text:
My advisor's new student copied parts of my PhD thesis; advisor doesn't care. What to do?
I wrote my PhD thesis a few years back. After I finished, my supervisor found another researcher and continued research with the apparatus I built, but along a different line of study. I met this student a few times and gave them advice and help when I could. They always had a hard copy of my thesis in the lab for reference; I also provided a PDF copy at the student's request.
The student recently finished their PhD and I looked at their thesis. The lit review, results, and findings are the student's own work. But, particularly in the middle section (describing the apparatus I built):

Many paragraphs of their text is copied and pasted from mine, some without checking so that it makes false references;
In other instances, the student has substantially copied paragraphs, but changed a few words here and there;
One that particularly annoyed me was the copying and awkward re-hashing of my acknowledgements to my supervisor, very personal words;

I informed my former supervisor (with whom I have a good relationship) and he seemed not to want to know. He said that as long as it wasn't the results then it wasn't too important. He reckoned as the student was a good guy, he may not have known what plagiarism was, and perhaps did it by accident. He did offer to acknowledge or include me in subsequent journal papers.
Given that only some of the background text (rather than the results section) was copied, is it reasonable to pursue this further? What is normally done in such cases?
In particular, I was thinking to quantify the level of copying involved and ask my supervisor to withdraw the thesis until copied material is removed. However, I risk jeopardizing a fairly good relationship with my supervisor and possibly also with the small network of colleagues.

That supervisor is not competent, the excuse that the student did not know what plagiarism was ... The supervisor must have been able to recognize your work...

@SolarMike That bit on "might not know what plagiarism is" was disturbing.

I was also disappointed with my supervisors response. To say that a PhD student wouldnt "know what constituted plagiarism" was to fob me off.

Welcome to Academia.SE. I edited your post to make it a bit more readable (in particular, removing extraneous details) and to better formulate the question. Please feel free to edit if I botched anything.

Also: did they cite your thesis? They shouldn't copy-and-paste in any case, but it's particularly egregious if they didn't even cite you.

I think you should mainly be happy that your work is being continued. That is in fact many researchers dream. To have their legacy and ideas get continued life through the generations of researchers. That being said... You should at least demand being cited if such copying occurs.

It seems to me that an adviser who honestly thinks that  his Ph.D. student "may not have known what plagiarism was" has an obligation to explain plagiarism to the student.

Good question, but important part is missing: What do you want to happen?

It should be remembered that there have been several high profile instances of plagiarism coming back to bite people years after it was committed, especially amongst politicians. My advice is to complain directly to the institutions standards body and damm the consequences

"However, I risk jeopardizing a fairly good relationship with my supervisor and possibly also with the small network of colleagues." Honestly I think they're the ones risking it, not you. And if those colleagues are okay with fobbing off valid complaints like this, do you really want them? I get not burning bridges and everything, but that can't be a totally context-free creed (if you'll pardon the pun)

Supervisor probably told him to do it

@SolarMike You say incompetent, I say dishonest; potato/potatoe... "Not knowing what plagiarism is" is just unthinkable this day & age.

It's not at all unthinkable for a student to not understand what plagiarism is, or, not understand that "copying" is "plagiarism," aka "bad/morally wrong." Chinese academic culture springs to mind, having taught over there, the culture of "cheating" is far different and has traditions stretching into Imperial China - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_examination#Taking_the_exams . Any adviser regularly working with non-Western students should already be aware of this, and bringing such students up to date to the University's plagiarism's rules (helping the student adapt to local culture)

You have two options:

Not care about plagiarism enough to warrant getting involved.
Care about plagiarism to the degree you get involved.

There are arguments for both points here.

It would be an obvious matter of record as to whose thesis was written first if anyone else happened to notice the similarities. Why get involved further? You notified the adviser, let him deal with blowback from letting a student plagiarize. Pushing the issue further would just compromise your relationship with your adviser. Whistleblowers rarely get rewarded properly anyway. And, cynically, some universities may not even care about a student plagiarizing parts of a thesis. It's more paperwork and labor for them to deal with and it's easier to just hope (from an administrative perspective) that the problem goes away.
Based on what you have told us, it seems reasonable that your thesis was plagiarized from. You have contacted the adviser about this and he declined to do much about it. The graduate college and university administration, however, may not concur with your adviser. Plagiarism should be stopped on principle alone. I would report the offending thesis to the graduate college and see if they are willing to investigate it further. If you really wanted to do some nasty damage and the university declines to investigate, notify the local newspaper and see if they'll send over some junior journalist to write a spot on how your university is allowing plagiarism to occur.

Part of writing a thesis is learning to articulate in your own words what your research is about. This has to do with much more than just shoving original data in a table.
If your adviser told you the student "might not know what plagiarism is" then.....wow.....No one reaches graduate school and is completely oblivious to what plagiarism is. Let's be honest here.
For me personally, I would let it go. The network with my adviser is more important to my career right now. This is pragmatism, not principle, speaking.

You have articulated my feelings 100% in your answer. I am leaning to the pragmatic.

@Creed. Pragmatism is a survival skill. No shame in that. We do not always have the perfect leverage to right all wrongs. It seems that, yes, you were likely plagiarized, and yes, you should let it be.

@Creed To add to the pragmatic take here...if your field is one where thesis chapters are "re"-published elsewhere and those are the publications that "count," you could ask for authorship there given your obvious contribution to the work (assuming they are not already submitted). I wonder if one reason the advisor doesn't particularly care about the plagiarism is that it's in a thesis they expect no one else to read. I disagree with them that that makes it unimportant, but I can understand nonetheless.

"No one reaches graduate school and is completely oblivious to what plagiarism is." I actually think this is growing more common.

@DanielR.Collins Nevertheless, ignorantia juris non excusat. I can see that a student may not understand the nuances of the plagiarism of thoughts or fuzzy property, but I've known since grade school that directly copying someone else's work is plagiarism. It's not an advanced concept.

@BryanKrause Yes different people/fields/cultures seem to have rather different views on what a thesis should be, from a good piece of writing that people will read to just a document produced to fulfill a university requirement.

@DanielR.Collins Especially for this particular issue, that is, copying verbatim from methods sections. It seems to be the subject of a lot of questions here, often in the somewhat more controversial realm of "self-plagiarism" but nonetheless.

I agree... except, here's an adviser who officially accepts it, so that seems to outrank my personal preference/ethics.

There is an Option 1.5 as well - sit down and talk to the student about it. Don't threaten them with reporting them, but explain that this is considered plagiarism and why it's a bad thing. In particular explain that the consequences for it are much worse when they actually start to publish papers.

I'm regularly surprised what people that reached graduate school are oblivious too.

"The network with my adviser is more important to my career right now. This is pragmatism, not principle, speaking." And this is one of the reasons why people stop trusting scientists.

@IanKemp This could be applied to essentially every line of work. Politics, law, science, journalism, medicine, business.

Why would you want to maintain a relationship and network with people who propagate academic misconduct? Report this and you'll find out who you should be building your network with.

@curiousdannii      My supervisor placed me in a job after I graduated. We wrote several papers on my research. This year he "donated" a significant amount of lab equipment to me to get my research career going...  its only a few weeks ago I discovered the plagiarism. The situation is unfortunately not black and white.

@Vladhagen I believe the idea of plagiarism is practically unknown in some cultures.  They don't necessarily see it as an issue to be concerned with.  That said, it definitely doesn't excuse the behaviour (it is mentioned somewhere in practically every program's rules).  Obviously if someone has a different idea about it, you should correct them if you think there is an issue, which the supervisor seems to be avoiding.

This is an unpleasant and complicated problem. Here's one possible course of action. Whether or not it's appropriate under the particular circumstances depends on details and subtleties that go beyond your question.
Perhaps contact the student directly. Let them know that you have noticed the plagiarism and that it disturbs you - particularly the acknowledgment! Say that the cut and paste is unacceptable academic behavior even if you are cited (you don't say). Conclude by saying that you have discussed this with your common advisor, that you don't yourself plan to take any further action, but want to let your future academic colleague know so that they do not transgress again in their career.

Definitely contact the student directly. I would even say: Try to meet them in person, if they're in your physical vicinity. This would have a stronger psychological effect. Make your talk something pedagogical more than just a complaint.

