text:
What do I do if I feel there are many things which need to be learnt to do my research?
I am a second year PhD student in probability from the UK. I enjoy what I do, but here is a problem:
as I dig deep into my study, I realize I have to read a lot of stuff I do not fully understand and they often arise in fields of study which are not probability, but related areas: e.g. PDE theory, functional analysis.
I have a basic understandings about some of these things, sometimes I might even feel I have enough to get by, but I am unsatisfied. This is perhaps due to the fact I never studied some of these topics as an undergraduate, but to be fair, no one told me an understanding of PDE theory is very useful to probability (I even think this only depends on what you do)
I do want to know more and previously I tried to attend multiple courses in a term to make up for some of this - this was not effective. Going to 1 or 2 courses a term is fine, but doing any more is a big drain of time if I want to fully understand the material lecture.
So have others experienced this? What is the best way of getting around this?

What I try to do is read the papers "backwards". Let me explain. I don't go for the foundations and then read everything in the area, on the contrary I find a paper that (I'm sure) is interesting to me (probably very recent as well) and I backtrack through the citations and searching on the web for information until I can understand it. Therefore reading a paper takes very long and I don't get a wide knowledge, but it's deep and guaranteed to be necessary (to understand the first paper). This isn't perfect, but it's possible to survive like this.

@dgraziotin as I said, this isn't perfect. You point one limitation, which is the topic identification or identifying what is relevant for the state of the art (SOA). There is another limitation, you don't know what you don't know, and often understanding the SOA isn't enough to propose something that goes beyond it, it is often the case that you need a good understanding of a broader picture, but then you are in front of a vast ocean and your only hope (AFAIK) is having someone (e.g. a supervisor) that can tell you the direction to explore, so that you are not completely lost. IMHO.

@dgraziotin And you did read 30k papers on this topic, right? The questions seems to ask what is the level of knowledge one one should get.

so have others experienced this?

Basically every smart person feels like that when starting their studies. The majority of the people for which this is not true are usually not the second coming of Terence Tao or Dr. Sheldon Cooper, but simply affected by the Dunning-Kruger Effect. You are not supposed to know everything, and in fact you never will. You already have a head start on your colleagues, who have simply not yet discovered (or wilfully ignore) that they do not fully comprehend many of the seminal papers in your or related fields. You, at least, can work on this in order to produce better research.

what is the best way of getting around this?

There is no getting around this. To paraphrase the title of your question, many things are to be learned. That's part of doing a PhD. The trick is to learn what you will really need for your research, and to not get lost in the things that are interesting but ultimately not relevant to you. This requires some experience. Hopefully, your advisor or a postdoc will put you on track of what to focus on for now.
As funny as the advice mentioned by @dgraziotin above sounds - in practice, what you really need to develop is a good mental filter to select the 15 or so papers from a 30k papers field that are really relevant to to you.

the first part made me feel so much better... but there is still a lot to do.

Thank you, i think i can offer you something better than an accept - a populist badge, as a sign of gratitude. This is gaming the system, but i dont feel too bad about it

You have lost me here ...

i misread the description for populist badge, never mind :P

Man... I have this problem on an hourly base. Here I will throw a bunch of "strategies" I have been accumulating for you to consider.
Sleep on it
Seriously. If I have to actually learn everything I think I should learn, I'd need to be live beyond 480 years old. And since the more you learn, the more you don't know... this route is not viable.
A lot of the times, I suppressed the impulse and slept on it. In the process I usually think about this questions:

Do I need to learn this or do I want to learn this? Would the new knowledge make my work complete or make it better?
Can the piece stand alone fine without it? Can it still contribute to the research questions I need to answer?
Can I explain what I wouldn't learn as a potential extension/development in the Discussion section? Perhaps other people can work on it?

Usually after a couple rounds of iteration, I could ditch most of what I wanted to learn, and focus on learning the skills that would make my projects a complete project.
Keep a wish list
Be it a go or not, I always write that down whenever I thought I need to know something. I use EverNote to document all these strayed thoughts. And if I come across any relevant materials (review articles, short courses, software, etc,) I'll document them with the same tags.
Draw a skill tree
It also pays off to sit down and analysis what are your knowledge and skill sets. A skill tree is simply just a conceptual framework or mind map that links up your skills and domain knowledge. Some people may grow a big deep-rooted tree while some may favor a garden of little bit of everything. We need both types of people but generally I would consider in academia it is better to have a good big tree with some side bushes.
Now, you can focus on a few major branches, what are the domain knowledge? What are the skills associated with them? And what are the applications that are associated with each skill? I found it easier to start with my courses I have taken and the syllabi of those courses. You can also consider using some competencies published by professional organization as a blueprint.
For myself, my big tree is statistical analysis applied in biomedical studies. If someone asks me to work on a project about, say, psychometrics, which is part statistics part psychology... I may return to look at my trees and think if this new skill will make a logical branch, or it's too far off. And if it's too far off, is it worth to plant a new one for this? And what kind of root (aka basic courses or books) do I need to plant? Then decide if it's a go or not.
I found this exercise pretty useful because i) it's therapeutic, you may be amazed by your domain knowledge. And you're likely going to feel better about yourself. And ii) having a bird view network helps a lot on deciding the relevance of the desired skills.
Think return of investment
Before diving into the skill, think how much the skill can help you back. There are many sides to consider:

