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Publishing without academic supervisor
I am a bachelor student and have been working for a professor since the last two years on a paper for which I was paid. All the work is mine but data belongs to him. We recently had a fallout and I no longer work for him. But the paper is completed and only submission part is left and at this stage he has stopped communicating with me. I have tried writing to him more than three times and there has been no answer. Only I have worked on the paper and it's a method paper.
Can I publish without him? Can I put his name and send out for publication even if he does not agree ( or respond to mails)?
Or can I take method paper to a different lab working in the same area and then publish using their data?
What can I do now?
Edit: I don't think I am an over confident bachelor student trying to aim for nature or a Nobel. I verified with multiple people and all of them has stated something along this line "that though the work won't make it to any top tier journal still has more than enough new contributions for a paper".
The problem is that me and my supervisor ended up having a fallout over some slight remark he made about me, which I felt offensive and was not diplomatic in calling that out in a skype call with other lab members. Since then he has terminated by contract and won't reply to my mails.
My professor works in Economics (data)  and the paper is around Bayesian approaches on this data (Stats, AI).Other than the data, there has not been any intellectual contribution from my professors side.

Can I publish without him? Can I put his name and send out for publication even if he does not agree ( or respond to mails)?

This won't work. Authors bear a certain responsibility regarding the quality of the paper. So you can't publish without consent of all authors.
But note that your statement "All the work is mine but data belongs to him." does not imply that you can simply publish your findings without him. Your professor is likely to have made intellectual contributions such as defining the actual research question, putting you on the right track towards a solution, etc. And substantial intellectual contributions typically imply authorship.
Your best bet is to find a colleague of his who can mediate between you two. If the paper is actually completed, considerable resources have been spent on the side of the professor (time and money), so there is a chance that you can get this published with help.
Taking the paper to a different lab may work if (a) the professor is ready to give up authorship, which sounds unlikely from your question, and (b) the head of the other lab is willing to speak to your current/previous professor about the paper.

Being a student, we always think our result is best. We always want some publication from work done during the Bachelor degree. We want to submit it to a top tier conference, but it won't be the case with your professor.
The problem is that from the professor point of view, either the paper is not ready or not a top priority thing from him.
So, in the given scenario, you can politely ask your professor to allow him to publish the paper and check the manuscript. The benefit would be that paper's quality will improve, chances of getting accepted and regsitration fees will be covered.
In another scenario, if you don't get a reply from him after sending 2-3 reminders, inform him that you will submit it XXX conference. The side effect would be that you have to pay the registration fees from your pocket.
At last, if your work in a university lab, data never belong to you. University has right on that data.

While there are instances of tyranny on the part of supervisors, there are also examples of overconfident students.  Thus, the first step must be to seek some sort of mediation, or at least some outside opinion on the situation.  This means finding someone willing to talk to you and your supervisor, hear both sides of the story and hopefully propose a way forward.
If agreement cannot be reached, then you are in a pickle.  It would be incorrect on the part of anyone to publish a method paper without your supervisor as a co-author (as you implicitly acknowledge yourself).  Moreover, “shopping” your method is unlikely to succeed: the cold reality is  that serious experimental groups are unlikely to listen to outsiders - they have their own trusted tools and methods - much less an undergraduate involved in a dispute with a professor.

I have edited my question.


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How to avoid punishing students for honesty regarding attendance?
I have taught an introductory statistics class at a local university for a number of years now, and have a policy of no late work/tests without prior approval. (Of course, emergencies are exempt) I have also told my class that illness is a valid reason for missing a test, and as I understand that not every illness requires a doctor's visit, I don't require a doctor's note - simply send me an email beforehand letting me know.
Now, I'm having problems with this policy. I have had students sleep through exams and be completely honest in why they missed the exam; they simply shut off their alarm. These students do not get to make up their exam.
While on the flip side, if a student simply wants to take an extra day to study, all they have to do is claim to be sick, email me in the morning before the test, and voila! Free day to study. (I have not had any students take advantage of this habitually; i.e. sick every test.)
This feels ridiculous to me; I feel like I'm punishing students for their honesty.
How can I have an attendance policy that holds students accountable for being in class, while allowing for illness that doesn't require a doctor's note?
Edit - additional info:

I don't have an attendance policy for general lectures - I figure if they want to come to class, they will. If they don't, that's their choice too. It's more that the exam is given and due during the class they are missing. I like having hard deadlines for homework/exams - I feel it's better to teach accountability and bonuses as making my life easier grading/keeping track of assignments.

I agree that it's not good to insist on doctor's notes, nor is it good to punish people for honest admission of a not-great reason for missing an exam. My own inclination (for not-so-big classes) is to accept slight postponements without any reason whatsoever. And, indeed, not so many people want to delay exams...

Are these small quizzes that take place at the beginning or end of a class, with a small weightage, or major exams that count for a significant part of the grade?

First, treat your students as adults and many of these dilemmas about what counts as a valid excuse will magically go away. Second, missing an exam is a serious thing, so it seems to me that you are too lenient in excusing absences without a doctor’s note or other documentation. Third, yes, it is ridiculous to have a policy that incentivizes lying. To me this is a sign that you are emphasizing the wrong things. The whole “accountability” thing seems like a pointless distraction to me, unless you teach at a military academy or similar.

@GoodDeeds; these are major exams (around 5 a semester).

@DanRomik, I agree - I try to treat my students as much like adults as possible. Hence, why I don't have an attendance policy for general classes, and take their word for it if they say they're sick or not. But I'd rather not have students come into class to take an exam if they feel sick, but haven't seen a doctor. (COVID concerns aside; I had these concerns about my own policy before that)

@Sam okay, but it’s just not logical to ask them to claim they were sick on the one hand but not doing anything to verify it on the other hand. Some adults are still dishonest, and it’s not fair to the honest students that you’re making it so easy to cheat. Instead, why not have a policy that the lowest X exam scores will be dropped in the final grade calculation? (This assumes you are giving at least 2-3 exams over the course of the semester.) This way missing an exam could happen for any reason, whether medical or otherwise, and the perverse incentive to lie would be eliminated.

@DanRomik, Oh, I agree that it's inconsistent logic! :) That's why I want to change it. I think that may be the way to go, dropping X exams.

Getting some sort of official verification of an illness is not really feasible in the scope that would make sense: if someone has a "mere" severe cold, to be able to schedule an appointment to talk to someone to certify this might not be easy to accomplish "on demand"... plus, might have a co-pay (in the U.S.), etc. I am entirely willing to believe peoples' claims that they're ill, given the impracticality of "documentation". These days, too, the risks taken in physical presence at a medical facility are non-trivial... I think this sets the bar too high for delaying an exam.

@paulgarrett the way my university (and I suspect many US universities) deals with this problem is that they have a student health/wellness center that accepts student calls and walk-ins and dispenses basic medical advice and information. They will often send instructors a note saying “so and so was seen by our center/talked to us on the phone on May 5 at 10 am for a medical issue”. While the note will not disclose specific medical information so it does not prove that the student had an illness, most instructors will accept that as a valid “doctor’s note” in the context of a missed exam.

How much of an advantage do you think it is to have one extra day for studying?

Does this answer your question? Is the death of a girlfriend's father a reasonable excuse for a student to miss a class? While on the face of it, this isn't about assignments, the proposed policy in the accepted answer can be applied to assignments as well.

@henning Please don't do that.

@user1271772 what exactly?

@henning You started a close vote review process by suggesting that this question (by a new user to this site, and which already has 3 answers) is a duplicate of a question which you already pointed out is not a duplicate of this question. That question also has 11 long answers. It can be harmful to make people coming to this question, go to that question for the answer. I think it was helpful to point out the existence of a related question, but not to initiate a close-vote review process because of that!

@user1271772 is see what you mean. I know my judgment is imperfect, and I'm confident if the question is not a dupe, my flag won't garner enough votes to close. And there's always the option to appeal on meta.

@henning Fair enough. I dislike a bit when people initiate close vote processes in cases like these, but you've earned your right to do it, so let's just see if others agree with the close vote.

Follow university policy regarding testing rather than making up your own.
Your university should have standardised rules for tests across the board, in order to facilitate a standard experience for all students,  maintain the integrity and fairness of the assessment process across the university, and to facilitate timetabling during the end of semester exam block. By allowing students to push their exams back a day on their own word that they were sick, you're not only rewarding liars and punishing honest students, you're also facilitating cheating (since the students who have taken the exam can tell the students who haven't about the questions) and disrupting the exam timetable for every other class on campus.
As such, I would recommend that you look up your university's examination policies and make sure that your own policies are in compliance with them.

Not all exams happen at the end of the semester.

Yes, but if there are exams during the semester then the university policy covers those too.

You have identified that your mixture of policies creates perverse incentives and that the consequence is that honest students are punished relative to dishonest students.  If it feels ridiculous to you, that is a sign that things are not working well and you need to reform the process somehow.

How can I have an attendance policy that holds students accountable for being in class, while allowing for illness that doesn't require a doctor's note?