Depends where you are. At my university (in the UK), plagiarism or breaking any other academic integrity rule is a thing that can get you kicked out.
I would get it reported. The supervisor is not acting appropriately, considering that your work is something you put effort into for years. Even if your relationship with him may suffer, this is not something to just dismiss on the basis that you were his students.

You don't seem to have considered any of the pros or cons of taking this matter further.

@DavidRicherby The right to free speech was earned by people speaking up and suffering the consequences... All that is needed for evil to triumph is good men sit and do nothing...

@SolarMike Free speech is irrelevant: nobody is having their freedom of speech impinged upon. And I'm not asking you to tell me the pros and cons. I'm asking nuym to edit their answer to weigh up the benefits, as they see them, against the disadvantage of, presumably, hugely harming the asker's relationship with their advisor.

The point was people have to flag plagiarism for it to be dealt with, if it is just "let go' then it will not get stopped. And this seems to be a part of several answers : don't rock the boat... I was not pointing out that free speech was or was not being impinged upon...

@SolarMike And David Richerby's point is that your point is just one aspect to consider. Like with most non-trivial situations in life, there are other aspects too, and the OP should reach a conclusion (which is personal to him) based on balancing all of the pros and cons. That's the rational approach to problem solving. Fixating on just one aspect and ignoring the rest, is the emotional approach.

@SolarMike There's a lot to be said for standing on principle, for doing the Right Thing™ even if it's unpopular or personally costly. But it's also important to be sure that a fixation on principle and bright-line morality hasn't made you myopic. Is a stand on principle really a principled stand, or is Principle the name of the hill you've decided to die on?

@FeRD so sit and do nothing...

@SolarMike "Doing nothing" is a valid solution to many problems... to try to dismiss the argument based off that seems dishonest.  Inaction has consequences the same as action does, to the point that "doing nothing" is really something else that you can choose to do.  The point is, you have to weigh all the possibilities of the situation when deciding if "do nothing" is the right action.  There's nothing inherently wrong with inaction, as you seem to imply.  It's not a question of "something must be done for this to be dealt with"; it's a question of "Does this need to be dealt with?".

@JMac So, if I follow what you seem to be saying in terms of "Does this need to be dealt with" then you seem to be suggesting plagiarism does not need to be dealt with...

@SolarMike I'm saying was that there were other concerns that OP was trying to address with this situation.  You can't just dismiss the option of "do nothing" because it isn't taking a direct action.  I'm not saying that "do nothing" is the correct option here.  The point is to justify the choice against that alternative, making it clear why this would be better.  The comments were looking for pro's and con's to consider this a good answer; that doesn't necessarily mean the advice is wrong; just not properly justified.

@JMac this was the first part of your comment - rather sets up the direction really... see "Doing nothing" is a valid solution to many problems... "

@SolarMike I don't see what you're getting at anymore.  The point others were making and I'm supporting is that regardless of what either of us think is the correct course of action here, it's best to consider the pro's and con's of the situation.  Pointing that out doesn't mean we are advocating the opposite of this answer.  It's just that good answers should actually show consideration for the whole situation.  You're using "doing nothing" as if it's inherently a bad decision for all problems.  This is not the case, and if someone were advocating for "do nothing" I would also expect reasons.

I would argue that you could end up in trouble of your own for not reporting this after it can be proven that you have knowledge of his plagiarism.
If he is discovered to do the same thing later to someone else, or even if someone else reports what he did with your work instead of you reporting it, it's possible that your integrity might be called into question. After all, he is riding off of your own coattails.

Important point. By choosing to ignore it, the asker could become complicit in this potential case of plagiarism.

In general, this makes thesis plagiarized:

Many paragraphs of their text is copied and pasted from mine, some without checking so that it makes false references

Unless you quote and reference block of text, you stole and claimed that you've wrote it. The student obviously did just that. You can talk to the University ethics/research integrity committee or department to make sure you understand their stance correctly.
Now the question is what you want to happen next.

Given that only some of the background text (rather than the results
  section) was copied, is it reasonable to pursue this further? What is
  normally done in such cases?

OK, that new student made a mistake. Now, you need to ask yourself what do you want to achieve.

Given that only some of the background text (rather than the results
  section) was copied, is it reasonable to pursue this further? What is
  normally done in such cases?

First, note that this plagiarism makes no damage to you. You had graduated before (s)he started. There would be no question about who was the plagiarizer. The plagiarized text is in the background, it doesn't rob any credit that belonged to you.
That means you would gain nothing personally.
Your advisor's response is understandable. He was probably too busy (or lazy) to read the theses. He would know for sure that the new student was doing wrong. But if the plagiarism is discovered, he will be in a lot of trouble.
As you also guess, if you pursue further, you will lose the relationship with him, etc.
I do not encourage scientific misconduct, but in this case you will lose something and gain nothing.
If the new student works in industry now, he would not care less about the PhD thesis. If he is in academia, this plagiarism will haunt him forever.

Answers to comment of @cag51.

I was with you until your last paragraph. If OP reports this, the
  student could have to do revisions or risk losing their PhD (or maybe
  they will lose their PhD outright); even someone in industry would not
  want their PhD revoked (as then they could not claim it on their
  resume). Conversely, it's not clear how this would "haunt him forever"
  in academia -- if this is settled quietly, and especially if OP
  doesn't speak up, no one is likely to know that there was ever an
  issue.

From the time someone starts working in industry, his/her PhD becomes irrelevant. Suppose the new student is working in company X, will he be fired if his PhD is revoked? No. Will his next company care if his PhD is revoked? No, they only care how many years he has worked for company X with which title.
I'm working in the US, where companies always hire a third-party to do background check on new employee, and you can get a copy of the report. I have never been checked for education background. They just do not care.
On the other hand, if the new student is working in academia, the consequence of the plagiarism being discovered is catastrophic. It likes sleeping with a bomb. Even if you know the bomb is very unlikely to explode, you can't stop worrying about it.

I was with you until your last paragraph. If OP reports this, the student could have to do revisions or risk losing their PhD (or maybe they will lose their PhD outright); even someone in industry would not want their PhD revoked (as then they could not claim it on their resume). Conversely, it's not clear how this would "haunt him forever" in academia -- if this is settled quietly, and especially if OP doesn't speak up, no one is likely to know that there was ever an issue.

I think saying that it's a "mistake" is a rather bold understatement. Copying whole parts of a PhD thesis is about the biggest ethical mis-step you can make as an academic.

@WolfgangBangerth Yes, and I don't buy for one second that someone who has got all the way to the point of completing a PhD "may not have known what plagiarism was". That is complete nonsense.

Gain nothing? Maybe not, but you loose scientific integrity, personally and generally. If you don't speak up about plagiarism, you cannot expect anyone else to. So you're making it okay. You don't need to go atomic, but saying this is a non-issue is endorsing plagiarism, plenty to loose from that.

With regard of non-academic work, it highly depends. There are quite some politicians who lost their position when it became clear they heavily plagiarised in their PhD

"Your advisor's response is understandable. He was probably too busy (or lazy) to read the theses." How is it "understandable" for an advisor to be too busy or too lazy to read their student's thesis? How is it "understandable" for an advisor to "advise" a student through a whole PhD without ensuring that the student knows what plagiarism is?

Thanks for your update. But, I still think your last paragraph goes too far. My company does care who has a PhD (though you're right that experience / accomplishments are more important). In particular, if you claimed to have a PhD when you started, you would either have to tell us that it was revoked (bad) or we might find out independently (worse). We could certainly fire someone over this, or at the least it would affect their career trajectory. It's true that we might never notice -- but it is still a "bomb" as you describe (and it will turn up in a security clearance investigation).

@cag51: do you have an example when somebody's industrial career was damaged because their PhD is revoked? Or this is just what you guess. After you start working in industry, you can just leave the PhD degree out of your resume. I have many friends with PhD, who are reporting to manager/staff engineer without a PhD. In Silicon Valley, if you want to lure someone out of their current position, you need to pay at least 10% (often more) higher than their current compensation, whether they have a PhD in the past is irrelevant. Just leave it out of your resume if you don't like.

It's a bit curious that you lecture me on what industry values, given that I am an academic researcher "in industry" and am involved in hiring decisions, etc. :-) That said, I agree that a PhD is rarely required; we will hire someone with a good background even without a PhD. The potential problems for my company, as an example, are: (1) I expect resumes to go back 10+ years -- if I see time in a university consistent with grad school, but no PhD, I will try to figure out what happened, and (2) security clearance investigations will absolutely deny a clearance over this.