Will it lead to higher competitiveness or salary?
Will it complement/strengthen your skill tree? Would there be any synergy?
Can you re-purpose or re-use this skill? How versatile it is?
Will I be using this skill enough to rip the benefit of the time and resource I spent in the learn process? etc.

Return of investment exercise is best done when you have competing desired skills to learn. Put them side by side, design a rubric if you must, and evaluate which one is better to go for.
Gathering good resources is 80% of the game
Okay... after much thought, we decided to learn a skill. When learning a new skill the major problem is not knowing where to start. I usually perform this beginning rituals:

Read up on Wikipedia or other encyclopedia to acquire general lingo.
Read a couple relevant review articles.
Schedule a meeting with a someones proficient in that skill/knowledge and ask for a few recommendations on i) text book, ii) journals, iii) controversies, and iv) prominent schools of thought and researchers in the field.
Search for some syllabi that teach these knowledge and document their text books, software, course structure, etc. Those usually give you a good sense on what to cover.
Gather all materials, and start working on it.

Immerse at least 20 hours into it with undivided attention
This is a slight modification of Kaufman's The First 20 Hours: How to Learn Anything... Fast!. The book itself is not super groundbreaking but Kaufman also pulled a stunt journalism and explained how he learned some new skills and brought them up to functional level in 20 hours. It's an entertaining read, but what I got away from it is the importance of preparation and immersion.
I usually spread my learning into many 90-minute chunk, and then make sure to enter these blocks first at the start of every week. I laid out what I need to learn, read, do exercises, watch videos, perform self-evaluation, talk to others (e.g. your committee members or other scholars)... It's actually pretty amazing looking at how I become a half-baked specialist in a matter of week.
In the learning process, I focus on learning the basics really well, and I write down a lot of questions (for me or my specialist friends to answer later.) I also try to figure out the flow the ideas and their connections. When working on a problem I don't insist of getting it right, but I do insist on getting why it's wrong.
Compose a self-learning syllabus every 6 months
Every semester I also compose a self-learning syllabus. Basically I design courses for myself. I started doing this last year because I was getting tired always having to catch up with tasks that require me to learn new skills. I wanted to turn the table: I am going to learn some skills that I chose, and I'll look for opportunities in the tasks that I can apply what I learn and enrich the contents. I feel that being even just very so slightly more proactive has injected a good sense of control into my life.
Closing remarks
I can't say I am a successful learner, but I am moving along bit by bit. Action, even just very little each time, is the most important ingredient. Hikers may know this feeling... all the hills look so darn tall, but once you stepped onto the trail, the scenery was great, the air was fresh, and suddenly you forgot to wonder how tall the hill was.

If your question is:

How do I learn (quickly) all the material that I need in order to be
  proficient in my area

then Penguin_Knight's answer has some excellent suggestions.
If the question is also

How do I avoid feelings of despair and hopelessness when I think of
  how much I have to learn

then the trick is to change the premise. You're not acquiring knowledge in a Ph.D as if you're drinking from a (very large) cup that needs to be finished before you can move on.
Rather, you've been plonked down without preparation in the middle of a raging river, when all you've ever dealt with before are little rivulets that drip into a cup.
Accordingly, the goal here is not to try and "drink the river", but merely to observe little eddies and streams in the torrent and learn something about them. As you become more and more proficient, you'll see more and more of the river and you'll be able to manipulate it better, but you are never "in control" of the entire torrent.
I might be stretching this analogy further than it can go, but hopefully my point is coming through: that you shouldn't fall into the fallacy of having to learn "everything" in order to be a competent researcher. Rather, as Penguin_Knight says early on, you should think strategically about what you really need to learn and how you can pick up relevant skills based on what you're working on.