In a certain strict sense, you probably can't.  If you allow a reason for non-attendance that is judged purely by the say-so of the student (without requiring external evidence) then that is necessarily subject to fraud, and there will necessarily be more punishment for an honest student who misses a test than a dishonest student who misses the test but uses an accepted excuse.  If you would like to proceed with something like your present policy, I recommend that you consider "blunting the perverse incentives" by lowering the penalty for non-attendance.  One option you could consider is to make some/all the assessment "redeemable" in some way (e.g., counting best three out of four tests; all in-class tests redeemable in the final exam, etc.).
In my own teaching, I have often used an assessment structure where I break the work for the session down into (three) parts and give an in-class test for each part, which is redeemable against a section of the final exam.  The final exam is then structured so that it is just like a set of (newly written) in-class tests put together.  Students may attempt any or all of the parts of the final to redeem the corresponding in-class test.  (They have a fixed allotment of time large enough to do all three parts of the final exam, but if they choose to only do one or two of the parts, they have the luxury of working more slowly.)  This structure gives me the advantage of being able to be quite strict on the in-class tests without an excessive penalty to the student, since they know they can redeem a bad mark in the final exam.  This assessment structure has been popular with students (not surprisingly) and I have found it really helpful for ensuring that there is a failsafe in the event of some problem in a test.  It is also good from a pedagogical point of view, because it means that the student only needs to demonstrate competence on each part of the course once, but they get a couple of chances.
If you were to implement some kind of "blunting" of the penalty for non-attendance (e.g., some kind of redeemable assessment) then this might be sufficient to encourage students to be honest with you and take the penalty for sleeping in.  A student is far more likely to confess to such a shortcoming if they know that they will still have a reasonable chance to pass your course.

There are a few options to incentivize people being honest:
(1) Give a leniency: everybody can, for whatever reason, re-take one of their exams at a given moment if they failed the first try or didn't attend due to whatever reason.

Pro: everybody has the same advantage.
Con: More work for you in lanning and correcting.

(2) The lowest exam is dropped for everybody. So if they didn't attend, either because they overslept, were sick or didn't study, the exam gets dropped and the remaining four exams count towards their final grade.

Pro: fair for everybody, no additional work for you except in final grade calculation.
Con: No full understanding for the course is required. If some students have a passing grade after four exams, they don't need to pay attention for the final part.

(3) If there are homework grades, you could see if there is a way to use those. If homework aligns (roughly) per exam, you can let the students pick one exam to swap the corresponding homework grade with the exam grade.

Pro: fair again, makes sure that they grasp the concept (assuming they make their own homework).
Con: More administration for you to ensure their final grade calculation is correct.

These assume that students are only sick once during the semester on an exam day. If it is something more permanent/serious, of course a doctor's note is required.

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Mathematician (who loved PDEs) leaving academia but for what........?
Let me begin with a short disclaimer: I am aware that similar questions have been asked here more than once. However, none of the answers seemed useful to me and hence, I decided to make my own post about it.
I'm 29 years old, having just finished my PhD in math and working as a PostDoc (fixed contract of 1 year). The focus of my research is on analysis in partial differential equations (nothing numerical though).
Backstory: Although I could never imagine myself doing something different than being a researcher, as soon as the last year of my PhD started, I began thinking of leaving academia. The reasons: lack of motivation/inspiration for research and overwhelming chase of permanent position (if you get any after all). It took me, of course, more than half a year to realize that I am not a sort of "quitter" and I just simply changed my mind. For anyone wondering why did I continued as a PostDoc, the answer is "because it was the only job I could find at the moment". It was an offer that came out of the blue and I mostly grabbed it 'cause I would be unemployed otherwise. However, in the back of my mind, it was also me giving a second chance to academia.
But no, unfortunately it does not work out. Teaching is something not only I feel good at but also enjoy sometimes. Yet, I would not like to remain "teaching assistant" for the rest of my life (bad salary and no growth expectations). On the other hand, research is something that bores me. I see no interest/motivation in studying new tools and techniques or proving another theorem in which we simply replaced the X assumption by Y. Cherry on top, I do not feel that excellent/pro in research and this makes me feel even worse every time I have to study something new and uninteresting. I do have some papers besides my thesis but I never felt as comfortable in research as I do in teaching.
To the point: I really feel that my time here is limited and that i have to jump off the boat (although it might be a bit late; I'm 29 with no working experience). My huge problem is that I do not know where to look at. Once, when I was 16, being a scientist inspired me so much that I never questioned any of my choices (bachelor,master,PhD all back to back). I was just doing what needed to be done in order to reach to my final destination. Now the destination is foggy and this is sad (if not devastating). I see a lot of mathematicians jumping to data science or software engineering but I am not quite sure that I would enjoy something like that. Moreover, besides some basics in Matlab and Python, my programming skills are not that great.
Questions:

Do you have any suggestions on how to get inspired/motivated again for a new career goal? I am not afraid of having to educate myself further as long as I am passionate about the goal.
Is there anything else, besides data science, programming and banking (which I find completely dull) for mathematicians with no previous working experience? Preferrably something challenging, with career growth and home office possibilities, that is is sexy and fun (as being a researcher was :P)

I apologize for the super long post but I thought a few more details would be important. Many many thanks in advance for your time. Any feedback is highly appreciated!

Country?  Willingness to do a job that has nothing to do with mathematics?

I have master in math, pdes, numerical methods and continuum mechanics, and now I write physics simulations for visual effects in movies. I really enjoy my job and my math background is really useful. Of course, it is mostly programming but proper understanding of Navier-Stokes equation or role of different boundary conditions is handy and it is an unique skill among my coworkers which are mostly computer scientists.

@AlexanderWoo At the moment I 'm living in Germany and I would prefer to stay in Europe. I would be willing to have a job in which my diplomas won't be completely useless (with or maybe without much math involved as well) :/

@JW Hmmm... During my master I tried to study some applied PDEs but I suppose my brain that time wasn't ready for their beauty. However the examples you mentioned seemed quite interesting. How easy would be however for someone like me to jump into biomedical engineering (let's say)? Why would anyone hire me?

@tom wow! That is the first time I hear something like that. It sounds indeed fun and cool! But I suppose that is quite far from my background... May I ask how did you land this job?

@JW Many manyt thanks for the feedback. You provided lots of examples which I hadn't considered so far and I am curious to find out :)

@kaithkolesidou I was interested in computer graphics for a long time, so after my master I applied for PhD in computer graphics. During it I did internship in one of the big visual effects studios. That helped me to get a job in the industry even though I quit my PhD at the end.

I've deleted my comments and converted them into an answer below.

A mathematician, but not motivated to do research?  (Assuming you are in the US...) There are teaching positions not requiring (or not emphasizing) research.  Four-year colleges; two-year colleges; even some elite high schools may be happy to get a Ph.D. to teach advanced math.

Thanks a lot for the answer. Motivated not anymore. I know teaching is always an option but I was kind of hoping for something more fun/interesting than that...

@kaithkolesidou Teaching becomes boring if you keep teaching the same way -- which then will likely be the way you were taught. If your goal is to broaden your teaching repertoire, to become actually good at it, it is not boring at all: I find it quite an interesting challenge.

Transdisciplinary research needs researchers like you: PhD-prepared problem-solvers!  While teaching may not be your calling, you may find that your unique approach to problem-solving would be ideal within an academic setting where you might focus on work being done within a cross-disciplinary research institute.

Many thanks for the answer! I might be a bit slow but could you please elaborate more on that? What kind of job precisely could serve the purpose of transdisciplinary research within institutes? Some examples would help...

I originally wrote most of what's below in comments, but on reflection it should probably be an answer:
Any interest in applied PDEs? They show up in parts of mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, geophysics, physical oceanography, atmospheric science, spatial population models, epidemiology, traffic models, biomedical engineering, signal/image processing, etc.
If you're potentially interested in a specific field/domain, go find out more about it. How does/might the field use PDEs (or mathematics more generally)? What could you contribute and what need is out there for that? Be prepared to learn some domain knowledge. Learn to speak their "language" and find out what problems they'd love to solve.
You mention being in Germany. Would the Netherlands be an option for you, perhaps at a University of Applied Sciences? (In Dutch, hogeschool, similar to Fachhochschule in Germany, but with differing job entry requirements.)
By the way, you might try reading parts of https://80000hours.org/ (a career advice website) as food for thought. (Please note that I am not affiliated with 80,000 Hours in any way. Just suggesting something that might help.)

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Is it ok to use several pages of material from a single source to write my thesis? I will cite the source of course
There are very limited sources on the topic I am working on, so I have used quite a bit of information from a single source and I have cited it. That source has citations in its body and I have cited the original source as well.
Is this okay? Will it be considered to be plagiarized?
English is not my native language, hope I have explained it so that it is understandable.