@cag51 I do not intend to lecture anybody about anything. If you feel offended, so I'm sorry. "I agree that a PhD is rarely required", that's what I'm trying to say. So what do you not agree? You didn't answer my question "do you have an example when somebody's industrial career was damaged because their PhD is revoked? Or this is just what you guess".

Not offended, just pointing out that I am not guessing, I personally am involved with such decisions. I've never personally learned that someone's PhD was revoked, don't think that happens often. I am just disagreeing with your statement that someone in industry wouldn't care if their PhD was revoked. I agree with you that a PhD itself may not be required; however, a PhD is (slightly) better than no PhD, especially for applicants with less than 10-15 years experience; further, a revoked PhD raises many questions (though one could certainly try to avoid mentioning this degree without lying).

At any rate, I think I've said my peace...cheers!

@qsp..   "From the time someone starts working in industry, his/her PhD becomes irrelevant. Suppose the new student is working in company X, will he be fired if his PhD is revoked? No. Will his next company care if his PhD is revoked? No, they only care how many years he has worked for company X with which title."   I worked in industry after I graduated and my employer would have been very disappointed if my PhD was revoked. I think I'd have lost my job.

@cag51 "however, a PhD is (slightly) better than no PhD". not necessarily. If you spend so many percent of your energy to fulfill the formal qualifications wrt writing papers, passing mandatory courses et.c. and then very few percent actually honing your practically useful skills.. Such a finished candidate can be less valuable in an industry setting than one who went 95% on practically useful skills and missed one or two requirements for finishing.

@mathreadler: It is, however, absolutely certain that both a PhD and no PhD are better than a revoked PhD.

Agree with Ben. Also, this may be field dependent: for a technician (e.g., a PhD acting as a programer or chemical synthesizer), useful skills are most important, however, if you are constantly bidding for Government funding to do original research, a PhD can be an important qualification in its own right, even "in industry".

@BenVoigt sure, that sounds obvious.

What do you value? Do you want justice at the expense of your relationships? Do you want relationships at the cost of easing your moral fortitude? People are creatures of habit. Those who pay attention to detail are known for their attention to detail. Those who are lazy and sloppy are known as well. If he doesn't change his behavior, it will catch up to him eventually. If he does change his behavior, then he had some slack to grow on his own. You could always reach out to him and point out your observations... This seems like a good middle-ground approach. It would let him know his laziness was discovered,and  give him the opportunity to choose how to handle the situation without pounding him into the dirt for crossing the line.

How's this dishonest behaviour going to "catch up to him eventually" if everybody selfishly ignores it for the sake of maintaining pointless relationships with other dishonest and incompetent people? This is how the world burns. We all have a responsibility to be vigilant and ensure the integrity of our field. In some industries more so than others -- do you really want someone like this going out into the world with a PhD (or equivalent), being taken at face value based on work that they did not actually do? What sort of damage do you imagine they could do? It should be stopped, at source.

Bunch of logical fallacies there, Lightness. Its not 'everybody', it is the OP. How do you know if the relationships are pointless? That is the OP's decision, which is why I put the question to him. If these relationships represent a network of potential employers or references, they are far from pointless. This sort of fist pounding rings hollow delivered on the internet. I would be curious to see how you would fare if judged by that hammer you're swinging.

If your advice is solely for the OP and you don't think anyone else should take it, then you should clarify that in your answer.

Also "fist pounding" "that hammer you're swinging" watch your tone.

Since you know about this plagiarism you need to report it. Avoiding reporting it just because it might jeopardize "a fairly good relationship with my supervisor" should not be part of the equation. Then you are just as bad, letting plagiarism occur just because it is helpful to your career to not do anything about it.
You have already talked to you advisor, now talk to his/her superior. Make sure to document all communications. Keep going higher until someone cares and make sure you also report those who do nothing about it. If going as high as you could within the university still didn't result in a retraction of the thesis and action against those who did nothing you should contact local a newspaper/a relevant journal.
Ethics is incredibly important in science, taxpayers pay us to do research and society then trusts our results. Unethical behaviour like in this case needs to be firmly stopped before the line of what is acceptable moves and we lose both funding and trust.

The lit review, results, and findings are the student's own work

So to be fair what we have here is laziness.  They haven't stolen or laid claim to your ideas or concepts or results.  They've cut and pasted text.  Certainly that text required some effort to produce, but is it what you value here and is this really worth going to war over ?
Arguing the point is likely to cause you problems.  Right or wrong making an accusation of plagiarism could ruin the student's life.  Is their sin worth the potential damage proving it will cause ?
If the authorities declare your accusation is wrong (or said to be wrong) this could be very damaging to you professionally.  And they may do that simply to avoid having to ruin the student.  Even if the agree with you, you are certain to make enemies doing this.
I'd suggest the sin is not worth the trouble reporting it will cause for everyone, including you.

But, particularly in the middle section (describing the apparatus I built)

Now the student did use your apparatus in this sense at least.  Did this warrant a reference in his thesis ?  Did you get acknowledgement that way ?  If so that's potentially valuable and you can take the view that you don't need more.
So overall, do you really need more ?
If you feel you deserve an acknowledgement in their thesis and did not get it, can you speak quietly to them and ask them to add one to later revisions prior to publication ?  And I mean ask, not demand - be a diplomat, not a lawyer.
So rather than going to war over this, maybe try some quiet diplomacy that may make you more friends than enemies.

What do the copied sections add to their thesis? You state that these sections describe the apparatus you built. Do you consider this to be intellectual property? Do they still make it clear that you built the apparatus? Are you acknowledged? If not, do they make it seem that they built the apparatus? Do they gain anything from doing so? In other words, will they be getting credit for work that they did not do? And will you be losing credit at the same time? These are the things that I would be thinking about.
It seems likely that it is important, to the thesis, that the apparatus is described in some way. It also seems likely that the review, results and findings of the thesis are enough to stand on their own, without needing credit for building the equipment. With that in mind, I would speak to the student yourself, explain your concerns, and offer to work with them to include the content that they need in a way that acknowledges you, and does not claim credit for work they did not do. Decide exactly what you want changed before you start this, however, so that you can be clear about exactly what you want and why.
I would try to avoid the p-word as far as possible. I find it hard to believe that this person does not know what plagiarism is. It seems more likely that they don't consider what they did to be plagiarism. In which case, they should be perfectly happy to work with you on this.
Report them if you need to, but since you've already worked with this person, you should definitely try to sort this out amongst yourselves before going down that road. If you have a good relationship (with this person and your advisor), then this should be enough, and you needn't be concerned about destroying it. If not, and no one is willing to listen to your concerns, perhaps it wasn't worth keeping anyway.

It's very likely that the view of the professor ("not that much of a big deal") did reflect on the working habit of the student. And that the student really did do it without thinking about it. Than it was obviously only done because -until now- nobody told him whats good citation is.
Contact the student, tell him what he did wrong. Ask him to fix it.
If he only copied your text, I would assume it was "misinterpretation" of the academic rules. He likely thought, since your are on "the team", its not needed to apply the citation rules. Talk with him. You can have some impact (in a good way) on his future behavior.
If you have the impression that the student does not care after you talked to him, you still can take the official route. If the student copied unrelated peoples text as well it may be done intentional, in this case I would point out (likely in writing, depends on the culture) to the advisor that you did talk to him and what the outcome of the meeting was.

