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Is having access to past exams cheating and, if yes, could it be proven just by a good grade?
I studied for three weeks straight for an exam because I was really anxious to pass it with a high grade, while everyone else didn’t study much. Now the problem is, I had access to the exam from the previous year because someone gave it to me. I don’t know where this person got this exam, but I think it was made public after he completed his exam. The thing is I don’t know if I was allowed to have them or not.
Now the exam is over and I didn’t receive my grade while everyone else received it. The average grade for the exam is approximately 50%. Now my professor wants me to see him in his office about the exam, but doesn’t tell me why. The only explanation I can think of would be cheating. My guess is that I scored way higher than everyone else and now I’m kind of panicking.
It’s also important to note that on the exam, half of the questions were very similar as the one from previous year and that no material was allowed during the exam, so I could not have looked at it while doing the exam. Also, I have a high GPA, so it’s not implausible for me to have good grades.
Do you think I could get in trouble for having access to past exams even if there’s no way someone could know I had access to them? And is it really considered cheating?

UPDATE:  Thanks everyone for sharing their thoughts on the answer. I'm writing this answer to give some feedback. So I met with my professor this morning and I admitted having the exam from a previous year. I went with honesty, because I thought that it was the best way to go. The professor was happy about my honesty and he just asked me to elaborate some answer which I did. He saw that I knew my theory well and he didn't punish me further for it.

Use of past papers when preparing for exams was standard practice all through my schooling and degree courses. They were availablei in the university library. In any case good preparation is not cheating, unless you somehow got hold of this exam.

In the university where I was, everyone was using past exam papers, and the student's association built a website on which exam papers were scanned and uploaded, for future students to study. If you do not study, you are unlikely to achieve average score. I don't think it is healthy culture, though.

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You haven't said whether you were actually accused or not. I'm assuming that you are just worried about what might happen in the meeting that hasn't happened yet.
The most honest way to proceed, though you may suffer for it, is to tell it exactly like it happened. You studied three weeks, you had access to old exam materials and used those to prepare. All you had in the exam was your memory and your skills. You had no knowledge of any question to be asked on this exam.
If the professor thinks you cheated, then s/he is very naive about how the world works. Student fraternities typically keep records of old exams and students study from them. If the professor uses old questions they should expect that those questions are available.
You might be asked for the source of the materials and you would be unwise to conceal them and might face larger issues if you try.
As the answer of Azor Ahai suggests, make sure that what you did isn't explicitly forbidden by  available course materials. But I don't really see a way in which requirements could be stated that really disallow such a practice. It would be completely unenforceable. Doing well is not a crime. Studying hard is not a crime.
If your professor disagrees and wants to punish you, I'd suggest taking it to a department head or dean, again explaining exactly what you did and how.
If you suffer for honesty, then it is deeply unfair.

I would like to point out that while in some places exams are kept secret it still happens that students sit down after taking the exam and write down the question from their memory in order to hand on the exam nonetheless. Professors should be aware of that practice and not reuse questions.

@Hannebambel Or, as an old joke about Economics goes, they can keep last year's questions if they change the answers.

@Hannebambel I concur. I always could remember the questions of my exams for up to a week (sometimes more) after the exam in a way that I could write them down, not verbatim but close. I can't see an honest institution trying to forbid this way of "leaking" exam questions.

Back at my University, finals are never publicized. Not because they don't want to, it's just that they don't have a system for it. But if somehow you get hold of some old exam questions, it is absolutely fine to use them as study materials. You can always go and ask other people who took the course what questions/subjects were in the exams they had previous years.

My old Uni had a strict policy of secrecy regarding exams and even made you sign a waiver that you wouldn't reproduce any of the questions and would not allow you to re-view the exam after grading. We still had every single exam from the past 5 years to prepare because people would assign each other 2 questions each to memorize and then piece together the full exam anyways. It's a fool's errand to try and prevent. And if your questions can be beat by sheer memorization and no learning effect is achieved in doing so, revise your questions.

I don't see what enforceability has to do with this... that seems to stem from an "it's only illegal if you get caught" attitude. Also it's arguable whether seeking questions that might pop up again is what one would call "studying well" rather than perhaps "studying strategically". That said though, studying past exams is pretty normal and expected behavior, so I agree that if the professor hasn't at least explicitly ruled it out, it's not cheating.

Universities have published Honor Codes. Read and know yours. Treatment of old exams should be stated, e.g. faculty have the responsibility to "Avoid the re-use of exams".

Professors who recycle old exams are Lazy. And yet...

@laolux: or alternatively, do reuse questions, and communicate that fact beforehand. Knowing that one or two questions will be reused may be the very best incentive for people to actually work through previous exams - which may be helpful in familiarizing them with the entire structure of your exams.

I'm assuming from my experience with Canadian academia that this is a test that is taken in class, you turn it in at the end of the period, and then your professor either gives them back, graded, or allows you to come to their office and see your graded test.
Before you meet with the professor, you should find out whether your friend should have had a copy of the exam. Yes, if you saw a copy of an exam that was not released after the exam, it could be considered a form of cheating and you might get in trouble.
If it was released to the class (or is a take home exam everyone had a chance to see), then there is no issue.
To be clear, I sincerely doubt you will get in trouble here. What you did is reasonable and expected, but at the very least, you should be prepared to explain the situation and know where the test came from. Maybe the professor would like to know who is leaking their tests.
I have had classes where professors kept their tests well-hidden enough that if someone had a copy, I would immediately have suspected them of wrongdoing. Without more details, it's impossible to know how your situation fits in.

Well I think it was released, but I am not sure. It was the first exam for this class, so I don't have any previous exam to know if they release the exam publicly.

Read your syllabus. Ask your friend. Are the tests posted on the prof's website? Check Rate my Prof to see if anyone mentions released exams. Find out if you were supposed to have it or not.

If an exam was given in a previous year you can assume that it was, in some sense, published. Wise professors should assume that the questions are known. It is foolish to assume otherwise. If students are sworn to secrecy on how they are tested, then it is students from prior years who have cheated. I can accept this if "exam that was not released" means only that it was never given previously, nor published in any venue in any form.

@Buffy I have had some professors who release their exams as a matter of course, and I have others who only let you see your exams in their office and you can't take it with you. Without more detail on the culture/field, we really have no idea what the expectations are for this student. I didn't mean to suggest the student knowingly cheated; but they should know what the expectations are before going into the meeting. I agree a prof who assumes their questions are 100% secret is a bit naive.

-1 if I could since no cheating occurred (obtaining past exams that have already been used can't be cheating since anybody from the previous years can potentially leak them and it is a professor's duty to enforce justice by preventing cheating. In this case, the only way to ensure fairness is to release the exams publicly so that no one depends on his personal network). Designing new exam questions can be an daunting task but it is the prof's job to do so. It would also not be fair to profs who do their job correctly to use exclusively past exam questions. If it happened, the prof messed up.

@Evariste Like I said in my other comment; I have had professors who do not allow you to take your exam home. If someone has a copy of an exam that the professor keeps close to their chest, then someone has done something unethical. It sounds like you're coming from the perspective that anyone who took the test has a copy. If that's the case, then obviously, no one has done anything wrong.

@AzorAhai Okay I get your point, I've never heard of such a thing, everybody can take their exam home where I live (as far as I know). I was assuming that the exam questions could be accessed legitimately somehow.

@AzorAhai: If someone has a copy of an exam... you might well consider taking the copy as unethical. But reading the copy of a previous exame once it is out is not unethical (we can argue about exact circumstances), but in particular it is not cheating.

You don't need to take a copy home to remember and later write down the questions. I vaguely remember a prof (more than 50 years ago) who warned the class that since fraternities probably had old exam questions, we might be at a disadvantage if we didn't have access to them ourselves. Just a warning to work hard in preparation.

@Evariste Obviously, if the questions could be accessed legitimately, the OP did nothing wrong. I edited to clarify what situation I'm addressing.

@Daniel Perhaps I was unclear initially. I was advising the OP that their actions may be looked unfavorably upon by the prof/administration, especially if the syllabus specifically mentions old tests.

I disagree... Training with previous exams should not be considered cheating. There is NO certainty that even a single question matches between exams. Professors reusing questions is NOT the student's fault. We should not punish students for practicing well and using available resources. This is hard-earned success and not sneaky at all.
Furthermore, after exams, I often wrote down the questions as far as I was able to remember them. I used this material to practice with other people who took the exams later on, e.g., in the next year. Also cheating?

@J-Kun Please see the latest edit. My point is the student should at least know whether the tests are closely guarded or released for everyone. The fact that so many of the questions were similar suggests the professor tries to keep their tests under wraps, and might just want to know how one got out.

