research related. Moreover, there are other repositories that are more oriented towards text than towards data.

Added in response to OP comments
The problem as it is now described is more complex than originally stated. Nonetheless, I think that my earlier answer (above) will be relevant to other readers so I have left it unchanged.
However, the question as it now stands is along the following lines:
I am writing document A. In document A, I want to refer to document B which is, as yet, unpublished. I have little information regarding document B and no direct control over it. Moreover, even if I did have more information about document B, I might not want to reveal much of the information until after document B has been published. At the same time, I would like to do as much as possible to ensure that, following the publication of B, readers of A will be able to identify, locate, and read B.
The constraints certainly complicate things but there is a solution even so. Specifically,

Reserve a DOI for a not-yet-created jump-document (see point 3) on a repository like Zenodo.
In your own citation and referencing, include "To appear" and the reserved DOI.
When document B (in your case, the Festschrift) is published, and you know the referencing details, you publish (i.e., reveal and make publicly accessible) the jump-document which will be along the lines of:

Title: Jump document from [Title of your publication] to [Title of Festschrift].

[Title of your publication] made reference to [Title of Festschrift]
but at the time that [Title of publication] went to press, [Title of
Festschrift] was unavailable. [Title of Festschrift] can now be
accessed at [DOI of Festschrift allocated by someone other than you].
The full reference is: [Include correct referencing for Festschrift].

It isn't as elegant as one might like, but it is nicely generalizable and applicable to a wide range of difficult situations. Moreover, if you also upload your jump-document to the WayBack Macnine, you will have done as much as you can do to preserve all the relevant information.

This would work fine if you are also the publisher of the volume you don’t want to reveal too much about. In the case of Festschrifts, at least, that will rarely be the case, so you cannot create a DOI for it – that’s for the publisher to do. In my case, as one of the editors of the book, but also an employee of the publisher, I did not know anything about the Festschrift in question at all. ‘My’ book was an edited volume, and the author of one of the chapters was also one of the authors in the Festschrift, so he of course knew at least whom it was for, but probably not much more than that.


text:
Regarding name change after marriage
I have about 500 citations on Google Scholar on 10-15 of my research papers. My partner and I started talking about name change. Basically, we’re thinking of use each other’s last names as our middle names (AB and CD become ADB and CBD). How will it effect my citations and publication record?
Would it be alright if I continue publishing under my original name without the middle name? I would prefer that. What have another academics done in the past?

You can publish under any name you like, including using a pseudonym. The only time that people really get upset is if you try to impersonate someone else.
More usefully, most of the citation databases, including Scopus, allow an author to link variant spellings and variant names (including radical and not-so-radical changes) all to be linked together. All one needs to do is notify the database creator that you are the person who has published under each of the variants. The point I'm making here, of course, is that while you can continue to publish under the same name as you have to date, you can also (reasonably) safely change your publication name without losing the citation statistics that are linked to your existing name.
By including an ORCID iD in all your publications, you can achieve a similar linking of names, but that would not, of itself, join your citations.
You might also like to have a look at this answer, and this one.

I suggest that, for publishing purposes, you stick to your original name by which you are already known. The name you use in social and legal situations and the one for professional use need not be the same.
There are work-arounds, but they require work both for you and for people wanting to know who wrote a particular bit of work.
Associate a name with your professional "persona" and stick to it, I recommend.

Would it be alright if I continue publishing under my original name without the middle name?

Yes. There is absolutely no expectation that someone with a middle name includes it (even as an initial) in publications.
It is of course entirely possible to use something quite different from your legal name, for instance continuing to publish under a previous surname, albeit with a chance of some minor administrative inconvenience at some point.
But what you are asking about is not just possible, but normal. No-one will even think twice if, for example, someone who publishes as "Charles Darwin" actually has full legal name Charles Robert Darwin, whereas if the legal name were Charles Robert Wedgwood they might feel the need to check that it is the same person.

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text:
Should you include your main supervisor as a co-author?
I'm currently close to finishing my first paper in a PhD degree (applied maths). I have a supervisory team of 4 academics, 1 of which is the designated main supervisor.
My problem is that in reality, all of my work for this paper has been in collaboration with only one of the supervisors (not the main) who works in a different department. As well as this, they also gave the advice for the direction of the PhD and is also the only person I have meetings with. It seems to be a culture within my environment that all the supervisors are included as co-authors. I'm not comfortable with the idea of other people getting credit for something I have worked hard on or the ethics of it; but at the same time of course I don't want to ostracise myself from the group or harm my future prospects. They did after all get the funding for my position and I have no problem with working with just one supervisor.
Unfortunately I didn't have any conversations about co-authorship before I started the program. Any advise?

ASK THEM.
Academia is a very 'political' and 'incestuous' environment.  If it is common to do that, then in order for you to succeed there, you might should do what they do.
  si fueris Rōmae, Rōmānō vīvitō mōre; si fueris alibī, vīvitō sicut ibi (“if you should be in Rome, live in the Roman manner; if you should be elsewhere, live as they do there”); which is attributed to St Ambrose.
If you don't, and they expect it, then you might just piss them off.  They may never mention it, but they might take it out on you in ways you could never prove. Retaliation likely won't be something you even see - not getting that scholarship, journal, presentation, etc.
TL;DR - Ask them what to do, then do it.

Good answer. I would add, specifically, talk to the author you did the work with first and see what they say.

I think co-authorship is fine for papers you might publish based on your PhD work but the thesis itself should be your sole authorship. You can acknowledge your supervisors' guidance and collaboration on the research of course.

The honest and most practiced answer to say is that you have to put their names. They might not have worked directly but as you said arranged funds for you.
But personally i dont like adding people with no contribuion to work, but believe me they made me suffer and my masters degree was at risk, just for this small mistake.
So for now and for phd, just add them, keep them happy. As they will most probably save your day at the end. How ever keep in mind your future, and as far as you are the main author the gurus in journals and conferences know who has worked and who not.

I strongly disagree. The honest and most practical answer is that you must have the uncomfortable conversation about authorship standards now, while there's a paper on the table. Bad advisor for not having the discussion earlier.

I know these, but Normally the supervisors are the big fishes of the tank. And student is helpless most of the times.to avoid being pointed, just follow as said by supervisor. Definately the thing come into mind is lets talk to them which most of the times dont bring happy ending.

If talking to your advisor "most of the time dont bring happy ending", get out. Find a new advisor, move to another program/university, leave academia if you have to. What you're describing is abuse. Students should not fear their advisors.

Yes get out if in 1st year, what will you do in final year of phd, quality publications and novelty comes after first year when you get hold of literature and related work. Personally i will cmpromise on one paper rather then restarting phd.

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text:
Why I could not search this paper in Google Scholar?
I am interested in this paper An Evaluation of the Potential of NMR Spectroscopy and Computational Modelling Methods to Inform Biopharmaceutical Formulations. But it seems that it could not be found on Google Scholar. Can I ask why?

Perhaps it has not been uploaded to google scholar?

I think uploading is automatic?

I don't get it. You're interested in a paper for which you have the direct link. Why do you need Google Scholar?

Because I mainly use google scholar to search. I just occationally found it somewhere else. So, could you please remove the down-vote?

Ok so you're question is a duplicate of this?: https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/93764/10643

It is VERY dangerous to make accusations about who gave a downvote (or upvote for that matter), is it easily possible that your question can be downvoted by someone who will not leave a comment.

That paper was published on Friday 21 September 2018. You're asking this question on Sunday 23 September 2018... In my experience it usually takes a week or longer for Google Scholar to index a paper, depending on the journal. Also see How long does it usually take for published articles to show up on Google Scholar? for more information on the variability. The bottom line is that papers don't show up on Google Scholar the instant they are published, so be patient or use other ways of accessing it.

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text:
MLA multiple parenthetical citation essay without page numbers
I have an older source that has no pagination. My question concerns the correct mode of multiple parenthetical in-text reference to the source according to MLA style.
In the works cited section:
Smith, Alexander. "The Problems of Writing." New Inquiry (1940): n. pag.
In text (version 1):
Smith argues that writing is "a problem of its own" (1940). He goes on to refer to the "complicated process of writing a text." He explains it in ...
Question: How do I back up the second, third, etc. reference to the unpaginated source in my own text? Is the text above right or do I need to have the year in brackets every time I quote from the text? Something like:
version 2: Smith argues that writing is "a problem of its own" (1940). He goes on to refer to the "complicated process of writing a text" (1940). He explains...
Or do I reference "n.pag." in the text:
version 3: Smith argues that writing is "a problem of its own" (1940 n. pag.). He goes on to refer to the "complicated process of writing a text" (n. pag.). He explains...
Thank you very much!