To answer your bolded question: probably nothing, and accepting their offer of acknowledgment seems best.
From what you have described, I don't think they intend any malice, but simply

don't have a better description for the apparatus than you provided
don't have any personal words for their advisor

As they have offered to acknowledge your role, I'd try to see that you are properly credited for your part in their apparatus and otherwise not try to damage them. The former will benefit you, while the latter is unlikely to.
If they replicated your apparatus, it seems logical to describe its form and setup as similarly as possible. If they have done independent work otherwise, then the line around plagiarism gets fuzzier - they are not passing off your work as theirs, but pushing ahead with new findings!
Re-hashing your personal words, however, means they did not have any of their own, which seems like a personal failing you could also help them with if you have the time.


text:
What is the proper way of addressing a professor whom I work with?
I am a graduate student. Some part of my master thesis requires me to contact a professor from another university. In the first email I addressed him as "Dear Professor Smith". He started his reply with, let's say, "Dear Emily".
Does it mean that he also asked me to call him by his first name? He didn't do it explicitly. How should I address him in my next email?
We are going to meet face to face in the foreseeable future. He doesn't teach me.
My question isn't about addressing a professor in the US.  All I want to know is how to be polite if we communicate in Enlish (although this is a mother tongue neither for him nor for me), so my inquiry refers to the English language, not the (English or American) culture.
In other words: did the professor suggest that I we should be on first name basis by addressing me as "Dear Emily" in his email?
The email was sent to me and other members of my group. It started with "Dear Emily and all" and ended with "Cheers, John". The professor is on first name basis with the rest of the group.
Edit: My question is about this particular situation, the email I received (not a general rule), so I don't think this is a duplicate.

I am not sure I understand what you mean by my inquiry refers to the English language, not the (English or American) culture. Different culture would imply different usage of English. If he prefers to be called "Professor" in his language, why would he prefer to be called by his first name in English?

If it ends with "Cheers, John", than that's obviously how he supposes you to call him.

@ scaaahu, first of all, I don't know, how he prefers to be called in his language. Second of all, it all depends on the verb forms which are used in a specific language, i.e in English there are no different forms for "professor" (or you) and "John" (or thou), so being on the first name basis is more common in English (because there are not many differences in grammar) than in my mother tongue. And my question is more "what did he mean" than "what are general rules".

And my question is more "what did he mean" than "what are general rules" I don't think anybody here can read the professor's mind. Vote to close as off-topic.

People with more experience than me can certainly tell me what he could have meant or what they would mean by that. Well, they can at least try.

The answer to the question is the same, ask politely.

As I wrote elsewhere, if he signs his messages to you "John" then I don't think he can reasonably object to your addressing him as "John".

I contributed an answer to the similar question, which is applicable to your situation.  See http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/27723/should-i-call-my-adviser-by-her-first-name/58907#58907

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Academic alternatives to a Ph.D

"You became a professor at Cornell without ever having received a
  Ph.D. You seem almost proud of that fact.
Oh, yes. I’m very proud of not having a Ph.D. I think the Ph.D. system
  is an abomination. It was invented as a system for educating German
  professors in the 19th century, and it works well under those
  conditions. It’s good for a very small number of people who are going
  to spend their lives being professors. But it has become now a kind of
  union card that you have to have in order to have a job, whether it’s
  being a professor or other things, and it’s quite inappropriate for
  that. It forces people to waste years and years of their lives sort of
  pretending to do research for which they’re not at all well-suited. In
  the end, they have this piece of paper which says they’re qualified,
  but it really doesn’t mean anything. The Ph.D. takes far too long
  and discourages women from becoming scientists, which I consider a
  great tragedy. So I have opposed it all my life without any success
  at all.
How is it that you were able to escape that requirement?
I was lucky because I got educated in World War II and everything was
  screwed up so that I could get through without a Ph.D. and finish up
  as a professor. Now that’s quite impossible. So, I’m very proud that I
  don’t have a Ph.D. and I raised six children and none of them has a
  Ph.D., so that’s my contribution."

(From [1])
Which are the Academic alternatives to a Ph.D.? (Actively participate in seminars, write papers,) being supervised without earning a degree? How you become deeply involved in the community of your research interests without a Ph.D.? How you become known in your field? How do you write to a professor for supervision without earning a degree?
[1]: A 'rebel' without a Ph.D. A conversation with the mathematical physicist Freeman Dyson on quantum electrodynamics, climate change, and his latest pet project.

To borrow a phrase from Churchill: "A PhD is the worst way to educate researchers, except for all the other ways."

I'll leave this as a comment as it's more of an observation than an answer, but in certain health sciences it doesn't seem entirely unusual for clinicians to end up teaching and being involved in research within universities without having PhDs. Although, it's also worth saying that they do get encouraged to work towards a PhD along the way though.

Having some familiarity with the quoted party, let me say: he leaves out some context.  Dyson went to Cornell to do a PhD in physics in 1947: he was then 24 and already on his second academic career, having published two math papers.  By 1949 (age 26) he had made fundamental contributions to QED, for which many feel that he should have won the Nobel Prize, but was prevented by the technicality that at most three can share one (here: Schwinger, Feynman, Tomonaga).  This path towards PhDless academia -- i.e., be ridiculously precocious and brilliant -- may yet be open to the Dysons of today.

@PeteL.Clark I'm reminded of the (probably apocryphal) anecdote about a novice composer asking Mozart how he should go about writing a symphony. Mozart tells him he's probably too young to start such an ambitious work. ‘But Herr Mozart, you were writing symphonies when you were ten!’. ‘True,’ replies Mozart, ‘but I didn't have to ask how.’

The question is not clear to me.  You say you want to do all the things Ph.D. students try to do:  write papers, have a supervisor, become known in your field, etc.  What part of the Ph.D. is it that bothers you?

My great-great-grand advisor Bob Floyd also had no PhD (despite my advisor's repeated offers to "supervise" him).  His first academic position was an associate professorship at CMU at the ripe old age of 27, in 1965.  But Bob was another example of a fluke genius working at a time when the field (CS) was "messed up".

Freeman Dyson had two advantages on his side: (i) He was brilliant. (ii) He was educated at a time when, as he put it, everything was "screwed up".
(ii) is no longer the case for any of us, or at least not in any of the countries where I take it that you want to be a professor. (i) may be true for you, but statistically speaking is not true for all but a very very small number of people; consequently, (i) also does not provide a route to becoming a professor, and certainly is not something anyone should bank upon.
In other words: Forget about becoming a professor without a PhD. While it may not be completely impossible, it is so unlikely that nobody could reasonably advise anyone to take that route. In actual practice, almost all professor job ads contain a phrase similar to "PhD in X or a related field is required", and there truly have to be exceptional reasons for a hiring committee to ignore this.
[I will add that all of the above specifically only applies to the sciences and mathematics; professors are frequently hired out of industry in engineering, education, and business departments, and I would not be surprised if other criteria apply in such cases.]

Even if you are super brilliant, why wouldn't you get a PhD? Unwillingness to make an effort to get a PhD would probably be a red flag for hiring committees, since it could indicate that you do not play by the rules or maybe even laziness (many would argue that strong work ethics and dedication are as important, if not more, than brilliance for a researcher).

@Bitwise -- precisely. In the grand scheme, maybe the PhD system has its downsides, but it is not purposefully onerous. It is a time of learning, and at the end you get a title. The time of learning can not be substituted one way or the other.

I'm not sure if PhD is a hard requirement to become a professor, but assume there are 100 candidates, and 99 of them have PhD, then why would the one without PhD stances a chance?
If you want to be treated as a special case, you need to be special, simple as that. I also know some professors without a PhD, and all of them were genius. Coincident? I think not.
For example, Freeman Dyson nearly won the Nobel prize (@Peter L. Clark). Robert Floyd won a Turing award. Tim Berners-Lee, well, no need to mention about him.

Which are the Academic alternatives to a Ph.D.? (Actively participate in seminars, write papers,) being supervised without earning a degree? How you become deeply involved in the community of your research interests without a Ph.D.? How you become known in your field? How do you write to a professor for supervision without earning a degree?

Why would you want to do that without a PhD, because it would be much much easier if you do those things with a PhD. In particular, "being supervised without earning a degree", are you serious? you want to be a free labour for your supervisor?
Alternatively, go to some countries where professorship is not that competitive. I have some Bangladeshi friends, who were my classmate in Master. They are all assistant professors now, without a PhD, although they were horrible in class :)

(Actively participate in seminars, write papers,)

Unless you're going to a scam university, a PhD is where they pay you to do these things, and you have someone whose job it is to mentor you in how to do these things.
The answer to your question is "do the things that a PhD entails, without the funding of a PhD, then reject the degree, then try to convince others that you've completed everything a PhD entails despite not having the degree."

For my answer, I will assume that you have decided not to get a PhD, despite your desire to engage in research, and will address your questions based on that assumption.  This answer is not intended as support for such a choice.

How do you become known in your field?

Publish.  Apply for grants (with a co-author if need be).  Collaborate.  Attend department seminars regularly.  Go to conferences, participate in discussions and give presentations.