@AzorAhai Tests that have been presented to students cannot be considered "closely guarded". That's wishful thinking. It does not matter whether someone remembered the questions well or if they got a real copy of the exam.
Furthermore, I would not recommend to confess to having such an exam. That could get you into more trouble. However, discussing with other students is never forbidden, you might have learned about the previous exam questions via that way, so this might be a less risky alternative...

@J-Kun I thought your position was training with previous exams was OK. I don't see how that's compatible with your suggestion to not confess to having one.

@AzorAhai Unfortunately, I do not know the professor's view onto these questions, there is a difference between being morally right and being seen as honest. Therefore I wrote "should not" and not "is not". Thus, I would play it safe and not confess.

After the Quantm incident, I am utterly convinced that relying on prior exams being secret is a really bad idea.

While the other answers provide good advice how to handle the situation in a polite and diplomatic manner, we should nevertheless get the actual questions straight:

Is having access to past exams cheating and, if yes, could it be proven just by a good grade?

(1) No, having access to past exams does not constitute by any means a case of cheating.
(2) No, an (unusually) good grade cannot be taken as a proof of cheating.
The following describes the legal situation in Germany, where cheating in an exam actually has a pretty narrow definition: It is constituted by unauthorised behaviour during the exam, such as taking unapproved material into the exam, talking or communicating with another student, and so on – the exact cases of unauthorised behaviour are defined by your institution. However, you have to be caught in flagranti or by clear proof of an action you did during that exam.
The situation may be different in other legal systems.

It isn't limited to what takes place during the exam. For example, consider the case of acquiring a copy of the current exam ahead of time.

It may also be the case that the keeping of past papers (or passing them on) is considered cheating by that exam board

@user207421:  No, this technically (and legally) is not cheating. If you acquire the copy by illegal measures (e.g., paying someone to hack into your supervisors computer), this is a case for criminal law and treated as such. Point is that if – for whatever reason – the current exam was leaked before its actual date, it becomes invalid for the whole class. This supersedes any kind of cheating in that actual exam.

@Valorum: Even that exam board is bound by state and federal laws. I could not imagine a (nontotalitarian) legal system, where mere "keeping of past papers" (at home) could constitute cheating, not to speak of "passing them on".   (How is the latter defined anyway? Who cheats in which exam in that case?)

@Daniel: you're making an argument from law - what law? what jurisdiction?  As far as I'm aware, where I am (in the UK), cheating and other academic misconduct is a matter for the academic institution concerned, which will have its own policies and disciplinary procedures that students are explicitly or implicitly signed up to.

There's an example here of a university which suspended students for using a study-tool app which was loaded with past papers; https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2018/05/11/cheating-scandal-texas-christian

@Valorum: Well, that case is still open, isn't it? I doubt that the university can win it. However, I now understand you sentiment better: It is true that that exam board could cause you a lot of trouble for even ridiculous interpretations of cheating.

@Daniel - I'm sure there have been many other cases over the years. That's literally just the first one that came up on google.

@JoeLee-Moyet: Very important point, thanks! I have added some context. However, I think that the general statement holds for any western system: While the institution defines what constitutes unauthorised behaviour, it has to follow general principles of law (e.g., principle of proportionality, principle of transparency, in dubio per reo). "Having access to old exams" and "got a good grade" would probably fail everywhere as constituting a case of cheating.

@Valorum: Probably, examination boards frequently come to questionable decisions. The point is: Are you aware of cases they have been legally challenged and won a case that is comparable to the OPs?

Good to hear that the narrow definition (during the exam) means that breaking into the office after the exam and replacing the paper is not cheating ;)

In the UK, the norm (insofar as one can say there is any norm -- each university has its own rules and procedures) is for past papers to be available, and for the onus to be on the examiner(s) to devise a new paper for each examination session. The exception might be if you had to sign something saying explicitly that you will keep the material you see/use confidential.
In the university where I did my undergraduate degree, the past papers were available as bound volumes in the library reference sections, and we were at liberty to photocopy or transcribe any part of these volumes. Towards the end of my undergraduate degree, an official initiative was started by the university to also make the past papers available for download from the web. In addition, examiners' reports, giving general (anonymised) feedback on the strengths and weaknesses of the cohort that sat the examination, were similarly available for perusal.
In short, past papers were not only considered fair game, but we were actively encouraged to look at them and use them for practice purposes. Our tutors would set mock examinations using past questions, and we would discuss in detail approaches, strengths, and weaknesses. Sometimes, tutors would re-use materials from year to year, but such re-use would never occur for anything that counts towards an official assessment, unless the material is a very generic starting-point, made known to the students at the beginning of the academic year, for a coursework assignment.

This is exactly the same in New Zealand. Some lecturers even gave out previous years answers as an aid. In some courses, some questions were reused, but not the whole exam.
In some of the beginner courses (STAT101), in the past one or two lectures they even solved previous exams with the students so they can see the process.

In Australia, they are generally bound and published and in a dedicated reading room of the library (for security - students use blades to steal the pages to spoil the studies of other students).

When I worked at University our professor used to do this to ~10 people each semester.
He usually picked some of the best results (just to be sure), but mostly people who handed in assignments way above their expected level.
He showed them one of their answers, and asked them to elaborate.
If people could give some background information, their thinking process, etc, the whole thing took less than 5 minutes, and people just left with their graded assignment.
People who cheated could usually not tell him anything except what they had written and he failed them.
So: If the exam had the same questions as last year, and you got the answers from your friend you might be in trouble. If you genuinely learned for the exam and the result represents your knowledge about the topic you should have nothing to worry about.

This seems rather unfair to those of us who aren't particularly verbal.  I can do many things, and often write out a good explanation, but I'd be lost if I had to talk about them.

In the UK, normally past exams are readily available. For public exams (GCSE/A-level) the most recent year is held back (it is available to schools but not to the public, so they can use it as a mock exam). Earlier exams are considered "fair game"; a few years worth are on their websites and it may be possible to get earlier ones. The same is true of university exams, at least in "academic" subjects - these are typically on the website, or at least on a password-protected part, and in the university library.
Some professional exams, especially multiple choice exams, do have stricter regulations. Medicine (both undergraduate and postgraduate) is one of the subjects where this applies. Cambridge mathematics, computer science and philosophy, on the other hand, let the world see their past papers. The Freedom of Information Act is also a way to get past papers.
https://www.maths.cam.ac.uk/undergrad/pastpapers/past-ia-ib-and-ii-examination-papers
https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/teaching/exams/pastpapers/
https://www.phil.cam.ac.uk/curr-students/ugrads-exam-folder/IA-past-exam-papers

When I was in college studying electrical engineering, professors regularly made the previous year's exam available at the local copy center for us to purchase as a study aid. Some would also offer extra help sessions where you could come in and discuss the exam with a TA, etc. One of my friends was in a frat and he would regularly show up with copies of the exam from several previous years. We would study all night, passing each exam around until all of us could do every question on every exam. Not only was this NOT cheating but a solid study tactic because many of the questions were similar to actual exam questions.
As some have stated, you should have looked into whether or not your friend was supposed to have the exam or not. Some professors collect them afterwards and don't allow the actual exam to be had outside of the class room. If that was the case, I don't think you cheated since you didn't have fore knowledge of the actual exam but one could argue that it was unethical. Either way, I would be honest with the professor if he asks about your study practices and how you achieved such a grade.

Absolutely not. Any work that any professor does is something that can and should be studied. He's the professional and it is his responsibility to change the questions if he does not intend for them to be known in advance.

You just said that you think the exam was made public. Why would be using something that the teacher made public be considered cheating?
I had a teacher at the university whose exams were 80% a combination of old exams and 20% new questions. My university had a very strict rule where all teachers were required to make their past exams public. Most subjects even had them for download at the e-campus.
This guy once went into a public rant about how everyone passed his subject (this was unusual, as the rate of passing for most subjects was around 30%) and the unanimous response from the university was to put some effort on the exams.
If the exam is public and the teacher doesn't put any effort into making a new exam, why is you studying from the material considered cheating? Seems to me like your dilemma lies in the fact that the rest of the students didn't use the exam to study, and well, that's on them for not taking advantage of all the studying material.

Depends on your testing regulations.
The ones at my university (and department) state that professors CAN NOT stop or punish you for 1) photographing it when examining it (i don't know the english word for this, but we can check our stuff for correction errors after the grades are published) and 2) distributing said photographs.
In Fact, some professors even share PDFs of the last exam, to make it fair for everyone.

If it was the same exam, then it's sort of cheating, but not really. It's the teacher's fault if they simultaneously did not want to change the test and did not want people to study from last year's test. If it's not the same exam then it's not cheating at all, it's just studying.


