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How to refer to the empirical study involved in the thesis?
Should I always refer to it as "the empirical study of/ involved in this thesis"? I found it too lengthy when I need to refer to it frequently in the thesis. Is there another shorter term to refer to it?

Many software packages can replace mis-spelt words automatically, so make use of that "teso" is replaced by "the emprirical study of/ involved in this thesis"...

I was asking about whether there is another way of referring to it.

When you put "too lengthy" I thought is was that you found it too difficult to type... Now you have edited your question to clarify that.

If there is no ambiguity, "The Study" should do after the first instance. You could even say, at the first usage

...the empirical study of this thesis (The Study)...

This would make it a sort of keyword for the remainder of the thesis.
If there might be ambiguity, then The Present Study would probably be enough to clarify.


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How should I deal with need-to-define terms in introduction?
I am currently writing a paper, which starts with an "Introduction" and a "Definition" section. Would it be OK if there are some terms I plan to define in "Definition" first appear in "Introduction", without defining it in "Introduction"?
If no, how should I deal with it?

There are at several possible ways, actually.
First is to avoid the yet-to-be-defined term in the intro and use a descriptive phrase instead. This assumes the term isn't frequently used in the intro.
A second way is to footnote the definition or an pointer to it when it first appears in the introduction. Putting the definition itself in the footnote repeats it, but a pointer doesn't require that.
You could also just add "... frytopper (defined in the next section)..." at the first appearance.
Yet another would be to write the intro as: "... frytopper (italicized terms defined in the next section)...". For this you would only need the pointing phrase at the first of the later-defined terms, but just italicize all of them - at least for the first appearance.
Some of these require the reader to hop about a bit, but it should work.

What is a "pointer"?

A citation of some sort, formal or otherwise. Point to where the def can be found rather than restating it.

What would you think about briefly explaining the term in introduction? (and define it more thoroughly in the section "Definition") Also according to APA, we need to italicize terminology the first time it appears. What about in this case? Should I italicize the term in introduction and not italicize it in "Definition"?

In my opinion, a rough definition in the introduction is often a good solution.

@SebastianBechtel, actually, I worry that could lead to the reader being confused. If they get the wrong idea initially then they may carry a misconception for a while. Better IMO to refer to the real definition.

@Buffy of course one should indicate that it’s not the precise definition. An example from my field: where ... denotes the space of functions which in some sense vanish on a part of the boundary, see Section ... for the precise definition.

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How to reply to your boss when your boss ask you whether your new subordinate is competent/ good to let the boss have a good impression of you?
I recently started to supervise a student writing his bachelor thesis. While he was about two weeks late in contacting me (which was apparently normal according to my colleagues; he also explained to me that he was busy), he seems to read the papers I recommended carefully before contacting me.
My professor (my boss) asked me whether I consider that student as good. I just told her that the student seems to read papers carefully. Now I wonder whether I did it correctly.
In general, when my superior ask me about the impression of my new subordinate, should I emphasize the good aspect or the bad aspect? (Some people told me that I should emphasize bad aspect so that if that subordinate turns out to be an incompetent one (i.e. yielding bad results), I would not be the one to blame.)
Should I mention something that is already normal e.g. in my case, the student contacted me about two weeks late?
Would there be any cultural differences in dealing with this (I am in Germany)?
(Would the answer be different if I am in a non-academic field?)

Be moderate and honest.

I don't think we can abort a bachelor thesis (the worst case would be giving the student a "no pass" grade). So "if the student is good enough to further invest in them" should be irrelevant for his objective of asking me.

@Roland Do you think I should mention to the professor that the student contacted me about 2 weeks late? It seems to be normal.

Reply honestly, especially if the supervisor is in a position to help the student overcome any deficiencies. It is fine to give facts, such as the lateness issue. But don't give either overly-positive or overly-negative interpretations of the facts.
Your statement that they seem to take care in reading was the right approach. Saying that they were late would also be fine, especially if you also ask whether that should be expected generally.
But the question "is the student good" is pretty hard to answer, as most everyone has both good and, shall we say, less good aspects to their observed behavior.
Honest. Objective.

I do not think that the professor was in a position to "help the student overcome any deficiencies" in my case. I asked my colleagues (not the professor) about the expectation of contact promptedness before this incident of my professor asking me, so I thought that it was normal to be two weeks late and hence was not worthy of mentioning to my professor.

That seems fine.

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Is it OK to use "/" in scientific writing?
For example, would it be OK to write: Many of these articles belong to School of Thought A and/or School of Thought B.
What about the other cases in general just to replace "or" with "/"?
E.g. This brain area might coincide or connect with the brain area responsible for...
Can I write it as "This brain area might coincide/connect with the brain area responsible for..."

Yes, why wouldn't it be?

What about the other cases just to replace "or" with "/"?

Provide other cases...

Personally it's too informal for my taste but I don't know if it's strictly forbidden by any style guides.

@Allure because it makes one look lazy, vague, and with no sense of taste...

@Evariste I would bet that's an opinion most people do not share.

The question “is it OK” is a bit too vague to be answerable. Surely the sky won’t collapse if you do it. But to make things a bit more precise, I would say that if you want your writing to communicate your ideas in the best way to your readership, and if you want it to be taken as seriously as possible by as many people as possible rather than have it tend to be dismissed (consciously or subconsciously) by some people as the product of an immature writer, then no, you should not use the “X/Y” informal writing pattern.
Remember also that the reason scientific writing uses a formal writing style is that the primary purpose of a scientific text is to communicate technical ideas, in as clear a way as possible, to a broad audience that’s usually very diverse and consists of people from many countries, cultural backgrounds, age groups etc, and for many of whom English is not a native tongue. For this reason, using anything in a scientific text that may distract too much from the main technical content or confuse readers who don’t share your particular background is generally frowned upon. That includes things like slang terms, emoticons, graphical symbols with a charged historical and political meaning, pointless anecdotes, and, in my opinion, the “slash” shorthand device.

But how would you suggest to use instead? E.g. I have a sentence in my paper that goes "...provide future possible research directions as they can be refined and/or tested with these measures." If I write instead "...provide future possible research directions as they can be refined or tested with these measures or both.", I am not sure if it would be understandable for the readers. (Or is it understandable for the readers?)

@Aqqqq it’s hard to say for sure without knowing the exact context, but it sounds like a simple “and” will do just fine for your sentence.

Because some studies can only be refined with "these measures" and some can only be tested with "these measures"... Would "or" also be OK?

"It's best to avoid using and/or," Mignon Fogarty, Grammar Girl, "You'd be hard pressed to find a style guide that doesn't admonish you to drop and/or and rewrite the sentence with just and or just or."
Rather than "Many of these articles belong to School of Thought A and/or School of Thought B," try

Many of these articles belong to School of Thought A, School of Thought B, or both.