You are falling into a very common trap: plagiarism and paraphrasing are almost unrelated concepts.
Plagiarism is all about not giving credit where credit is due. This means one still may commit it even if all of the original words were changed - as long as the amount of intellectual work done by someone else going into your own work is unclear. It is mostly about ideas, but the expression (wording, sentence structure) is also important. Changing the expression is not the main reason we paraphrase, however - one could just keep the original text in quotation marks, after all, and the result would be clear of plagiarism.
Paraphrasing is there to give old ideas a new spin, to provide your own thoughts on the matter, to synthesize something new and not just give the reader a compilation of existing texts.
For your work to have substantial originality, it has to have a lot of material written by you. This means no excessive quotations (definitions of excessive vary by field). Overall, quotes should be used thoughtfully and only on concise, well-expressed thoughts. A more detailed explanation could be found here. Phrases such as "As Mark Twain notes, one does not have to rely on their memory if they are being consistently truthful" are bad writing. Paragraph-long quotes are probably unnecessary as well.
In your case, you will probably be dealing with summarizing the source material (here is another question on SE dealing with borrowing long chunks and paraphrasing).
In humanities, dealing with scarce sources is common and understandable, in STEM, it is quite rare. "A commentary on (a proof of a theorem)" is almost unheard of, but "A commentary on (a philosophy book or two)" is something ubiquitous.
If you make the amount of borrowing clear, there is no plagiarism. The criteria for originality will be field-dependent.
EDIT 2: To give a few examples of covering the existing body of material...
Bad:

As Jones and Miles explain, "Understanding the topology of  contact Riemannian manifolds is essential for underwater basked weaving. Early research in underwater basked weaving has employed a number of more naïve approaches to the structural integrity such as those based on graph cuts (Xu et al., 1959), convex optimization (Nakamura, 1978) and, more recently, finite element methods (Capablanca et al., 2002; Jones et al., 2010)". This adds no value to the work of Jones and Miles, it should generally be replaced by a reference. You might also be infringing on copyright here.
Understanding the topology of  contact Riemannian manifolds is essential for underwater basked weaving (Jones and Miles, 2021). Early research in underwater basked weaving has employed a number of more naïve approaches to the structural integrity such as those based on graph cuts (Xu et al., 1959), convex optimization (Nakamura, 1978) and, more recently, finite element methods (Capablanca et al., 2002; Jones et al., 2010). And this, given the above, is outright plagiarism.
Topology of contact Riemannian manifolds is considered indispensable for modern-day underwater basket weaving (Jones and Miles, 2021). Earlier approaches to making the baskets hold together included graph cuts (Xu et al., 1959) and finite element methods (Capablanca et al., 2002). Still plagiarism, paraphrasing probably makes it even worse.
Consider the topology of a contact Riemannian manifold such as (...). No explanation given why it is even relevant to your research.

Better:
Jones and Miles (Jones and Miles, 2021) state: "Understanding the topology of contact Riemannian manifolds is essential for underwater basked weaving". This notion exposes the underlying trend in recent research towards making the woven baskets being more efficient in industrial applications by cutting the waste during production, increasing the surface area, and reducing the tension in the handle commonly created by machines such as WeavoTron-3000 (UBW Inc., USA). The citation is probably unneeded here, but you provide your own thoughts on the matter. If you are, say, writing a master's thesis, WeavoTron-3000 is all the rage, but there are issues which your advisor has tasked you to solve - this might be a good approach.
Good:
Underwater basket weaving as a discipline has undergone drastic changes in the past decades. Here, we follow (Jones and Miles, 2021) to track its overall history. The main issue plaguing early research on this topic was the optimal density of the twigs, which kept being inconsistent until breakthrough works of the late 1950s (Xu et al., 1959)(Stone et al., 1960). These works used graph cuts as their main approach, however, the results achieved by this technique were also highly volatile with respect to the amount of raw material used. It was solved by applying convex optimization in the now-classic paper by Nakamura (Nakamura, 1978). Industrial development in the following years was generally
highly successful, as evidenced by the growth in production capabilities (World Bank data, 2022), and new questions about the optimization arose. At the turn of the century, two main areas were considered the most prospective for future research (Ivanov et al., 2000): finite element modeling for increasing the structural stability of the baskets and contact Riemannian topology for increasing the underwater basket performance in real-world applications. First is covered by earlier and ongoing research (see e.g. Capablanca et al., 2002; Jones et al., 2010), and we are focusing on the second in this work.
As you can see, the "good" option involves a substantial expansion on whatever was expressed in any single work you have found. There is no point in following the textbook descriptions.
For theses, it is a good practice to punctuate the review section with references to increasing levels of concept difficulty: 2+2=4. The integral of a differential form over the boundary of an orientable manifold is equal to the integral of its exterior derivative over the manifold (generalized Stokes theorem; see e.g. (Tu, 2010)). A Sasakian manifold can be considered as an odd-dimensional analogue of a Kihleriaa manifold (Tanno, 1968). That way if the reader find themselves too deep into the weeds, they would have a good starting point. In that, it is similar to answering here on SE: the reader should be able to follow your text without constantly diving into the references (here it is additionally motivated by the possibility of links dying), but if a concept was already covered well elsewhere, no more than a short annotation is needed.

@Buffy Interesting, I thought I worded the second sentence strongly enough. Perhaps I should add a clarification to avoid making this pitfall even worse. Thank you.

I have not copied the exact words, I have paraphrased long chunks of information from a few pages, and applied to my research. I have cited the author of the work as well as the authors of the citations in the work I used. Eg: (Smith qtd by Roberts ) Is it technically wrong?

@Minttea As long as it is clear what part of it is original thought, it should be fine plagiarism-wise - again, less about technicalities and more about clearly communicating statements along the lines of "this section of my work deals with the review of the existing material". If it is for a thesis, like Buffy says, asking your advisor is the best bet. My understanding is that taking long chunks of information from a single source without adding your own commentary is bad even in humanities, and is surely bad in STEM.

Take it with a grain of salt, however - the closest I got to original research in humanities was when we briefly discussed publishing my commentary for philosophical course requirements with our professor. It was drawing from a select few sources, but still the structure was my commentary interspersed with quotations or paraphrasings of the original text, not the other way around. In STEM, it is almost always summarizing, you should not just take excerpts from a textbook you consider to be great and add no value.

I'm not sure I understand this answer.  Paraphrasing without attribution is plagiarism, so the idea that paraphrasing and plagiarism are "almost unrelated" seems inaccurate to me.

@ScottSeidman Attribution without paraphrasing is not plagiarism. Paraphrasing with attribution is not plagiarism. Thus, paraphrasing is not relevant for determining whether something is plagiarism or not - it is the proper, sufficient attribution that matters. Your argument rests on the line of thinking I find odd: it provides a wrong motivation for paraphrasing all too easily. Doing so just to avoid charges of plagiarism is an attempt to hack the indicator of our writing's health. Goodhart's law, if you will.

Huh???  I suggest nothing as a motivation for paraphrasing.  The only assertion I've made is that paraphrasing and plagiarism are not unrelated, as paraphrasing without citation is plagiarism. You stated, in your first sentence that they're almost unrelated.  I don't agree.  There are dozens of hits, like https://www.scribbr.com/frequently-asked-questions/plagiarism-vs-paraphrasing/#:~:text=Plagiarism%20means%20using%20someone%20else%27s,properly%20credit%20the%20original%20author. that show a pretty clear relationship.

@ScottSeidman Taking groceries home without paying money is theft. Ergo, there is a relationship between shopping and crime. This is the level of relationship you claim to be important, and I'm saying it is a very problematic way of thinking about the issue. In practice, it sometimes equates to telling people "Hey, if you go to the store, you should pay for what you buy. How much? See this cashier, if they do not call the cops you are in the clear". This is what students actually hear: plagiarism is bad, but you can use paraphrasing and attribution to avoid the big stick.

I feel pretty strongly we should be putting more emphasis on the constructive perspective. "Avoiding plagiarizing" mindset is what leads to connections between paraphrasing and plagiarism, and I argue this is already not the most ethical stance: we should strive to do the right thing, not try to avoid being caught doing the wrong thing.

You have two concerns. The answer of Lodinn covers plagiarism, but you also need to consider copyright.
It is possible to violate copyright even with paraphrasing. One reason for this is that copyright covers, among other things, the right to make derived works. If you "use" a lot of a copyrighted work using only paraphrasing, It might be considered a copyright violation, even if you cite to avoid plagiarizing.
The way to avoid such a violation is to ask the copyright holder, usually a publisher, for a license for your intended use. For purposes of a thesis this might well be permitted. You can also look at a publisher's site to see if there is already a permissive license for such things. But a paraphrasing long  sections is probably not considered "fair use" most places, even for academic use.
One question that comes up in copyright is whether the "copy" (or derived work) diminishes the "value" of the original to the copyright holder. If it does not then there are unlikely to be objections, but it is safer to ask than to assume.

Actually, a third issue for a thesis is what your advisor thinks of it. You should have a discussion with them if you haven't already.

Hm, seems mighty similar to this older answer of yours https://academia.stackexchange.com/a/180416/145124 (although I can understand lacking good duplicate targets as the questions asked are subtly different). I avoided mentioning thesis explicitly, because OP has not indicated this work is a part of such, but it is good advice, of course, and likely applicable.

@Lodinn, I'll guess you could find other posts as well. I think I've said similar things pretty frequently. Beginners in academia seem to often confuse plagiarism and copyright.


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For citations, Should I use the citation of the mentioned name or the journal it was in?
An article I want to cite mentiones an author and has paraphrased a sentence. I would like to refer to that sentence but I'm not sure who to reference in the in-text citation: the author of the journal or the person they paraphrased? An example of the situation is, "As Jason (2005) states, ...".

The citation is of the paper and its author(s). The person mentioned/quoted should be named in the text, but the citation is of the source you have read.
So, Jason states (Smith et al, 2005) ...
This makes the second hand reporting clear. (I assume Jason is the person being quoted and Smith... authored the paper in which you find the quote.