Well, normally with MLA in-text citations, you should have the author's name in the parenthetical citations followed by the page number. Since you do not have a page number, you could remedy this by putting the chapter name in quotes instead ( e.g. (Levitt, "The Hidden Side of Everything")). If neither of these are available, you could put the name of the piece in the citations in quotes since you have already said the author's name in the sentence (e.g. ("Freakonomics")).
MLA Rules: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/2/
Chapter Name in Citation: http://www.easybib.com/guides/citation-guides/mla-format/how-to-cite-a-parenthetical-citations-mla/

Unfortunately there is nothing, no chapter titles nor section headings. And what about multiple consecutive quotes? That was my main problem. Do I insert the info every single time?

If they are all in the same paragraph and you can easily tell that they are from the same author, meaning that their name is mentioned somewhere in the paragraph or it says "he also said" or something like that, then you don't need to insert it every single time.

Thank you! Yes reference is always clear from the context. So quotation marks would be enough right? And if the quotes are scattered over say 2 or three paragraphs? Would it still be OK to "only" have quotation marks after the first parenthesis?

If it's scattered over 3, you should at least cite the author once in each paragraph. And no problem! Good luck!

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text:
Handwritten vs printed assignments
I am taking an Introduction to Differential Equations class. There is assigned homework. It is specified that we must turn it in on paper.
Is it wrong or odd to use LaTeX and turn it in as computer generated instead of handwritten? I am in fact using a computer to do the assignment so it would be extra work to write it on paper.

This is the sort of thing that can be culture-specific, so please say where you are studying.

To ask the obvious, why can't you ask your instructor or TA to clarify this? In some cases they might be happy to have you type in LaTeX (easier to read, probably not your first draft) and in others they would not be happy (latex solutions tend to not show all work, easier to plagiarize, etc.).

I am in Florida, USA. We do not have TAs. I have not emailed her because it is due on Tuesday and she does not work on Mondays.

Presumably the statement about turning it on paper menans that the professor wants a hard copy rather than a file emailed to him (perhaps because it's easy to mark up, for example). I've never heard of anyone refusing TeX'd assignments and insisting on handwritten ones.

@skarn I am pretty sure there are TAs in Florida, perhaps not at your institution.  I think one of the informal learning goals is that if the assignment is due Tuesday and the instructor does not work Monday, you should have asked this on or before Friday.  No one on StackOverflow can actually answer this question.  If you use LaTex and print it out, then you will have met the letter of the instruction with minimal extra work.

@anomaly I have. Once. It was not even an assignment, which made you write 2-3 pages each week, it was a practical course report for chemistry which ended up being 60 pages (!) long and I had to do it in one week (prepare and "write up cleanly"). I might add that my hands hurt pretty badly, although I still used handwriting a lot in daily life. It was supposedly meant to keep us from plagiarising, but theoretically it just meant you would have had to do the old-school way of copying homework, instead of just copy paste.

@emory Yes we have TAs at this institution. I have one class with 60 students in it that has 2 TAs. Just not this class.

I've seen it done by some students at Utrecht University, while I was a fellow student, and as Master/PhD teaching assistent. I think this was never frowned upon, and personally I'd have a slight preference even for LateX-ed homework, because it is guaranteed to be legible (although I've also seen homework that was poorly LaTeX typeset).

It's pretty hard to imagine any instructor being upset because your submission wasn't handwritten, especially if you're using online submissions as PDFs.  Pencil doesn't always scan very well and the cellphone-to-PDF images are worse.  I teach EE and I warn my students that if I can't read it, I'm not grading it and I'm not asking a grader to do it, either.
LaTeX is one way to do it but most of my students now type their work (for me and for other instructors) in Microsoft Word using the built-in equation editor.  A small number are using the MathType addin (which can generate LaTeX).  All of our lab instruments are networked, so if they need an oscilloscope screenshot, they just copy and paste from their browser.  If they need a graph or a table analyzing their results, they do it in Excel or Matlab.  If they need a schematic, they draw it in SPICE or Multisim.  Handwritten submissions are disappearing.

LaTeX is good. No one will object.
Since the industry standard in math is currently some dialect of TeX for producing PDFs, there's certainly no harm in learning how to do this, or in doing it.
Indeed, for upper-division math, certainly for graduate-level math, and absolutely for professional academic math, do not try to get by with whatever kludges "Word" offers. It just does not work as well (at least for the time being... who knows what the future holds?)
Even if one might reasonably claim that details of formatting don't matter too much to actual mathematics... first, they kinda do affect readibility... second, deviation from current standards both impedes readibility and makes one look like an outsider.
In particular, I'd think your instructors would surely tolerate "Word" documents from lower-division undergrads, at some point they'd recommend switching to (La)TeX. To get one's foot in the door, a certain amount of conformity can be helpful, as otherwise-meaningless as it may be.

To contrast with the apparent consensus; I was a math teacher at a university in the US for several years. Periodically I would have someone turn in their homework in LaTeX. This sounds good, except about half the time they didn't really know how to write LaTeX, so there were a lot of using words in math mode, not knowing the appropriate symbols, jot formatting properly, and so on. Those students' work was very hard to read and I would much prefer to have gotten handwritten assignments from them, even though their handwriting was pretty terrible.
So I would say, if you're good at LaTeX, great! Go for it. Almost certainly the teacher only asked for paper to save the trouble of printing them out - grading is easier with a paper copy. If you're bad at LaTeX, learn it on the side if you like, but handwrite your assignments.


text:
Article got major revision from a high impact factor journal, chances of acceptance
I submitted a paper to a very high impact factor journal in my field: quantum technologies. I received an email saying that the article needed major revision. The reviewers' comments are pretty reasonable and I have now incorporated all of them into the manuscript. The reviewer also wrote that they liked some sections of the manuscripts. Both the reviewers raised comments but both also said the manuscript was good and in demand. However, the revision I have done is over 4 pages and my original manuscripts was 24 pages. Based on your experience, what are the chances of acceptance?

Why do you care? You have the option to improve your paper. Use it. Other than that, I do not see what you gain by estimating quotas, unless you want to open a betting office.

My experience shows that the chances of acceptance are pretty high. Sexagenarian, I recall only one case in my entire career when a major revision did not satisfy the reviewers, and my paper was rejected. Based on my personal statistics (which is, of course, individual), I would evaluate the chances for acceptance as 90 - 95 %, provided you properly follow the reviewers' requirements.

@CaptainEmacs Are you seriously asking why an academic would be interested in the probability of their paper being accepted? You're being dishonest and cruel.

@user479223 "You're being dishonest and cruel". Let's assume I am. However, how do you extract this information from my comment? My flippancy was intended to pull OP into a different perspective: the OP's focus should be on improving the paper to the editor's liking, rather than on futile considerations. It's the same  as when doing a very difficult balancing act, to stay in the "flow". Once worrying about falling down, one falls. Maybe it's honest to tell the acrobat to look down and see how far they are from the ground. I personally prefer them not to fall. But maybe you see that as cruel.

The chance is better than before you received this major revision. Other than that we cannot say much.

It is way better than a desk reject…


text:
How can I use one Google Scholar account with two different university emails?
I have a Google Scholar account which is verified by an university account (let's call it university "A"), and my account on scholar has three articles in it.
But now, I got a second university account from another university (I finished my studies in the first one, let's call the new university "B"), which I used it to publish one article.
I was trying to add this other university "B" account to the same google scholar account, so that my scholar account would be verified by two university accounts and would show all my four articles, my attempt to do so failed because I couldn't be able to add another verification email to my scholar account.
So, the question is: is there a way to do that?
I need this because I can't use one university account for all four articles since one of them is published by using another university account.
Thanks in advance.

I'm not aware of a way to do that, but more to the point, why would you need this? Whether you keep the verified email as-is or replace it, there is no issue with showing publications with affiliations that don't match the verified email domain.

The simple answer is ... "you don't". There is no reason to, and Google Scholar doesn't directly provide that facility.
The usual practice is to update your university email address to indicate your current, verified affiliation. That will not normally lead to you losing any links to those articles that were published while you at the previous university.
So, just update your details to the new university, verify your account ... and all should be well.

Thanks a lot!, I'll try to do so and see what would happen.


text:
Will a few Cs and Ds in my MSc badly affect my chances of acceptance to a PhD?
I have an M.Sc in Physics. We had 16 theory papers, and eight lab papers, coursework-based M.Sc.
Theory-- I have A in 4, B in 5, C in 5, D in 2
Lab- O in 5, A in 2, B in 1
I have an overall CGPA Of 7.03/10 which is first class with distinction. Our questions in M.Sc were largely descriptive and problems and evaluations were very strict for theory papers. The top student got 8.1/10.
Can this cause problems for PhD applications?