One way to keep it in perspective is to realize that these feelings are only going to become more extreme as your career progresses, but they aren't actually a problem in themselves.  Instead, once you get used to them, they can actually be a source of joy.
You're never going to catch up, because the amount you learn will grow at best linearly with time, while the amount of research you recognize to be relevant and important will grow rapidly (seemingly exponentially) as you learn more.  You'll never be able to say "Well, now I've got a solid foundation in everything I need to know," because each topic you learn will naturally suggest two more.  And the more you understand how deep and interconnected everything is, the more you will realize how limited your understanding actually is.  Anyone who thinks they have the world all figured out is not a researcher.
As I see it, this is cause for celebration.  The scope of your favorite subject is unbounded!  In a few years, you will happily be using ideas you barely understand right now, or perhaps haven't even heard of yet.  From a broad enough perspective, you have interests in common with researchers who superficially seem to be doing something utterly different.  Why would you give up infinite possibilities in favor of a limited world?
I can sympathize with feeling overwhelmed.  I remember sitting in a class thinking to myself "This is beautiful stuff, but I'm glad I won't need to use it myself, because that would be a lot to master in addition to my own research area," and then, a few years later, realizing to my horror that I did need to master it.  It's not easy, but you shouldn't let that put you off.  Research isn't easy for anyone.  Famous mathematicians are also missing knowledge that would help them in their research, just like you are, so nobody can judge you or look down on you for your ignorance.  Ultimately, we are all ignorant and struggling to become less so.  Fortunately, what we learn is enough to justify the struggle.
As for concrete suggestions, the other answers have lots of useful information, especially the one by Penguin_Knight.  One thing I'd emphasize is the importance of keeping at it over time, even if progress seems slow.  It's easy to get depressed if you work intensely on something and have to give up when you can't sustain the time commitment.  By contrast, slow but continual progress will really accumulate over time.

You have 2 choices.
1) as a probability researcher, invent the infinite probabability drive and use this to increase the probability that you can instantly learn everything that will ever be known.
2) go back and read xLeitix's great answer.
http://hitchhikers.wikia.com/wiki/Infinite_Improbability_Drive


text:
Applying for a post-graduate degree with an Italian three-year bachelor's degree
I will get an information science under graduate degree this July in an Italian university. I want to apply for a computer science degree at an American university. Here in Italy the high school lasts five years instead of four, and the undergraduate degree (laurea triennale) lasts three years instead of four.
So my concerns are:

Is there a way to get a list of all American universities that accept an Italian laurea triennale as an undergraduate degreee?
Since I will graduate in July and in most universities the next semester begins in September, I think that I should start applying from now. So the question is: do they allow students to apply even before they got the graduate degree and TOEFL?

It is standard practice in the US for students to apply for graduate programs before they have received a degree, and the TOEFL exam is normally taken as part of the admissions process.
However, you should also be aware of the fact that you have largely missed the admissions "window" for this coming fall: at most American graduate schools, you need to apply during the previous fall. So, for instance, to apply for admission in September 2014, you should have applied during the period (roughly) September 2013 to January 2014.
It is unlikely you will be able to secure admission to any American graduate school starting this September. At best you will be able to apply for admission in the fall of 2015. The only exception will be schools with "rolling admissions," which accept applications at any time.
As for the acceptance of the "triennale" degree, you will need to ask the individual schools you're interested in; I'm not aware of any such master list (because the number of recipients of such degrees who enroll in any particular program probably isn't big enough to support such a list).

I suspect many schools may not even have a fixed policy on this particular degree.  The burden would be on you, in your application, to make the case that your degree is roughly equivalent to a US bachelor's degree and qualifies you for entrance into the program.

The laurea triennale I believe is the Italian version of the bachelor's degree under the "Bologna process," so in that sense should be fairly close to a four-year baccalaureate from the US.

Yes, but it's 3 years so I have far less credit hours.

@RamyAlZuhouri: Your overall credit hours will likely be less, but you will also likely have more coursework in the major to compensate.

I was admitted to a graduate program at UCSD based, in part, on a 3-year bachelor's degree from London University. There did not seem to be any issue at all with the duration or number of course units. I don't know whether it would have been different if that had been my only qualification - I also had a master's degree and very substantial work experience.
Many of my fellow students had bachelor's degrees earned outside the US, and the admissions process seemed to be designed to handle that smoothly.
I do think you have left applying far too late for starting in Fall 2014. You probably need to reset to Fall 2015, plan what to do for the next year, and collect the critical dates for applying to each university you would like to attend.

The italian laurea triennale should be the equivalent of an US bachelor degree.  I think that professor from your Italian university can help you to understand better the situation.
You should not encounter any problems.  As long you respect the   deadline

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
How to symbolize that figure is cropped?
I need to add a photo with some additional data drawn over it to my thesis in computer science. But the photo is large and I want to crop bottom half of it. But then it could be misleading, that there is a part of the image missing.
I will write it to the image description, but I want it to be obvious at first sight without reading the description. Is there some standard way to display that part of the figure is cropped?