The important question here is what you are trying to cite, and to what end. For clarity, you are talking about paper A which cites paper B.
If the important point that you want is in paper B, then find, read, and cite paper B.
If the important point is author A's comment on paper B, then cite paper A.
If it's about B, but you feel that A also added something, you can cite both.
If the important point is in B but you genuinely can't get hold of B, after some trying, then you could do something like "B, quoted in A, said that..." but it's not ideal.

And it's a good idea for the "some trying" to incorporate methods described in How can I find an old, obscure, or otherwise inaccessible paper when the usual methods fail?

If all Jason did was paraphrase, then it is better to use the original article that was paraphrased - let's say it is by Smith.
Find Smith, read it, and cite it. Then there is no reason to cite Jason.


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Etiquette for academic job interviews in Ireland
I am scheduled for an interview for a Lecturer position at a leading Irish university in a couple of weeks. I am trained, and have a job in the North American academic system. Thus, I am well versed with the N. American protocols, but do not know much about the UK/Ireland context. I have looked up resources such as the ones highlighted below, but I still have some questions.

In an American context, an interview can be scheduled for 3 days with several rounds of discussion with members in the faculty. In Ireland, is it considered appropriate to reach out to individual faculty members for discussion regarding the position, department, and the university?
What is the standard dress-code for the interview? Is it just a jacket and tie or a full suit?
Are start-up funds part of the offer package, and worth discussing in the interview?

The resources I have looked up are as follows:
Interviewing for a lecturer position in the UK
My UK academic job interview experiences
For North Americans: the-peculiar British interview process
Dressing etiquette for interviews in academia

The article "For North Americans: the-peculiar British interview process" is an interesting reading because speaking with some colleagues of mine around Europe it turns out that most of us, on the contrary, consider the US interviewing process quite peculiar and uselessly long, and no one is really interested in speaking with so many people from the hiring department.

I did my PhD in Ireland and am the person who asked the first question you linked. I think 1 will be useless if those faculty members are not part of the interviewing committee, if they are, it may seem inappropriate (like you're trying to precondition them). For 2, I would go for a suit. For 3, in the UK, for the position I applied for, the department's "default" was one PhD student and that position had an extra PhD student attached to it because it was part of an externally funded project; this is definitely something worth discussing with the panel.

I'm also in Ireland and I agree with Miguel especially for question 1, be really careful: I've seen academic job offers which explicitly forbid "canvassing".

I'm in the UK (England). My impressions are 1) if you're concerned, do this after the interview. 2) full suit, but depends on field. 3) You should say up front what resources you need to meet the expectations of the position. If you want to bring up start-up and they don't, mention it then or perhaps later during the offer phase.

I am a USA academic, raised in the UK, who interviewed unsuccessfully in Ireland. I was partially unsuccessful as I realized a few hours in that I did not want to work there but as they had flown me over I did not want to be unpolite and leave the interview.

It is not, you may contact the head of the search but not anyone else.
Yes, both male candidates wore suits and ties and both female candidates wore skirts/pants with a shirt and jacket but neither wore a tie.
The most difficult, you could bring this up if you get to ask questions. I would not make it your first question and I would be brief. Does the university offer startup packages?

What was most different than in the US was.

I got to meet all the other applicants. We were in the same room and called one-by-one to do our presentations. I ended up really wanting another candidate to get the job.
Only one or two of the people on the panel was a faculty member in the department.
No dinner with faculty, not a tour of the town, no real contact with the department at all aside from the odd quick hello as we passed their offices.

Do you mean that you ended up not wanting to work there just because you got to meet the other candidates?

@MassimoOrtolano No, so I arrived a day early and walked the campus, ate lunch, wandered the department etc., and I decided it was probably not a fit for me.

The meeting the other applicants thing is famously awkward and the main thing I know about the process in the UK.  I'm honestly a bit confused about how the candidates are supposed to choose between multiple offers when they have no opportunity to learn anything about the department, the school, or what it's like to live in the city.

@NoahSnyder If you apply to the industry, you don’t get to know the whole department and the city: why academic interviews should be any different?

@NoahSnyder maybe it should not be different but that is not the question asked. The question asked is how are the two national academic interview situations different. That is what we are trying to answer.


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Why would a university restrict publication of work due to plagiarism fears if TurnItIn was used?
I used to host some code I'd written for university assignments publicly on my GitHub account (after the deadlines had passed, of course). Before long, I received an email from the dep't asking me to take it down due to fears of plagiarism (if students were given the same or similar assignments in the years subsequent).
I did so, but recently I've been thinking - my university uses Turnitin for plagiarism detection, which as I understand it means that my code is already in the Turnitin database as shown in the below excerpt from this FAQ:

Misconception 7: Every student paper submitted becomes part of the Turnitin database--forever.
Reality: Turnitin has many options--including the ability to offer students an "opt out" of the database and the option of having an institutional database of student papers.  Student papers may be removed only by request of the instructor of the class.

I don't recall opting out of anything, so if my code is in the Turnitin database surely undetected plagiarism wouldn't be an issue? Of course, the morality of providing a desperate student with both the temptation and means to plagiarise is another issue entirely.

Checking against too much published code could lead to false positives. There are typically only a few approaches to solving a given student assignment. That limited space could become filled with published code, so that even a completely independent solution would match at least one published solution.

TurnItIn is iffy at best. I remember when we tested TurnItIn when it was first released. Everyone was tasked with writing a one-page paper utilizing the same single half-page source. And that was the day our entire class got hit with "50% similarity" to each other. With code, it's virtually impossible to stop, what with open source code and only so many ways to write an if statement.

@Compass Your evidence only supports the conclusion "Turnitin was iffy at best when it was first released." That was nearly 20 years ago.

This is tangential to the question, but this makes me wonder if the university can in fact "restrict publication of work due to plagiarism fears". It sounds like they asked you to take the github code down, but it's not clear to me you should feel obliged to comply with the request, nor that it is appropriate of the university to ask such a thing, considering the fact that your code could help lots of other people out there who have no desire to commit plagiarism, and that this can be a useful way for you to show off your programming abilities (and generosity) and thus help your own career.

I have posted a separate question raising the concerns in my comment above.

@DavidRicherby My former statement asserts that it was bad when it came out. My latter statement asserts that computer code is (still) virtually impossible to validate because coding statements are relatively immutable. import java.util.Date; will be the same in 100% of programs, as will Date date = new Date();. If I decide to check in, and properly source, the entire open-source library of Apache, it will match 100% of that code, which it needs to run. It is not dependable in the field of computer science because of how computer science is.

In such a case I don't think it would be copy-paste plagiarism that would be an issue. It's just that students could read your work and know exactly how to solve their issue, and they wouldn't need to cite your work and just play it off as if they figured it out on their own.
On the other hand, I don't think it's a very good way to handle things, especially in coding assignments. Part of it is just the nature of coding, where learning to read others code is very important, and it's even more important to learn to adapt existing code to new and different purposes. Only small changes would be needed in the assignment to make it so students couldn't just use existing work, so it seems like the concern could be overblown, but I can't say for sure without knowing the exact nature of the assignment and grading methods.
The other issue is that just by asking you to take down a public, equally shared resource, where both students and faculty could be equally aware of the work, doesn't mean students won't pass around past years versions of work anyway. Except then only a limited subset of students will have access to the resources (ones in particular social groups, etc), and it is unclear who has and who hasn't seen previous solution sets.
I know many instructors would love to have their students be sufficiently proud of their work to want to share and have other people read it, and especially to have struggling students study the work of such students and see how they do things. Seems like a great outcome, really. And it seems to be pretty well accepted that in this highly-connected point in history, that you can't rely on simple secrecy in tests - you need to tweak and change things each time so that students can benefit from previous years work, while at the same time still needing to perform their own new work.

I am a three-time loser on applying for a job at TurnItIn, so I don't know if they are smart enough to mark computer source code as needing special treatment. A stupid plagiarism checker would be defeated by global search and replace on variable names.

Sure it does. The university fears that TurnItIn won't catch source code plagiarism as well as it does with natural language plagiarism.

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'Teaching position or teaching oriented position' in Mathematics in Europe?
Here I am talking about teaching positions in Mathematics. In the US, we know of many positions in the US (also in Canada?) that is teaching position or teaching-oriented position. For example
1) Some universities need 'regular postdocs' like other places, but they have more teaching load (3+2 courses or 3+3 courses for a year)
2)some are called 'teaching postdocs'.
3) Positions in liberal arts or community colleges etc.
Is there any such equivalent position in Europe? I have never been to Europe so far, but I hear there is no concept of 'colleges', they only have universities or institutes. I know there are some places in the UK where they advertise positions for teaching purposes. But for Europe minus UK, say Germany, Austria, Scandinevia etc. is there any such position for teaching at a higher level than high school (could be undergraduate courses, beginning masters courses etc.). Where can I find out about these positions? Mathjobs and euro-math-jobs don't seem to advertise them.
If you know any source for it, could you please provide me with the link(s)? And do you have any idea whether these positions are permanent or temporary and how much normally do they pay?

From my experience in the Netherlands, there are no teaching (oriented) positions on the university level (assistent prof level and up). There used to be an option to primarily be a teacher at university, without the requirement of a PhD even, but nowadays such a position always includes a mix of researching, teaching, and grant proposal writing.
At tradeschools (we call those HBO) there are (almost) full-time teaching positions, but these are not on a university level, and require you to speak fluent Dutch. This makes these kind of jobs hard to get for foreigners.