See also: How are Ph.D. applications evaluated in the US, particularly for weak or borderline students? Am I likely to get into school X?

While you may not have high chances of getting PhD offers from the topmost universities, you have good chances of getting PhD offers from many good universities. Instead of focussing on your grades, it would be better to look for researchers in your areas of interest and sending emails to them expressing your interest in working with them and giving a brief description of your research experience so far.
If a potential supervisor finds your research experience/interests interesting, they will not focus much on your grades.

At least in the US, I would expect competitive candidates for a PhD program to have mostly As in the courses relevant to their study.
Remember that other people are applying along with you that have excellent records in their coursework. There are a limited number of slots to offer.
If you want to make an argument that your grades are competitive I would do so based on class percentile rank rather than comparison to the top score and/or have recommendation letter writers who are able to favorably describe your course performance relative to people they know were successful as PhD students.

As I have posted in the picture, the system is very different than the US.

@manupaul If you're applying to Universities in other countries with a large foreign intake, it's likely they have their own translation tables for degrees from your country/institution of origin. See e.g. https://gpa.eng.uci.edu/. If you're applying to local universities, they are still likely to have their own prior biases for and against particular degree scores at particular institutions.

Yes, I have seen that website. In the case of my university, I think it might be too linear and true for tech courses. I have studied Physics and the School of Natural Sciences evaluation process and scoring were different. No one got over 8 and only a few got from 7-8. Where above 6 is first class and above 7 is a distinction. I am considering foreign universities. As per this website, my GPA will be only 3.4 in the US system which is considered low.

Yes, for the obvious reason that the top student got 8.1/10 and you got 7.03/10. If both of you were to apply to the same school, why should the school admit you instead of the top student?
This doesn't mean you won't be admitted. It just means that you'll need to do some convincing, because the default reaction is to admit the other student.
See also How are Ph.D. applications evaluated in the US, particularly for weak or borderline students? Am I likely to get into school X? in particular the section  on GPA.

Thank you for sharing the link. I have read it. However, my question was a little bit different. As you can see the grading structure was slightly different than in the US in my country and specific university. 7 and above is considered passed with distinction and getting over 6 (B) is one of the highest marks in the class. I have heard that many professors irk just by seeing C and D in the scorecard, I wonder if that's true. As I have said, it was a coursework-based M.Sc and the scorer studied some different papers than me.


text:
My thesis proposal
I'm a student in Iran studying English Language Teaching (M.A.) at University. Before pursuing English at the university level, I was an engineer, so I have a background knowledge of math. I've developed a strong interest in Astro-linguistics. Considering that English Language Teaching is a branch of applied linguistics, I am wondering if it is academically reasonable to the following topic in astro-linguistics for my thesis research?
Exploring the Hypothetical: Astrolinguistics and its Implications for Language Studies"

You should not vandalize your own question, especially after it has been answered. By doing so, and by badly copying your previous question, you have broken all the links I inserted ... and deleted the answer. If you want to change your question you should simply edit it. You can even indicate what edits you have made in response to answers or comments.

This is a question for your advisor.

Your first question was closed for a reason. We cannot make decisions on your research and rephrasing the question does not change that. You (or somebody else) may [edit] the question such that it becomes about how to make the decision (which is also what was answered). Please see this FAQ.

For a research thesis, you require considerably more than a topic, even before you begin. You really need a research question. I am not suggesting that you should already have a research question. However the issue of whether your research will be sufficient foundation for a masters or doctoral thesis, will be predicated on the research question(s) that you try to answer, rather than the notional topic.
A further issue you are going to face is whether you can find an advisor who feels themselves capable of  supervising a thesis in astrolinguistics. I don't imagine that there are many schools around the world that have appropriate people. Finally, it is the combination of you, a potential advisor, and the combination of interests and skills that will determine the viability of any topic in astrolinguistics ... not the the consensus opinion on SE Academia.
Do some research, develop a list of potential universities/schools, look for potential supervisors, consider the likelihood of you being accepted into any of the places of interest, and go from there.


text:
Would you consider a very short, non-standard thesis that lacks a research questions, a thesis?
I recently met an artist. He was very proud of the shortness of his Master's thesis, which was published back in early 90's and has only 3 pages! He had been graduated from the California college of arts with a MFA (Master of Fine Arts?) degree.
I have heard that some PhD theses in mathematics are sometimes very short. However, his thesis had no introduction, no background, no question, no references, nothing! In fact, it was nothing similar to a thesis. It was basically his idea of modern arts. To me, it looked like a research proposal; albeit one without a research question!
Having said that, I mentioned his thesis as an example and I am not looking to find ways to criticize something he has done many years ago. I just want to know if the idea of very short theses is correct or is it a hoax? Shouldn't a thesis have a standard (-or at least, some) structure?
Cheers

So where is this thesis you present so we can see it.

@SolarMike I have it, but unfortunately, I do not have the permission to share it. I described how it is in the question.

So it could be the best 500 or so words ever written and well deserving of the award given... And you have no grounds to justify your position as you cannot show the evidence.

Your question can be much more concise, for instance, as follows: "What ere the MFA thesis requirements?" Examples of related questions:
Must a Masters thesis involve original research? Can it be merely a review of some recent research direction?;
What is the minimum contribution expected from an M.Sc. thesis?.

@SolarMike I am not taking a position. As I said, I mentioned this thesis as an example.

Well, your first two paragraphs do a good job of showing how you regard this work...

@SolarMike Fair enough! However, I only said how it looks to me in the last sentence of the second paragraph (not the 1st two paragraphs). Still, my question is not answered. Do we have such a thing (very short thesis)?

You still show what you think...

Is it accompanied by an artefact?

Ditto for @CaptainEmacs question! The MFA degrees I'm aware of require the creation of one or more significant art works. It's those that are the central accomplishment of the degree. The written thesis is more in the nature of an abstract or an artist's statement.

@CaptainEmacs He just mentioned his thesis, so I don't know. But what Charles E.Grant said, makes sense.

You're comparing PhD theses and Master's theses. They are nothing alike and you shouldn't expect a Master's thesis to be on the level of a PhD thesis. At least where I'm from, and since you mention math I'll say it's in math, a Master's thesis has no requirement for originality or length. I've seen students graduate with theses 30 pages long. There does not need to be a research question in them, it's essentially an exercise in writing something in an academic style about current research.
You're also comparing science with humanities (here, fine arts). Again, nothing alike. I'm a scientist so I have no idea what the expectations are in the humanities, but again, I wouldn't expect them to be even remotely similar to my expectations for a scientific Master's thesis. My layman's impression is that in the humanities the author's personal style and ideas count for much more than general established standards of form and structure. Things are much less uniform. I am vaguely aware of how things work in architecture and this certainly seems to be the case there.
The college found the thesis good enough to award the degree, apparently. Calling the thesis a "hoax" is more than criticism of your acquaintance's work, it's an insult. You can make up your mind about the quality of the college's degrees if you want, but without being particularly knowledgeable about general requirements of master's theses in fine arts, this would not be a very well informed opinion.

I think you misunderstood my question! I wrote " if the idea of very short theses is correct or it is a hoax?". Please pay attention that I used terms 'the idea of' and 'theses'! Not 'this person's thesis'. Also, please pay attention where I clarified that I used this person's thesis as an example for my question!

I think saying a MSc thesis and PhD theses are nothing alike is a very broad and incorrect statement. Where I'm from, Canada, the difference between a MSc thesis and PhD thesis is only length and the requirement for originality. The MSc thesis here requires an original hypothesis, results, and discussion. The only difference is you still graduate if your project isn't publishable. Saying "it's basically an exercise in writing" is very insulting to people like me that spent 2+ painful years full time conducting wet lab experiments and careful data analysis. At least mention where you are from.

@Cell I agree with you! I believe a thesis, regardless of being a Masters or PhD thesis, should have some sort of structure.

"difference between a MSc thesis and PhD thesis is only length and the requirement for originality." To me, that in itself is the "difference between lightening and the lightening bug".

@CharlesE.Grant It's not surprising that you'd make such a foolish analogy given only my vague description of the differences. No industry employer nor professor I know would care if you produced original knowledge vs. attempting original work that didn't pan out. It's only the quality and rigour of the thesis that matters. Also there's no e in lightning.

Yes, a master's thesis should have structure, but that structure should be governed entirely by the norms of the field.  And I'm sure your friend's MFA thesis has a structure—it's just not a structure that you're used to.