Standards are likely to vary across disciplines. You should probably specify yours.

True. I've edited the question, it's computer science.

What kind of a figure is that? If it is a plot, and you want to zoom in to a particular range of it, then you may want to include full plot, then a zoomed in one. For the latter, you may mention that "plot of y from x{a to b}" in the caption. Plus, it would be much better if you say a few lines about why this particular range is important to be emphasized this way, in between your text.
This is not a symbolization, but an effective one to crop something out of a drawing. Thus, I'd prefer this if I were to read your thesis.

It's not a plot, it's photo with some additional data drawn over it.

Then I suggest the previously suggested way of doing it: Draw a visible rectangle on the area you are going to crop it; then write a few lines of reasoning behind the importance of this particular area, then put the cropped version with appropriate captions.

You can show it is cropped by having a lined/dashed border around the edges this will show that it is cropped.

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


text:
How to deal with a difficult team supervisor?
I m in the fourth year of my PhD in veterinary sciences in North America. My Research project involves a lot of farm/team work. I have to work with technicians, farm staff, research associates and other students in the team as well as my advisory committee. I attended in many leadership workshops but still find it hard to deal with negativity, anger and control issues from one of my superiors. She in managing students as a research associate and has quite an influence on my advisor. She told me herself that she has chosen to be mean to people and has been humiliating others and me in various occasions. What should I do? How can I keep myself safe from anger, control issues and related stress?

I am unclear about your situation. Is she just your team mate? Is she also a graduate student? Does she have supervisory power over you? Have you talked to your advisor about it? You said she has quite an influence on your advisor. To what extent is this influence? Is she really indispensible? Can you continue your research without her?

I would suggest to get to know some previous cases of reporting a harassment at your university. Sometimes reporting is worse than solving the problem by yourself.

She is a research associate. Managing all the projects and lab works and teaching students new techniques. so in the beginning my supervisor asked me to check each experimental design specially if it involves farmwork with her. She has influence because she is scientifically good and knows what she is doing but unfortunately not in the case of professional behaviour.

In terms of reporting her I have talked and witnessed few other cases of harassment. University might help you to come out of the harassment circle but won't do anything to solve the problem. That person will stay in the university specially if she/he brings a lot of funding. so money talks at the end!

Being mean and humiliating anyone, let alone subordinates, in the workplace (academia or otherwise) is inappropriate and should not be tolerated. I would suggest you informally talk to whomever is in charge of harassment claims at your university to let them know what is up. Depending on how bad the situation is, you could either file a formal complaint or go talk to the person directly. By having the informal talk with HR you will be protected if your one-on-one discussion blows up.

She told me herself that she has chosen to be mean to people and has been humiliating others and me in various occasions.

It seems you have talked to her, but did you tell her that her attitude and behavior is making it difficult to do your job? Maybe you can work something out where she is less abusive to you or that your work environment is more structured to prevent the harassment. Hopefully that will resolve the issues, if not, file the complaint.
University's do not kid around with complaints about harassment. These types of formal complaints make promotion much more difficult and will often be reported in any reference written by the department head. They often will require the individual to receive training and monitoring. Once the possibility of a formal complain is on the table it is in the best interested for the colleague to do everything possible to prevent the complaint. Once a formal complaint is raised any escalation by the colleague will likely be dealt with swiftly and harshly by the University.

'University's do not kid around with complaints about harassment' Sadly, they often do. Many academic institutions work as self-defending groups and there is always the risk of a backfire. I fully agree that abusive behavior should be systematically reported but OP should be aware of the associated risks. In this case, as it seems that OP is not a lone victim she should seek support from others and maybe take a common action.

Unfortunately @Jigg is right. I studied few other cases in our department and other faculties. It SEEMS that university cares but the actions are opposite and when things get serious they retreat and put their priorities first.

You seem to be close to completing your PhD so the usual answer here of "Run don't walk" don't seem to be the way out. Instead you need to find a way to go through the final time. I would strongly suggest seeking professional help. Hopefully your school has access to psychologists or the equivalent who can not only help out with personal problems but in your case, more importantly, how to manage difficult personalities. I have no doubts that it is and will be a burden at times but for you the question is finishing or not, what the effects on yourself will be and in the short of it, is it worth it if you add all factors together. Only you can answer that question. It does not seem as if you have come far down that path so trying to find the support and guidance from professionals on how to deal with difficult personalities is the best way forward. You will bump into these later in life as well so gaining understanding and acquiring strategies is never a waste of time.