Given that scientific writing needn't be pedantic, the answer in general would be yes. But it also has the potential for confusion if the two terms aren't closely related or the and/or sets up a conflict. So, at least think about the overall meaning when you use it in any technical writing. As an example:
I run hot/cold on this question.
Note, however, that in those places where it is especially important to be precise, such as the statement of an hypothesis, it would be a mistake to write in such a way that might generate confusion.

I may have downvotes for that sentence also. And fun time was had by all/none.

To clarify, is the last sentence meant as an example of an inappropriate use of the slash? Because personally I don’t understand what that sentence is trying to say, but perhaps that was your point.

Yes, @DanRomik, that was my point. It also makes your point as well. It can lose clarity. The opening of A Tale of Two Cities doesn't work as "It was the best/worst of times".


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Where can an academic put their lecture slides for posterity?
I was recently asked this question by an academic colleague and realised I didn't know the answer.
Academic X is about to retire from a computer science department and has a set of undergraduate lecture slides he is very proud of. He would like to put them online so they are available to the world. Where can he put them?
The arXiv is not suited to hosting lecture slides.  There is wikibooks which is a possibility but the quality isn't great and it is in Wiki markup I believe.
The university he works at has no permanent location to host retired academics' work sadly.

He should first check whether he owns his slides. Many universities take ownership. Assuming he does (or the university waives their rights), he could build a personal website or use https://www.slideshare.net/

@user2768 I should have said, the university are happy to waive their rights apparently.

Maybe it is time his/your university did provide permanent web space for faculty as well as emeritus faculty. Some of the stuff produced is very valuable to others and advances the reputation of the university as well as its faculty. Maybe you can explore that option. People already know how to find the person there, I suspect. Why move it to a less visible space if you can avoid it?

@Buffy That would certainly be good but mindless bureaucracy seems to be the obstacle.

Does Academic X's institution have a course materials repository (e.g., MIT's OpenCourseWare)?  Such a repository would likely be maintained longer than a personal faculty page.

Archive.org (not to be confused with arxiv.org) aims to be the world's library. According to its FAQ,

The Internet Archive focuses on preservation and providing access to digital cultural artifacts

It cites the destruction of the Library at Alexandria as the kind of loss of cultural heritage which it aims to avoid, so preserving an academic's teaching material should be perfectly aligned with their goals.
The FAQ also has a large section on uploading content. I suggest you pass that URL along to your colleague.

I would recommend that you put your slides somewhere widely indexed (so, very findable! things that are captured by google scholar, for instance) and run by a non-profit on top of open source software. You ideally also want things that give you a DOI -- a permanent link to your work. This helps us in academia combat the corporate capture of scholarship and can help your work be more widely used/circulated amongst your colleagues!
Here are a few of my suggestions that meet the above criteria:

Open Science Framework
Zenodo, which lets you search on presentations specifically so users can more easily find your work.

You could also use DataCite's repository finder to help you search more fruitfully: https://repositoryfinder.datacite.org/
I would also advise you to choose a good license for your work, like CC-By or CC-By-NC. You can read more about creative commons licenses here: https://creativecommons.org/

The lectures could also be collected to be posted on sites such as these.
https://www.udemy.com/
http://www.openculture.com/freeonlinecourses
https://www.onlinecourses.com/lectures/
I might also recommend to compile them in PDF format and find a self-publishing source.
https://outskirtspress.com/selfpublishing
https://oedb.org/ilibrarian/the-academics-guide-to-self-publishing/
https://leanpub.com/

As a wildcard approach, and depends on the content.
But how about somewhere that they can be maintained and developed further, such as Github?
For Comp Sci, this is a well known resource.
Alterantively, if the view is that they are fixed in content, it might be possible to format as a e-Book and publish via Amazon or elsewhere.

It is also possible that your department's Student Association has a website with study material.
The collection at my association includes mostly past-year's exams, but if the slides are actually high quality on their own (without Academic X talking), it could likely be made space for them.

I would suggest creating a personal web page using one of the freely available alternatives such as github/gitlab/bitbucket pages or maybe google sites.  This is a free solution which is easy to implement, is indexed by search engines, and allows virtually perpetual storage of the course information.
Having a page dedicated to the course with all the materials gathered together and properly annotated seems to be a better solution compared to keeping a pile of pdfs (or even worse, ppts) at e.g. Slideshare.


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Latex IEEE bibliography style used for final publication
IEEE provides IEEEtran.bst, however this one is rather not used by the IEEE when the article is finally published. Why do I think so? Well, if you look inside the  IEEEtran.bst you will notice that it does not handle for example urldate or doi attributes. However, both urldate and doi are nicely formatted in the references in the final publication. I doubt they format it manually as it would be a waste of time.
Does anyone know what style is used by the IEEE in final publication and whether it is officially available for download?

Why don't you just provide your .bib and use ieeetr style in your LaTeX source, and leave the rest to the IEEE production crew.


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Is it self-plagiarism to have two sequential almost identical sentences in my two papers?
I have published two papers, say A and B. The core of A and B is totally different but they have a similar background.
The similarity of A and B is <1% using iThenticate.
However, I accidentally found that A and B share two sequential almost identical sentences in the introduction of background (totally 40 words). B also cites A but in other place. Is it self-plagiarism?

This is quite common (at least the example you gave). You can find sentences duplicated verbatim in different papers by the same author(s) in introduction, background, review of relevant results, etc.

As an aside, using a "plagiarism checker" on your own work in an attempt to determine whether something you wrote constitutes plagiarism makes about the same amount of sense as using a "lie detector" on yourself in an attempt to determine whether something you said constitutes a lie.

If one paper cites the other then it is almost certainly fine. Relax. Any reader finding B will also be able to find A making the complete context available.
Without a citation it would depend on what the sentences say. Plagiarism is about ideas and it would probably be hard to capture a complete idea in a couple of sentences in a way that resulted in plagiarism, but it is possible.
Let me emphasize that plagiarism is about the ideas, not the specific words to express them. It is possible to commit plagiarism, including self plagiarism, using none of the original words. For a scholarly paper, self plagiarism occurs when you include ideas that you have published previously without citation, giving the impression that they are new in this paper. It has the effect of cutting off a reader of the current paper from the complete context of the ideas and how they arose.
Also note that most people, when writing about similar things, are likely to use similar phrasing. We tend to fall into patters of language. I'll guess that is all that is happening here.


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How do I avoid answering too many questions?
Often in class, professors will ask questions to the class. Usually, I'll at least think I know the answer to the question, so naturally I want to answer it.
The problem is that my hand shouldn't constantly be up throughout the class. I need to make sure all of the students have a chance to think through the material and try to formulate their own answers rather than providing one for them every time.
On the other hand, I worry that if I don't raise my hand, my professors will think that I don't know the answer, I haven't read the material, or I haven't thought through a line of reasoning.
How should I as a student balance answering questions, showing that I understand the course material being presented, and not looking like a know-it-all?
This is similar to this answer, but from the other side.
I try to present that I know the material in tests and papers, but even then I don't always do well, as I'm much better at understanding a concept than doing assignments on them.
Possible duplicates, only found after posting:

How to balance lecture participation and not being considered a show-off?
How not to come off as boasting or arrogant, if you are one of the few active students in a class?