A similar situation exists in Belgium (well, Flanders), though some of the institutes previously known as hogeschools are becoming a part of the university system, but they remain primarily dominated by teaching.

In the Netherlands, trade schools (hogeschool or HBO) are also performing more research. This is more applied research, which is probably not going to get you a tenured position...

In Spain all jobs of a given category have, in principle, the same responsibilities with respect to teaching and there is no concept of a "teaching position". Obtaining (even applying for) a job requires demonstrating experience in both teaching and research, and in principle there is not much variability in the profile (certainly far less variability than is possible in the US). In practice people tend to like living in big cities and certain universities are stronger than others in research; at the weaker universities the job may in fact be basically a teaching position, and hiring tribunals can adjust the criteria to favor teaching record within certain limits, but the administratative and bureaucratic requirements to get the job still always take into account research.
More bluntly - to even apply for a university position of a particular category one must first obtain a specific "acreditation" for that job category, and the requirements for these acreditations always specify having published a certain (field specific) minimum number of papers. This makes it structurally impossible to have what in the US would be called a "teaching position".

I'm not 100% sure I understand your question but I'll try to answer it anyway.
There are plenty of tertiary teaching positions in Europe. There are universities and trade schools in every country and all of these need teachers (permanent and temporary) to teach their students (undergraduate and graduate). How much they pay depends on the country.

Thanks, you did understand my question. But I don't see any of these advertisements being published on mathjobs, euro-math-jobs etc. Do you know by any chance where can I find the advertisements' positions for such teaching positions?

In Switzerland, you can look here.

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What's better: paper rejected from a strong conference or a paper accepted into a weak conference?
What would be better for a PhD admission?
I'd suspect having a weak conference paper would certainly be the better option, but my supervisor was very adamant about not sending it to a weak conference, that a strong one would be preferable, even if rejected. And I think the chances of it being accepted into this strong conference he has in mind are practically zero.
Edit: Just to clarify, by "PhD admission", I mean being accepted into a PhD program, to which I intend to apply. I'm currently a M.Sc. student.

I ignore weak publications or papers in unknown venues.  I also ignore publications where a student is not the lead author.   Your supervisor is probably wanting useful feedback from experienced researchers -- you find them usually at good conferences or journals.

Thanks. This might be his reasoning. He said something along the lines of any slightly positive feedback I receive from the reviewers being valuable for mentioning during the PhD application, even if the paper got rejected.

your supervisor is probably not thinking of your PhD admission.  If you are continuing with him/her, maybe you don't need the publication for admission.  So the feedback is more useful.

No, I'm not continuing with him. Actually, he is trying hard to convince me to go abroad for a PhD, to an american university, preferably with one of his contacts there.

It depends on what you mean with "weak conference". In my field, there are conferences which are "good but not top", and crap conferences. Crap conferences look poorly on a CV and should be avoided. "Good but not top conferences" look good, and if your work is valuable to begin with, it should have a realistic chance to be accepted.

@lighthousekeeper the "strong" conference he has in mind is like the top 8th best conference where I could publish in my field, and it has approx. 20-25 % acceptance rate. Publishing in it would be a rarity even for PhD students in my current uni (worth mentioning its not a top 100 uni). The "weak" one I have in mind occurs only sporadically, I think it's like the 25-30 th best conference, and none of us had even heard of it before I searched for it. According to google, last time it had approx. 55 % acceptance rate.

If none of you heard about it before, it's probably rather a crap conference than a good one. A good one would have papers from top researchers in the field (normally the ideas that don't work out well enough to be suited for the top conferences).

For US admissions, are you intending to apply with a BS/BA or an MS/MA?

Good-bad is just one way to cut the cookie. Depending on the field, the big conference - small (focused) meeting also a valid distinction. Small meetings focusing on your topic can have higher acceptance rate and still can give you good exposure to experts to the field.

@Buffy I'm intending to apply with an MS

"I've been kicked out of better pubs than this one!!"

It's easy to get a paper rejected from a strong conference - just submit something written in gibberish. Getting accepted is a different matter since it implies your paper meets some minimum standard. Therefore it's better to be accepted by a weak conference than rejected from a strong conference.
Your situation however is different. You have an advisor (i.e. someone who is much more experienced in the field than you) who thinks you should submit to the strong conference. You judge the odds of acceptance as minute, but your advisor clearly doesn't think they are minute, or he would not recommend you submit there. Your advisor is more likely to be right than you are simply because he is much more experienced than you, so you should follow their recommendation.
Note that getting rejected from a strong conference does not mean you will not be accepted by the weak conference; you probably still can get accepted there (if it is a recurring conference).

"Your advisor is more likely to be right than you are simply because he is much more experienced than you" The question here is whether these experiences are relevant -- specifically, if the advisor has a track record of papers at top conferences in the last 5 years or so. Expectations in computing fields change quickly, and I have seen my share of experienced researchers engage in wishful thinking in such matters.

@Daniel 4 publications at relevant top conferences in the past 5 years actually sounds like quite a lot. The researchers I had in mind with my snarky concluding remark had no papers at the relevant conferences in the preceding 5 years.

@lighthousekeeper I don't know, it might depend on the field. I would guess that for a world top 50 university, it's expected that an experienced researcher in my field would have at least 10 top publications in the past 5 years, and I know that you would easily find ones with 3x that in these unis.

@lighthousekeeper in that case the worst that can happen is some wasted time and most probably a poor review that would still help improve the paper before submission elsewhere, so I don't consider it a disaster.

@Daniel "publish or perish" should perish. 6 publications a year is simply ridiculous, and the signal to noise ratio would be much better with a slower frequency. "What's expected" is stupid, and it filters out good researchers who only publish when they actually have something interesting to publish.

Rejection from a stronger conference has an advantage of higher chances of getting very valuable feedback. Not saying it's the most important - but can be significant nonetheless, depending on author's goals (e.g. if the goals are not: get accepted to any conference ASAP).

If you plan to apply for a PhD in 2+ years, I would submit to the strong conference. If your current advisor is pushing for you submit to a top conference and has previously published in top conferences, he may have better insight as to whether it will be accepted. I would first submit to the conference your advisor has in mind, and if it gets rejected, you can later submit to a weaker conference.
Depending on your field and the type of PhD program you're applying to, often times many students may not have publications when applying. If I were on a PhD committee, I would of course look for research experience. However, I would not judge a candidate who has a paper accepted at a conference with an acceptance rate of 75%+ to be superior to another candidate with similar experience.

Thank you for the answer. Unfortunately, I plan applying later in this year, so this will be my only shot. My field is Artificial Intelligence. If I recall correctly, my supervisor said something along the lines of any slightly positive feedback I receive from the reviewers being valuable for mentioning during the PhD application, even if the paper got rejected.

Your supervisor is 100% right. The aim of going to a conference is having a feedback on your research. Even the rejection feedback can be valuable.

Is this CS-specific, where conferences are the main publishing venue? Conferences to which I am used to (traditional ones, with well known persons in the committee, no recent for-profit nonsense) often accept almost everything. At many of them people mostly present work that already appeared in journals.

A possibility no one has yet mentioned: your advisor may be planning to write in your letter of recommendation “we wrote this paper that was so great we submitted it to...”
From this purpose, it’s irrelevant whether the paper is rejected or not!

The premise that getting rejected from a top conference is worth anything at all is ridiculous. To be rejected, all you need to do is submit something, even gibberish as @Allure’s answer suggests. This is no achievement whatsoever, and to submit something you think would definitely get rejected just so you can say you submitted to a top conference is an abuse of the academic publishing/conference system, and on top of that, one that doesn’t actually confer any advantage. It is only reasonable to submit to a top conference if you see a chance (even a small chance) of the work getting accepted.
One can debate whether the low-ranked conference you might consider submitting to instead of the top conference would help with your PhD applications — it is true that for certain predatory or junk conferences the opposite would be the case. But for a legitimate conference with real standards, even if they are not the highest you can find, getting your paper accepted there would count at least as a modest achievement.
One can also debate whether a small chance of getting accepted to a top conference is better than a higher chance of getting accepted at a not so well-ranked conference. Those types of questions definitely deserve careful consideration. But as I said, a rejection from a top conference is by itself worth nothing, and thus by definition is an inferior “achievement” to anything else whose value isn’t strictly negative.

Any accepted publication is better than no publication.
However, strong conferences usually have good reviewers providing useful feedback that will help you to get the paper in shape for another strong conference.

"Any accepted publication is better than no publication." No, a publication at a very poor conference/journal might (a.) not be perceived as positive, because the bar for acceptance is low, (b.) even be perceived as negative, because it signifies poor judgement in the selection of the venue. You don't want your name to be associated with poor-quality stuff.

Not all weak venues are s*itty venues. It could be a WS aimed at students/early researchers in an excellent conference.

But you write "Any accepted publication". If you tone down that statement, it might be correct.

I assume Eriks meant "Any accepted publication (in a real, peer-reviewed journal)", excluding the obvious trap predatory ones.