Thanks @peter! I have been in few counselling sessions in university. Also read few books to manage last 4 years dealing with her. Takes lots of energy and time some times more than PHD workload itself. It's a life time process. Any book or website recommendation?

I’m sorry to hear this; such situations can be unbelievably stressful and upsetting. As you’re in your fourth year, you’re nearly there and have your own network, which are very helpful.
Such situations are tricky because they can degenerate suddenly and unexpectedly. The ideal (not always possible) is to avoid conflict at almost all costs. Conflictual people tend to be better at managing disputes that break out...they often have had a lot of experience of this and you might discover that they are uncomfortably well acquainted with university harassment procedures etc.
I would hesitate to make a formal complaint unless if the situation becomes unbearable, as things may escalate and affect your relationships with others in your department, which might cause delays to your PhD. Hopefully, you are known in your department and group as a positive team member who isn’t associated with conflict. Maintain that reputation as long as you can.
I would also hesitate about approaching this supervisor one-on-one in order to directly address the behaviour. Any such discussion would need to be handled with extreme care so that your supervisor doesn't feel threatened. I would venture to suggest that avoiding any suggestion of threat could easily be impossible to achieve during such a discussion. It may be better to remain in the background as much as possible and minimize unnecessary interaction with your supervisor instead. Try to keep things very cool and professional.
Have you somebody more senior in the department you can confide in? A mentor would be perfect for this role, as long as they are discreet. Now would be a good time to request a mentor if you don’t have one.
Although it’s not nice to do, keep a diary of every incident, even if reasonably minor. Any unpleasant emails etc, keep them safe. This is because if things become more difficult, you might need every scrap of evidence.
I’d recommend pre-emptively reading the book by Bill Eddy “It’s all your fault: 12 tips for managing people who blame others for everything” as he gives a lot of good advice for avoiding being dragged into disputes and minimizing their fallout when they do occur.
If things become absolutely impossible (hopefully not), it may be possible to remove this supervisor from your committee. This is where having an impeccable interpersonal record, the diary and an established relationship with a senior member of your department comes in.
To end on a positive note, I think a lot of academics at all levels have had experience of these sorts of situations and we’ve all survived! But I wish you and others who come to this page good luck.

Thanks @L Platts. I will take a look at the book. Remaining in the background and minimizing my interactions is what I have done so far in last 4 years. I survived but witnessed her behaviour and hurt for me and others. I also tried to talk to her but she gets even more angry and mean. Now that I have more power over my project and have my main supervisors's support I started to question my self? Is that it? Just stay quiet? As @peter Jansson said: I gonna bump to this later in life. How I gonna deal with it then? She seem to enjoy humiliating others, not the first case and not the last.

The book really helped me. It provided tools for life. I would have just written read the book in my answer, because its philosophy is difficult to summarize, but Stack Exchange suggests writing a fuller answer so that's where all the rest came in! I hope the book helps you too.

topic is never outdated. I was dealing with bullying supervisor as well. fortunately I have managed to change my supervisor in the middle of second year. As 'my therapy' I  wrote couple of blog posts about 'dealing with difficult supervisor'. Part one is about 'easy cases', part two is about more difficult and part 3 is about bullying monsters!!
enter link description here
Hope everyone who is dealing with a supervisor like mine is able to  get out of this situation  ASAP!
Thanks,
Monika

Can you put some excerpt from your blog into the answer? SE frowns upon link-only answers


text:
What is the academic argument against Sci-Hub?
I know that some consider certain activities of Sci-hub to violate the law in some jurisdictions. Many of the previous questions and opinions related to Sci-hub have focused on these legal aspects (and they are certainly important to consider).
However, I am wondering what are the main harms or downsides associated with the existence of Sci-hub and similar services from the perspective of academics, researchers, and students. I am asking because this topic is relatively new to me, and I would like to better understand the main cons of Sci-hub as perceived by fellow academics (as opposed to publishers or lawyers).

Just about all of the answers seem to have been voted on whether the voter supports or doesn't support open source.  In some stack metas, an up-vote often means "I agree" and a downvote, the opposite.  In a main site, downvotes usually mean an answer is incorrect or not complete.  The voting pattern here feels abusive.

What is the academic argument against Sci-Hub?

There are none.  The arguments against sci-hub are legal or economic.  Copyright is a legal right, not a moral or intellectual right.
You could argue that repositories like ArXiv or open access journals are better than sci-hub because they are more reliable.  But that is not an argument against sci-hub.