"I'm much better at understanding a concept than doing assignments on them." Whenever I hear/read a student making this claim (which happens quite frequently), I feel obliged to politely point out that, with high probability, they are deceiving themselves: being able to actually work with a concept is an integral part of understanding it.

Don't raise your hand so much. That is all. I wrote this as an answer, and it was deleted by a moderator. But some questions do have simple answers.

Do you have any indication that the prof cares who answers and thinks badly about the non-hand-raising people? How many people are there?

I just wanted to address one point:

On the other hand, I worry that if I don't raise my hand, my professors will think that I don't know the answer, I haven't read the material, or I haven't thought through a line of reasoning.

This is not why the professor is asking - or at least, not specifically about you. Typically, an instructor will ask questions to:

Gauge if "the class" is following - obviously that will vary between people, but if everyone looks baffled and glassy-eyed at the question, it's a useful sign that they might be lost, and the instructor should give them a chance to catch up before moving on to more advanced material.
Create a more interactive learning experience. Many modern teaching methods posit that the traditional one-directional info-dump method of lecturing results in poor retention, superficial learning and limited engagement. Whether this assessment is valid and whether random classroom questions are the best way to go about it are questions beyond the scope of this answer, but many instructors use questions to address these concerns, or at least jolt students off their phones.
Manufacture a learning moment - for example, ask a question where the intuitive answer is non-trivially wrong, or it's common for a (general) population to give a variety of answers, then follow up with an analysis. This can be more engaging that just saying "x% of people choose to reroute the trolley", or something like that, although it can put the answerer on the spot a bit.

Now, there's nothing more frustrating than asking a question to be answered by stony silence, so thank you for being willing to answer, but classroom questions are not exams and you shouldn't feel that you need to prove your knowledge. In some cases, some wrong answers can be more useful from a didactic perspective - they can stimulate a dialogue, engage people's curiosity, make them feel more invested in the dicussion. So hold back a little - this will not reflect badly on you.

It is the professor's responsibility to manage the class including who they call on to answer. There really isn't an issue about trying too hard. I answered a lot of questions, but I also asked a lot of them and pointed out to a lecturer when I didn't understand something (in math) and wondered if it were correctly stated. My peers assumed I was smarter than I was because I asked and answered questions.
But another issue you raise is that you are "much better at understanding a concept than doing assignments on them". I think that is probably incorrect. Having an immediate grasp of something isn't necessarily insight, but it can "feel like" insight. Until you can apply the knowledge you don't really "understand" it. Otherwise you just carry around a bunch of "facts". Work for a deeper understanding by doing exercises and applying the knowledge. Work to be able to do more than the minimum required.

Edit: I missed the comment in OP's question, "I'm much better at understanding a concept than doing assignments on them." when I first read the question. If you can't do the assignments and get the majority of the questions right consistently then you don't truly understand the material and just have an illusion of knowledge/understanding (e.g. https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20220812-the-illusion-of-knowledge-that-makes-people-overconfident ). Illusions of knowledge and recognising when you have an illusion of knowledge is a very useful skill to have, and prevents you from not furthering your education because you believe you perfectly understand everything.

Coming from being one of those students who could answer all the questions during lectures during my undergrad days (to the point that in one of my higher level course the lecturer asked a question and when no-one answered he turned to me because he knew I knew the answer and got me to answer), I can recognise what you are talking about. So in addition to the good answers from others, here would be my suggestions:

Don't immediately answer a question unless you think there is a reasonable possibility you may be wrong, this means you are only answering questions that you have a chance to learn from and can confirm your thinking
The exception being if no-one answers or puts their hand up for a while, then you can answer, the goal here is to let people think about the question but to answer it if no one else is sure.
If you hear something that sounds wrong/you think the lecturer had a typo/you think something was explained in a way that would not be clear to others in the class, ask for clarity as a question. This allows other students to see the ways you've been processing the information and so may be an indirect way of helping them but also you may predict what may not be clear to others and are guiding the lecturer (who probably forgets what its like to learn this material the first time) to explain the key points clearer then they would otherwise.

If you are also concerned about yourself or other students looking good in-front of the lecturer I'll point out the following:

There is a concept in psychology called counter-signalling where if you are particularly skilled in something, you can send a stronger signal of your competence by not indicating your skill. The basic idea is that if you are either weak(W), moderate (M), or strong(S) and someone just listening to you can tell you are either in W/M or in M/S then by not signalling you are showing the confidence that you will always be detected as M/S and so are probably S, while if you  in M you want to make sure you aren't confused to be W, so you signal to make sure you always go in the M/S classification.
If you answer all the hardest questions it will become easy to see that you are a strong student, but it leaves the easier questions for other classmates to demonstrate their competencies if that is important to you. Alternatively it will give all the other students a chance to think about the lecture which means the lecturer may not have to repeat the material.
If you ask questions you are both creating more opportunists to demonstrate skill, showing that you are able to follow the material in real time and understand it, as well as helping other students during the lecture.

While it sounds like I put a lot of thought into it back when I was a student, really these points came from an analysis of what I did back then. At the time it was probably really related to me being bored or unable to see a benefit to me answering the questions except in the cases I described.

I think a great way to balance always answering questions and wanting to show you are trying/engaged is to keep being conscious of answering all the questions and try to go to office hours! It is truly a win-win situation because you can ask for help with the topics you need help with to get a higher grade on those tests/papers, can show the knowledge you do know, and you get to know your professor better (which is great for when you need letters of recommendation).


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First author is against further experiments prior to publication, but corresponding author decides to do so anyway. Is this justified?
We submitted our paper and got rejected. Now we want to submit somewhere else. Me (first author) wants to submit the paper as it is, while the corresponding author wants to do further experiments. Is there anything I can do? Who has the last word? Can the corresponding just decide like that, even if the first author disagrees? And would it help me to post the work on a preprint server, and in that case, would I need approval from every co-author to do so, or does the corresponding decide?

And would it help me to post the work on a preprint server,
Yes, but only a little.
and in that case, would I need approval from every co-author to do so, or does the corresponding decide?
Absolutely ask the coauthors, no way you can publish the work of someone without their consent!