What do you mean by PhD admission, Dan? If you are at the MSc stage and looking to get onto a PhD programme, then having produced a paper worth consideration is already a nice plus. Timing is critical - if the paper is still in submission when the decision is taken, the prestige of the conference itself is more significant than the paper's ultimate fate.
If you are talking about one of several papers submitted to obtain a PhD, the situation is more delicate and rather depends on the mores and prejudices of the field you are in. But some general considerations are: (1) The thesis is to be judged on its quality, independent of the publication status of its parts. (2) Having been published is obviously a plus, having been publicised in a reputable place all the more. (3) Many people feel every paper should be submitted to the most prestigious journal and or conference where it has a smidgen of a chance (with people having widely varying opinions on how much that smidgen should be!).
Reading between the lines, by the way, it sounds to me like you might have dredged up a rather fly-by-night conference and your advisor said something like fergossakes don't even bother.

I'm at MSc and I intend to apply to some PhD program by the end of this year. I'm honestly confused by some of the answers, some say that merely submitting it to a strong conference doesn't count anything, some others, like you, say otherwise. And I'm not sure if the "weak" conference I have in mind counts as a "fly-by-night" conference, it's an international conference and it has something like 60 % paper acceptance rate according to google, so I think it must have at least some standards. But none of us had heard of it before I searched for it.

60% acceptance rate seems fairly high? My supervisor is very much in the "you need to submit (and get published) to high-quality venues". He puts particular weight on the acceptance rate, he considers getting into a conference with <30% acceptance rate good,

Also to expand, much of his reasoning is you need to show (by the time you submit your thesis) that your work is accepted "by your peers", not wherever you can get it published. He argues that the reviewers will take this into account - although others in my faculty disagree so it's not universal.

authors: Vladimir F Героям слава


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My paper has advanced into the 2nd phase of a 2-phase review process in a top conference, does it in itself help in a PhD application?
So, I just finished my master's in Computer Science, and I plan to apply to some PhD programs later this year.
The review process works in 2 phases: during 1st phase the paper goes to a group of reviewers, and if all reviews are sufficiently negative, the paper is rejected. Otherwise, it advances into the 2nd phase, where it is reviewed by another group. According to the conference, approx 55 % of papers pass through 1st phase, and 25 % pass through 2nd phase. This is a strong conference, and there were initially approx. 7k submitted papers.
I'd like to know if merely getting my paper to advance in this type of review process would help in some way if mentioned in a PhD application, even if the paper gets rejected after 2nd phase. For context, my field of research is Artificial Intelligence.
Edit:
I'm going to apply to PhD programs in the US, and perhaps Canada, if that matters.

Which country or countries are you dealing with?  There are some differences in how they approach things.

USA and maybe Canada.

Not until the fat lady sings.

If you are asked for a list of publications, than the status of this one still is "in review (2nd phase), Proceedings of Reputable Conference".  This is more advanced than "submitted to xyz", but not as much as "accepted by xyz".

I second Buttonwood's advice. Do include your list of "publications" in your resume, even if you have only one and it's not published yet. When applying to a PhD, you will be in competition with other Master students, some of whom have never written a research paper at all.

Probably not.
My outsider impression, which perhaps would differ if I knew something more specific about this conference, is that the first phase is a step to just weed out the "complete junk". "I made it to the second phase of review!" seems roughly equivalent to saying "my work isn't absolute trash!" Perhaps the phrase damning with faint praise applies, especially if the paper is in fact rejected in the second step.
I'd still note on your CV that it's submitted to a conference, but I wouldn't stress or emphasize it. Showing work is in a submitted stage is just a way of communicating that there's a project you've taken to (near) completion.


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I switched advisors during my Master's, but I need a recommendation letter from my ex-advisor, is it possible?
I've recently finished my Master's. I'm going to apply to some PhD programs, and I need another recommendation letter. I'm thinking of contacting my ex-advisor in my Master's to ask for a letter. Even though I switched to another advisor after having worked during my first year with my ex-advisor, we got to develop some preliminary research together, and he got to know me reasonably well, I think. He was also my professor in two classes in which I did very well.
Do you think this request is advisable or adequate? If you were in my ex-advisor's shoes, would you hold any resentment against me for switching? The reasons I switched were mostly due to differences in research ideas. He seemed to have accepted the switch on really good terms at the time, but I can't know for certain what he thought of it. I also wouldn't like to lose my contact with him, and I'd like to propose resuming the research with him during the months I will be waiting for the application result.
Edit: I think it's worth mentioning that my ex-advisor and my current advisor don't get along very well. They have some sort of a slight personal quarrel for reasons that I don't know exactly. However It's nothing serious to the point they would cease to say hello when seeing each other in the department, or something like this.

An interesting challenge, best of luck!

Yes, just ask him. The reasons were not personal, they have gotten to know you, just ask them if they can write the letter. You'll never know for certain what somebody thinks of you and the things you do. Just be polite and ask. Don't specifically mention the switch.
Especially given that you want to remain in contact and possible do some additional research with him, there is no harm is asking this.

Thank you for the answer. Perhaps I should also mention that my ex-advisor and my current advisor don't get along very well, for some reason that I don't really understand, and this contributed to my worries about contacting my ex-advisor. I think I'm going to add this as edit.

It's good to add, but it doesn't change my answer.


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PhD in Physics transfer to another university (advisor leaving for industry)
I finished my coursework and am about to become a candidate in a university in the USA, but due to his reasons, my advisor is leaving academia to work in the industry.
I already have multiple posters, and a journal publication, and some competitions.
Now, he was kind enough to tell me a couple of months before he leaves and I am looking for options on what to do next. My advisor suggested moving to another university where I can continue the same research and he will give his recommendation letter.
And while looking for future advisors, I need your help:

How should I start conversations with advisors (should I email them with the recommendation letter attached? should I already mention in my email that my advisor is leaving, that is why I am looking for a new place? or is it a taboo topic and I should leave this discussion for a zoom call?)
Will universities transfer my credits even though it is not mentioned on their website? (since I studied in the US, is it easier to transfer credits?)
or generally, how should I email and find a new advisor in my situation?

Secondly:

Should I get my terminal master's and apply for a future university? Will universities consider this kind of application?

Thank your help and your time.

Does your advisor have recommendations of specific people (perhaps his current or former collaborators) whom you could work with?  Will he introduce them to you?

@AlexanderWoo he recommended specific universities that I might have a chance to get accepted. he gave me suggestions on 1 other researcher that might be of use, but introducing me to them didn't come up. Maybe I can push on this issue again, thank you for the suggestion.

Disclaimer: I do not know about US-specific things like how student loans are handled upon transferring. Also afaik "terminal master's" usually means that there's no relevant PhD program at all (correct me if I'm wrong!).
What seems the most reasonable course of action to me is:

If you are on the last year of master's, finish it where you are.
Importantly, in the process of doing so - not August next year! - make arrangements for PhD (see below).
Transfer for PhD.

So the thing to do ASAP is to get in touch with people your current advisor has proposed. Applying to all of them at once isn't great - it takes more of their time/resources than a typical job application takes for a big company, so you don't have that much time, all things considered. Try to email them first, they will likely appoint a Zoom call or reject outright: this is the time to ask questions about formalities and whether they could point you to the right direction. Ask your current advisor whether they have more specifics about them, get their contacts if possible - alternatively, look them up on the website if your advisor can't introduce you directly or lacks capacity to get involved more than they are.
A rough outline of such letter would be:

Dear Prof. X!
My name is Michael Doe, I am a masters student at  UC Sunnydale (Advanced Photoionic Research department). My advisor, prof. Claus, is leaving UC Sunnydale. He has suggested that I ask you to consider a possibility to take me under your supervision to complete a PhD program on turboencabulators I am interested in. My master's program is ending this year.
Attached, you will find my recommendation letter.
Looking forward to hear from you,
Michael.

thanks, i also concluded that transferring is the best option.


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Would these be adequate grounds for severe reprimand from my undergraduate program?
I apologize in advance for such a long and possibly bizarre question. I have tried to find an answer to this issue but could not find it anywhere. First I want to provide some context.
I was a student taking an alternate high school education program to the one my area’s schoolboard offered. This program administers standardized assessments on an international scale and awards a diploma upon completion. For a report that I submitted in this program, I remember being worried that I may have violated academic integrity rules. The program punishes plagiarism sternly when proven (the guilty loses their diploma or the ability to earn it + receives a grade of 0 in the subject for which the report was submitted) and can apply punishments retroactively, although examples of this are very rare.
After submission, I remember asking my teacher on several occasions about concerns I had with my paper, which, in retrospect, I should have asked before submission. Each time, the teacher said that what I had done was not a violation. I asked questions about this so often because my handling of references was so dubious in that report that I kept finding new problems with it.
I was so obsessed and anxious about this issue for months. I was extremely worried and consumed by the feeling that my future was in jeopardy and this made me spend hours daily examining my report for issues, doing research about plagiarism, etc. whilst rehearsing my "defenses" for perceived infringements in the report.
Eventually, I was able to move on with support from family and friends. Nothing ultimately ever came of the submission of that report; I completed the program and successfully got into university the year after and received an admissions scholarship. At the time I was happy about this and the issue of my report was not really on my mind.
Currently, I’m going into my senior year of undergrad. By all measures, I have been cautious to a fault when it comes to academic integrity in all my time as a university student, so I believe I learned my lesson. However, whenever I get reminded of the report, I become very worried, like I have been for the last few weeks.
The reason that I feel worried is because there were a few unresolved concerns that I never brought up, mostly because I felt regret for pestering my teacher who had been exceedingly patient. I worry about it now because there was an idea/technique used in the report that I feel I should have referenced (before, I thought that the idea I used was “obvious” and didn’t need to be referenced). I say “feel” because I am going by my fallible recollection of what I did several years ago. The program does somewhat vet these reports through graders (the teachers) and plagiarism checkers.
Although I would say it is incredibly unlikely for me to be retroactively punished for that report, I feel as if I deserve to be penalized because I do not have confidence that that report was tolerable from an academic integrity standpoint. If I lost my diploma and the university was notified of it now or in the future, I fear that the university could respond in turn by expelling me, revoking my degree, depriving me of my scholarships, etc. But that is speculation on my part, I don't know what the university would do about that. That it is really unlikely that this outcome would occur is not reassuring, because I honestly cannot bear the thought that the university I attend would boot me if it was ever notified that I had been stripped of my diploma, which is perhaps what I deserve.
I feel terrible because I just want to earn my degree with a clear conscience and I feel that that is not possible given what happened in the past. Frankly, this whole issue makes me feel like there’s no point in working hard anymore because I may not even deserve to attend my university to begin with. Whenever I get reminded about this issue I worry about it for weeks at a time until I'm too busy to worry about it. I cannot take this anymore; I really need some help and insight if anyone could offer that.