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I received an offer letter from a university abroad, should I continue to interview locally until my visa application goes through?
I have received an offer letter from a university abroad, which I am likely to accept. The country however has a very stringent immigration policy and a very complicated and lengthy visa application process. There is therefore a real chance that my visa application could be refused.
I have other interviews lined up and I know the usual procedure would be to notify the universities that I have received an offer. However, I feel like I ought to keep pursuing those jobs as a "safety net" because if my visa application fails, I'd effectively end up jobless.
Would it be unethical to go on with those interviews until I have received my visa?

I would prefer not to. But the country has a history of denying visas for people with health issues (I have a history of depression, and my wife has a few worrying health issues). And this is only one factor. Regardless of how much work the university is willing to put in, ultimately the decision is out of their hands.

I am willing to commit to this particular institution and I wouldn't take another job offer over it unless my visa was denied and I could not come to the country. My issue is with the universities I will continue to interview with : I have technically committed to another institution, so etiquette would usually dictate that I let them know and withdraw from the interview process. But I feel like I need to keep my options open because there is a real chance that I will not get the visa and might end up having to take one of those other jobs.

Regarding the health issue this is a real problem in many countries. By history I mean diagnosed, hospitalized and currently medicated for it. Here are some sources for the US : https://psychcentral.com/blog/depressed-you-may-not-be-able-to-enter-the-us/, https://www.soundimmigration.com/what-are-the-immigration-consequences-of-suicidal-and-self-harming-behavior/

You should definitely continue interviewing locally. I have personally seen several potential hirings fall apart because of visa issues. This is a real possibility.
Consider this: You would never stop interviewing until you have a sure, written offer on the table. Simply do not consider this offer to be sure, until visa issues are in the clear.

source: Stack Exchange

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

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Publishing a monograph in two languages
I have published an academic monograph in Spanish based on my dissertation with a university press in Spain. I have reworked the book since then and translated it into English, would it be dishonest to try to get it published in English (I would of course mention that the book originally appeared in Spanish)?

Another concern would be any exclusive rights given to the publisher of your Spanish edition.

Many books are published with something like "translated from the original Spanish (French, German, Italian) by A. N. Author" so go ahead.

Agree. Just do it.

It almost certainly depends on the contract you signed with the publisher of the Spanish version. Many book contracts have a clause that stipulates that the publisher retains the right to license translations -- in other words, it may be that you don't have the right to publish the translation without the consent of the publisher, even if you did the translation yourself.
The prudent course therefore is to read your contract for the Spanish version again, and if in doubt contact the publisher.

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


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Is it ok to enquire the editor about the accceptance chance of a paper which is under review for 1.5 years
I have submitted two papers in a top-tier applied mathematics journal. The first one is a short paper and the second one is a full paper. After 7 months the short paper and after 8 month the full paper got major revision. For the short paper I submitted the revised paper after 5 months. Finally, this paper got rejected after 7 months after I submitted the revision. Therefore it was under review for (7+5+7) months i.e. around 1.5 yr including the time I took for revising the paper. For the second paper I submitted the revised paper after 5 months. After this 5 months have passed. Therefore it is under review for (8+5+5) months i.e. 1.5 year. Will it be ok if I politely ask the editor about the acceptance chance of the full paper. One week back I asked the editor, he told me that they are waiting for one review. After that they will send the decision. Is it ok to request the editor whether he can confirm its acceptance chance ? If they want to reject reject now only, so that I can send to other journals. I will be applying for some jobs now. I need to know this information urgently. I am concerned because from the first round reviews I am very much hopeful about its acceptance. If I pressurize them they may reject it.

I don't think the editor could confirm the acceptance chance without communicating with the referee. Perhaps you could ask the editor to expedite the process by asking the referee to cut short his report and submit it immediately if it's going to be negative.

@Titus, It can be hard to get good referees in some areas of math. Especially for esoteric topics with only a few active researchers. And many things can explain a delay, including the nature of the paper itself.

@innisfree: Please see the edit. The total time also contains 5 months I took for revising the paper. also it is not 2 year, 1.5 year "including" the time I took for revising the paper

I don't think the editor could confirm the acceptance chance without communicating with the referee. Perhaps you could ask the editor to expedite the process by asking the referee to cut short the report and submit it immediately if it's going to be negative.
You might not wish to do this if you want a more thorough report in the case of rejection.
You could alternatively ask the editor to send a reminder to the referee,  whether the referee agreed to return a report before a particular date, and confirm that they had not lost contact with the referee (since a long time had passed).

Please see the edit. The total time also contains 5 months I took for revising the paper. also it is not 2 year, 1.5 year "including" the time I took for revising the paper

You could ask for the "acceptance chance", but what do you expect them to say? The editors don't know either - without the reviewer reports they can't give you an estimate, or if they do it's likely to be wildly inaccurate.
You're probably better off requesting they hurry up [because you are applying for jobs and you need the results urgently, etc].

I am concerned because from the first round reviews I am very much hopeful about its acceptance. If I pressurize them they may reject it.

If you did not let the editor know about your “special circumstances” in the earlier email, then I think it is okay to email again to inform them and ask if the process can be expedited at all. This is not uncommon when someone is coming up on a tenure decision, for instance. Editors can push a bit harder to get information back from referees when the situation calls for it.

I am concerned because from the first round reviews I am very much hopeful about its acceptance. If I pressurize them they may reject it.

The editors I know are not petty like this, especially when people have a good reason to follow-up. That said, I don’t know the editors at this particular journal.


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I have somehow completed my PhD without having the required theoretical understanding of my field. Can I have an academic career?
I have an undergrad in mechanical engineering. My Masters, PhD was in Mechanical too. However, I have never been academically strong (grades were majorly C and B+). I had to retake advanced mathematics, continuum mechanics and Finite element analysis course during my undergrad as I had flunked the courses.
However, I always enjoyed the field of computational mechanics, how materials behave is something I enjoy thinking about. I pursued the field in my Masters and PhD, inspite of not taking any grad level course during the programmes. My committee never instructed me to take the courses, I thought self study would suffice.
I have a PhD in application of computational mechanics, I have 3 first authored papers in materials science journals, not mathematics intensive journals. I am worried about my future in the field.
I am continuing with a postdoc under my PhD advisor for a year and am searching for other positions.
I shouldn't have pursued higher studies, atleast not in a field I have theoretical deficiency. I still love my field, but I am still afraid of the theoretical papers in my field. My work (application focused) is not mathematically intensive and is pretty straightforward. I can argue that given a direction, one doesn't need a masters or PhD to do what I do.
I know, there won't be anyone who had experiences similar to mine. It is always expected that people go for highers studies in subjects they are good in. I did the other way round. What should be my course of action now to have a potential academic career? I think I am up for a dissappointing career outcome, but still I want to give it a try.

What exactly is your porblem?

Do you want to pursue a career in academic research?

@henning--reinstateMonica yes, that's what drives me. I love doing research, but apparently I am not much good at it. I should have been comfortable with my research field by now. I want to give this career path few years.

Does this answer your question? I don't have the theoretical background in my PhD topic. I can't justify getting the degree (Note that while the timeline is somewhat different (a couple of months before defense, rather than after), many of the answers seem applicable here as well.)

It is easy to get bad grades while knowing "everything" (depending on teacher). Are you sure you had reasonable graders ie that the grades really measure your abilities?

This is a pretty solid case of Imposter Syndrome, I think. Yes, lots of other people have experienced it. Part of it is the letdown after completing a degree, perhaps. Part of it is the realization that your field is very wide and no one can really grok all of it.
But you seem to be able to function pretty well in your field. Thesis? Check. Papers? Check. Specialization? Well, yes, of course. Doctorates are like that.
The test of it, is whether you can get a suitable position. If you don't fall in to depression and sabotage your own applications then I doubt that there are any real barriers. The research you love is valued by academia. Do that.
If you are still connected to the university, they probably have a counseling office where there is someone familiar with these sorts of feelings and can give you some professional advice.

As to your grades, they were apparently strong enough that people let you continue your education to the end. No one will care much anymore about them. They can be a poor, or at least imperfect, surrogate for measuring knowledge in any case.


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Found critical errors in my master‘s thesis after officially submitting
I submitted my master‘s thesis a few days ago. The official deadline is next Friday.
Today I spotted some serious issues in my thesis. In particular, in my main theorem and the main proposition that follows I did two critical mistakes.
To give some context, my thesis is a math thesis and in the proof of my main theorem I write that some group $F$ acts on $\Aut(G)$, which is simply a wrong statement. The correct statement was that $F$ acts on $G$. I did the exact same mistake in the main Proposition that follows thereafter.
The assertions are correct, provided the reader knows what I actually meant, but the statement, as is stands, is wrong.
It‘s so embarrassing, I feel so depressed. I spent so much time on my thesis, I read it easily 20-30 times. I don‘t know how I managed to miss these errors.
I sent an email to my supervisor, asking if it‘s possible to submit a corrected version but I think my chances are slim. I also feel so embarrassed since I wanted to pursue a PhD and I‘m seriously afraid to be considered a complete failure.
I don‘t know what to do.
Update: The university replied to my email, saying that I get the chance to resubmit a corrected version since the official deadline has yet to pass. I feel very grateful, but still incredibly ashamed that I caused so much trouble.
I also wanted to thank everyone for their encouragement and their heartfelt replies. I really appreciate every single comment and answer.