Generally every author needs to agree on a publication; even on a preprint server, as long as their name is on it. Nobody should publish something with your name against your will (which is a good thing), and neither can you publish against the will of the others.
So unfortunately if they insist on doing further work, there is nothing you can do apart from trying to convince them that this is not needed, and that you need this published quickly.
Note however that scientific papers are there in the first place to progress our knowledge, not to make up people's CVs. Your co-author may have good scientific reasons for why they want to do further experiments, and it may improve the quality of the paper (of course based on the given information we here cannot have an opinion on whether this is so). This should be a very good reason to do the additional experiments, and it may well increase the chance of acceptance, which then would also be in your own interest.
I think the most important thing here is communication - you need to tell them your reasons but you also need to understand theirs. They may change their mind, or you may accept that there is some sense in doing the additional work.

That said (I'm not in a field where you can "just do another experiment") I think putting what you have up on a preprint server would be totally appropriate.

@AzorAhai-him-, are you suggesting that be done without permission of co-authors? That sounds wrong.

@Buffy No. Christian already covered that was needed, but didn't state whether putting anything up on a preprint server with permission was a good idea or not.

@ChristianHennig Yep! That's true.

Two notes to add to the answer of Christian Hennig. First it is generally not a good career move to fight with your supervisor (and another PI) whose recommendations you need about as much as you need any single publication. Don't prove yourself a poor collaborator early in your career.
Second, the time to publication of a submission "as is" elsewhere isn't necessarily shorter than doing what the journal suggested and resubmitting. It might even be longer.


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Coworker hiding and stealing lab material
We found out that a graduate student coworker was hiding materials and even throwing them away when they realised they might get caught.
With this they were not only stealing but also actively stopping others from doing experiments (materials worth 500 $ – 1000 $). When we approached them, they were first lying and gaslighting a lot (“How can you think that of me?”, etc.). The next day, when they realised that the last remaining person is also a witness, they suddenly cried, apologised and asked for forgiveness. They said it was because of personal problems.
My gut tells me that the PI deserves and needs to know this, and I have a hard time being silent on this. Other people involved want to give them a second chance.
Any thoughts what to do?
Update: Just wanted to say thank you to everyone for the answers and comments. I escalated it to the PI!

I don't work in the lab sciences, so I won't write an answer, but I want to emphasize that the fact that "other people involved want to give them a second chance" is definitely not born out of some sophisticated moral calculation or a highly developed sense of empathy. Rather, there is about a 100% chance that their stance is based on the fact that it causes them personal discomfort to feel responsible for potentially "ruining" someone's career. This ultimately a selfish stance which endangers everyone in the lab just because some people are too cowardly to do the unpleasant but right thing.

@Amanda they might not want to talk with you/your colleagues about the problems, but maybe with a professional (who then is also obliged to not share information, depending on the country). Sounds like a tricky case- I agree that the PI should be informed somehow, but outright telling him/her about the other person's behaviour might not be the best way given the problems. However, this also depends on the PI...

@Mark, bringing a mental health professional into the issue sounds like good advice. Perhaps you should make it a formal answer. But it should be done by someone in authority, not just a co-worker.

Also, speaking as an academic manager, about the last thing you want as a PI is everybody adopting a "snitches get stitches" attitude, problems festering until eyerybody feels like shit, and then getting thrown into a situation that has already wildly escalated out of control. Since you are talking about stealing from the lab we may already be in an "escalating out of control" situation, so high time the PI hears about it.

It's not fair to delete a question after people have put effort into answering it. You could change your user name if it's not already a pseudonym. I've cleaned up some comments that had more detail than necessary to answer the question.

My gut tells me that the PI deserves and needs to know this I'm flabbergasted that you're even considering not telling the PI.  The PI definitely needs to know ASAP.

@JohnGordon: Not an excuse, but people often ignore their internal sense of justice because of peer pressure. That is why in my opinion it is important to explain what is wrong with the peers' behaviour (as per my answer).

Remember that it's not the first time they did it.  It's the first time they got caught.

It's nice that you updated us on your course of action! It would be great if you can also let us know whether the result was satisfactory to you. I also hope that you fully understand my answer explaining why you must not take the gaslighting lightly. =)

Escalate to your PI or the relevant ethics officer
This is quite a serious situation that involves both loss of university resources and also hampering multiple researchers from their learning/research activities.  For those reasons, I recommend that you escalate this either to your PI or to the relevant ethics officer for your faculty.  The matter can then proceed according to the standard university protocols for dealing with student misbehaviour, and any mitigating factors will be taken into account.  You and your fellow students can make your own decisions re forgiveness while this process is dealing with the matter, but you should not seek to substitute yourselves as arbiters of the matter.

I strongly recommend to escalate this for the following reasons:

If you do not escalate, this partially becomes your responsibility, too, i.e., if your supervisor or the university find out, they might consider you partially responsible for the loss of materials. This particularly applies if the behaviour continues.

Seriously consider how things would unfold if you do not escalate and the problems continue. If any material vanishes in the future, your coworker will automatically be the suspect and drama may ensue, which may affect further relationships in your group. If your coworker gets caught again and you escalate then, it may still only be a first offense and as mentioned in the previous point, you may get blamed too. This may even prevent other coworkers from escalating thus perpetuating the situation.

Even just going by your description, your coworker already got their second chance. It’s not that they stole something once and happened to get caught. They acted multiple times and only happened to be caught now.

Your PI may be aware of more offenses and aggravating factors than you and your colleagues. This may already be the second or third chance. Avoiding escalation at all costs is a common tactic for certain people to leave no paper trail and stay under the radar. This is exacerbated by the lying and gaslighting you describe: They apparently have the skills to avoid problems and the ethical flexibility to use them. They only performed remorse once the other tactics failed.

Due to several of the points above, escalating is more likely to actually end the behaviour. If your coworker is as manipulating as you depict them, they may be well aware of all this.

You and your colleagues might be worried about ruining your coworker’s career, and this may indeed be the effect of escalating. However, consider that there are probably fewer academic positions than people interested in them in your field. Thus if your coworker gets their next position, this will inevitably end somebody else’s academic career – just that you don’t know this other person.

Is the person stealing, or keeping a secret stash? There's a big difference. The difference might not be obvious as both types of behaviors prevent access to materials. But there is a difference, especially in the context of a lab.
For example, in wet labs, there's a system of stock solutions vs. working solutions. The stock solution is kept on a separate area where everybody has access to it, and there is an expectation that everybody be extra careful not to contaminate or mishandle the container (e.g. leave it outside if it belongs in the fridge, expose it to light, etc.) Problems arise when the lab does not have a good system of restocking the stock solutions, or where not everybody is careful regarding cross-contamination and handling issues. In these cases, people tend to keep a secret stash of stock solution, just to make sure they have access to materials when it's time to do particular experiments. Everybody keeping a secret stash brings about a host of new problems, like added costs, solutions expiring, and more. But the problem is not that lab personnel are being evil and "stealing" the stock solution, but bad lab management.
So from your comment,

We found out that our coworker was hiding materials and even throwing them away when they realised they might get caught.