Have you talked to a doctor or mental health counsellor? I am not a medical professional, but obsessing to this degree over (what seems to me, an outside observer) a tiny, completely excusable mistake you made when you were a child is very unhealthy. I have an anxiety disorder myself, and your description of your thoughts and feelings here are reminiscent of the type of obsessive/catastrophising thoughts I sometimes have. I think there is zero chance you will lose your degree.

I have never received help from a doctor or mental health counsellor on these kinds of issues. Once, several years ago, I brought up to my family doctor that I was dealing with thoughts that were very distressing (including thoughts similar to the ones in this post) and they said they would arrange for help but I never got any. I have never asked for help since then. But how I've been feeling recently in conjunction with your suggestion to seek assistance is making me consider it again. Thanks for the reply.

Welcome to the community! I proactively closed this question, both because it fits the close reason and to prevent trolls from hijacking. I strongly urge you to take the advice of the top-rated comment and the answer below. Good luck!

Thanks. I believe that the decision to close this question was fair for all of the reasons given. Also, I sincerely thank everyone who took the time to give advice on this issue.

You are suffering from an irrational fear.
From an academic perspective, I can only tell you that the point to move on from the referencing in your report was somewhere between submitting it and the first few questions you asked your teacher. I suppose you already know this, although a part of your mind is refusing to accept it. As the issue is ultimately not an academic one, an academic mentor is not the qualified person to help you. Please seek support from a mental health counsellor, a therapist or a doctor.

tl;dr

We will not be able to know with certainty whether or not what you have done constitutes an academic integrity violation; however, it seems as though you did not commit a violation.
Seeking professional help from a doctor, therapist, or mental health counselor might help you in this situation.

Let's walk through your story step by step:

Each time, the teacher said that what I had done was not a violation.

Strangers on the internet will not be able to confirm whether or not your past actions constituted plagiarism, however it seems as though you have taken measures to figure this out (with positive results).

By all measures, I have been cautious to a fault when it comes to academic integrity in all my time as a university student, so I believe I learned my lesson.

This is, in my opinion, the most important outcome of your situation. Academic integrity is important, and plagiarism is plagiarism whether or not it is intentional. However, students (especially those in high school) make honest mistakes. The important thing is to learn good practices and use them moving forward. It looks like you've done this part very well.

I worry about it now because there was an idea/technique used in the report that I feel I should have referenced (before, I thought that the idea I used was “obvious” and didn’t need to be referenced).

Again, strangers on the internet will not be able to tell you whether or not this lack of reference constitutes plagiarism. But according to what you say next

The program does somewhat vet these reports through graders (the teachers) and plagiarism checkers.

it seems like you have not committed any academic integrity issues because your submission has met the standards of your program.

I feel terrible because I just want to earn my degree with a clear conscience and I feel that that is not possible given what happened in the past.

It is your high school's job to judge what occurred during your tenure there. They have judged your performance to be adequate.
It is your university's job to judge what happens during your tenure there. Given that you are in your senior year, they have been judging your performance to be adequate. Moreover, you have learned from your experience in high school and you are taking extra measures to ensure that your performance is good.

I cannot take this anymore; I really need some help and insight if anyone could offer that.

I hope that this answer has offered insight. I think that help should come from a licensed doctor, therapist, or mental health counselor (which I am not). But from an academic perspective, it seems as though your situation is fine.

Would these be adequate grounds for severe reprimand from my undergraduate program?

No.


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Is it possible to get into a phD program without research experience straight from undergrad?
A little background on myself:

I am a senior in undergrad with a major in Neuroscience and Cognitive science
and minors in biochemistry and math.

I switched my major fairly late and I never got the opportunity to work in a research lab, but I have a decent GPA (3.54) with a few outreach/community program participations.

I want to apply to Neuroscience and Psychology PhD programs, but I'm
kind of unsure if it is a waste of time and money since I have no
research or lab experience.

I'd like to know if it's a better option to pursue a master's first    (which I really would like to not do) or if there is a better route.

Are you in the US or elsewhere? More important, where are you applying? US or elsewhere?

I am in the US applying to schools in the US

Actually, applying to doctoral programs from a bachelors is the standard way to do it in the US. There isn't, normally, a lot of benefit of taking a masters first.
Most undergrad programs, with some exceptions, don't provide serious research experience, so it isn't normally expected. It is a plus if you have it. But the admission system is very broad based.
The first couple of years in a doctoral program are mostly advanced coursework leading to comprehensive exams. A separate masters may help you avoid that, or not, but it depends on a lot of factors. Better to stay in one program that is designed to get you to the point of doing the research that the doctorate requires.
Normally, comprehensives assure that you have a sufficiently deep knowledge of the general field that you don't necessarily get as an undergraduate. Hence, the advanced coursework.
Some doctoral programs start you out earlier with research so that you have the basic techniques down. Some will give you a masters along the way, perhaps just by asking, perhaps by writing a thesis.
One advantage of this path is that you have quite a lot of experience and contact with the faculty by the time you need to choose a research advisor for your dissertation. Having the right advisor is a big plus.
Some lab sciences are a bit different, but if they permit applications from undergraduates it is still the best course of action for most.


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Partially funded MS at a top 3 vs Funded PhD at a top 20
My ultimate goal is to get a PhD and get into academia. I have two options in front me:

1 year MS at a university (whose department ranked #3 in world). The tuition is funded but there's no stipend for the spring semester (there's stipend for fall semester). But, one PI (unofficially) confirmed I can TA a course by him and that would give me enough living expense.

Regular PhD at a university whose department ranking is #18. They are paying me very high stipend + fellowship + tuition is funded.

Except the "ranking" and "school prestige" everything else seems to be same - The PI at both the university are quite famous in the field, I personally felt very connected with their research, the cities both are very nice to live in and any other factor I can think of.
Even if I don't get funded during my MS (which is very less likely) I would still be able to sustain myself. My doubt is here - This fall I had a very good admission cycle with multiple offers, what if I don't get good PhD offers after doing MS? Is it really worth taking the risk only for "university prestige and ranking"

I wonder about the precision of that linear ranking. If both PIs are respected and you think you could work equally well with both, perhaps take the guarantee of time and money.

Agree with the above, but also: is this a field/country where you typically go straight from BS to PhD, and getting an MS will introduce complications? Or is this is a field where the MS is typically done separately from the PhD?

This is US, in the first uni, direct PhD are rarely offered in the dept. In second, PhD admits does a masters on the way

There is less difference than you might think between #3 and #20 in terms of quality or any "boost" to your career. My advice is to ignore that distinction altogether and just choose on other grounds.
In the US, there is no need and might be some disadvantage to doing a masters at one place and then moving to another for a doctorate. In particular, if you have to pass comprehensives, then the masters might done elsewhere might not have prepared you as well as would have occurred if you start in the doctoral institution.
The value scale is yours, of course, but for most people, funding and knowing you don't have to apply yet again is a big plus. It also gives you a chance to shop around that faculty for the best advisor. With a masters you have less opportunity for that if you want to or need to start research quickly.


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Advice on writing a rebuttal for a conference
I submitted a paper to a scientific conference through easychair website and I have just received the reviewers' comments with an opportunity for rebuttal, where they said:
"Please include in the revised version one page where you explain how you addressed the reviewers comments".
I have a few questions:

I understand that I have to submit a revised version of the 15-pages paper, but how can I include one extra page, I mean should I just add an extra page (page #16) at the end of the revised version or add it as the first page? or indlude it as a separate single page file?

I assume that the reviewers will look at the revised paper again after the deadline of the rebuttal phase, which means they are able to see all the comments (and my answers) from ~all~ the reviewers which will be summarized on that one page, is that correct?

One of the reviewers was confused with a definition at the beginning of the paper and he said that this definition is "so wrong" that he didn't even look at the rest of the paper (no complaint from the other reviewers about this definition).