Hmmm. "not a moral ... right". Are you suggesting that creators have no moral claim on their creations nor to benefit fairly from them?

@Anonymous Physicist Thank you. I also could not come to any convincing arguments on my own, which is why I have posted here. I hope it is ok if I wait for a few more answers. The ones so far have been interesting and helpful. But I do want to say that I appreciate your answer and am probably inclined to agree.

@Buffy If the "creations" are ideas and not physical objects, then there is no moral right to benefit from them.  As an academic, I don't deal with the creation of physical objects, so I won't go there.

Also, the true creator is the academic, not the publisher. Yet the copyright is often partially or totally assigned to the publisher. Thus, I personally feel an answer about how the academic is harmed is more convincing than one about harms to the publisher. (For instance, Buffy’s answer discusses how economic harm to the publisher may in turn damage an academic’s ability to publish. And David has proposed an example of a direct harm against the author.)

@AnonymousPhysicist do you consider any of the following physical objects? 1) Music 2) software 3) electronic versions of textbooks?

@Allure Definitely not.  I'm unclear on how that could even be open for questioning.

@AnonymousPhysicist are you saying then that there is no moral right for people to make livings off music/software/ebooks?

@Allure the comparison to music and software makes an interesting point. There is less incentive to make music if you can’t make a living from it. On the other hand, the analogy with academic publishing is not exact either. Academics do not publish articles primarily to make money.

@Allure, no, I am saying there is no moral right to the copyright on those things.  There might be a moral right to charge for live performances or to charge for the service of writing sheet music/software/ebooks.  When you buy music recordings or streaming subscriptions, the money goes to the copyright holder, who is usually not the artist.  Artists make most of their money from live performances.

@richard many musicians don't make music primarily to make money either. It's just that they don't have a choice if they want to put food on the table. The difference is academics don't actually have to monetize the research they do.

Good point. I didn’t mean to imply that about musicians and others. I was trying to point out that while musicians make money off of music sales, many academics do not make money from publishing. I do understand the point you are trying to make though.

The comparison between musicians and academics is interesting. Academics are often hired by the state, and producing research papers is part of their job as a civil servant. In some countries, it is even mandatory that this tax-funded content is published open-access. Would the same model work for musicians? The state selects the best musicians via a fair competition, and hires them to produce music that is then distributed for free and available to everyone. Maybe we should try to make musicians work more like academics, not the other way round.

Every journal and conference I've ever published with allows me to post my papers on my personal website and distribute them freely. When SciHub posts my work they are not actually adding any value, as my work is already available for free. Instead, they're breaking copyright law and driving traffic away from my personal website, where interested researchers might find out more about me and what I do.

So how do I find the papers you’ve put on your personal website? They won’t turn up in regular indexes (the paywalled journaled versions will), and will be lost in the noise on regular search engines. SciHub gives a centralised place to find accessible papers. Seems like added value to me (copyright law not withstanding).

Well, that's when SciHub posts your work :)

That said, don't be so sure. Even if the preprints you post on your website are text-equivalent to the respective published versions, many readers (especially those who want to cite the published version and thus need to make sure they're citing it correctly) will still want to see the published version, unless you explicitly say that your version is equivalent (which very few academics do).

This is an interesting answer. Thank you. As I understand it, the motivation is to drive those who can’t afford journal access to turn to your personal website, where they might find not only the paper but more of your research.

Personal websites are a bit ephemeral. When a person changes jobs, their old websites might be destroyed, leaving dead links.

@rhialto Google Scholar is very good at picking up PDFs from personal web sites.