This sounds like keeping a stash, and then panicking when caught and trying to get rid of the evidence, perhaps because keeping a stash is not allowed by lab rules, while the underlying issues have not being fixed. And according to comments by the OP, the discarded materials were a few uL in an otherwise used tube. And $500-$1,000 worth of materials can fit in a 50uL microcentrifuge tube, so the amount itself is not surprising. Before going too far with the accusation, I'd make sure others are not doing the same thing.
You also need to be careful with how you present your accusations. Even if the OP has other information that would make this actual "stealing", getting caught stealing is quite an embarrassing situation, which can spill into overwhelming feelings of shame. In a lab situation, where people work together with shared resources for years at a time, it can make the perp feel overwhelmed (e.g. "everyone knows I'm a thief and treats me like one"), which can end up in serious stuff, like suicide. This is not a far-fetched idea, and it's the reason we professors, when catching a student cheating, we are careful to refer to the student as "someone who was caught cheating" as opposed to "a cheater." The first describes a reversible situation (the student can accept the consequences and stop cheating), the second describes the character, the being, of the person and is a judgement on that person.
Whatever the facts, you have to tell someone up the chain of command of the incident. Even if the lab is well managed and what this person did is inexcusable, everyone deserves a second chance. But it's not your job to administer discipline in the lab, it's your supervisor's job. They have to decide if this is an isolated incident. And if it's the first time, it needs to be put on file so that the second time counts as the second time. If it's the second, third, or fourth time, then the supervisor needs to know so that they can refer the student to the next person up the chain. It also gives a chance to the supervisor to learn about the possible underlying problems, like issues with keeping enough stock materials for everyone to do their experiments.

I am getting tired of the overly aggressive moderation. The moderator's comment is still here, but my reply was deleted. So was all the additional information by the OP.

Please see this comment for some explanation. Anyway, I deleted my (first) comment as well, since it it is more confusing than anything now (and it turns out that you were at least partially right). Also note that I am not getting involved in moderating this question since I posted at an answer.

@Cheery OP was concerned that the level of detail might reveal who they are. Remember that Q and A are supposed to be useful for future visitors. Most of the comments here were getting too far in the weeds that they were no longer about improving this answer for future visitors with a similar question. Comments on StackExchange are always ephemeral, if you've got something you want to last make sure it finds space within an answer.

As others have pointed out, this is a potentially serious situation.  You have no idea how deep the problem goes, how long it's been going on, or really anything beyond what you've observed.  Further, how would you feel if one of your colleagues reported it when you choose not to.  How would you answer the question "why didn't YOU say something?"?
Of primary importance to the PI will be issues surrounding data integrity.  When the PI hears of the problem, they will probably want to confirm that all the data generated by the lab is real and confirmable.  If it's not, and you do nothing to call this problem to the attention of the PI, you may find yourself in a situation that you don't want to be in.
My recommendation would be to

Keep personal contemporary notes on everything having to do with this issue.  Maybe make sure they're time stamped.  You might consider emailing your notes to yourself -- though I don't necessarily recommend creating an electronic data trail that way because email may not be confidential, and it may not be the best thing to write down accusations in a way that could turn up on somebody's desk without you knowing it.
Contact the PI about it in a way that you can trace.  For example, send an email to the PI that says "I'd like to meet with you to discuss a delicate and potentially important situation".  CC yourself.  Save a copy of the email with your contemporaneous notes.  This way.
If the PI is amenable, meet with the PI and tell them pretty much exactly what you've posted here.  After the meeting, summarize it in your contemporaneous notes.  If the PI is not amenable to the meeting, write that down in your contemporaneous notes (though I can't imagine that the PI would treat this that way).

This way, you're reporting an adverse situation to the immediate supervisor without skipping any organizational levels.  You will not have done this in a way with potential security risks.  You can trace the conversation in a convincing way if you ever need to (for example, if the PI chooses to ignore the situation and data integrity issues pop up later).  After these actions, even if the PI chooses to do nothing, you've met all of your responsibilities in this situation, and can prove it.

Forgiveness does not imply forgetting/hiding
Forgiveness is only meaningful and worthy if the person to be forgiven truly attempts to make amends for the (moral) error. In almost all cases, it is not at all enough to say "I am sorry". So a moral analysis of your situation already tells you that you cannot just ignore the whole thing. He stole, and he has to make some kind of recompense before he can be justly forgiven. And this is impossible unless the crime is reported to someone who can handle the problem. Your PI is one such person.
It is also very disturbing that others involved want to give them a second chance. For all you know, this problem may run deeper than you think, and it is not your responsibility to dig, but merely to report to the appropriate authorities. Why do I say "disturbing"? Because gaslighting in order to evade capture is really really immoral and harmful to you and other victims. If you do not do what you can to permanently stop this, there will be more victims.


text:
MS in Computer Science with low GPA
I want to get into MS in Computer science in the US, specifically in data science. I have a Masters in Physics but my GPA is low. I have scored 51% in my undergrad and 62% in my postgrad. I have cleared my postgrad with 10+ back logs. But I have an international conference paper published in radio astronomy. I have also worked as an intern in web team of leading daily as a science writer. I also have 2+ experience in teaching Physics. I have also volunteered in outreach activities by TIFR, Mumbai. In my undergrad, I have also won prizes in working models related to science. I have an 8.0 score in IELTS and gearing up for my GRE.
what are my chances to get into a decent college?
To make my application better, I have enrolled myself into John Hopkins Data Science program by Coursera and I am also learning Python. Will it help?
The reason I had for backlogs is financial troubles in my family. I was doing odd part-time jobs which caused so many backlogs.

The concept of backlogs is not universally known. Can you explain a bit? Without a formal answer, though, it seems like you are doing the right thing.

Grading systems vary greatly by county. Your previous education was presumably not done in the US (as those grades would be failing grades in the US), so adding that context and some information about how poor these grades are would be helpful.

Also, are you now in the US, or elsewhere? India, perhaps.

Rereading this, I realize you have included no information about your CS background. Do you have a CS background? Do you know the basics of algorithms, data structures, data bases, and compilers? It would be very hard for you to walk into a reputable CS program without any CS knowledge or experience.