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A journal keeps requesting reviews after I have declined any more
I recently received an invitation to review two papers from a journal(!) through EDAS, which I have an account with, only because many years ago and while I was studying my Bachelor degree, I submitted two papers through their portal. I had some free time and reviewed the papers right away.
After submitting my reviews, I received other review invitations from the journal's editor. I wrote back to him and explained why I cannot review any more papers, also posted a short response on EDAS portal. However, he kept sending papers! Not only that, he is sending multiple emails reminding me that the review deadlines are approaching fast!
This does not bother me! What bothers me is that one of the papers I reviewed was a very poor paper and its authors withdrew it. After their withdrawal, EDAS sent me and other reviewers an automated message. The surprising thing was that the paper had 9 reviewers!! In other words, the editor had spammed all of us in a way, and EDAS had no mechanism of stopping him from doing this!
Is there anyone else with similar experiences? Should I do something about it or just let it pass?

Why do you think this is predatory, or even unusual practice?

@AnonymousPhysicist It's certainly questionable to keep getting reminders about a deadline having declined to review.

You will get them for years. Even after you retire. Just ignore them. The "editor" didn't send this personally. It was sent by an automated system in which reviewers are always needed. Yes, it may be a kind of spam, but at least they aren't trying to sell you anything or steal your money.

@AnonymousPhysicist Don't you think it is unusual for them to keep sending me reminders when I've already reviewed two of their papers and explained that I am stuck in another country due to COVID19, without the access to a laptop and cannot review any more papers?! This tells me they haven't bothered even reading my email or my response on the portal! Also, I did not review many papers, but have never reviewed or seen a paper with more than 3 reviewers! That's why I asked the question to see if it is common practice or not.

@BenBarden I don't know how many reviewers it should have! What I know is that you should be more careful if you are a researcher, because based on your comment, you are prone to jump to conclusions! Where did you get the idea that I was trying to become 'even'?!!

"Don't you think it is unusual for them to keep sending me reminders"  Reminders are automated.  So no.

@RFNO sometimes journal editors may give a manuscript to more than 3 reviewers, in case they are not happy with the review, though 9 seems too much.

@Buffy this is unacceptable. This is abuse of your personal data and shouldn't be sugar coated.

If you are in the EU or the service provider operates from the EU, send them another email in which you remind them very kindly of their legal obligations. Sending you spam after you opted out of their mailing lists is illegal under the GDPR. Even not providing easy ways to opt out is an offense.
You can get in touch with the journals Data Protection Officer (DPO), if the editor fails to respond, or directly file a complaint at your national Data Protection Authority (DPA).
You can take also take legal steps, they are outlined here: What should I do if I think that my personal data protection rights haven’t been respected? (European Commission)
An email to the DPO with "GDPR violation" in the title will most likely prompt immediate response and apologies though. Fines are substantial if the company doesn't comply.

Thanks for the information!

I'm not familiar with this portal, but if they're standard emails they would start with "do you accept or decline", and only let you submit a review if you accept. If this is the case just decline everything. You will usually be asked for a reason for declining, in which case you can say you can't review any more papers. You shouldn't receive emails about upcoming deadlines then, because you never agreed to review the paper.
If the emails automatically assign you, that would be pretty unethical and I would have no qualms about ignoring them (after letting the editor know you never agreed to review the paper). If you don't want to receive any more invitations, this is also the way to start: tell the editor you don't want to receive any more invitations and you will mark the invites as spam if you keep receiving them.
About there being 9 reviewers: did all of them submit a review? If so that would be overboard. On the other hand if you can't actually see their reviews, it's possible the system is also messaging reviewers who declined to review and/or never responded to the invitation.

Well, not so much "unethical" as just rude... :)

@Allure All 8 other reviewers had submitted reviews, and I was able to see what they said. Fortunately, the deadline has passed and there are no more emails for now! :)


text:
Split paper into two, one was accepted, is it fine to negotiate the rejected paper to be accepted?
I had a paper ready for journal publication, but decided to break it into 2 conference papers and submitted them to a conference.
Now, one of them is accepted but the other one is rejected! The thing is, the 2 papers are related and I think they should be published together. The paper which is rejected, had 3 reviewers. One accepted it, one weak-accepted and the other one rejected it. The two who accepted it, marked it as innovative, highly useful and relevant. (All 3 reviewers mentioned they are highly confident on being able to judge my paper)
Now, can I write to the conference and tell them to review the paper or argue with them that the paper could be accepted based on points made by the two reviewers?
PS: I had to break them into two papers because of the page limit. Furthermore, it makes more sense for them to be published together since they are parts of a single framework. However, this doesn't mean that one cannot be published without the other; as I mentioned, I believe publishing them together just makes more sense. Moreover, I was very confident that both will be accepted!

If this was an unacceptable outcome, it seems that the paper should not have been split into two.  It's too late for this advice to help you, but it may help others.

You have nothing to "negotiate" with. You can argue, I suppose, and probably fail.

@DavidKetcheson I had to break them into two papers because of the page limit. Also, it makes more sense for them to be published together since they are parts of a single framework. But this doesn't mean that one cannot be published without the other; as I mentioned, I believe publishing them together just makes more sense. Also, I was very confident that both will be accepted!

@BuffyYes, I meant the same: argue against the rejection.

It doesn't sound like they're asking for major revisions. Can you just make the changes they suggest and resubmit? Or don't you agree with the feedback, or isn't there enough time now?

@Rup in the typical conference workflow, there's no such thing as "change and resubmit", there's only "change and resubmit elsewhere" - by the time you receive a rejection, the list of accepted papers is final. You may resubmit an improved paper to the next iteration of that conference (usually, next year) or to some other conference.

I don't know what your field is, but in computer science, you can submit an extended version of a conference paper to a journal. Maybe you can send both parts together to the journal, where the second part would be the extension.

@RFNO I understand, and that makes sense.  In that case, I guess things will be okay (just not optimal).

It really sounds like the 2nd paper depends too much on the first one to be a good standalone paper. If the only reason to split the paper was based on its length, that's a good indication that you should simply submit the full, rejoined paper to a journal. Is submitting the 2nd paper (with modifications to make it more standalone, referencing the first) as a follow-up in next year's conference an option?

@chepner Yes, it is. But I will probably submit the rejected one to another conference.

The outcome: Some members kindly gave me good comments in reply to my question. Actually, I used some of them in preparing my email to the conference committee. Here, I'll mention what the process was and what happened for those who find themselves in a similar situation:
I have contacted the conference with the reasons I had in support of my paper, and argued that my paper had the required qualities to be accepted. However, they respectfully denied it almost immediately! :)
So, to sum it up and for clarification purposes for others that might one day need to do the same thing: It does not seem that there is anything wrong with contacting the conference committee to argue that your paper deserved to be accepted. However, there is a little chance of changing the conference judgement even despite having sufficient reasons.
PS: Something I learnt during this process, is to always ask direct and accurate questions without going into unnecessary details. In this question, I first talked about my journal paper,and I shouldn't have done It! Since the majority of comments were in regard and around reasons for why I should or shouldn't have broken one paper into two papers and that was not my question! I had already made my decision and divided the paper into two and I believe I had good reasons for that! As a result, not only I got many unrelated comments and answers, but also someone changed the topic of my question to something that I do not agree with, but since I didn't have enough points, I couldn't discard their changes! Now, how funny is that? :))
Thanks everyone and good luck with your publications!

Now, can I write to the conference and tell them to review the paper or argue with them that the paper could be accepted based on points made by the two reviewers?

You can try, but what do you have to tell them that they do not already know? They have already read the reviews, thought about them and reached a decision. Unless you can think of a compelling argument that invalidates or rebuts the criticism of the unfavorable review, your chances of success are essentially zero.

OK, thank you! So, I will try to base my argument on the reviewer comments. They have actually listed their comments under a (minor concern/correction) title and comments are mostly regarding clarity, referencing and moving a section of the paper under another section. Also, not citing a specific paper!

@RFNO if they rejected without suggesting substantial changes, that presumably means their reason for rejecting is just that the paper isn't strong enough for this venue, and the minor changes they have suggested are merely a courtesy to you in case you want to submit it somewhere else.

re: "what do you have to tell them that they do not already know?", it's just about possible, depending on the size of the conference, that the two papers were assigned to different editors and/or the decisions were mostly reached by thresholding reviewer scores, in which case "one part of my two-part paper got accepted and the other got rejected" could be new information to the organisers. Some conference management software can make it very hard to keep track of that kind of thing. There's nothing to be lost from mentioning it, at any rate.

In my field, that would almost certainly not work. If anything, it will send the signal to the program chairs that you're very inexperienced with how the conference process works.
Conferences have a certain timeframe for reviewing, followed by a discussion period and a decision about each paper. It's practically unheard of that a paper that was rejected in this stage still got accepted due to some authors appealing.