This depends on local rules. Only they can answer or decide. Prepare a corrected version so that you can quickly submit it possible.

When a correct version of the statement exists you are ok (and should be allowed to fix, or add an errata slip if the thesis is already in print). If it makes you feel better here's what happened when I submitted my PhD dissertation for the internal examiners to check. A friendly professor pointed out one proposition: From the preceding text I know where your argument is heading, and it works as intended. But look what exactly you have written as the statement of this proposition! It was embarrassingly wrong :-). Something similar happened to my first-born PhD-student. At his defence.

(cont'd) On both occasions the error was of no major consequence as it was easy to fix and the main results of the dissertation were correct. These things happen because theses/disserations are written (and reviewed) by human beings.

I appreciate it. It‘s just so embarassing and I was so proud of my work, I spent the last 6 months on nothing but my thesis and yet I managed to mess up the very two major statements in my thesis, it looks so bad and I can barely eat or sleep. It‘s so devastating. At our university you submit a final printed version and the defence follows weeks after, once the thesis is graded. So the errors are forever tied to my thesis and stored in the university.

If it makes you feel any better - most master's thesises have been read by no more than 5-6 people ever. The author, the supervisor, and the committe evaluating it.

So $F$ acts on $G$. Which is the same as  to say that $F$ comes with a homomorphism to $\mathop{Aut}(G)$. I understand that you are annoyed by your mistake in language, but it’s not a biggie.

"I read it easily 20-30 times. I don‘t know how I managed to miss these errors." Welcome to the club! We have jackets. :-)

@CarstenS that is exactly how I got things confused. My thesis consists of 80 pages where I employ these considerations over and over again and the error was therefore nearly invisible. I don't know why I panicked. I think I was afraid that it shows a lack of understanding of the material somehow.

@Vorbis thank you vm, you made me chuckle :-)

I understand your frustration but error is human. Even in published papers with peer review, there are some mistakes, typos etc. This is the reason why corrigendum exist and quite common in many fields.

Rule of thumb: If it can be salvaged by a simple correction (in your case, just a typo), no problem. Sometimes, errors are major (see error in proof of Fermat's theorem by Lame, Cauchy, found out by Kummer); this can be a game-changer (for the good). If it's a useless mistake - well, this happens to the best of us.

Yeah I think that it was a good lesson for me to learn. I guess I had the wrong impressions and set unrealistic standards regarding my thesis, that was the primary reason for my panic attack once I spotted the errors.

You do realize that even the greatest mathematicians make mistakes and noone considers them a failure? For example Atiyah published his proof of Riemann hypothesis which was a major event few years ago. Until it turned out to be incorrect. Just keep calm and move on.

The question was closed, but i am upvoting the question as it sits at the important intersection between the administrative structures of thesis production (deadlines and the such) and the fact that research is a human activity with emotional dimensions (something that brings a lot of users here to ask about).

This is a completely minor error (a "mathematical typo", in effect), the likes of which occur every day in actual preprints that people publish online, and sometimes even in published math papers. It is basically harmless, especially if you state your theorem correctly in the intro.
An actual critical error is "the proof of one of my main results has a mistake in it and I don't know how to fix it", not "I made a typo in the statement of my theorem".
If you want to succeed in your PhD, I would advise you to abandon this idea that every piece of work you submit needs to be completely flawless or else you ought to be ashamed of yourself. This is not how other will judge you, and it should not be how you judge yourself. The idea that people you will be "considered a complete failure" based on this is simply absurd.
Do you think that other people are "complete failures" when they make a mistake like this? If so, I recommend changing that perspective before you start collaborating with others. If not, why do you imagine that they would think this about you?

Thank you very much for your encouraging response. To adress the question of your final paragraph: I would never think of fellow students of colleagues as failures. Quite the contrary, I always admire their work and that is why I feel so depressed about mistakes I do. I've seen some master's theses of fellow students and they were all flawless and incredibly well done.

@Zest Right. So in effect you are saying that special rules apply to you that don't apply to other people: they are allowed to make mistakes, but you are not. Or perhaps you are imagining that other people don't ever make mistakes like this, which is plainly false. As an anecdote, I've published an actually incorrect theorem in a journal paper (a minor side assumption was missing) and I am confident that no-one thought of me as a "failure" because of this. If, as per Aristotle, excellence is a habit and not an act, then the same applies to failure: one error does not a failure make.

I appreciate your feedback, I really do. Thank you vm.

While this is what I would like to be true it is also the fact (fact) that some places are extremely rigid about such things. It is why I suggest that only the institution, probably via the advisor, can provide the correct answer. Yes, we all make mistakes. BUT the OP asks can they submit a corrected version. I think that they should be able to, given the deadline hasn't passed, but I don't/can't make rules for the OP.

@Buffy Sure, I don't know what the rules of the OP's institution are, I was mainly addressing the OP's feelings of being a failure. I'm assuming the OP understands that no-one here speaks for their institution/advisor. If the goal is to give an answer that is 100% guaranteed to be correct, then indeed "only the instution/advisor can provide the answer". My goal is to try to provide useful answers ("all or almost all mathematicians I know would consider this a very minor mistake, not a critical error"), not legalistic infallible answers ("we can't say, it depends on your advisor/institution").

@Zest trust me, those other theses have flaws in them.  They may be subtle enough that you missed them, but they're there.  Even work that's reviewed by colleagues and proof-read can only approach perfection, never reach it.

Thanks Chris. My university and my supervisor replied to my emails. They allow for submitting a corrected version before the official deadline has passed. My supervisor was very supportive and very understanding. I feel so grateful, but still sort of worried that I might have caused unnecassary trouble for others.

@Zest It was necessary trouble, because you needed to make the correction. This is why there is a before-the-deadline and after-the-deadline. I can assure you, the administrators prefer receiving the occasional timely correction to receiving everything last-minute; and supervising is literally your supervisor's job. (I'm one week past a thesis deadline and still asking my supervisor for writing advice, but I followed the appropriate procedures in an almost timely manner, and nobody appears upset with me. If I'm fine, you're fine.)

@wizzwizz4 thank you vm. My supervisor is just great and was very understanding. It was just that I kind of tried to be a student who requires not a lot of administration and make the job as easy as possible for everyone, that is why I was worried about causing trouble by sending out emails and telling people that I messed up and that I need to resubmit.

@Zest "Requests multiple ethical approvals for studies that don't happen", "repeatedly reports legal violations", or "arranges crane-assisted graffiti" would be a student requiring a lot of administration. If submitting a second final draft is your idea of "causing trouble", then you're doing a great job. Perhaps too great a job: if you're not interacting with your supervisor enough, you won't be learning the things you need to learn that are outside the curriculum, like the publishing conventions for your (sub-)field, or who's who.

Thank you @wizzwizz4, I appreciate it.

I am not an expert in graph theory but it sounds just like an error in statement, while the proofs are actually true for $G$, instead of $\textrm{Aut}(G)$. This seems to me just like typo and not a serious mistake.
Communicating with your advisor is in the end a very wise decision. He must know the best. We do not know the guidelines of your university, department, country. The only general advice is to keep calm, act rational, and do not presume too much about the thoughts of the others.
Next time, you might consider leaving the extra days until the deadline for some light proofreading. Of course, I don't know what the procedure is like at your university and whether there is some advantage in submitting the thesis earlier. Feel free to comment.

Thank you very much for the encouragement. I deeply regret submitting a week earlier than necessary but I was confident that everything was correct. For some reason, these two issues were absolutely invisible to my eyes, I have no idea how that happened. In the introduction the statements are correct, I repeat both statements in the body where I slighty changed the phrasing. That is where the errors occurred. But since its twice the same error, it looks really bad.

The problem is that this is such a obscure situation that there is no written rules about it to find in any of the official documents of my university. As I said, I sent an email to my supervisor in hopes of having a chance to resubmit, but I think this will not be allowed and it's so embarassing. It seriously affects my mental health to a point where I become severely depressed because all the hard work is just worthless if I fail so prove that I can't work without doing these careless errors.

@Buffy You are right and while I thought I am clear about stating my personal feeling, that should not be in the answer anyway. I deleted the paragraph.

@Zest Well, communicating with your advisor is in the end a very wise decision. He must know the best. We do not know the guidelines of your university, department, country. The only general advice is to keep calm, act rational, and do not presume too much about the thoughts of the others. (I edited my answer to reflect this.)