How do you write to a professor for supervision without earning a degree?

The same as in the other situation (in which you are seeking a degree).  There are questions here about that, so I won't duplicate that guidance.  Here's one of many questions about that: How to approach a professor for research?.  From there you can explore some more by looking at the similar links in the sidebar.

This answer makes it sound like this is a routine thing, that one can do this by following much the same steps as a PhD student would. I think we've learned (from the many questions on this site by people struggling to get mentorship and supervision, funding, other kinds of support while not enrolled in a degree program) that it's not at all the same path.

@ff524 Thanks for the feedback.  Does the edit make my position clearer?

It's a clear position, I just don't agree with it. I don't think that "do what a PhD student would do, the same way as a PhD student would do it" is a good approach - the difference in circumstances calls for a different approach. I also think that a good answer would describe specific strategies for overcoming the extra challenges that someone might face in this situation. (For example, in this answer I did not say "just write to professors following the advice elsewhere on this site" for similar reasons.)

I don't really disagree with this answer, but I read it much as follows: "I am not going to challenge your stated assumption that you want to be an academic and not get a PhD.  But I'll advise you to do what largely amounts to simulating a PhD student, up to and including spending time at a university department in your field."  Is the idea that eventually the OP will see that it would be similar but easier to actually become a PhD student?

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

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


text:
Is it common to claim co-authorship by helping writing a paper without doing any research
In my research group, there is a researcher who usually approaches other PhD students who are about to write papers in order to offer his help. Normally, he does not actually do any research related to the paper. Instead, he reads our papers, makes comments about the writing style and sometime re-writes some sections in order to make them more readable. At the end, he will claim the co-authorship of the paper. I can see it is very helpful for new PhD students who don't have much experience in writing papers or articles. However, it is sometime uncomfortable for me to see someone who doesn't do actual research but still manages to get an authorship.
So, I want to ask if it is a common practice for someone to help writing a paper without doing any actual research relating to it, and claim the co-authorship. If it is not, how should I react if someone wants to do the same to me?

I've seen this. This kind of people are usually easy to recognize because they don't have a "research line" and it's hard to tell what is their expertise, their publications spread along many different topics. Despite of having seen these results, I've never known how is the process before the publication, by your description it seems to be quite creepy...

A word comes to mind: "Predator".

Honest question: Does it hurt anyone by adding this type of person as a co-author?  I've helped people write their papers in the past before and in the process I learned a great deal about the subject matter.  Also, people who help write papers may help fulfill one of the pillars of scientific discovery... communication of the science.  Without that, a discovery is nothing really.

@LordStryker It hurts all those people who will be competing with those who artificially inflate their publication lists in this way.

Great comment. I know this is obvious, but just to make it even more obvious: inflating produces inflation.

@TobiasKildetoft I suppose I still live in a dream where I view science as one, giant team effort (I'm still young).  I wish it could just 'be this way' but we all know that it can't.  *sigh

There is the ideal academia and the real one. In many fields people get co-authorship for much less than this. The obnoxiousness here is asking/claiming co-authorship in what seems to be a strategy to inflate one's publication list. A strategy that sounds flawed to me, as co-authorship usually counts very little when applying for any serious academic position.

I think I have some kinda Groundhog Day thing going on where I log onto stackexchange everyday and read about the unfair co-authorship. If I recall, Bill Murray broke the cycle by doing good deeds. Guess I'm screwed.

At my university, this is a violation of the code of research conduct.

Near-duplicate: http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/20901/compiling-ethical-standards-for-coauthorship-across-academic-fields-and-regions

people who help write papers may help fulfill one of the pillars of scientific discovery... communication of the science.

There is an appropriate place to credit people who read your paper and offer useful comments on it: the acknowledgement section. It is very common to see acknowledgements "for providing valuable feedback", "for suggesting a cleaner presentation", "for pointing out important related work" and so on. Even "for providing a simpler proof of Lemma X.y".
None of this rises to the level of co-authorship.
What's worse in this case is that

At the end, he will claim the co-authorship of the paper.

While I'd find the idea of co-authorship for such contributions odd, I would not think too much about it if it were negotiated in advance (as is the theme of many of the answers on this site). But to offer what appears to be unconditional help first and then (when the student really has no choice in the matter)  to demand co-authorship is plain wrong.
To answer your last question on what to do, the answer, as is always the answer, is to negotiate things up front. It's a little awkward, but a little pre-collaboration awkwardness is MUCH better than a lot of post-collaboration recrimination and hostility.

There is a difference between "providing valuable feedback" and re-writing large portions of a paper. The former certainly belongs in the acknowledgements section, but the later might be different and might be what the asker is referring to.

The so called Vancouver protocol (developed by ICMJE (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors) and its definition of authorship has been mentioned in many questions of this kind here on Academia but I think they deserve being repeated. The protocol describes authorship through three components which every author must fulfil:

Conception and design, or analysis and interpretation of data
AND
Drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content
AND
Final approval of the version to be published.

A key point here is the "AND". To read and comment on the text is clearly not enough for authorship by these standards. In fact a reviewer of the manuscript would at least fulfil point 2 whereas a person helping out as you describe would not.
It is difficult to fend off this behaviour from more senior colleagues as a PhD student. It may, however, be good to bring up an open discussion about authorship standards in the group without necessarily directly connecting it to the draft of a paper. In some research groups systems for determining both order and authorship as such have been developed by splitting the paper up into tasks. See for example, AuthorOrder.com for an example. Looking at the authorship tag here on Ac.sx and a search on Google will provide much background. But, I particularly recommend the recommendations report from ICMJE; ICMJE developed the protocol and their recommendations constitutes their continually updated version of the protocol.

Good point, +1. However, this kind of opens the related question of people who contribute to the research but are never heard of when it comes to writing the papers - no edits, no comments, no nothing. "Research yes, writing no" may be less infuriating than "research no, writing yes", but I am still uncomfortable with co-"authors" who haven't authored a single word in the final manuscript.

As far as I can see, under the rules quoted here, if X proves a great theorem and explains it (the theorem and the proof) orally to Y, and if Y then writes it up nicely, then nobody is entitled to be an author of the resulting paper.

Hypothetical scenario: Scientist A conceives and designs a project.  Carries out project and interprets all the data.  Suddenly Scientist A dies (or becomes incapacitated).  Scientist B picks up the data and drafts a worthy article.  According to the Vancouver Protocol, nobody can author this paper which seems rather silly.

@AndreasBlass If Y is merely transcribing a proof provided by X, then X did draft the article and therefore deserves authorship.  Otherwise, writing the proof requires hundreds of small but crucial design and analysis decisions, and therefore Y deserves authorship.  (But she should really ask X to critically evaluate the paper, if only by saying "yes, okay", so that he can be a coauthor, too).

@JeffE I"m glad Y can be an author, but I really think X ought to be an author too, even without critically evaluating the paper, because X did the most important part of the work.

@AndreasBlass the protocol actually specifies that X must be given the opportunity to get involved in article revisions and final article approval; however, if they refuse to participate in the actual article, then it means also a refusal from authorship, and it's a valid choice that they are allowed to make.

+1 Interesting. Among other things, this 'Vancouver protocol' would condemn the practice in some labs of always adding the lab head at the end of the author list.

@LordStryker: nice example. If Andreas's X were still alive then one can argue whether they hit point 3 but have very passively chosen to approve whatever Y wrote. But it is certain that your A does not hit point 3 and therefore is not an author. However, if something silly happens for a rare and genuine reason then the "obvious" thing is to let it happen. You'd have to find a journal willing to accept a paper with no authors though! The protocol's authority is only as strong as journals' strict adherence to it.

... on the other hand, if A had already written most of a paper, but B did do some remaining data analysis that A left unfinished, let's say 0% of conception and design, 5% of the data analysis work, 20% of write-up and sole final approval/submission, then would it be ethical for B to claim sole authorship with a massive acknowledgement to A for "doing the research and writing most of the paper"? I wonder, would B's sole authorship break people's adherence to the protocol, or would most researchers and editors comfortably say "of course, A died prior to final approval so B is sole author"?

Hi Peter. For convenience, how about a link to the Vancouver protocol document?