If you can submit two files, do that. If you are only able to submit one file, put the rebuttal on the first page and make the revised paper start from the second page.
Probably, yes. Within the one page you can make one section for each of the reviewers.
Make the definition clearer and explain what you have done in the rebuttal. If this reviewer gave any more detail, make sure you deal with his/her points.

The problem with a conference submission is that there is a firm deadline, unlike a journal submission. The rebuttal is a separate document, seen by the program committee and reviewers that helps them make a speedy second review.
I'd guess that you should mention the definition issue if you can do it within the space requirement. The chair will eventually make a decision and may favor one opinion about the definition over another. The evaluation "score" at that point doesn't mean so much.

Thank you for the answer. I can't seem to find an option on EasyChair to upload a separate document within the same submission. Is that mean I have to create a separate one-page pdf file for the rebuttal and then merge it with the revised version of the paper in one PDF file and submit the single file?
I think what they saying "include in the revised version one page" is a little confusing.

The chair of the program committee is probably pretty visible. Ask them.

I had previously asked them but they did not answer. For some reason, they seem not willing to answer the authors at this time. I am thinking to combine the rebuttal page (as the first page) and the revised paper into one file (just like combining the cover letter and the resume into one document for a job submission), although I am not sure if this is what they are asking.


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Is it possible to complete a PhD program early to leave it with a masters?
I'm extremely unsure of what route I want to take in life.
I desire to study at a top UK university, studying earth science. I've found a PhD course which sounds like a dream (it teaches all the skills I would wish for). No one in my family/ancestry has attended in university (I come from a long line of farmers from a developing country), never mind a top institution. While this gives me the desire to apply for graduate studies, it leaves me unsure of my capabilities or what possibilities exist within graduate school.
I'm uncertain if I'm cut out for a PhD. Originally I was only after a masters, but this PhD seems more appealing in terms of skills taught than everything else I have seen.
If I were to take an earth sci PhD at a top UK uni and decide it isn't for me, is it possible to complete it early and leave with a masters?
Further Details
I wish to study at graduate level at a top uni.
I've decided to go for a 1-yr masters to play it safe, as I'm unsure of my abilities. However, masters all seem to either be one long dissertation or a dissertation alongside lectures/field trips. I would love to also learn "hard skills" related to lab work, programming, etc...
Found a earth sci PhD that teaches programming, thesis writing, maths, lectures across multiple departments, earth science overview, project planning. A well rounded course! I would love to take this course, but as mentioned, have no idea if I'm capable of composing dissertation level research/thesis/publications.
(I've struggled to figure out if you are able to drop out after 1/2 years and receive a masters of sorts, but here is the link to the course)

I can't comment about the UK, but I was able to get out of a program + university that had become toxic by exiting a PhD program with a Masters in Australia.

I can't speak for UK universities (thus no answer), but my university in Germany offers Master/PhD programs where you can (but not must) reveive a Masters degree on your way to a PhD or even opt out after Masters if you wish (or your grades are insufficient).

You would have to look up the specific regulations of the university you are considering. Googling around, it seems like many UK universities will have a review in year 2/3 where it is decided whether you will exit with an MPhil or continue on to a PhD.

Not sure if this applies to earth science, but most UK PhDs in my field (physics) require a Master's degree before starting. Besides, even if a course does not explicitly include programming etc you will probably still learn these things in the course of your research. Furthermore, if you're unsure, give yourself plenty of time to decide, as a PhD is a pretty big committment.

I've updated the post with a link to the course in discussion. I've struggled to find out whether it's possible to leave with a masters after 1/2 years.

This PhD simply requires a first / upper 2:1 at undergrad within a science degree and thus I will apply without having done a masters.

Opening a question with "I'm extremely unsure of what route I want to take in life" is a sure-fire way to have it closed as "too broad" on this site. However, the question in the middle of your post (in boldface) is answerable. I suggest to edit the question to focus on what's less dependent on individual factors.

Most U.K. universities don't give out MA/MS degrees to PhD applicants because most U.K. universities assume you already have one (or are an exceptional student). In contrast virtually every PhD program in the US will award you an MA/MS if you leave after two years. This is because there's no expectation of having a masters and so the first two years of a US PhD are pretty similar to a masters program.
Some UK universities will give you an MPhil if you leave early, but that's very different from a MA/MS degree. An MPhil is still an advanced research degree and if you split post-graduate degrees into "things that are approximately MA's" and "things that are approximately PhDs" it falls into the later category. Wikipedia says:

The Master of Philosophy (abbr. M.Phil. or MPhil, sometimes Ph.M.; Latin Magister Philosophiae or Philosophiae Magister) is an advanced postgraduate research degree. The prerequisites required for a Master of Philosophy degree make it the most advanced research degree before the Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D. or D.Phil.).1 An M.Phil. is in most cases thesis-only, and is regarded as a senior or second master's degree, standing between a taught Master's and a Ph.D.[2] An M.Phil. may be awarded to graduate students after completing several years of original research, but before the defence of a dissertation, and can serve as a provisional enrollment for a Ph.D.

As always, it depends on the specific policies of the university though.

I can corroborate on the US side of things. The first two years of my PhD curriculum fulfilled all the requirements for a Master's degree, so it was just a matter of submitting the application for the degree at that point. I know several people who started on the PhD track, but left the program after 2 years with a Master's instead.


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Seeking a permanent job during a postdoc in a different country/continent: official and moral responsibilities
I'm going to refer two countries/continents as X and Y. I'm citizen of neither. A week back, I started my third year of postdoc in X (with no teaching duties), after living two years for my first two postdocs in Y. I did my Ph.D. in X, and realized/strongly felt that apart from work, there's really no connection between X and me, whereas there's definitely very much so with Y, and I'm happy in Y, unlike X(I'm not talking work here) . One can say happiness is a choice, but I just can't force myself to like X, which I tried during my Ph.D. days, all in vein. And I trust my feelings.
My postdoc advisor in X seems to be nice, and I already told him that I'd apply for permanent positions in Y after this postdoc, and he has no problem with that. What I didn't tell him is that I don't like even spending one more day in X and I'd like to take an offer from Y now if it comes, since saying something like that would prompt the question why I had accepted his offer in the first place. I'd not have accepted had I had any options in Y, where the postdoc funding eventually ran out, and I had to find another option.
To solve my problem practically, I'll start searching for permanent jobs in Y very soon and here're my questions if you could please answer:
1) My initial appointment in X is for a year (extendable). If I can secure a job in Y, and want to leave my postdoc before that or before any significant project is completed, will that necessarily be a problem? Will either the university or the postdoc mentor be able to sue me?
2) It's a harder question and I'm trying to deal with it. Is this morally wrong not to tell him that I'm looking for a job in Y now/pretty soon (he's clearly okay with afterwards)? I understand that for now, he wants me to focus on his project only and give him something back in return because he's paying me for that, but on the other hand, I trust my feelings and feel really not good living here in X.
Thank you very much!

Check your contract or offer letter.  Usually the answer is no.

No, but it sounds like you already told him.  Please clarify the question.

I told him that I'd like to go back to Y AFTER my postdoc in X (normally a year), but not the fact that I'm applying to Y now, and would take up an offer from Y if it comes along the next month. LMet me see if I can make this clearer in my question.

And I checked the offer letter; there's no question of being sued.

Postdoc advisers understand that postdocs are temporary, and that their goal is to find a permanent position. If such a position comes along -- at times we cannot always predict -- then we're generally happy for our postdocs. At least that's the case for me.
In other words, I think it's ok if you mention that you are looking for jobs and may send out applications soon. You may want to re-assure your adviser that you have every intention to continue working on the project you're on until some position can be found, as well as finish any of the work you started even if you move somewhere else. It's a waste of an adviser's resources to pay someone for work that ultimately never gets finished, but it's an entirely different thing to pay someone for 6 months who will finish up the experiments, proofs, theorems, or the writing started earlier after they moved. In that case, as an adviser, I really only paid for 6 months, but get all of the work.

Thank you for your answer! I do understand that it's a waste of an adviser's resources to pay someone for work that ultimately never gets finished. So, I'm definitely willing to continue it after I get a permanent position. Indeed, the research work is not the reason of my leaving X. But, if I leave for an industrial position, I might not be allowed to or get time to continue that project initially, because I'd have many things to learn in the new environment. On the other hand, if I join a teaching position, the same could be caused by the teaching load.

And finally, if I leave this postdoc and join another postdoc (in Y), the new postdoc mentor might not want me to continue working on the problems in the postdoc position in X. Joining a new postdoc in Y could be a possibility too, because I'm just starting my third year of postdoc.
I'd appreciate if you could share your thought on the problems mentioned in this and the previous comment. Thanks again!

@ScienceMan, Yes, of course there are problems with a new job. But like I say, as an adviser, we understand all of these things. And there are ways to finish work, even if you have a different kind of job. You may have a couple of hours every weekend where you can work on that paper, or the occasional hour in the evening where you can read up on something. You can make things happen. Talk to your adviser about it!

Thank you again, that helps! I'll tell him after I make some progress in my  current project with him. I'm sure he'll understand. But telling now that I'm looking to go back to Y feels like dropping a bomb. Once I convince him that I dedicate myself to this postdoc too, I'll surely tell him: after all, I might need his recommendations!

That's the important point: That you're dedicated to your job right now,until something different comes along.