@Zest: Please know that everyone who has made a similar mistake as you did all feel the same way, but in the end life is much more than academics. So please take some time off for a break. You have proven a theorem, and the people who care about it (at least you and your advisor) know that. The proof is the main achievement.

I'm a practicing mathematician. If I was reviewing your thesis I would probably notice that the statement of the theorem looks surprising, I'd skim the proof and pick up that you're actually working with $G$ and not $\mathrm{Aut}(G)$, mark it as a typo, shrug and move on. If I was feeling particularly nitpicky I would ask you about it during the thesis defence, and I would expect this conversation to take around 10 seconds.
Bear in mind that, for better or worse, hardly anyone reads MSc theses. It's unlikely it will be read by anyone besides your supervisor and reviewers - to whom you can explain this was a typo. Even if you're embarrassed by this mistake (which there really is no need to be) you can be confident that it will not be widely known.

Thanks for your perspective Jakub.

I'm glad to see this has come to a positive resolution.  Everyone else has given good advice -- this isn't a huge deal, mistakes happen all the time, etc.
When we read something we've written ourselves -- and we are still deeply engrossed in it, it is very easy to read what we meant to write instead of what is written.  Typos and mistakes that jump out at us later are simply invisible to us.
In my experience, changing the pace of reading can help a lot.

Read the document out loud.  You don't have to make anyone listen, just go someplace quiet and read it out loud.  If you feel strange, read it to your dog or a tree.  Read all the equations out loud.  Read all the figure labels too.

Get someone else to proofread it.  Hopefully you have a graduate school friend who knows enough about your work to understand the nomenclature.  A thorough reviewer will check your equations and derivations.  It will take a lot of time.  Expect to owe them a meal and/or a drink -- and be ready to return the favor when it is time to review their work.

Get away from the work for at least two weeks.  Leave yourself time at the end of your project before the deadline.  This may be the time you work on your presentation, but hopefully you can get your mind away from the project.  That way, when you return, you will have a fresh perspective.

Even with these steps, mistakes will slip through.  Don't sweat them.  Everyone is human.


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Researchers "forgot" to cite their previous relevant work
I found two papers related to my current research (A published in 2021, and B published in 2023). More precisely, all authors of paper A & paper B are from the same institute. Actually, one person appears in the author list of both paper A and paper B, so I assume that all the authors of paper B are (supposed to be) aware of the presence paper A.
However, I checked the reference list of paper B (the one published later) and didn't find paper A there. Actually, some of the key ideas of paper B are based on paper A, and I would say the authors of paper B must cite paper A to provide the readers a full understanding of the research background. I cannot really understand why the authors of paper B "forgot" to mention paper A there. It happens sometimes that people didn't cite relevant work from other people due to unawareness, but how it could happen to the same person with only a two-year gap puzzles me a lot.
I would like to ask: Is there any benefit for researchers to "hide" their previous research on purpose in any cases?
Background: I published another paper with some overlap with paper A without being aware of its presence between the publication date of paper A and paper B. I also forgot to cite paper A in my own paper.

I can't think of any benefits. Perhaps it was just an oversight. Checking whether they cited their own recent work might not have been high on their list of things to check. Perhaps the one person who appears in both author lists didn't actually contribute very much to the later paper and didn't tell the others about the earlier one. Despite the apparent 2-year difference, it might be possible that the two papers were submitted around the same time or went through final checks around the same time.

And just how big is this institute?

All the authors are from the same school of a university.

Based on the public information, paper B is submitted to the accepted journal one year after paper A got published. I would say paper B is an apparent follow-up work of paper A.

@DanielR.Collins Corrected. Thanks for pointing it out!

@corey979 It's a very specific subfield and I won't share the links out here. It doesn't count for me of course, but why can't I describe a phenomenon I have observed in academia in this StackExchange channel? I don't understand the reason behind it and put the question here for discussion. Isn't it abnormal that people don't cite their own very relevant work? Or do you think it's a common practice for people to ignore their own previous relevant work? Why is it important to you to know why it is important to me?

@Dran Does by any chance the journal of the 2nd paper run double-blind peer-reviews?
One reason I know authors avoiding to cite their own papers is in cases of double-blind reviews, where they are trying to not reveal their identity (either because they are afraid of retaliation or because they are trying to give the impression of a big shot being behind the manuscript).

@can'tstopmenow No. Both the two papers are published in a famous journal known for its single-blind review process.

Despite the dates, they could have been originally submitted in parallel and one or both rejected from previous journals, possibly several of them. This sort of thing might happen when two groups are working in parallel within a lab: they are working from the same background, are communicating back and forth, but don't necessarily publish in the most logical order. The PI may feel it's important to keep them separate to ensure the separate authors get proper credit for their work. I'd say this is a mistake, though: probably one of the works should still cite the other, and these days the easiest solution would be to submit one as a preprint and cite it if wanting to avoid messiness around citing a separate unpublished manuscript. I could imagine a case where Manuscript A gets feedback that it's incomplete or doesn't advance things enough, so the authors are working on Manuscript B to extend it, while also hoping Manuscript A is still publishable by itself, and between varying delays and submissions Manuscript A ends up accepted and they keep Manuscript B in the form it was in rather than pulling out the parts from A after acceptance. This situation seems extremely lazy to me but also busy people make mistakes.
Possibly, the explanation is more innocent even if sloppy, but it's also possible something nefarious is going on: the work could have been intentionally re-published to inflate publication counts. Disclosing to journals/reviewers that a big chunk of the paper is already published might reduce the impact and cause rejection, since journals want to publish new things, not re-publish what already exists (and publication agreements might forbid them doing so). The overall lack of overlap in the authors adds to the suspicion to me, though. It's one thing to fail to cite yourself, it's another to fail to credit your colleagues working on the same problem. That, too, could have been an advisor's misguided attempt to let all their students obtain publications, if the other authors are all trainees.
In summary, I'd say it's not possible with the information provided to know what exactly happened here, but I can't think of an explanation that isn't at least partly lazy if not outright misconduct. Without a broader pattern, there's probably not anything you really need to do about it, besides doing your best with your own work.

To answer the actual question as to whether there is any benefit for researchers to "hide" their previous research on purpose: Yes.
Editors and referees at a journal generally prefer papers that they perceive to make a significant new contribution with respect to the existing literature. If this existing literature is not presented honestly, the contribution will look bigger than it really is.

You've given no proof that the researchers have "hidden" anything, so there's 0 reason so far to suspect mal-intent, and the characterization strikes me as hyperbolic. I think people get too hung up about this sometimes (not saying this time is one of them).
In my field, for example, there are at least three foundational papers on the "synthetic control method" in the econometrics literature. Abadie 2003, Abadie Diamond and Hainmuller 2010 and ADH 2015. I've reviewed papers which use SCM before. I don't remember if each paper cited all of these, and to be honest I don't care. Someone usually cites Abadie's newer 2021 paper from Journal of Economic Literature, which naturally refers to his previous papers, so if an author even just cites that, in my book, there's no issue. Why? Because the literature they cite shows people one important reference where all the others may be found at, so it's okay. I don't demand an author present every single reference. This paper, for example, is very very similar to one of the references they cite (Calderon 2015), but at various points in the publication process (I remember reading these as pre-prints/working papers), I think the works didn't even cite each other because the authors were simply unaware of them, which is okay. So, it's not totally unheard of that certain papers we think are relevant don't cite each other for different stages of the publication process.
I guess my point here is, ask yourself: "Is it really that important that the other paper be cited? Are their conclusions or results necessary for the other paper to function? If so, then I guess we can talk details, but barring that, if they don't go together like water and a hot summer day, then don't worry about if they cite the other paper or not.
Bryan above says to worry about doing the best with your work, and I agree. Just cite both papers in your work, assuming they're both relevant, and keep moving, no reason (again, barring more serious/well founded concerns) to worry too much about it. Not everyone needs to cite every single paper that's relevant to their work, otherwise lit reviews c/w/ould take 4 pages.


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Before entering into a computational research PhD, should one gain strong coding & software engineering skills?
Main Question: Should someone gain good computer programming skills/experience through a software engineering job before entering a 5-year PhD program in Computer Science (Tentative specialization: Reinforcement Learning, Machine Learning, Deep Learning)?
IMPORTANT NOTE:-
The reason for asking about gaining programming skills & experience is:-

NOT from the perspective of resume/application strength (i.e., whether one would get accepted to a PhD program or not), but rather from the perspective of whether one would be more productive (hence faster) during computational research in AI (i.e., running computational experiments).
NOT related to being or not being able to complete the research and get the PhD degree.
As mentioned earlier, it's about whether having strong programming and software development skills would enable one to implement and test ideas more quickly. As some PhD students say that a lot of their time goes into implementing the ideas, during the initial months of their PhD.
Slow implementation of ideas → Slow progress.