(CS perspective / I was conference chair and program committee chair several times):
You made your choice and now you have to live with it.  You have until submission of the final version to make sure that the paper is readable and self-contained. Since the accepted paper was reviewed independently from your other submission, that should be quite possible. You might disagree, but the reviewers thought it could live on its own.
You can publish your other paper on a preview server or as a technical report at your university / department / personal web-page. Pre-publishing it there should not hurt its chances of being accepted elsewhere. This way, you can cite and refer to it.
You can either submit the other half to a different conference or you can work both of them together and submit to a journal. This is standard practice in CS.
If you were to try to negotiate with me, I would be quite annoyed, though of course trying to be polite.

Honestly, you shouldn't be splitting a research paper into two and trying to submit as two publications, unless there is a page limit or something. You even are admitting that it doesn't make sense to publish one of these without the other.
I would say you're better off asking them to combine the two papers back into a single paper to publish. But doing this risks making you look bad, as it is admitting that they shouldn't have been split up in the first place. An alternative is to add to the second paper to make it strong enough to stand on its own and submit it to a different conference as a follow up.

Different research fields have different publication preferences. The fact that the one paper got accepted is evidence that the splitting made sense in OP's field.

I had to break them into two papers because of the page limit. Also, it makes more sense for them to be published together since they are parts of a single framework. But this doesn't mean that one cannot be published without the other; as I mentioned, I believe it just makes more sense.

@MorganRodgers If it was a good conference, having any paper accepted there is a good thing, so it made sense. It might even be possible to include the other paper again to submit an extended journal version of the accepted paper (a standard practice in CS)..

@MorganRodgers: In areas of CS I’m involved with, many conferences have strict numerical limits and are quite competitive.  So a conference rejection doesn’t necessarily mean the second paper wasn’t compelling or publishable in itself; it just means there were other better submissions.  And at the same time, conferences have strict page limits, so such splitting can be unavoidable.

You state the large publication was split into two smaller ones because of a page limit.  Possibly, to meet these constraints, you reorganized the presentation of the work such the second one builds upon the one accepted which you then cite.  Thus it need not be a case of «salami research».
In mathematics and natural sciences, it happens that the first publication describes only one aspect, and under subsequent work this is extended and generalized.  For example, Einstein's published on special relativity in 1905, and continued till 1915 to publish then about general relativity.  In your case, you possibly have the results of both the particular case, and the more general application already in hand, and could submit it elsewhere.  It may be even easier to publish the two in different venues than back-to-back in the very same issue of the journal (this is rather an exception).


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MS thesis defense equivalent to publishing as a MS student?
When applying to Ph.D. at the top 10 programs in the US, does MS thesis defended to committee members have the same weight as publishing paper as a MS student? Or am I at the disadvantage of not having any publications?
I was in EE working in Physics department in the field of Quantum Optics.

Of course it's literally not "a publication", but a M.S. thesis rather than coursework-only M.S. has some advantage. In math, it might also have a disadvantage of thinner coursework preparation. What is your situation?

Thanks for your insights! I took 6 courses/ 20 credits in the area of specialization. MS research done under the supervision of PI in the field of quantum optics, had some interesting results. Main disadvantage I had was that it was completely new topic in the lab and no other student was working along with me.

For physics of any sort, I do not have enough experience to offer any useful opinion about this question... I suspect (with slim evidence) that there is a bit of math-like expectations of coursework, more so than (apparently) computer science. But someone else will hopefully give a real answer. Also, my remarks about math apply only to the U.S. system, essentially, wherein undergrad course prep is usually thinner than elsewhere.

No, a defense is not equivalent to a publication. A defense may just be something required by university rules and takes some of the responsibility and guidance from the advisor and gives it to others. Some such theses are available in, say, the university library, but that isn't the same as journal (or conference) publication which is more public by definition.
The defense is usually a closed system within a department, thought there could be external members of the committee. But a publication has been vetted by independent referees and an editor and it is done in competition with other papers.
And if a defense is required there is no reason that you can't also do a paper if the results are good. It might not be the thesis itself, but could be based on the work.
A publication is almost certainly better if you plan a career as an academic, but possibly not by a tremendous amount. The admissions committee may actually do some (probably minor) evaluation of the work in either case. But having a publication in a reputable place will relieve them of some of the burden of judgement.


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Course requiring students to use Examity
I am an undergrad student and one of my professors is saying that we will be using Examity for the final exam.
I am concerned with downloading this software on my computer for various reasons, including security (a simple look at their privacy policy is enough to warrant extreme suspicion) and privacy (although a weaker argument, it doesn't feel ok for someone to demand that they be able to watch me in my home). I also only have one computer with some files that are quite sensitive and risking this by being forced to download Examity is difficult for me to swallow.
In fact, my college (along with various others within our university) has emailed all the faculty (to the best of my knowledge) discouraging the use of Examity and other proctoring tools like this. Yet it has been 2 days since this email has gone out and my professor has not retracted the statement on the course website that we will be using Examity.
While I realize that the professor may have forgotten to take this notice down, I cannot seem to find the right words to ask her this while not seeming rude.
What actions can I take to confirm that she does not intend to use Examity? If she still intends to use it, what can I do?
UPDATE: I followed the below advice and emailed the prof detailing my concerns. A couple days after that, the professor withdrew the Examity requirements.

The difficulty here is the university “discourages” but does not forbid the use of such softwares.

Lots of technical discussion here; this has been moved to chat.

Yet it has been 2 days since this email has gone out and my professor has not retracted the statement on the course website that we will be using Examity.

I think your concerns are reasonable.  But I think you should give your professor a few more days to react.  Keep in mind that professors may get thousands of emails.
You could write at a later date:

Dear Prof.,
I appreciate your efforts to promote exam integrity, but I prefer not to use Examity because I am concerned this company might take my private data.  Dean Whatsit said using Examity is discouraged.  May I take the exam without this software?
Sincerely,

I'm concerned because the exam is in a week. Would it be feasible to write the same email now given the short time span to the exam?

This email is better than the one shown in another response. (1) It's very short and to the point. (2) For better or worse, appealing to the authority of Dean Whatsit is a workable strategy for getting the recipient to pay attention.

If the exam is in a week you're better off focusing on your own preparation and taking it in good faith. Then you can express concerns in a professional way based on your experience of the exam.

@croc7415 If I was able to take it in good faith, I would have no issue taking it at all. My problem is 3 fold in that a) it doesn't work as someone above listed ways around it, b) there is a forced invasion of privacy in my own home, and c) I have files that I cannot allow to be released in any circumstances to Examity and evidence suggested they do collect this data.

@user760900 it seems like the privacy issue is the biggest one for you then, especially as you have replied to my comment below 'I do not believe that enough people cheat to warrant this invasion of privacy'. Therefore is the solution to take it on a new computer with no files on it or any computer with files you do not care about?

@croc7415 It might not be feasible to get a new computer quickly during a pandemic, even if it were free.

If it's a case of such sensitive files that the person can accept zero risk, then a new computer is the only answer and I'm sure it's possible, ask someone to borrow one +/- with a separate user guest account? Alternatively, export the critical files somewhere else. Anyway, I think I can't add anything else of value which the user cannot think of them themselves, but this doesn't seem insurmountable and is probably preferable than kicking up a fuss when the professor might be doing their best under difficult circumstances which have arisen outside of their control.

@croc7415 Unfortunately I do not have another computer with me; the question would then be trivial.

You can boot your computer from a Linux distribution on a pen drive, and forbid Linux to have any access to your hard disk. You'd have to check that Linux supports your mic and webcam (and that Examity supports Linux) or show your professor the Examity system check https://prod.examity.com/systemcheck/check.aspx showing your computer doesn't support Examity - which puts the ball back in their court.

+1, but I would send the email you suggest right away. Emails from administrators "discouraging" the use of proctoring software seem like they might be ignored, especially if they don't suggest an alternative. I think there is a real chance that a complaint from a student might make a greater impact.

@Owain For the record, Examity does not support Linux. That system check page confirms it ("Your computer must be running Windows or Mac OS in order to use Examity").

@Frederico Thank you, that is convenient. Unless there is a requirement that students must provide their own Windows or Mac computer to register on the course, having a Linux computer solves the problem.

If you read my answer to this question you will see that I don’t have a fanatically pro-privacy view about such things. I do understand where your professor is coming from. On the other hand, I don’t think your objections are unreasonable. In fact they seem reasonable enough that I think emailing the professor to ask about this is quite appropriate, although by no means guaranteed to produce the outcome you want.
Here is a suggested draft email.