@StephanKolassa - contributors that are not authors should be acknowledge in the acknowledgment section. Not acknowledging contributors is as bad as claiming unwarranted authorship IMO. They are both cases of academic dishonesty.

The link to authorder.com appears to be broken.

This happens quite often in industrial PhDs, at least based on my experience. Every paper I've written so far had around 5 authors, although myself and a research fellow were the only ones doing the work. I completely understand your frustration because there are two guys who have technical backgrounds but doing management work  (thus no technical input to my papers whatsoever) who have their names on my papers (that applies to other PhD Students here too). I am not sure about pure academic research (i.e. funding from university) tough, things are likely to be different in that case.

It doesn't matter whether it is common or not: it is inappropriate.
He is "editing" and not "authoring".
Don't let it get to you. Even if you were to stop this guy, there has been, are, and will be many others doing the same thing. Just hope that karma will take care of it.

The OP should print @Peter Jansson's answer and post it in a big 11x17 sheet of paper on the most visible board in the department :) Then the "gratuituous contributor" would get the message (and would educate others on how to handle him/her.)

An author should be involved in the research, otherwise it is only a clerical role.  However, it is not unusual for a collaborator whose contribution to the research is below the average to compensate by doing more work on the writing.

I once was asked by a prof to provide comments on a draft paper given to him by a colleague. I added a third section to the paper, and re-ordered and re-worded the arguments that were in the draft. The paper was then published with no further changes. There was no recognition of my contribution by the author.

Your help should have probably been acknowledged, but co-authorship way not necessarily deserved unless you negotiated before your editing.


text:
Plagiarism in semester assignment
I teach psychology to undergraduate students while I am studying in my PhD. The module's assignment is a research report on a subject of the students' choice (the report has to be written in English). Before the data collection the students had to send me their research proposal and their ethics form for approval. I have given approval to all the students and they have already started to collect their data.
However, yesterday I was searching some studies about my PhD and Ι found out that a student had copied and pasted whole parts of a Greek thesis in her research proposal (actually she has "stolen" the subject and research questions as well as many parts of the introduction) and translated them verbatim in English.
I am very confused on what to do. I am pretty sure that her report will constitute a complete copy of the other students' thesis. However, due to the fact that the text will be translated, the Turnitin score will possibly come out low. Should I inform the university's principal or wait to see what will happen?
Update: Thank you all for your answers. You helped me a lot! Just to explain why I asked about how to deal with plagiarism: I am quite new in this job (lecturing)and additionally the college I am working for belongs to the private sector in Greece (i.e. students pay to study in the specific college smth that is not the prevailing way of studying here. All the universities are free of charge). So far, I have noticed (due to my experience as a second marker) that there is a silent policy of not failing students unless they are completely incompetent to study in the college. As you can understand, the students' level is quite low. So, I am afraid that if I report a translated plagiarism (smth that cannot be indicated by turnitin score meaning that I deliberately searched for it) I will "accused" of discrimination towards the student. Additionally, despite their low level the students (as well as their parents who pay for their studies) react aggressively when they receive a low grade. So, I am afraid that I will have to deal with this, too. That is why I am very concerned about what to do.

You may want to remind your students (without mentioning names) of the university's policies, explicitly mentioning that a translation without attribution is also plagiarism. This reminder is an easy opprtunity for them to add quote signs and attribution.

Thank you pts for your answer.  I am going to do this in our last lecture before the report submission.

You're going to have increasing amounts of plagiarism if you don't immediately deal with this.

Turnitin is irrelevant.

You should follow whatever your university policies say should be done when plagiarism is detected.  Typically reporting is the very first thing that must be done.  What will happen after that depends on your institution's policies.
In the US, many institutions have a discipline process that is progressive in the sense that the penalty for a first offense is small, but later offenses are penalized much more severely.
In my own experience with this, if you catch plagiarism in an early draft, you can penalize the student's grade on the draft, and then the student has a chance to produce a final product that is free of plagiarism. If the final paper still has plagiarism then you can give the student a failing grade or expel them from the degree program.
This requires checking for plagiarism at the draft stage in addition to checking the final paper.  However, if you don't do this additional checking then the student may get away with only a warning or a small grade penalty for plagiarism in a term paper.

+1 "You should follow whatever your university policies say should be done when plagiarism is detected.". That is basically the entire answer. Find the official procedure and follow them.
Policies differ wildly from university to university. Sample point: If you plagiarize at where I studied, even it is just 10 % of the entire assignment, you fail the course and may try again working honestly next semester.

Don't rely on Turnitin or other text-matching software scores! They should not be the only way to prove plagiarism. I would proceed with your university proceedures as soon as you discover the plagiarism, first preparing a synopsis with the students work (in English) on the left, the Greek thesis on the right. Anyone who can read Greek and English should be able to see that this is a translation.
Your university procedure may require you to speak with the student first, or it may require that an investigation board be informed. Check with your colleagues to find out where the regulations are documented.
And have the courage to go on with this, even if it is a lot of work. We have to nip plagiarism in the bud. People who are successful with plagiarism tend to be repeat offenders.

However, due to the fact that the text will be translated, the
Turnitin score will possibly come out low.

If it walks like a duck and it swims like a duck, it doesn't matter if it quacks like a foreign duck. It is still a duck.
Don't "wait to see what happens". It is better to prevent a murder than catch the murderer after the fact. Give the wannabee plagiarists the chance to abandon the plot, either by communicating directly with them, or at least by a general announcement to the class that some research proposals are already flagged for plagiarism (explain/remind/stress that plagiarism applies to research proposals also).
The ideal for me would be a combination: namely a general announcement with no names and a confidential communication with the student, but your exact actions may depend on the specific circumstances, university policies and culture, relations with the class, etc.
But in any case, don't let this unfold without trying to stop it before it happens. Teachers are first and foremost guides, not judges.

While I agree with Brian's answer, sometimes University procedures are more onerous and are, quite frankly, not worth your time.
The approach I take is to zero out the grade for any piece of assessment that plagiarized work, showing my evidence of plagiarism to the student when doing so.
If they complain, then the usual procedure can be followed. If not, they take a hit on their grades, but it wastes less of your time on the legal procedures that many universities require.

While I get the desire to avoid the paperwork, the danger of this approach is that it allows a student to repeatedly attempt the same behaviour in other classes.  If you report it, it helps to establish a pattern of behaviour.

@XanderHenderson Understood.  The processes I've seen at various places involve more time and legal costs than it's worth. I'd be less inclined to use this approach for a Junior or Senior than for a Freshman or Sophomore. YMMV.

@XanderHenderson: FWIW, my approach has been to give an assignment-zero on the first offense, formal filing on the 2nd, and officially request disciplinary proceedings on the 3rd (or particularly egregious violations).

If you do not follow university procedure, you may be violating university policy, which might lead to punishment.  Further, if you do not apply procedure consistently, it may be discrimination.

@AnonymousPhysicist In America, rules are only to be followed when someone complains. At least that’s been my experience. Everyone breaks the rules, but it’s only when someone gets sued that the rules are actually applied.

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


text:
How should students decide whether to take the honors version of a 1st or 2nd year undergraduate class?
This question is motivated by my own experience taking the honors' track of STEM classes during my undergraduate years and the subsequent opportunity for reflection on the role/appropriateness of such classes now that I teach.  During my first 4 semesters of college, I was advised to take honors' STEM courses, probably due to my AP test scores.  Though each class was taught by a different professor, there were certain common features including accelerated pacing and sequencing that drew upon several different textbooks, and in two courses there was almost no regular homework given.  In my math classes, important foundational ideas were simply not presented.  (For example, differential equations was taught using only matrix representation, and vector calculus was taught using an upper undergraduate text on differential forms.  Simple examples were simply not covered.)
Though I was mostly successful in learning the content as emphasized in the courses, I was also unsettled to realize that I was missing important foundational ideas.  It wasn't hard to learn these additional ideas on my own, but in retrospect I have also come to realize that many of my classmates weren't integrating ideas into the big picture because the classes' approach was anti-survey.
I'd estimate that a quarter to a third of the students in these honors courses are successful at integrating the ideas into a big picture.  I suspect that the students' ability to integrate the concepts depends more on the students' outside intellectual curiosity to learn things on their own, and much less on the guidance from the professors.  And the advanced material of the honors' courses would have been presented as on-level in junior- and senior-level courses anyways.
I now view theses types of courses as an unnecessary academic gamble for most students, as most of the students who were in over their heads would probably have been more successful in the general on-level course.  At my school there was a window of time at the beginning of each semester when students could transfer from one course to another, but the really challenging stuff usually wasn't presented until halfway through the courses, at which point it was too late.  I don't know if the departments were aiming for a certain number of students in each course, but I never encountered the question of "Are your sure you want to take this course?" that I hope other students were asked.
The problem is how should students' decide if the honors course is appropriate?  For the course that I teach, I have more applicants than seats available and I am able to meet with each student before they enroll and discuss the level of rigor, but I don't believe that is the general model.  Probably the more universal case is that an honors course has more available seats than applicants, and the faculty need a certain minimum number of students to enroll for the course to run.