Many (not everyone!) students interested in pursuing research and planning to get into AI research through a PhD program, have limited to no software development experience. Many of such students have only worked on research projects involving limited programming skills, often having no software development experience.
Clearly, such students would have limited ability to implement and test ideas, by running computational experiments.
So, would doing a software engineering job and gaining strong coding experience significantly help them during their (computational) experimental work in PhD?
Please consider that the potential candidate aspires:-

To disseminate research findings or knowledge (during PhD and beyond) not just by (traditionally) writing papers or blogs, but by deploying models on the web like Andrej Karpathy did through some of his famous projects like ConvnetJS, RecurrentJS, tsneJS, ReinforceJS, or by interactive visualizations like Distill, etc.
To be able to do so, I believe that one would need to be good at software engineering.
Aspires to perform reproducible research and writing re-usable code, which can only be achieved by good software engineering practices, generally acquirable by working in software engineering sector.

To achieve such task, one would need to spend a significant amount of their time, during the initial PhD months, on getting good at programming and software development. Clearly, this amount of time and effort would have been better spent on doing research, and testing more and more new ideas.
So, that's what my question is focused on.

What advice/suggestions do you have on what should one do considering his/her current coding capabilities and above expectations from the PhD?

Sorry that I'm a bit late with an answer, I hope not too late.
I doubt that a software engineering job will get you closer to your goal. It might take you farther afield. You do need to be able to program effectively but that is different from working at a SE job. Your research work will, perhaps, depend on programming, though less if the research is highly theoretical than if it is more applied. But you will set the specifications for your programs, rather than having others do so. A SE job, on the other hand has you build things to the specifications of others and they may not be related to what you want to actually learn about software development in any way. And you might find it very boring.
Note that if your research is highly theoretical, then there may not be much required of actual programming. And you are unlikely to need SE skills at the level of "product" development in any case.
But if your programming skills are weak then it is likely that you have other weaknesses as well, such a algorithm analysis and complexity theory. You might want to find a way to address those. But a job won't advance you on that scale either.


text:
How long before asking for a formal offer letter?
I have recently been offered a position by a university I had applied to.
After I accepted the offer (through email), they said they would send me a formal offer letter along with other paperwork "ASAP".
It has been over a week and I haven't received anything.
I'm not sure how long these things should take (nor if they normally send the letter via mail or email). Would it sound rude or desperate to send them an email to inquire about why I still haven't received anything from them at this point?
(sounding desperate my hurt my position in subsequent negotiations, but I would very much like to have some closure on my job search as soon as possible)

I would wait for a bit longer. There may be administrative delays and needed signatures, and such. But it would be nearly impossible for it to be a problem. Relax and congratulations.

Subsequent negotiations? Usually people negotiate before accepting. Have I missed something?

@Dawn, the offer might not yet include salary (or other perks), hence, that might be open for negotiation

@dawn OP has not received the official offer.  Therefore, OP has not officially accepted the offer.

I have recently been [informally] offered a position by a university [and] they said they would send me a formal offer letter along with other paperwork "ASAP". It has been over a week and I haven't received anything.
I'm not sure how long these things should take...

Far longer than a week! The sheer number of personnel involved---e.g., your future manager, the committee that selected you, the head of school, perhaps someone above them, HR, other administrators,...---means the process is slow. Couple that with numerous inefficiencies and you'll quickly appreciate that 3-4 weeks isn't unexpected (and it might even be twice that).

Would it sound rude or desperate to send them an email to inquire
about why I still haven't received anything from them at this point?

It isn't appropriate at this point. Maybe after 2-2.5 or maybe even 3 weeks.

I would very much like to have some closure on my job search as soon as possible

You already have informal acceptance. I wouldn't expect rescinding acceptance to be particular common. (You could always ask a question about that.)

+1 but an email asking when you can expect to receive the official offer is completely appropriate.


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What is a "personal tutor"?
On Workplace Stack Exchange, one answer to the question
https://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/124329/bullying-group-work
says "Speak to your personal tutor. Immediately."
I remember to have seen the word "personal tutor" also here on Academia Stack Exchange. (As I do not remember having seen a country mentioned (also not on the linked Workplace Stack Exchange question), I believe this is a US-concept.)
So: What is a "personal tutor"? Who is this (undergraduate student, graduate student, administrative personell, post-doc, professor, somebody not related to one's university) and when do you as a student get such a tutor? What are their roles?
Thank you!

In the UK, a personal tutor is assigned to you when you start your degree and the same person will generally maintain that role for the whole of your course. They are usually a lecturer or more senior-- never a student, PhD or otherwise. There are often a mandated number of meetings that a student must have with their tutor: once a term is common.
The role of a personal tutor is mostly non-academic. While you could discuss academic problems with them, they are really there to help with pastoral matters, such as wellbeing, or helping you to decide what courses to take or how best to manage your time. Personal tutors are a common choice of reference letter writers for their students' applications for postgraduate degrees, as they likely know the student and their grades very well.

"Personal tutor" in the sense of the question you linked to is definitely not a US-based term.
We absolutely have tutors. A tutor would be used when you need extra help to keep up with the content in the class. Getting a C in chemistry? Then you might hire a tutor to spend extra time with you outside of class to learn the material.
Similar to the "personal tutor" from that link, undergraduates are also typically assigned general advisers that they meet with a few times a year. They help to make sure you are fulfilling your academic requirements (have the right number of credits to graduate, are successful in courses) and can connect you to resources for academic problems, and also if you are encountering things that might violate university or legal regulations (like the bullying example you linked to). At my private R1 university, these advisers are always staff and never faculty or students.

Sorry about my assumption with the US. Could you state your country or the country you are talking about?

Yep sorry - I'm in the US at a private R1 university, and I'm talking about US institutions. (Where R1 = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_I_university)

I live in Miami, FL. Personal tutors are assigned by universities to a student for the whole academic course. He/She will guide the student in assessments, exams, research papers. If you are lucky enough to have a friendly tutor, you can get a lot of guidance from them.
Note: This pandemic made a huge impact on the educational sectors around the world. My niece was placed at McGill University, Montreal, Canada. He has his own mobile app from which he can select his tutor based on reviews and ratings. Thanks to technology.

Should the last paragraph refer to niece/she/her or to nephew/he/him, or am I miscalculating the antecedent of the pronouns?

It could be a variety of things, depending on where you are, but most likely the following. In some universities with large classes, students meet a few times a week in smaller sections with a TA, sometimes called a tutor.
In top UK universities, courses are often done in very small (<10) groups with a "tutor", who might actually be a professor or someone much lower down the ranking. The person provides direction on your readings and writings.
But in general, it should refer to the person who has some authority in your course but at the most personal (small group) level if that is available to you.
However, for some purposes, such as disputes with professors, a university might also provide a student support office to help resolve the disputes. The people there aren't, strictly speaking, tutors, but rather advisors.
It is least likely to mean someone you pay separately from the university to tutor you in a subject.

So, is this tutor related to a particular class (and providing help on this class) or do they help with all academia-related issues?

Generally it is for a particular class. But the "dispute resolver" would be different.

I disagree slightly. In the UK, a personal tutor isn't related to a class (although they may well teach you)-- instead their role is pastoral and advisory. They are generally lecturers or higher (i.e. tenure track/faculty). You are assigned a personal tutor when you start uni and they will generally remain in that role for the whole of your time there.

It depends on country / programme but a "personal tutor" or "mentor" is usually available for questions that are outside the scope of the subject lecturer.
These "mentors" will answer, or help the student answer, or get other officials in the institution to answer those questions the students have, be they personal or study / work related.
This may, in some institutions, fall on the programme manager, and you get some really "of the wall" questions that have to be dealt with with tact, diplomacy and discretion.

So, would be, for example "which courses should I take if my dream job is X" be a "normal" question to ask them?

That you can ask, but they will normally take it back to you as it is based on what you want - they are not mind readers. Often though, and this was the point i was making, it is for questions outside of class such as "I need to attend a wedding, family event and there is such and such assessment" what can I do...

Sorry, I don't completely get it. Is the "wedding"-question an example for a good or a bad question to ask the tutor? (I'd say it's bad because probably only the instructor themselves can anwer it?)

How about I suggest that the "wedding question" is a good question, as the instructor cannot answer it as the decision will be based on policy and exceptional circumstances that may be decided by the Dean... There are SO many variations possible on who decides what and why...