While the legal and economic arguments around Sci-Hub are important, there are also potential harms from an academic perspective that are worth considering.
One key risk is the loss of traceability and integrity of the scholarly record. When articles are disseminated through unofficial channels like Sci-Hub, it becomes harder to ensure the version accessed is a reliable copy of the published work. This introduces the concerning possibility of undetected manipulation or corruption of articles. Even if such tampering is rare, the mere fact that it could occur without easy detection threatens researchers' ability to trust the stability of the scientific record. Unreliable citations and the spread of misinformation are serious downsides from an academic integrity standpoint.
Another potential harm is that relying on Sci-Hub as an alternative may reduce pressure to pursue more fundamental reforms to the academic publishing system. While Sci-Hub provides short-term access, its existence does not solve the underlying issues around paywalls, access, and costs that led to its creation. There's a risk that the availability of pirated papers could slow the momentum and incentive for universities, funders, and researchers to advocate for changes like responsible open access policies, shifting to non-profit publishing models, or reworking the incentive structures that preserve the status quo. To be clear, this is not to say all researchers supporting Sci-Hub see it as a complete solution - many likely view it as a stopgap or parallel effort. But there is a potential tradeoff between short-term access and long-term, sustainable change.
Moreover, there are valid questions about the wisdom of outsourcing civil disobedience against the current publishing system to a single individual. While Alexandra Elbakyan's efforts have undeniably increased access to academic works, relying on one person to illicitly provide that access introduces significant risks. It's unclear if Sci-Hub is a heroic act of resistance or a conduit for subversion by bad actors. The academic community should be wary of placing so much trust in a system with little accountability. If we believe that the current publishing model is unjust and that civil disobedience is justified, we should be exploring ways to do that collectively, as a community. Putting together "pools of disobedience" as researchers, while simultaneously demanding fair compensation and credit for our labor, would be a more sustainable form of resistance than depending on Sci-Hub alone.
All that said, it's also important to recognize the very real access challenges that lead researchers to turn to Sci-Hub, and the role its existence has played in catalyzing serious discussions about reform. While the downsides outlined above are concerning, they must be weighed against the benefits of increased access, particularly for researchers at institutions with limited resources. There are no easy answers.
One potential mitigation is to advocate for wider adoption of persistent identifiers like DOIs for articles and ORCID iDs for researchers. Consistently including these identifiers makes it much easier to verify that a copy of an article matches the version of record, even if accessed through an unofficial source. This doesn't eliminate the risks, but it provides an important safeguard and accountability mechanism. Funders and universities requiring these IDs as a matter of policy would be a step in the right direction. (As the US has recognized, since the NIH has been mandating ORCID since 2019, the NSF since 2023, and the entire US public R&D ecosystem will mandate them by 2027.)
I also think that arXiv + peer reviews at other websites is a healthier way of publishing, and one with a clearer governance structure.
Ultimately, Sci-Hub is a symptom of a broken system more than a solution. The academic community must continue to advocate for legal reforms like oversight of academic publishers' profit margin, open access mandate for all science that is publicly funded, and a clearer upfront discussion of the cost vs value-add of commercial and non-profit academic publishers. In the meantime, the risks to the integrity of the scholarly record that Sci-Hub introduces, and the questions it raises about the ethics of individual vs. collective disobedience, deserve serious consideration even if one believes its benefits outweigh its harms.

I don’t get done of the points you are making. For one, how do publishers guarantee "reliable copy of the published work"? The agent any signing processes or similar for publishers. Rather, many of my publications are changed by the publisher, ideally only to inject metadata (such as page numbers of a journal), but it is also not uncommon that a publisher recreates a paper from source (which often enough lead to subtle changes for me).

The other point is the persistent identifiers - I don’t get at all what this has to do with things. As far as I am aware, all these systems are persistent identifiers for the location of the content, not the content itself. They do not ensure that a paper can be accessed, not do they in any way allow to "verify that a copy of an article matches the version of record, even if accessed through an unofficial source".

Publishing requires money.
If you reduce the amount of money in the system, publishers will lose incentive to publish. That would be bad for authors since publishers, simply by publishing, provide a valuable service to authors as well as others wanting access to scholarly works.
It might be possible to do all of it as a charitable endeavor, but it would still require money. It needn't be a profit making business, but it isn't free (as in beer).
It is also possible to do this as a government (tax) funded operation. But that would bring the possibility of censorship of things that a given government might not want to support; reproductive health comes to mind in the US under the current government.
Online publishing requires less money than print, but most of the expenses are still there. It doesn't eliminate the need for money. People still expect to be paid for their efforts. And note that a publisher putting something online is, in effect, promising to keep that server running in perpetuity. Few organizations can make that commitment lightly.
So, the "academic" argument is actually an economic one. If you want something to exist, you need ways to assure that it does.

Let me note that if you are a working academic and need access to papers to continue your work, there are zero cost (to you) alternatives that are perfectly accepted and valid. If you ae normally grant funded you can usually charge access and, perhaps, even subscription fees to a grant. If you are not grant funded and your need is sporadic, you can sometimes get a university department to cover your fees. Failing that, you can sometimes contact authors for "preprints" that are often given to them for print journals. And, almost every academic librarian knows how to find copies of almost everything on the planet through inter-library loan. The existence of high fees need not be a block to academic progress.

It's a valid argument per se, but there's a cost-benefit computation to be made here. The benefit of an available infrastructure doesn't come for free, but costs academics and academic institutions money, either in the form of subscriptions, or of open-access fees. It's perfectly possible that most academic institutions would save money if the majority of the publishing infrastructure was based on a non-profit publishing service financed by networks of academic institutions, rather than relying on external service providers.

@lighthousekeeper, yes, that might be a viable economic model. There might be several others, but resources are required in any case.