I experienced some of this, both as an honors student and then as a professor teaching honors chemistry, and your concerns are definitely shared by me. Just reading what you wrote brings back some decidedly mixed (very good and very not good) feelings. I still cringe at some of what passed for honors courses I took.

Welcome to Academia.SE. Note that, like other SE sites, we only take questions that can be authoritatively answered (albeit often subjectively) with references or expertise. In fact, “I’m curious if other people feel like I do" is specifically listed as an anti-pattern in our help center. But there is an interesting point here, perhaps you could rephrase it as "how should students decide whether to take the honors version" (if such a question does not already exist). You could even answer your own question with some of the content above.

@cag51 thanks for the feedback, will editing the question as opposed to posting a new question work?

In this case, either way should be fine.


text:
Handling "contraband" tattoos in closed-book exams
I'm wondering how a proctor of a closed-book exam should approach the case where a student has a tattoo that would double as a cheat sheet. Maybe they think the math looks cool, or they got a nice calligraphy of a textbook passage, or they are just that desperate to cheat.
Now, on one hand, that tattoo is pretty much a permanent fixture. On the other hand, that is a cheat sheet written on your forearm. In fact, it might be a particularly brazen attempt at cheating. And on the gripping hand, the fact that a resource is available for easy reference whenever needed doesn't carry much weight in the context of a closed-book exam.
At least in my university, the general rule for exams is "No written material unless expressly permitted", and most of the exams that permit bringing a "cheat sheet" have had a restriction on the sheet size (e.g. one-sided hand-written A4 paper). Therefore, a situation may well arise that a student shows up for an exam with the maximum-sized cheat sheet, and some related math (purportedly) tattooed on their forearm. If I find myself proctoring an exam and this happens, how should I approach the situation?
This is an entirely hypothetical question so far, so I'm unable to provide details of a real-life example.

If a student loves a theorem or mathematical idea enough to get a tattoo representing it, I'm guessing that the student is going to have a very thorough understanding of the topic and won't need any aids to ace a test about that topic. (If a student is desperate enough to get a tattoo to cheat, however...)

I've never had to teach a class where this would be an issue.  But when I was an undergrad I took several classes where this would be an issue, and the profs tended either to allow each student to bring in one page of notes for exams, or to include in the exam itself one page listing "important formulas" and similar. Because they were not testing us on our memory of the formulas, but on whether we understood how to apply them. This practice also neatly renders tattooed formulas a non-issue.

There is special paint for covering tattoos. It's durable enough that it survives water, but can of course be removed later. Just saying

This seems so impractical that it's hardly worth worrying about. How many theorems can you fit on the areas of the body that would be exposed while taking an exam?

Here in Australia, many university depts provide a "formula sheet" with a closed book exam. My 3rd year solid state physics exam had a five double-sided page prologue of just about every fundamental formula, distribution and law used throughout the semester. Seems unlikely that your student's tattoo wouldn't already be on that...

As our [help/dont-ask] says, "You should only ask practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face." (bold added)  I don't think hypothetical, speculative questions like this -- for which there is no evidence that the situation occurs in practice -- are very useful.  If it ever does happen, feel free to ask at that time.

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because the question is about an extremely far-fetched hypothetical situation that will never occur in practice.

I have a friend who has tattooed a particular (stylized) form of the time-independent shrodinger's equation on their forearm.  This is a problem that probably does happen somewhere (this particular friend is not actually a physics student, just a science enthusiast and very very into tattoos).

Tom Rondeau has Maxwell's equations on his arm.

In defence re. closure, it appears to be a thing to tattoo math on your forearm, and my university has a generic "no written materials unless explicitly permitted" rule for exams which the tattoo might end up conflicting with.

Someone watched Prison Break :)

@HeikkiMäenpää it appears to not be a thing to tattoo math cheat sheets on one’s arm. A genuine tattoo done out of love for a famous equation is a completely different thing. On the other hand, if the question were about handwriting cheat sheets on one’s body, I‘d be willing to acknowledge that that is a thing.

"Cover it up" seems the only realistic solution if it appears to be a tattoo.
However, since we're discussing this in the hypothetical, writing a theorem on your arm may serve as a nice reminder of a basis from which to work on problems, but it can't really answer something useful for you. Just as younger students tend to look at their fingers when counting, they still have to put in the work of translating an abstract numerical problem to their fingers, then "read" the information from their hand, and finally write their answer down. We don't restrict their fingers as counting tools. Advanced students make more elaborate associations between concepts they're learning and something concrete -- this is usually encouraged by instructors when we explain things in plain language or metaphors. So, your question makes me think about what questions I'm asking my students. If it's just "Write down this definition from memory", then maybe I'm not going deep enough in the topic. Suppose instead that I said something like "Here's a definition of a key term you can look up anywhere, or tattoo it on your arm if you really like it! Now, which of the following things matches this description?"

Great answer. Memorizing formulas will not take someone very far. Memorizing Boyle's Law might be helpful in an introductory Chemistry course, but what happens in later courses or real research when the student does not know how to apply Boyle's Law to non-canned contexts or whether it even applies to the problem they are trying to solve? At a sufficiently high course level, I would say that an instructor requiring students to memorize factoids is doing it wrong.

"Just as younger students tend to look at their fingers when counting" For what it's worth, I still sometimes count on my fingers (but I usually don't have to look at them when doing so), and I went through school math--including calculus--before calculators, plus being a math nerd I did plenty of lengthy numerical calculations back then, so I was certainly adept then (and now) at standard arithmetical algorithms.

If it is a tattoo, then the proctor may ask that it is covered : plaster, bandage etc. If the student refuses then they may not be allowed to sit the exam.
However, it does depend on the institution and the institution’s regulations and any specific conditions for that exam...
If it is simply written then the student can wash their hands...

The purpose of learning is to have that knowledge and understanding with you your entire life. Assuming a tattoo is at least as permanent as your memories, wouldn't it stand to reason that it be allowed on the test? A closed-book test is intended to simulate a scenario where one cannot rely on outside sources of information to solve a problem. "You might not have your textbook with you in the field, so you shouldn't have to rely on it," but you will never be without your tattoo any more than you would be without the things you learned in class.

This assumes the test is perfect, which is not a warranted assumption. For example, say what the test is really trying to get at is whether you can replicate the reasoning behind a particular derivation but it does so by asking you to reproduce the derivation based on the reasonable assumption that you can't replicate the derivation without the reasoning. One could tattoo just the derivation, not the reasoning. In other words, this can exploit imperfections in the testing giving you an undeserved grade.

@DavidSchwartz  Replicating a reasoning behind a particular derivation is better done in an oral examination, not in a written one.

@MassimoOrtolano Agreed. I'm just saying, this answer would only be correct if the test is perfect. One can imagine many ways this technique could exploit a defect in the test and cause the test not to measure what it was supposed to measure.