Okay, sorry for this assumption. (In my institution, it is totally different - the instructor is the only authority in such matters.) But now I think I understand.


text:
Pursuing Ph.D abroad vs staying in a stable job abroad
I'm kind of in the early-midlife crisis, and I have spent quite some time googling some of my life's questions. I don't have a better idea of where should I ask this and get some insight.
I'm a 29 years old single, from a third world country, MSc graduate from a reputable European university, currently have a relatively decent, stable engineering job in Germany, and long term visa which I know I can already change it to a German-permanent residence permit. However, I'm still craving to go back to the Uni and pursue a Ph.D. I constantly checking the opening Ph.D. vacancies in the city where I live (in the subject of my interest). But I seldom found something interesting vacancies being advertised. I assume I need to make my first move by contacting the suitable professor in order to apply and pursue a Ph.D. in the city where I currently live in the subject I would like to deal. I'm not keen to move to another city/country regarding the visa topic and the fact that I have set up my flat etc. It's just gonna be too much hassle to move again.
However, every time I "accidentally" found Ph.D. vacancies being advertised in other countries in the subject I love, I always question whether staying here is a really good decision. It's been 2-3 years since I live here, and to be honest, I don't feel really happy. Sometimes I feel really isolated, sometimes I convince my self that this city is the best place to settle down, etc. I'm kind of 3 steps away from the subject I would like to deal with every day (research and development in a certain specific area). And the language barrier is real in professional-industrial-work. I'm working really slow on my German. Sometimes I wonder, probably I would have less language issue if I go back to Uni/ move to a "more relax" English speaking country (e.g: NL/UK/US ??).
I'm really lost. Should I stay in this job, should I be more patience learning the language and "create" my own Ph.D. opportunity in the city where I already live (to avoid the hassle of moving again), should I apply when I find interesting PhD opportunity in another country? or even should I go back to my own country? I'm kind of tired of moving, kind of lost the sense of belonging, but at the same time, I'm not happy staying either.
any chance that someone at the moment/ever feeling the same?

This is a personal decision, too dependent on your own value system, to get a valid answer here.

Getting a PhD on its own will do nothing to help with feelings of isolation or difficulty learning a language.  In some cases those things might get worse.

Those are big questions and I can't give you answers to them. It is your call and yours alone.
BUT, I can give you my point of view. I fairly recently finished a 6-year-long PhD in the UK. I was already a bit older than the average student when I was starting it and moved to the UK from Austria.
Personally, I don't recommend doing a PhD unless you want to stay in the academia.
If you want to become a university professor, there is no other way than doing a PhD. From a professional point of view, it often not worth it (money is not always better than with a Masters & you get harder a job, because you are suddenly overqualified). However, if you really want to do one (because of whatever reasons) and you would end up regretting not doing one, then do it. (consider also the next points)
How is it to do a PhD:
It really depends on who your supervisor is!!! (I can't stress that enough)
While it is for some people a great experience, and they love their PhD times, in my experience, the majority of people don't have a great time.

You are under a lot of stress for long periods
You write and try to publish a lot (many supervisors pushing for publications because it benefits their own profile).
In many cases, you need to do a lot of work on the side that doesn't add to your PhD.
Generally you work significantly more than 40h a week.
The pay is not great (depends on the country). In the UK you have 1200 GBP/month to live from. That's not much. The payment usually goes for 3 years, but most people needed 4. (I needed 6).
Depending on your supervisor this can be a bit more relaxed or very stressful and frustrating. In my group of friends, most people didn't have any social life and other activities. They just lived for their PhD (me included).
However, it is not all bad. It can be quite interesting (the work), you go on conferences where you meet other scientists and exchange ideas (if you can afford to go).

Where matters:
Doing a PhD in the UK is very different to doing one in Germany (for instance).
In the UK, you are treated like a student (similar to an undergraduate student). You don't have a salary and you're not employed.
In Germany, you are treated more like an academic/colleague and you're usually you are employed. It doesn't sound like much, but that makes a big difference on how you are treated.
In the UK, you can do a PhD in 3 years with very strict deadlines. In Germany, it is more open. It takes as long as it takes. (This can reduce stress)
Mental Health during a PhD:
OK I make this a specific point because it is important to say.
A PhD is very stressful and demanding on your mental health as well.
I had many co-PhD students that ended up with a bad depression; one even suicidal. This stems for many things: for instance, from high stress, sometimes social isolation, insecurities (being not sure about their work, their skills, their progress ..),...
A lot of PhD students just dropped out because they couldn't take it.
Social Contact:
The good thing in a PhD is that you have other PhD students going through the same as you and you can bond very well. (depends also on you personally). I got great friendships from my PhD times. But that also depends on how you approach people. Many PhD people (especially in engineering) are a bit socially awkward; if that's not a problem then you're fine :).
Having said that, if you worked before and do a PhD a bit later in life, it can be also tricky as many PhD students just finished their degree (23-years old in the UK). They are in a completely different stage in life.
Applying for a PhD:
If you still want to do a PhD, pick a Supervisor carefully. Email them, ask them for ideas or upcoming projects. Try to visit them in advance and see how they are and maybe talk to some of his/her PhD students separately. You WILL spend years working with him/her! I didn't do that and there were moments when I really regretted it.
In most cases, they want you to come up with an idea. That's really difficult, particularly if you haven't work in that area for long. Try not to be too practical. Have a theoretical component as well.
If possible try to get a funded project. A funded project is usually well-defined and most PhD students with such pre-defined projects finish in very short times and had great experiences. In contrast, a good friend of mine started his PhD without any boundaries and suffered for long period as couldn't define the focus of his work (even after two years). In the end, it turned out well.
So this was a longer post (sorry). But. I want you to be aware of how it is. I was oblivious to most of these point.
Overall, I can't tell you what you should do. Try to see if your local University offers interesting PhD places, then you don't need to move and PhD-salaries are generally better in Germany. Try socializing apps, if you feel isolated. Germans can be a bit distance and one feels easily isolated, but in my experience, they welcome you if they see you making efforts. If you want a restart, then moving is also a great opportunity.


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Using a list to explain symbols used in an equation?
In papers, the symbols explained in an equation are usually explained like this:

δ(t) = tan⁻¹〖ke(t) / vf(t)〗,
where δ(t) is the steering angle, e(t) is the closest point between the path and the vehicle, v(t) is the vehicle’s velocity and k is the gain parameter.

By contrast, textbooks often explain mathematical notation in a list-like format, e.g., like this:

δ(t) = tan⁻¹〖ke(t) / vf(t)〗,
where

δ(t) =  steering angle
e(t) =  closest point between the path and the vehicle
v(t) =  vehicle’s velocity
k     =   gain parameter

I consider this more legible, and I was thinking if I could use this in my scientific papers.
Is there any reason not to do this?

You may have stumbled on the few textbooks that use the list form, or maybe just those of a particular field. I have close to 1000 textbooks on my personal bookshelf, from different disciplines, and I can't recall a single one using the list form.

Here’s how the real pros do it: https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/95838/how-to-write-a-perfect-equation-parameters-description

To me, one difference is whether one wants to emphasize the notation or not. I could imagine a context in which the learned reader would already be guessing the identities of the symbols, in which case the first one might be better as a concise reality check; the second one might be better if all of these symbols are being introduced for the first time.

Unless you get contrary feedback from a reviewer (or advisor for a thesis), I think the format you use is up to you. Your suggestion adds readability and understandability and only loses compactness. To me it seems a positive tradeoff. But an editor might have specific needs.
But write as you think best, and yield to reviewers as necessary.

I like this answer calling it a trade-off between compactness and readability.

In some journals there are page limits, and so your first example becomes more relevant. But I agree your second example is more readable.

Regardless of whether there are formal page limits an editor may wish to minimise the number of pages used by one article.

A lot of journals charge authors a publishing fee. So there is an added incentive for the author to keep the page count as low as possible.

Do page limits make sense now that so much is being consumed digitally? Does a sizable proportion of researchers actually still receive and read physical journal copies?

@MaxW Do those fees go by page count?  Physical Review, e.g., charges by words (above a certain limit), which seems to make more sense.

@user151413 Other publishers charge by pages. One is for instance IEEE.

@user2647513 well, shorter papers are often quicker to read! Physical Review Letters publishes papers around 5 pages long (it's technically a word limit, but that's what it amounts to) which are great for a compact, tightly written summary of new discoveries.

@MassimoOrtolano My feeling would be that this would cause people to have less figures (or more crammed figures), which seems counterproductive, at least in figure-based areas. -- Though, thinking about it, I have to admit I'm not sure whether the word-charge in Phys. Rev. does include figures, at least for length limits, figures etc. have an equivalent word count.

@JHare ... though of course, often Physical Review Letter papers are just crammed onto four pages, which can make them considerably harder to read than, say, 6-page papers.  (Note also that it used to be a page limit.)