Without more information from the OP, this answer will be a bit tentative. I'm not sure that a low GPA is your biggest issue, though some schools have rules that they enforce quite rigidly.
I think the biggest obstacle for you now, that you can correct somewhat at least with time and effort, is that your academic background seems to be haphazard rather than focused. Normally a master's is quite focused and depends on the student having certain skills, usually from their undergraduate years. You don't seem to obviously have that.
Learning Python, of itself, will help you very little, actually as it is just a tool. But you may be missing most of the content of the undergraduate education, including, perhaps the vital Algorithms and Data Structures courses, as well as Database and a few others.
Physics (at most levels) is an actual science. That seems to be your background. Computer Science isn't a science at all (in most areas) and hasn't been for half a century. Data science is a bit between, however, as it can be experimental, not just constructive. In CS, we mostly build things, rather than search for the truths provided by the cosmos.
It might be, that if you want to study big data in Physics specifically, that you might find a program somewhere that focuses on that, though it would likely be in a Physics department. If you can find that, your background might be seen as helpful.
But in general, if you want a MS (MSc) degree you should spend some time (not a small amount of time) focusing your studies in one area primarily that will help you be seen as having the needed skills.
While broad interests in life are valued and valuable, academia mostly values specialization. Studying data science online may help you provided you do enough of it and do it well enough, but your broad background may only make it harder. If you can find a way to get some of the background in an actual educational institution (with a mentor) it would (for most people) be better than online courses, which are harder to judge no matter how good they are. There is too much variability in student outcomes to trust them completely. Focus.

Learning Python will definitely help, but you have to also prove your mettle by showing the program you're applying to some projects you've worked on. Believe it or not, academic programs don't simply blanket reject applicants just because of academic factors. Every applicant is considered on a case by case basis. They can only assess what they are provided. If you do nothing more than apply, they can see nothing more than your provided materials.
Recommendations? First, do very well on your GRE, for starters. Prepare heavily. A high score can offset a low GPA. Secondly, find a program that offers exactly what you're looking for. If you see a CS program that's more focused on theory and computing, don't go for that. It doesn't have to say "computer science" for it to be a data science degree program. This is a very common mistake. Finally, prove you have something to bring to the table. Look up on Google projects you can do yourself with Python. Make a Github or even a personal blog of your work. Show initiative that makes them believe you want to be a data scientist!
Best of luck


text:
How to calculate GPA?
I am applying for the Masters in the US for the Spring 2019 session. I don't understand the concept of GPA.
I have done my masters in Physics.  My doubts are as follows:
1. For my three-year undergrad degree in Physics do I need to calculate the score of the last year or all the three years (as in my country what you scored in the final year matters for admission)
2. My Master's is calculated on a 7 point scale. Like my GPA is 4.33/7. How to convert this on 4 point scale?
3. I come from a lower middle-class family and applying to the US universities will come costly to me. So I wish to email shortlisted university for my profile evaluation. Will they help out? How do I approach them?

Don't convert it. Most places I applied to only required that you submit your grades based on how your institution provided you. For your case, that would be 4.33/7. Do not manually convert the scale unless being explicitly told to do so by the university you're applying to.


text:
Should I ask a reference letter from someone working where I am applying to use it for another application?
I am applying to a PhD program. I worked in the past with researcher A from research team T who was my bachelor thesis supervisor. Now, I am applying to a PhD progam within the research team T and also to another universities.
Researcher A would be a perfect candidate to ask for a reference letter, since my internship under his supervision went really well. However, I am wondering whether or not it would be appropriate to ask him, since I would use it to apply to other universities (he would know that of course).
Details:

I already applied at team T and am waiting for news.
A is not the team director but the team is quite small and A knows I applied there.
A is not the one who would supervise the PhD I applied to.

I am afraid that asking him for a reference letter could make him think that I am not that much interested in that lab L and that this could have a negative impact on my application at this lab.

I understand your hesitation and there may be situations in which your concerns are spot on. That said, people in the position of researcher A exist to support and further the successful outcomes of their students. Outside specific research contributions, this is their legacy. One of the most rewarding aspects of leadership is helping people succeed.
Based on your question, I recommend immediately asking researcher A for a recommendation letter. Discuss any concerns with them directly and save yourself the worrying. You can always draft the letter for them and let them make revisions as they see fit.
Good luck!

Unless you were very explicit and told your letter writer that you would be applying to his group/department and no others, there is no reason why they could think you don't want to apply elsewhere as well. Even then, it would be perfectly acceptable to ask them to send your letter elsewhere since you have not committed to work with them. It is common to apply to multiple programs and explore your opportunities.
If you are still concerned, explain that there a few other programs that you believe would be a good fit for you, and to which you would like to apply. Ask your letter writer if there are other programs/groups they would recommend.
There is nothing wrong with exploring your options. And if your letter writer thinks that's a bad idea, you might want to reconsider working in their group as this issue may arise later when you need their letter to apply to positions elsewhere.

While FBolst is technically correct, it gives a terrible impression about your interest in the position. Hiring decisions are normally made by committee and it would not help you if someone mentions in a meeting that they were asked to support you elsewhere. This would be especially true if they have only a couple of candidates that they are then considering.
On the other hand, once you get an offer, it might be advantageous to you if they knew you had other options. But, prior to an actual offer, I think the negative outweighs the positive. Use caution here.

That's two very different opinions on the question, I'm a bit confused ^^' (and scared because I finally asked him for the reference letter). But yes that's what I was concerned about..

@MaiKar, what's done is done. Don'e obsess over it. If you get questioned on it, then have an answer, but express positive feelings about the place to which you applied. Very few actions are disqualifying. People tend to be reasonable.

"People tend to be reasonable" I think this is a good conclusion, thank you.


text:
Should I cite my own research demonstration paper?
I am a researcher in the computer science / interactions field. One year ago, I published a demonstration paper at a conference presenting and using quite briefly an algorithm A.
This year, I'm submitting a journal paper to the same conference and my work uses this algorithm. I wonder whether the demo is considered as a real publication and if I should just cite this demo paper or should I re-explain in detail the algorithm (I would then go more into details).
Research demonstrations at a conference is something very specific to my field I guess.

You should always cite your own previous work on a subject just the same as if it were written by someone else. Failure to do so is Self Plagiarism, which is a real thing, oddly enough.
However, you can also, as you suggest go in to more detail on the algorithm if it will help support the new work.
The general rule is that when something has been published, using it should have a citation.
The reason for the rule is that the original paper may include context that a reader in the future may want to see but can't find without the citation.

Want to emphasize @Buffy's last point -- the citation will help anyone interested in following up.  I try to always consider how to make it easier for others to use (& even eventual cite) my work.

These are two questions that should be addressed separately.
Should I cite the demo paper?
Yes, not only to avoid self plagiarism, but since it improves the overall appearance of your work that you have already demonstrated your system before. In this particular situation it is even more important since it is quite possible that the TPC members know your demo from last year and if they were impressed by it this will boost your paper.
Should I re-explain things that are covered in the demo abstract?
Yes, too, assuming the algorithm is central to your new paper and not only a nice add-on. Thus, your paper extends your demo abstract in a sense as a journal paper might extend a conference paper. In such a case where you significantly extend the paper, it should be self-contained. This is not only allowed in nearly all cases, but encouraged. Otherwise, the algorithm is not counted as contribution of the new paper, but only the evaluation remains, potentially making the contribution too low for a new paper.
Furthermore, it is cumbersome for readers. They would have to read both the demo abstract and the paper to understand everything, potentially leading to confusion. Second, it might be difficult to access your demo abstract at all since is often not part of the published proceeding and even if it is, a reader potentially has to pay twice to access the demo abstract and the paper.


text:
Ways to display extra-curricular/independent learning
I am a mathematics student and have been extensively reading textbooks cover-to-cover in my own time.  Thus, my transcript does not say that I have (for example) taken differential geometry, even though I know diffgeo as well, if not better, than if I took the course.
How would you suggest that I display such efforts so that grad schools can be aware that I am more knowledgeable than my transcript might suggest?
Thanks!