Dear Professor,
I am writing about the exam next week. I understand that you plan to require students taking the exam to use Examity. Were you aware of the recent guidelines from our college [insert links] and several of the other colleges at our school [insert links] strongly discouraging the use of Examity? The issue is that this service is highly problematic from the point of view of privacy and computer security, and moreover, is widely believed to be ineffective as it can be easily defeated in any number of ways by would-be cheaters, as documented, for example, here [add link].
Personally, I have several principled as well as practical objections to being required to install and run the Examity software on my home computer as a condition to being allowed to take the exam (I’d be happy to explain them in a follow-up email if that helps). Would you consider waiving this requirement or discussing an alternate arrangement that would allow me (and, ideally, all other students in the class) to take the exam without the use of this problematic service that even our campus administration disapproves of?
Just to be clear, I am an honest student and have no desire or intention to cheat.
Thanks,
user760900

This is exactly the email I would like to send. However, the students are not privy to the emails the college sends to the professors and I only know this email was sent based on what other profs have said. Would it make sense to email the department chair or anyone higher up given the issued guidelines or would you recommend dealing directly with the prof?

I have never found a student who would write “Just to be clear, I am a dishonest student and have a desire to cheat”...

@Solar Mike: I have never found a student who would write --- Neither have I, but if you haven't gotten a lot of emails from students (especially just out of high school, not graduate students), you might be surprised at how often they will write something similar to what Dan Romik wrote at the end, so I thought it was a nice touch.

@user760900 if you don’t have the emails then just mention that you heard that they exist. You can also contact the department chair, I have no opinion about whether that makes sense or not. But from what you’re saying, the university has only discouraged professors from using Examity rather than forbidden it outright. So you are really at the mercy of the professor. If she decides she wants to use Examity after all, the chances that the department chair will prevent her from doing that are pretty slim.

I dunno, I think the proposed email is too long.

If you can suggest a solution to your professor rather than just a problem you might get a better outcome. Do some evidence gathering and then email your professor ccing any other relevant people involved in the administration of this exam stating that you have serious concerns about the integrity of Examity and give your reasons. Then suggest an alternative. I do not know if Moodle's safe exam browser would be preferable to you (https://docs.moodle.org/38/en/Safe_exam_browser)?
If you are worried about sensitive files on your computer then create a new user account and do all your professional work including this exam from that account. If you are really worried then get hold of a different computer with factory settings restored or where it doesn't matter if worst comes to worst and you get full on hacked (for which I guess the risk is quite low anyway, no?)
Ask your colleagues taking the exam if they are also concerned and, if some of them share your concerns, send the email from all of you or if you have a representative get them to send the email stating that it is on behalf of x number of concerned students.

I doubt I can suggest a better solution given that the many universities around the world are struggling with the same problem and not finding a solution. However, to some extent, I would rather let a portion of the class cheat and hope their honest friends report them than punish everyone by using Examity, a software which, based on above comments, can easily be bypassed.

@user760900 when you say “I would rather let a portion of the class cheat” that rather undermines the case for your petition. Frankly, no one cares that you are relatively indifferent to cheating. What matters is what the university and the professor feel about cheating, and they in fact care about it greatly and would go to great lengths to fight it. So I’d advise you to focus on the “Examity doesn’t work” argument rather than the “yeah, maybe it works, but who cares about a little more cheating in one class out of many?” vibes that you are sending off in your comments here.

@user760900 you're not alone in worrying that others will cheat with new online exam platforms (https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/147978/other-students-can-easily-cheat-on-a-test-and-the-grading-system-is-relative-s/148004#148004) but there are plenty of people who simply won't cheat on principle. You cannot know the detailed ins and outs of who might or might not cheat or what the university is doing to combat this. Focus on yourself and your work and don't try to cheat yourself. You should make this decision purely on the principle that you don't want to be a person who cheats.

@DanRomik You're correct there, but I thought you were asking about my personal opinion above in an effort to understand and maybe change my opnion. Of course when I send the email, my personal opinion will not be highlighted as much I have in this post.

@croc7415 Of course I will not cheat, but my point is that I do not believe that enough people cheat to warrant this invasion of privacy.

It's being noted in the comments that programs like this often have VM-detection. If that's the case, this likely won't work.

If she still intends to use it, what can I do?

If in the end you are required to use the software, and there's no other reasonable path than to use it, consider setting up a Virtual Machine that you install the software on instead. It's basically a computer in software that is a completely separate entity from the host computer that it's running on. It can even be isolated so that it isn't able to communicate to other computers on the network, or the host computer that it's on.
You'd need two things:

Software to host the virtual machine.
An ISO of Windows (or whatever OS it requires)

For the first, I personally like VMWare. I get the Pro version free because of the school I'm enrolled in. Your school may have a similar program in place. There are likely free alternatives as well, or at least one that offers a trial period.
For the second, Microsoft offers up versions of Windows to be used for teaching/educational purposes. They can be downloaded here if your school is affiliated.
Install the Windows ISO onto the VM, run the standard Windows setup like you'd always do, and you'll have yourself a fresh, isolated computer that can be destroyed when you're done with it.
The major problem with this is there's a possibility that VMware will interfere with Examity's ability to access the webcam/other devices (if it requires such access). You'd want to test it ahead of time to ensure its working as expected.

FWIW, these kinds of programs usually have anti-VM detection.

@ieatpizza Really? I admit I've never used a program like Examity before. I'll add a note.


text:
Found out I might have unknowingly cheated after term completion
One of my classes had a midterm scheduled right after we were all sent home due to Covid-19. The professor said that for this midterm, we were allowed to use notes, both his and our own, browse the internet, and talk with peers during the exam. While this seems abnormal, we, as a class, checked multiple times and he confirmed this policy every time. Thus, during the exam, about 2/3 of the class (~10 people) got in one video call and were talking during the exam.
For the final, the professor simply said that the rules would be the same as the midterm listed above. To our discredit, no one double checked what the professor meant and simply went with it. Of course, the same ~10 people got on the video call again and did the final. It was not an easy final, despite us collaborating and looking at notes, leading me to suspect nothing wrong. The professor also had not posted a note saying collaboration was allowed on the exam, although this was the same as the previous midterm, so I thought he had just overlooked this. Looking back, I see the fallacy in this, but it did not seem important at the time.
However, recently I was talking to an acquaintance from the class, one of the 10 in the video call, and I found out that he had indeed checked with the professor about peer collaboration on the final, which the professor explicitly disallowed (this was during office hours). This acquaintance said he did not tell this to us as he needed us helping him on the final to pass the class.
I'm conflicted on what to do now, as it has been over 3 weeks since the end of semester (4 weeks since the final in question) and most of the class was in on the video call. If anything, all our answers were EXTREMELY similar (most were exact copies) to the point that it would be obvious we were collaborating. On one hand given the above, it seems unnecessary to dig this up. On the other hand, I'm not sure that I'm not reasoning my way through having cheated. Please advise.

What exactly is your goal?

Was the no-collaboration rule communicated to you in any way (e.g. on written exam rules that you didn't read), or did the professor really only inform those students who attended the office hours?  If you hadn't been informed of the rule, you didn't cheat - but there is still the risk that the professor might mistakenly think he did inform you.

@NateEldredge Nope, I checked with a bunch of other students and no one knew of this. Office hours, given Covid-19, were appointment based; it was a one-on-one and the student in question decided not to inform the rest of us. It was not listed either way on exam rules on either exam, although I did check with the professor during the midterm and he did reconfirm collaboration on the midterm is allowed.

The fact that the majority of students believed this to be acceptable would lead most reasonable people to assume that there was an error in communication. I would expect that failing/imposing academic sanctions an entire class is not a thing most institutions would take lightly under those circumstances. The most likely outcome would be asking the class re-take the exam under proper conditions (with different questions). You're next actions (raising/ignoring) will probably have little bearing on what will happen.

@NateEldredge That seems a bit backwards. Isn't no-collaboration supposed to be the default? Or does every syllabus have to include "you shall not collaborate with thy colleagues during a final exam" in your country? From what OP writes, it seems that the professor has actively communicated a yes-to-collaboration rule, and that is what should be judged.

@FedericoPoloni: Of course, "no collaboration" is the default.  In this case, the professor implicitly told the students "collaboration OK" (by announcing the rules for the final were the same as the midterm), but this may not have been his intention, given that he told OP's acquaintance "no collaboration" during office hours.  So if he really did intend for the rule to be "no collaboration", I was wondering if he might have communicated that in some way that would clearly supersede his announcement, e.g. in written rules issued later.  But it appears he did not.

Are there not two basic options?
Most people might try to ignore this, or hide from it. Not really two different choices, are they?
If you think there's the slightest chance of being taken to task… or if you simply want to clear your conscience… explain everything to "the powers that be."
Either way, you might first want to consult a specialist lawyer.

@RobbieGoodwin I think the options are more in the line of ignore or report. I don't have the resources to be consulting a lawyer unless its pro bono (I'm an average college kid). The problem is the "powers that be" may not be reliable as someone below pointed out

The answers say the obvious, I don't really understand why the question: if the rule was not communicated to you directly, it does not exist. So my comment goes in another direction: why would students want to communicate among them? There is no reason for this, unless the students (some students, many students, all students) are weak, and then most probably why the professor was so vague. We do like that students pass!