If there's a viable economic model that lowers the publication-related cost for academic institutions while offering free open access, the economic argument against using Sci-Hub collapses.

@lighthousekeeper, but not if the use of SciHub still reduces the amount of money to below what is needed. Even your model might require some inputs from subscribers and/or authors. If the cost of running a university increases the funds must come from somewhere. The costs don't, somehow, disappear.

I'm not sure about that 'commitment' argument. If I have to bet on which one is more likely to keep a server online for the next 50 years between Cornell University and Elsevier, my money goes to Cornell. In addition, it would be easier for someone to make a dump of all Arxiv papers before it goes offline, than to do the same for Elsevier, just because they have to jump through fewer hoops to download them.

Also, regarding the censorship argument, note that the US government has already proved that they have the power to decide what Elsevier can or can not publish.

Thank you for writing this answer. It makes sense that if people stop paying for subscriptions, publishers will find it hard to survive. On the other hand, a lot of the users of Sci-hub are those who don’t have the money to pay for the articles in the first place. Are a lot of universities canceling their subscriptions to journals because of Sci-hub?

@richard, I don't know about that. The current system is far from ideal and it is good that things like open science are exploring options. But many uses of SciHub can also be handled just through inter-library loans from any decent library. Even in poorer countries. But I doubt that uncompensated "taking" is a sustainable solution.

Good point, thanks. But do you think that interlibrary loan has the same problem? As a substitute, it also seems to decrease profits for publishers.

@richard, they are actually fine with publishers. It is a long tradition of sharing. It was an easier concept when all published materials were physical and there were no cheap copying mechanisms, but the traditions continue.

I encourage people not to downvote this answer only because they find it unconvincing. I asked for arguments against Sci-hub, so please only downvote if you find an answer to be low-quality. Otherwise, even answers I disagree with are valuable for my learning.

-1 for an answer that ignores existing alternatives to the subscription business model. Copyright and paywalls are just one way to fund publishing.

Sci-Hub violates copyright law.
Do you believe in copyright law? I'm certain you use a lot of copyrighted things in your work (e.g. Windows, Google Chrome). When you use a program like Google Chrome, you are supposed to agree with the terms of service. Typically these terms will include something similar to this line:

9.2 Subject to section 1.2, you may not (and you may not permit anyone else to) copy, modify, create a derivative work of, reverse engineer, decompile or otherwise attempt to extract the source code of the Software or any part thereof, unless this is expressly permitted or required by law, or unless you have been specifically told that you may do so by Google, in writing.

What Sci-Hub does is say "I don't care about this, I'm taking your program and reverse-engineering it anyway, because it is for the greater good"*. If we take this to its logical conclusion, then to do research I need to have access to a computer (therefore it should be permissible for me to rob my local computer store), power supply (ditto for siphoning power off the local power grid), and install a pirated version of Windows (my grant is already too small to pay for software licenses, Microsoft already makes billions of dollars in profit anyway). Hell, if I need grant funding to send a space probe to Uranus and NASA rejected my application, I should be allowed to hold the NASA director hostage until he funds me. It's all for the greater good.
If you've read the Harry Potter series you might recognize that phrase as the mantra of the Dark Wizard Grindenwald.
All that said, it's ultimately up to your personal values and morals. I am against using it entirely, and would not approve of anyone who does.
PS: Here's a recent question by someone looking to make money off a textbook. If the book is published, Sci-Hub is undoubtedly going to pirate it too, because making its information accessible to all is for the greater good. Is it? Again, it's up to your personal values and morals.

*If you think Sci-Hub is a benevolent entity that only breaks the laws by sharing the files it acquired legally, read the link.
Edit:
Tried to access a particular article and ran into this error message:

Thanks, Sci-Hub. /sarcasm

Thank you for the answer. If I understand, you are saying that following the law is itself of academic value. Otherwise, we should be concerned about people breaking all kinds of laws and social contracts in the name of furthering research and learning. It is dangerous to endorse illegal activity just because it enables some virtuous goals. Is that correct?

@richard not completely - I believe copyright law is itself justified, and if a jurisdiction didn't have copyright law I would be in favor of implementing it.

Thank you for clarifying. So whether a person is against Sci-hub may reflect whether their moral stance on copyright law (as it applies to academic publishing). And you feel that academics should support the existing copyright laws.

-1 Copyright law is already riddled with exceptions. From the angle of copyright law, the question is whether an exception for academic works would be justified, not whether we should abolish all copyrights.

Which is still "no", per the PS in the answer. Also, those who want to release their works under a free-to-access license can already do so - just nobody does it.

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