I faced this exact problem when I was applying to grad schools. Here are three ways that worked for me (in order of importance):

Include this information in your statement of purpose.
I do not recommend going through a laundry list of all the books you have read, however, I would mention the new topics that you are familiar with, how you have been learning them (independent study), and how you are looking to continue furthering your knowledge (which is presumably by study at the university you’re applying to).
Have your letter writers vouch for your independent study.
Most universities require letters of recommendation as part of your application. It is a good idea to choose letter writers who can speak to your different strengths, and I think it would be beneficial to have at least one of them who is familiar with all of your self-study. I met with my professors who agreed to write letters for me so that we could talk about my application and preparation for grad school. One professor asked me specifically to prepare a list of topics I’d studied independently so that he could write about it in his letter to the university.
Contact professors at the schools where you want to apply.
Getting professors familiar with your background can be helpful so that they can point you to even more resources for self-study, and they may also be helpful when going through the application review process. There is no guarantee this will influence your application, however, it possibly has some bearing on it, and it more importantly will help you become better at self-study regardless.

You could discuss your independent learning in your personal statements.

Formal Qualifications mean formal  learning with various formal assessment methods.
   For Example: BE electrical  at University of Canterbury NZ.
Informal learning comes under a different sub-heading on your CV. This informal learning comes under two subcategories: Subject Related  and  Other.
An example  of Subject related would be "CBFC101 a computer course with no Exam".
An example of other  that is clearly not subject related is "lifting paraplegics in and out of wheelchairs". You can break down the qualifications into Academic and Non-Academic if you want because you may have a useful non-Academic qualifications that you want to mention.

Another option is to take Credit By Exam or Competency-Based Education (CBE) credits. Credit by exam is pretty simple - you sit the final exam (or an exam equivalent to a final exam) and if you pass, you get the credits as if you had attended the full course. Competency-based education credit is a little more complex. You don't necessarily get to sit the final exam right away, but you can bypass the weekly homework and lectures and knock out unit tests and projects at your own pace.
The effect of this would be to translate your informal knowledge into actual credits. You would then be able to say that yes, you do have university credits in Differential Geometry and whatever else you have been learning on your own.

As an undergrad, I used to make lists of errata for texts I have read and post them on my website (I still keep updating the list when I read new stuff with a nontrivial amount of errors).  Back then I wasn't thinking of it strategically (it just felt like the obvious thing to do, like reporting bugs in software), but now that I've had some bits of experience with assessing students' applications, I have come to the conclusion that such lists of errata are fairly good evidence of actually having read and understood the books/papers you claim to have read. (I have seen my share of high-schoolers claiming to have read graduate textbooks, but somehow failing to remember much of use from them afterwards. It appears to be an inflationary currency, where everyone keeps claiming more and more achievements, just as with most other extracurriculars in student applications.)
Another thing that can help is posting collections of solutions to textbook exercises. But this is somewhat more hit-and-miss; the copyright status of such collections is unclear (they are derivative works most of the time), and some professors (older ones, in particular) might find it unwelcome (as they want solutions to not be easily available to students). A variant of this that lacks these drawbacks is posting little notes about the text, such as "a different proof of Proposition 2.4.1" or "why the second assumption in Theorem 2.5.2 is needed".
These days, you can also ask questions about the textbooks on forums like math.stackexchange, although of course these better be good questions.

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


text:
How negative to go in a statement of purpose?
Okay yes I know another 'I'm a bad candidate help me' post sorry.
I was in grad school years ago but I quit because the program wasn't good for me. The exact program doesn't matter. It was a small one on the USA west coast though, and for MS not PhD.
The problem was the people in the program didn't like my concentration field (lie groups). All the profs thought their own fields were more interesting, wanted me to focus on those instead (like discrete geometry). No other students were really interested in my concentration so important classes got canceled, "low enrollment" they said.
Now I want to apply to a new school that I think does not have this problem. I want to know though, how can I talk about this in my statement of purpose? I have to address the reason I left a previous program but I do not want to sound whiny or vengeful or make the admissions committee think the problem was my fault.
Note I made up some of the details here because in case some admissions person at my future school reads this forum. But the general point is still right. Thanks!

In addition to @PeteL.Clark's good answer, as additional concrete suggestions how to sell yourself, I'd consider saying something in the cross section of that you were burnt out then (re-wording of Pete's suggestion), were tempted by whatever job you probably took in the meantime, or (probable white lie) that it happened for "reasons in your personal life."

@gnometorule: Yes, I concur with this.

I don't see anything in the OP's post that refers to burn-out. Inventing white lies about "personal life" is a bad idea, if you are asked about it during an interview (and it's a legitimate issue to ask about, to understand what support you might still need for your second attempt at grad school). I suggest you simply delete all the emotive language and state the facts: you abandoned the program because your research interests did not align with those of the (small) institution.

@alephzero: FYI, there are no interviews for math graduate programs in the United States.

Don't go negative at all. The people reading your statement of purpose are professors who have done well in the current system; they're not interested in or sympathetic to propsective grad students' concerns about that system, regardless of how reasonable they are. Instead, focus on how you like Lie groups and want to study them in more detail, and thus this particular department would be a great fit because it would afford you that opportunity.

Don't go "negative" in a statement of purpose, or any other statement for that matter. Instead, turn your negatives into positives.
For instance, don't write, "I've had bad experiences with programs that don't offer courses in Lie groups." Just say, "I am very interested in programs like yours that are strong in Lie groups." People know that there are good and bad programs around, but they appreciate your not going negative on others, which saves them the worry of, "when will this guy go negative on us?"
On the other hand, if you cast your aspirations in a positive light, the feeling is more likely to be, "our program is a lot better, or at least more suitable for this candidate than those others that don't emphasize Lie groups." They'd worry much less about what you want that they don't have, because you haven't mentioned those things.

In my opinion you should not "go negative" at all in a statement of purpose.  A vivid description of what turned you off to a previous program seems only to give those considering your admissions case something concrete to worry about, whereas just saying that you lost interest and have since regained it (and then talking extensively about the second part!) is not such a hard sell: by the way, most people lack the perspective to find graduate level mathematics (or whatever) interesting.  But a certain percentage of students who do an undergraduate degree in mathematics (or whatever) slowly but surely find their interest and passion in the subject increasing until the point where they are motivated to go back to school for further study.  As long as you sound interested and motivated now, how you felt in the past is not so relevant.
It may also be helpful to know that your specific story did have a mildly negative effect on me.