@user760900 please look at that again. If you half-way think there's the least difference between my suggestion and your thinking "the options are more in the line of ignore or report" then you've completely misunderstood your situation. Please ask what I have to lose?
The problem is not 'the "powers that be" may not be reliable' nor your "more in the line of…" but only "ignore or report"…
Who but you could lose by that difference?
My jurisdiction doesn't really do "pro bono" yet most lawyers will give a free initial consultation… How many lawyers have refused you that?

@JohnB: It seems completely obvious ehy students want to communicate during an exam. To help others, to get help, to check answers, to get good ideas in teamwork -- what's so strange about this (provided such a rule is assumed to hold)?

@user111388 I never had any desire like that as a student, only the very dumb students (to say the least, of course). I don't quite follow your question. That's quite obvious that it is strange.

@JohnB: Sorry, but I find it insulting that sou say that only dumb students would like to communicate. Did you never had to do some teamwork as a student? Working in academia (and before in industry) now, I also have to (and like to) solve problem together with collegues. Do you really think only dumb students work together with others?!

@user111388 I find it insulting that you don't understand my comment. Sorry, I have no further time for you.

@JohnB: So please explain your comment as soon as you have time. i stand by my stance: also non-dumb students like (and should learn to) teamwork, solve problems together and help each other.

This is an uncomfortable situation.
Document your knowledge of the rules as you understood at the time of the final, and also the midterm (the rules to which were included by reference on the final). Save any emails or written explanations you received about the rules.
I would (somewhat painfully) recommend that you not bring this up with your instructor at this time. If they are as disorganized and reckless as this situation suggests, then I would not trust their capacity to process or deal with the mess in a reasonable way. By analogy: There are cases of people reporting software/system bugs in good faith who are then brought up on charges by confused authority figures looking for someone to punish.
Note also that you only have a report of this issue second-hand from a single student who is self-admittedly an unreliable source. There have been many times in my experience when a student says,"Professor X said [crazy thing]", and on tracking it down, turns out to be a misunderstanding or misrecollection on the student's part. Alternatively, people who tend to be fraudsters also tend to lie and cause anxiety for personal amusement. So you may be liable to bother or confuse your professor about nothing, and be embarrassed by that.
If the issue does come up in the future, then present your documented evidence honestly.
Don't poke the bear.

You make the good point that the only evidence that a no-collaboration rule actually was in place for the final is the report of a single student.

You make a very good point which is rarely seen on this site, so +1: Not all profs are capable to deal with things in reasonable ways. What I don't agree with is the statement about the cheating student: I don't think they would "almost surely"  do this for personal amusement. It is more likely that they just wanted/needed to cheat to get a passing/good grade (which is of course bad) and viewed themselves more important than their collegues' safety. This does not mean, however, that they are a bad person in all respects and lie for personal amusement.

I didn't consider that the other student may be lying. While that somewhat relieves the pressure of the situation, I'm confused, looking back, as to why the professor did not write this policy directly onto either test, given that he wrote that the test was open note at the top.

Assuming that the no-collaboration rule was really not communicated to you, then you didn't cheat.  You followed the rules as you reasonably understood them based on the information you were given.  There's no such thing as "unknowingly  cheating"; it requires intent.
However, there is a substantial risk that the professor may think you have cheated, if he mistakenly thinks he made it clear to the entire class that collaboration was not allowed.  So it is in your best interest to clear it up before any formal charges are considered.  Just explain what you've said here: you were told that the rules would be "the same" as the midterm (if you have this in writing, better yet), and you later found out that other students were told something different.
The fact that the term has ended means nothing.  It is entirely possible, in all academic systems I know of, to impose a punishment for cheating even after the term is over, perhaps months or years later.   And it is not too unusual that investigations can't be completed before grades are due, in which case the professor may assign the grade based on an assumption of no cheating, but it can be changed retroactively if his investigation confirms wrongdoing.
So even if you don't want to "dig it up", the professor still can, and you will convey more honesty if you get out ahead of it.  You have a good defense, but it won't look as good if you have to say "well, I found out afterwards there might be a problem, but I didn't say anything because I hoped you wouldn't notice".
Note that your acquaintance definitely did cheat, if he's telling the truth about what the professor told him: he'd been clearly informed that collaboration was not allowed and he did it anyway.  Moreover, he did it in a way that placed innocent students at risk of being suspected and prosecuted for cheating.  Many people would feel that you also have an obligation to report this to the professor.

What would I say? "I was just informed that you did not intend for us to collaborate on the final. I, along with may of my peers, thought you intended for this given that you said the rules would be the same as the midterm, on which you had allowed collaboration" The problem with this is he never wrote down that collaboration was allowed. Looking back, I see why this may be a problem, but I had no reason to be suspicious at the time; I just thought he forgot to write it on the midterm.

@user760900: Yes, that wording sounds good to me.  If you like you can include more specifics: "...on which you had allowed collaboration, as you informed us during class on date XXX and confirmed to me directly when we spoke during the exam".

While there might be no cheating in this case, I'd argue cheating can happen without intent. I encountered a sad case of this years ago, when a student honestly confused the rules for different exams and had a sheet of notes in an exam where none were allowed. The student wasn't hiding those, so there was no deception, but there was no way of letting them pass after having had this advantage for about 30 minutes until we noticed. But in that case the rules were communicated properly, they were even read out loudly before the start, the student just somehow failed to listen properly.

I can't help but thinking if you do decide to bring this up proactively, that you first consult with someone who can represent you if you are subsequently accused of cheating. Not sure who that might be, but it sounds like you have very little leverage in this situation or protection from the professor's whims.

@user760900 I would avoid phrases like, "I thought" which imply that you know understand that you were in the wrong.  I would go with something like, "I was acting on the directions posted on . . . that said . . ." and I would also do everything I could do document those directions, e.g. taking screen shots of the relevant online pages, saving copies of emails, etc.  Document everything is a good habit for the student to get into going into their professional career.

@mlk: I personally do not consider that "unknowingly cheating" or "cheating without intent". Cheating is by definition intentional. Your case would be "unknowingly break the rules".

@user21820 True, by that definition it won't be cheating, but then again you would have to look up the university regulations, as dictionary definitions are only descriptive of the general consensus, not authoritative in a specific situation and laws and regulations have that annoying habit of sometimes using words differently than anyone else. But all this is mostly semantics anyway. I guess my main point anyway is that unknowingly breaking the rules sadly can have the same consequences as doing so knowingly.

@mlk: Of course; I should have clarified that my personal opinion of "cheating" is not necessarily consistent with university definition in all cases. And yes, sadly, I don't agree with certain kinds of university definitions. In one case I heard of, A copied from B's laptop without B knowing, and then both were punished... I really want to punish the punisher...

@user760900 I see this answer is the most highly upvoted and I'd personally be very interested in the aftermath if you do go this route if you wouldn't mind posting an update afterwards that would be appreciated.

@G.Allen I would - I even have access to the exams (which is uncommon at my uni), but this was documented nowhere on either exam. At the time, I thought the professor just forgot (since this was the same on the final and midterm), but I see the fallacy now.

@DeanMacGregor I see that this answer is the most upvoted, but I don't plan to go down this route. I have talked to people outside the group and it seems like the whole class (other than 1-2 people no one had contact with) did collaborate. I doubt the university would accuse the entire class of cheating, so I feel it would be best to let sleeping dogs lie.

I agree with the answer by Daniel Collins, which quotes the famous saying "Don't poke the bear". Your description of the situation makes it very clear that you did not intend to cheat, and that you are proactively coming here to ask advice on how to handle the situation, which many would say is quite responsible of you to do, so there is only two reasons why you would want to poke the bear:

If you want to experience what it is like to be involved in a university-level academic integrity investigation (trust me, you do not).
The bear is more likely than not, to come after you anyway, so you wish to proactively "turn yourself in", which would improve your chances of having a happy ending to the situation.

Let's asses the second point in more detail:

For the final, the professor simply said that the rules would be the
  same as the midterm listed above. To our discredit, no one double
  checked what the professor meant and simply went with it.

In my opinion, with only the information you have provided here, you were under no obligation to "double check". If the professor said the rules would be the same as for the midterm, leave it at that.

If anything, all our answers were extremely similar (most were exact copies) to the point that it would
  be obvious we were collaborating.