Good question! This is perhaps a matter of taste, and I don't know if there's any science about what's supposed to be more readable, but I prefer the former method. I feel it flows better when I read. The same goes with other kinds of lists, such as lists of assumptions.
A few times I have tried to make a bullet point list, only to find that I can control the flow better when I remove the bullets. I can customize the punctuation, and even interject more details on some points without making the list look typographically unbalanced. Here's an example from one of my own publications:

The expression is valid for a plasma that is 1) collisionless, 2) non-drifting Maxwellian, and 3) nonmagnetized. These assumptions are
justified in [1] and will not be further investigated here. It is
further required that 4) the ion collected current is much smaller
than the electron collected current. This is true for typical
ionospheric conditions with ions drifting at approximately 7500 m/s,
5) that the object is not affected by other, nearby objects, and 6)
eV/kT > 0 or, for cylindrical objects, eV/kT > 2. As for the probe
geometry, it is assumed that 7) the probe is very thin (r << λ_D), and for cylindrical probe 8) very long (l >> λ_D). The m-NLPs on CubeSats
typically have a radius of 0.255 mm [2], such that r/λ_D < 0.2 for the
Debye lengths considered. According to numerical simulations by
Laframboise [7], finite-radius effects are not significant even for
r/λ_D = 1, so this assumption is valid. The assumptions eV/kT > 2 and l >> λ_D will be discussed further in what follows. The vicinity of other
objects is only briefly considered.

Often I avoid lists all together for the sake of flow, but in this case I wanted the assumptions to be clearly and explicitly listed. Having a bullet point list and discussing the items afterwards would only have disrupted my flow. Others may prefer otherwise, of course.
I suspect some would think lesser of a bullet point list, perhaps in particular since it is unusual, and that this may detract from your referee's impression of the paper. For my own part, I would perhaps suggest to change it, but I would not let it decide whether the paper gets accepted or not.

The downside of the "flow" is that it is much harder to find those definitions if you don't read a paper sequentially.

I think, it it really a matter of taste. E.g I cannot follow in-line list (as your in example) after 2-3 points, especially if they are sentences themselves.

@user151413: That is certainly true. If you need it to stand out for someone skimming the paper, whether for first read or not, that may be a reason for using a bullet point list.

@aqua: Yes, I suppose it is a matter of taste.

My feeling is that the space that something takes on the page should be positively related to its importance. Often equations are given using symbols that are fairly standard in the subfield. Their definitions might be included for people outside the subfield, but for most readers, these definitions will be unnecessary. So in some cases, it would be drawing a lot of the reader's attention to something that is sort of a footnote.

You claim that the longer format is more legible. I do not think it is necessarily the case, let me explain. (Another reason not to use the longer format is to avoid having too many pages in the paper, but others wrote enough about this, I think, so I will disregard this aspect.)
As a general rule, when writing either a book or a paper, I believe you should try to make it as easy as possible for the reader to distinguish which parts he should pay more attention to (because they are especially important, difficult or nonstandard), and which he can more-or-less safely skim.
In your example, the itemized format puts very strong emphasis on the notation used for various parts of the formula. This might be a good idea especially when you are just introducing this notation, and the formula (and its parts) are heavily used later in the paper. Or maybe you want to make sure the reader remembers exactly the factors on which delta depends.
On the other hand, it may be that the meanings of the symbols are standard/established earlier in the paper and you are merely recalling them. Or maybe you are never going to use them again in the paper. Perhaps the formula is just a side remark. In these cases, the longer format will (unduly) draw the reader's focus to it, so you may prefer to avoid it. In other words, while indeed this makes the formula itself more legible, it may make the whole paper overall less readable.
Of course, in practice, what you write may not fall into either of these extremes, and in the end, what should and what should not be emphasised is up to the writer's/editor's judgement and taste.


text:
What is the longest cycle in the graph of academic papers and citations?
Okay, this is obviously just a fun and hopefully interesting question, but it is related to academia as a whole.
Sometimes two papers cite each other because they were published around the same time. However, citations should generally go in one direction, which is from older to newer. This is an easy consequence of causality. I am interested in examples of long cycles in the body of published and peer-reviewed papers.
EDIT: I should clarify that by a cycle of length n I mean a list of n papers where each one cites the next one and the last one cites the first one, and that "long" in the title refers to large n.

Does long refer to the numbers of papers in the cycle or the temporal distance (in publication date or similar)?

One of the issues in this question is how to define "paper". The looser a definition you use, the larger the cycles you will find.


text:
Motivation for a Professor to be the first author of a paper when collaborating with their own student
I am a graduate student focused on a subdivision of theoretical physics. When I am browsing  papers, I find out an interesting case about the author's name ranking:
Let's assume there is a professor A (tenured) and B is a Ph.D. student supervised solely by A (which means there is no co-advising). There are plenty of published papers where the author list is made by only A and B. In my previous understanding, the first author is often given to the student(s) and the professor can be safely placed on the last of the author list to claim the achievement, as long as the professor acts as the corresponding author. However, the reality is that A is placed in front of B among most of their published papers (so the author list is: [A, B]), except for one paper where there are some other collaborators (i.e. [B, X1, X2..., A]).
I can't help figuring out the motivation for a professor to claim the first authorship over his own student. One of the reasons I could imagine is that student B cannot come up with meaningful research ideas or cannot carry out research independently. However, B has published X papers with A already (X>3) in some high-impact journals, and B's personal publication record is also promising (has more than 10 publications).
Can anyone share their thoughts about this situation? I have never seen such an interesting and unique case for the authorship arrangement.

I know of a big name professor with a surname that starts with 'B' that tells students the norm of their research areas is to order authors alphabetically.  In some areas, that's true.  In the professor's area, definitely not.

Any system that doesn't use alphabetical listing is ripe for misuse and intimidation. There are lots of questions here that attest to this. Just. Say. No.

@Buffy Alphabetical listing can also be quite misleading about the contributions of the individual authors because indeed in most of the works the contributions are not equal, and it can be prone to misuse and intimidation too because one can force a biassed author statement. Not to mention that in a group there is the risk that only one member will be remembered by the posterity. Mathematicians are fond of the alphabetical listing, but it's not better than other type of listings.

@MassimoOrtolano, I disagree, actually. Imputed meaning of author order in a paper is easy to misinterpret, whereas explicit statements of contributions less so. Also, mere author order can't really capture the nature of contributions but make it easy to discount the contributions of some authors. Maybe we need a Meta to discuss author order as it frequently comes up..

@Buffy just say no to what? Being in the field where this is the convention? That's not really an option. Nobody would care about you believing in alphabetical order, if the order simply means something else in the rest of the papers in the area

It's because for those papers, it's the profesor who deserves the first authorship.
In my field (not physics), the first author is usually the person who did most of the work and wrote the paper, so if a professor is first, it might mean they did work that would warrant the first authorship to anybody. Expecting professors to not be first authors would mean they are destined to only consult and supervise projects. Just because someone is a professor, that doesn't mean they need to give every idea they have to a student to fully develop.
Careerwise and CWwise, first authorship is better than middle authorship, but in my field, the last authorship is more prestigious than the first, so it would make more sense to move the student to be the first author, however, this might not be the case in theoretical physics and it's probably not the case for papers with only 2 authors. In any case, putting someone as the first author, even when they didn't do the first author's work, would be considered unethical.

I find "did most of the work" to be very ambiguous. What does "work" mean, actually? If I devise an experiment and pay you to carry it out under my close supervision, did you do "most of the work"?

@Buffy that's exactly the contribution that would make you the last author.

Actually, sole author would be more like it, with an acknowledgement. Authorship should involve a creative element, not just "work".

@Buffy ICMJ guidelines state that you need "Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; + writing/editing + final approval + accountability. So data acquisition is enough for authorship if the person also reads and approves the paper. Unfortunately, there is still a lot of wiggle room for excluding people who did the work and including people who did nothing.

No, sorry. Authorship requires all of those elements, not just one of them. The connective is "+" i.e. "and", not "or".

@Buffy yes, that's what I wrote. If you acquire data, thats the condition one, and if they also send you the paper to read or edit that's condition two and if you are fine with it that's condition three and four.

Customs differ between disciplines. In pure Mathematics, author lists tend to be strictly alphabetically ordered. In Computer Science, your ordering is used. If the professor's name comes after the student's in alphabetical order, it might be that the professor feels that the professor's contributions outweigh the student's so that it would be deceitful to put the student's name first. Given the closeness of Theoretical Physics to Pure Mathematics, I assume that alphabetical ordering is used.

That really depends on the area of theoretical physics. E.g. high energy theory tends to use alphabetical order, but condensed matter theory typically does not.

Theoretical CS (and some other parts) also use alphabetical listings. Why fight over minutiae?

Publication history is irrelevant here.  What matters is the contribution to the current manuscript.  It may be that the person who did the heavy lifting is the senior person, and they feel no student did enough to warrant being first author.
This happens when one persons had major input in identifying the calculation to be done, actually starting the calculation, interpreting the result of the calculation, and/or writing the manuscript (or combinations of the above) whereas others had only minor input.
The message here is that, if you want to be first author, you have to earn it.