If I suspected that a student had got a tattoo in order to help them in an exam, I would not be treating that as misconduct. I'd be treating it as prima facie evidence of a mental health crisis.
It's not a practical way to cheat. Tattoos are painful, they take weeks to heal, professional tattoos are expensive, amateur tattoos are dangerous, visible tattoos are stigmatised in many circles, and it's not a tactic you can reuse more than a couple of times because there's only so much skin on your arms. It's less trouble just to memorise the damn thing. If a student is actually trying this, there's something seriously wrong in their life and they need help.
OTOH, if a student got a tattoo for some other reason - like they really love Euler's identity and want to carry it around with them forever - then I wouldn't sweat it. If they love it that much, they probably had it memorised before they ever got the tattoo. If not, they probably will have after a couple of weeks of looking at it every day. Maybe ask them to cover it up to avoid complaints from other students, but it's not likely to make a difference.


text:
(How) Do journals keep kook papers from clogging up the review system?
I have written two papers and submitted them to two different journals, and in both instances the process was as simple as registering an account and uploading the paper. While this system was quite convenient and in the spirit of open sharing of knowledge, I can't help but notice that any kook could stick their paper into the publication pipeline.
I looked at this answer, which tells me how the kook publication would be caught by the peer review process. However, this means that some time and resources have been allotted to finding the reviewers and the reviewers have at least looked at the paper, and maybe even taken the time to replicate the experiment.
So, my question is: what sort of safeguards, if any, are usually in place to keep kook papers from tying up resources?

The first two papers I was asked to review were crank papers for respectable journals. So perhaps the answer includes "throw reviews at inexperienced graduate student reviewers."

Desk rejection by the editor..

That's a big part of it, surely.  But I still wonder how the editors of some journals do anything other than desk reject kook papers.

Maybe they have assistant editors wygodę only responsibility is filtering out kook papers?


text:
I wrote a research paper and just realized that my idea has been published before. Must I cite?
I work as an engineer in industry. I have been working alone in a project of my firm for four months. In the course of this, I invented a technique which can optimize and reduce considerably the cost for my firm.
The R&D manager said my work is original, he hasn't seen it before. Therefore, my work will be presented to the director of my firm in the committee meeting next month, and he agreed with me that I can publish my work.
Yesterday, when I made some verification of citation sources, I found a thesis, published in December 2016 with the same idea as mine.
I made up this technique on my own, and I have never known this thesis before. But the key idea is already published in the thesis.
I understand now that I can no longer publish my technique. Even if I find my technique is actually more general and seems better than the technique in this thesis, it is not sufficient to publish unless I make more improvement.

"Even if I find my technique is actually more general and seem better than the technique in this thesis, it is not sufficient to publish unless I make more improvement." I don't understand. "More general" and "better" are two valid arguments why your work is an improvement to the state of the art. Why do you need even more improvement?

The technique in the thesis apply in a particular case with a restraint condition, my technique can be used in general case without the restraint condition, and the speed of calculation is better because I found a general formula.
But the main key of idea is from the particular cas. Just an example, with the technique in the thesis, we can gain 100$, with my technique, we can gain 105$.

I think you are right. In the case I write a paper, must I cite the thesis?

OK, I think in this case you're fine, see my answer. You seem to worry about the use of the same idea, but an idea is not much of a research contribution in itself. The execution of the idea is more important, and your execution seems to work better than the existing one.

What makes you think that you shouldn't cite?

You must cite. On the other hand, you have an improvement and, depending how difficult it is to attain (and it looks you have some novel techniques there), it is a perfectly valid research contribution, even if the core idea is not novel.

Must I cite?

Yes, you must cite the thesis, since it's part of an author's responsibility to give an accurate representation of the state of the art.

I understand now that I can no longer publish my technique

I think these worries might be unjustified. Most research is incremental, in the sense that it improves on existing work, rather than inventing something completely new. Just cite the work and clearly discuss (or even better, show experimental evidence) why your technique gives an improvement in terms of generality and speed.

Thank you for your advice. For my firm, tomorrow I will talk to my R&D manager about the existence of the thesis. I'll cite this thesis in the paper I will write. A little sad because just one night, my contribution drop from 105$ to 5$ and I can take the risk of plagiaism, sometimes I wish I didn't know the existence of the thesis. But I understand, it's life of R&D.

I'm curious: what is the rationale behind this, if one did not consult the other source in the preparation of the work, but created the same thing totally independently?

@mike3 A paper needs to have a scientific contribution, that is, present a knowledge advancement. To make its contribution clear, a paper needs to portray the state of the art accurately,

@lighthouse keeper: Perhaps, but I am more trying to figure out how and why that coming up with something on two independent occasions by two different people would make one "plagiarizing" the other. As I thought that plagiarism must involve an act of copying. Simultaneous creation of the same thing independently in two separate places is not the same as copying it from one place to another.

@mike3 You're right in that Nguyen would not actually commit plagiarism by not citing. Still, he would neglect his responsibility to portray the state of the art accurately, which is a violation of publication ethics. Intentionally not citing may fall under plagarism policies, since there's no way for a reader to distinguish between actual simultaneous creation and a deliberate omission of related work.


text:
Will a 5 year gap between Undergrad and PhD hurt my chances?
I am a 29 year old with an Undergraduate degree from Berkeley in Biochem. I graduated in 2012 with every intention of applying to PhD programs after taking a year or two off to work.
Due to some health issues and the economic slump I was unemployed for awhile. Now I've been working in the Biotech industry for 2 years and with the support of my two bosses who are both science PhD's themselves I finally feel confident and ready to apply. By the time I intend to apply (this fall) I will have 3 years of Biotech Research experience. While I was an undergrad I worked as a research apprentice all 4 years so I also have a lot of experience in academic research.
My biggest question and concern is: will my time in industry hurt me? Could it be an asset? Can I succeed in getting into a good school as a less than conventional applicant?

I like to tell my friends that I am "the ripe old age of 29." No, you'd probably be just as fine in your mid-30s applying for a PhD assuming your grades, test scores, history, and interview are fine.

I successfully applied for a PhD program in Computer Science 31 years after completing my bachelor's degree, and 26 years after completing my master's. I did have good industry references, but so do you.

I worked for 2-3 years after my undergraduate degree before applying to doctoral programs, and I think my work experience only helped. Like you, my job was relevant to the programs to which I ultimately applied. I was able to explain in my statement of purpose how my job experience strengthened my research skills and actually motivated my decision to apply to graduate school. As long as your application is strong (good letters, good GRE scores, etc), I can't see the gap between undergraduate and graduate school mattering that much.
That being said, one point you may want to address is how you kept your "academic muscles" toned over the last 5 years. Some people find the transition back to academic life difficult after extended periods away from it, and it may be useful to demonstrate somewhere in your application how you have kept in contact with the academic world, even if it was only indirectly.

I was 27 and with 4 years in different research positions when I applied for PhDs in Operations Management (almost all in business schools). My experience is that some schools seem to be very focused on young students, fresh from undergrad or master's, while some other schools or departments prefer people with more experience. I had a very poor BSc/MSc GPA but having research experience (even of the first 2 years were in a totally unrelated field), papers, and good recommendation letters, I got admitted in a lot of very, very top schools.
I wish you good luck!

Age 29 is still young. University can't and shouldn't judge you by how old you are, this is illegal in most countries.
They will look at:

Your PhD proposal
Your academics achievements
Your research potential
PhD interview (if any, requirements for some programs)
How your industry experience relates to your research
Recommendation letter from your academics and industry connections (if any)
How you are compared relative to other candidates

I'm a few years older than you but I'm still confident for my application.

I'm not familiar with the biochem field but I've heard if the experience is applicable it is preferable to candidates without experience. Even if it's just life experience, those qualifications are still useful. The checklist (maybe not in order of importance) is probably something like...

How good are candidates at the tasks they will be required to
perform. Measured by grades, quality of portfolio, procedural work related experience.
How much growth and exposure will the candidate get the school. How ambitious, how enthusiastic, publications / exposure of portfolio, wealth, name, etc.
How easy are they to work with. How punctual, your work ethic, communication skills, are you a jerk, etc.

If you're just hitting the last one that's still useful. But your experience seems like it's relevant so best case scenario you'd be filling out the first category as well. Obviously the rest depends on who else is applying and whatever other variables come with the school.


text:
How to provide in-text citation for Appendix
My master's dissertation has been sent back to me for copy edits before publication. One of the comments from the editors is "please provide in-text citation for Appendix". Now, I haven't actually referenced the appendix anywhere in the paper, it's more just extra information that relates to the topic and some of my interviewees who provided field data. How shall I go about doing this?

The easiest solution is to provide a reference to the Appendix (e.g., "for further details, see Appendix) wherever the additional information is relevant. If your Appendix contains several different types of content then subheadings would be helpful. Then, you can reference the specific Appendix sections in your text. Seeing as you're at the copyediting phase now, you likely don't have many other options.

Thank you, I have taken your advice. Makes sense. Very much appreciated.