This part would be seen as cheating in my opinion. Even if the professor said that "you can collaborate", it is common sense that, on a take-home exam, "being allowed to collaborate" still means you have to write your own separate answers.
If you did submit extremely similar answers to anyone else, then I personally would call it cheating, and you might consider telling your professor in advance, to mitigate any consequences you might have coming at you for it, except:

You said it has been 4 weeks since it happened and nothing has been said of the situation, so I would guess that nothing will happen.
You said that the class thought the rules were the same as the midterm: Do you
know if your group submitted almost identical answers during the midterm too? If you did and there was no consequences, it's unlikely (though not impossible) to be brought up now.

If you did not submit extremely similar answers to anyone else, then my personal advice to you is to relax and start to focus on more important things, such as your career goals or next set of academic courses.
In the future: please do not submit what you described as "extremely similar answers" for anything, even if it is a take-home exam. There is no excuse not to spend a bit of extra energy to make each answer your own, and if you cannot do this then you do not understand your answer, and should not be trying to give the examiner the false impression that you do. This will keep you from having to deal with the stress of your current dilemma, ever again.

"Extremely similar answers" is pretty vague, personally. It depends on the field, which the question author didn't supply. If it's an area of math, it can be difficult to answer differently. There's only so many ways to describe an answer to a combinatorics questions or maybe only three ways to solve a linear systems equation.

Then OP wouldn't have mentioned concern about the answers being extremely similar.

True, but it is something to consider, especially when you're potentially looking at an integrity investigation without any specifics IRT to original quesiton. I had to sit on one a long time ago and this was brought up (answer and explanation was super similar to another students). It wasn't easily shot down, but certain PDEs only have one solution.

@reeeky2001 It's a math class, although there are multiple ways to reach the same conclusion. What I meant by similar answers is that the method used was the exact same by everyone in the group. Some of the methods were a little more complex but we collectively decided that method would be better. I don't see how I would rewrite it beyond putting my own explanation, which I did. We did the same for the midterm, to no penalty.

@user760900 Okay, I think you have nothing to worry about. If you get in trouble, tell me and I'll help you sort it out. I encourage you to move on to working on your career goals and planning for your next set of courses. Having a nice life involves a lot of work, and while this question was a good one, thinking too much more about it is just an un-necessary distraction.

@user760900 I figured this could be the case. There isn't always a "best" method, like using a Taylor series, Newton's method, or Adomian decomposition method, but there are preferred methods WRT accuracy or speed. I wouldn't worry about it currently, especially if you can do the work yourself. I also wouldn't worry about an inquiry or poking the bear. If everyone heard the prof say "same terms as the mids" and everyone heard that collaboration on the mids was permissible, then it should be good. Only the one student should have anything to worry about. Depends on which school though.

-1 from me because of the implication that in future OP should try to hide this. Either collaboration is ok or it isn't, making effort to change your answers to hide similarities between answers moves from lack of clarity about rules to intentional deception.

Focusing solely on the practicality rather than the morality; the die has already been cast and it will almost certainly make no difference to the outcome whether you speak up or not.

The marker of the test knows that you have collaborated
They will decide whether or not to accept this or report it
If it is reported any sanctions will apply to the whole group

The marker knows - even if you're answers are not exact copies, but somewhat similar then it will be pretty obvious to whoever marks the papers that you collaborated, especially given none of you were trying to hide it. This person may or may not be your professor; depending on the exam/institution it may also be cross-checked by someone else potentially even from a different institution. You 'flagging-up' the collaboration won't make it any more obvious.
They will choose to flag it or not. This will depend on who has marked the paper, their integrity, and whether they accept that collaboration was allowed. If it is raised as an issue then this process could take several weeks and already be underway. Once again your involvement will not alter any ongoing process (although you may be given more information about the current status), but there is a very slim chance you could cause further investigation to be made.
Consequences. Any action taken by your university will almost certainly be applied to all students involved. It's hard to envisage an outcome where 9/15 students resit/retake/are expelled but one is given a pass because they spoke up several weeks after the incident happened.
In summary, you have nothing practically to gain by speaking up, but if you choose to you probably run a slim-risk of creating a worse situation.

They know it, you know it, they probably don't know what to do about it nor want you to do anything about it, nor do I think anything should be done about it, by either of you.


text:
What should a student look for in an undergraduate thesis supervisor?
I am an undergraduate student (not in maths) looking for a topic and supervisor for my thesis.
What criteria should I use to judge whether a project/supervisor combination will make for a good thesis and productive experience? I don't plan on going into academia (although this may change) and thus would like to get something tangible if possible (ie. a paper) out of the experience (although preferably not at significant cost to learning)
Conversely, what are red flags/pitfalls I should look out for and how do I avoid them?
This question is extremely similar to this one, although is more general than just math. I'm hoping for some general advice, but if really needed, I'm double majoring in Computer Science and Economics

Can you explain why the answers to the question you linked are insufficient? I think they generalise beyond a mathematics dissertation.

If you already know what your goals are, then obviously the thing to look for in your thesis supervisor is 'will this supervisor help me achieve those goals'. You say you do not want to stay in academia, but that really doesn't say much about what you do want to do. And if you think your thesis supervisor (or thesis) is irrelevant to your goals, then go with personal preference or other criteria like interesting topics, fun working environment, short/easy thesis, ...

I would recommend you to take to things into consideration:
First, find a topic that you are interested in and motivated to work on. And then, try to find profs in your department that work on topics similar to what you plan to work on.
Second, try to figure out how you would like to work (and this is very important).
If you feel confident working more independently, the supervisor won't play a significant role there. If you feel that you need closer guidance, try to find a supervisor that is willing to do that.
Now, it is important to note that you will likely have to compromise some of your needs. It is possible that there won't be many professors willing to supervise you on a topic you want rather than what they want and will recommend you to join his projects/topics. On the other hand, you may find someone willing to supervise you on the topic you choose but won't provide you with close support.
Back in my undergrad thesis, I had a topic I really wanted to work with and only had one prof on the field to supervise me. I had very minimal supervision.
Was it the way I wished? No. I could've gone farther if we had worked closely and if I had had someone to discuss with or to push me.
Was it worthwhile? Definitely! This has brought me independence, which prepared me for many of the challenges I had throughout my masters and Ph.D.

From my experience, important things to look for in a supervisor are:

They're interested in your topic. Imagine being supervised by someone who isn't interested in your thesis topic! Conversely, it's very stimulating if your supervisor is eager to read your results. My CS theses are more fun because the research is a small shard of the supervisors' broader projects, and they are genuinely curious what the outcome will be.

The topic falls within the supervisor's main experience. I did a thesis on early medieval history with a supervisor whose specialty was late medieval history, and he wasn't really able to help as much as I'd hoped for.

They help you bound your topic both upwards and downwards. This is one of the things you need a supervisor with knowledge of the field for. They have to know when your ambitions are big enough to satisfy the thesis requirements, but also when they're becoming too big and a hazard to you actually finishing. Good research has a reasonable scope, for your abilities and requirements. But doing good scoping at the outset requires a knowledge of what's in the field that you as a student won't have, that's why you're supervised by an expert.

They have enough time. The top professors in your department also tend to have the biggest demands placed on their time. They also have the most power and their name on your thesis or paper can give it a boost. This is a paradox. In my case the solution turned out to be the second supervisor (having two is mandatory in my institution). My second supervisor is less influential, but also not as hemmed in by external obligations so has more time/is more reliably able to make it to meetings. Having regular meetings is important.

You get along with them as a person. You need to be able to open up to them about any problems that are holding you back.

They're as strict as you need them to be. Sometimes you need a push.


text:
Problem in finding out the referencing style
I want to send an article to the Springer journal "Cluster Computing", but I have problem in understanding the referencing style of the journal. Here is an example of a citation in previous articles of this journal:

Li, Z., Huang, Y., Liu, G., et al.: Challenges, designs, and
performances of large-scale open-P2SP content distribution. IEEE
Trans. Parallel Distrib. Syst. 24(11), 2181–2191 (2013)

Which style is this? It is not similar to Harvard, Vancouver etc.

If you tell us the name of the journal this would probably be much easier.

@StrongBad Cluster computing

The referencing style for the Springer publication Cluster Computing: The Journal of Networks, Software Tools and Applications is briefly outlined on the page of submission guidelines for authors. The guidelines are sufficiently brief that it is inevitable there will be instances of reference types that aren't particularly well described by the guidelines, in which case, one is left to guess how to amend one of the described styles.
That said, there is a rather better way to approach the problem. The Citations Styles website, includes a page for Cluster Computing which includes links to appropriate templates. If you use Zotero, Mendeley, or any other citation software that uses CSL style templates rather than pay-for proprietary style sheets, then you will be able to install the correct style for Cluster Computing by clicking the Install button on the linked page.
As for the answer to "which style is it?", the closest answer is Springer's mathematics and physics style with brackets (see the description on the CSL page).