The problem was the people in the program didn't like my concentration field (lie groups).

Having your heart set on one mathematical field while starting a master's degree is probably a mistake.  At best you know something about your initial interest; you can't possibly know whether you are interested in everything else (and even what other things relate to your interest).

All the profs thought their own fields were more interesting, wanted me to focus on those instead (like discrete geometry).

You were surprised by the fact that faculty are interested in their...interests?!?  That surprises me.  If you have your heart set on Lie theory, why didn't you go somewhere in which Lie theory was a major research focus?

No other students were really interested in my concentration so important classes got canceled, "low enrollment" they said.

Lack of sufficient interest is exactly what causes courses to be cancelled.  You didn't expect them to run classes for you and you alone which lie outside the research interests of the faculty, did you?
By the way, when I went to grad school I had my heart set on algebraic number theory...and ended up doing that (or one of many things that comes under that broad banner).  In order to do algebraic number theory I had to learn some Lie theory and some discrete geometry, and these remain of interest to me to this day.  Though I know relatively little in each of these areas, I know more than enough to know that they are fascinating fields, and that if I had studied them as a graduate student rather than algebraic number theory per se...well, that would have been fine.  And of course my point is not that these two subfields (which I gather are not the "real ones" occurring in your narrative) are so specifically great: rather, believe that if you have the temperament for graduate study in mathematics, then you may just as well study any subfield -- or any subfield of interest to the faculty and your peers in a strong graduate program.  So to me, your claim that you would have done well the first time if only you had been learning "the right mathematics" is a bit suspect.  It might be true, but it might equally well be true that you just weren't into your studies as much as you needed to be to continue...and now you are.  Again, I would go with the latter narrative.

Your answer is very much appreciated and helpful but please note the disputed research interests part not just the the specific field were the made up details part of the question. I did not expect so much focus on that portion of the story. Sorry for distracting. The truer story I did not want to write online makes it harder to claim lack of interest in my case. I get it though, can't expect good answers without right data.

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


text:
Do published research papers cite preprints?
Do journals publish papers that cite preprints? I have an article where a good chunk of work is based on a preprint and I have cited it, accordingly. But that preprint was released on arXiv in 2021 and it hasn't been published yet. So, in that case, would it be a bad idea to send my article to a journal for submission?
P.S. There is another recent and yet to be published article on arXiv that cites the same preprint. So, possibly the work presented in that preprint is correct since there hasn't been any revisions yet.

In a field like math it is almost necessary to do this, both because preprints are encouraged even by major journals and the fact that the publication process is long.
Mathematicians like preprints since it gets work out early so that it can be built upon as well as vetted by the larger community. If you had to wait for official publication before citing what you have used it would slow down the advances in the field.
So, yes, by all means, cite a preprint if that is what you have used, especially if the later "official" publication has not appeared.
If the final version has appeared, however, it is preferable to cite that, since it has gone through the review process. It is, therefore, more likely to be correct in all details.

And if the final version appears after your paper has been accepted but before it goes to the publisher, update the citation.

Sometimes people even cite the preprint when there's a journal/conference version. The famous "attention is all you need" paper has a NIPS version (https://proceedings.neurips.cc/paper_files/paper/2017/file/3f5ee243547dee91fbd053c1c4a845aa-Paper.pdf) but many papers seem use the citation for the preprint (https://arxiv.org/abs/1706.03762). Presumably because arxiv has an export bibtex function that doesn't mention the NIPS publication.

I've spent ages in the past tracking down the proper citation for something after reading the pre-print.

Yes, you can and should cite pre-prints. The purpose of a citation is not to make your statement more "true" or your paper more "reliable", but to make sure that you don't take credit for the work others have done. A citation can also serve as an "external appendix", e.g. interested readers can read more on this topic in (Smith and Jones 1867). In both cases there is nothing that requires that the cited work is published.

While a significant reason for citations is to give credit to other people for their work (and not claim it as your own work), the primary reason for citations is to allow readers to follow the building blocks of knowledge that were used to get to the positions presented in the work. People being able to do that is necessary for building the knowledge we have. Nearly everything is building upon existing knowledge.

@Makyen We agree that we are all standing on the shoulders of giants, and that if we write something we should place it within the context of what has been done before. However, this is not the goal of a citation. This is what the section "previous research" is for. That text will usually contain many citations, but it is the purpose of the text to provide context, and the purpose of the citations is to make sure that it is clear who is making what statement and the possibility for the reader to read the original text (an external appendix). These are the two purposes I stated in my answer.

@MaartenBuis: I disagree about the "previous research" part. That section serves to provide context for the focus topic(s) of the paper. It does not, and cannot possibly, provide the context for all remarks and explanations given at some point in the paper, for which a citation is suitable. After all, it would make for an awfully confusing reading experience if the "previous research" section contained lots of seemingly unrelated statements on tangential topics, whose relation to the paper only becomes clear in hindsight.

If you need lots of seemingly unrelated stuff in your paper, than it is time to rethink your paper... I am of the school that an article should do one and only one thing right, and leave everything else to other articles.

@MaartenBuis: We may be following different conventions of structuring papers then. Personally, I prefer when a paper provides sources for all of its statements, and not just for the fraction that specifically deals with the primary research question of the paper. You are using a specific type of user study technique or you present your mesasurements using a particular visualization? Cite its source, where readers can find more information about it. You base your prototype on another, unrelated project? Ditto. And so on.

I think the difference is mostly one of semantics. I see your other uses as special cases of my two primary roles of a citation: "giving credit" and "external appendix". That does not mean that giving context is not important: it is hugely important. But that is not a third role of citation, the two primary roles of citations are used to achieve that goal of giving context.

Yes, [some] published research papers cite preprints
Example (see Ref 16).


text:
Why do professors like to read complex research papers?
I noticed that people read complex research over the obvious  when they see a simple and clear abstract they don't read it
why is this ?

You noticed how?

It's unclear what you're asking.

This interpretation is completely wrong. Researchers don't select to read papers based on their complexity/simplicity.
Academics read papers primarily to learn about new methods/results which are relevant to their field of expertise, in order to stay up to date, improve their knowledge and hopefully contribute to their own research work eventually.
When selecting which papers to read, an experienced researcher usually pays attention to several criteria. A few of them are:

First, how close the paper is related to their research, and consequently how interesting it is for them.
Whether they already know the main contribution or not. If a paper has nothing new to teach them, there's no point reading it. Of course, original results are more likely to attract their attention.
The reputation of the journal/conference, and possibly of the authors. This is important because a high reputation journal is more likely to publish interesting new work.
The general "seriousness" of the work: if the paper doesn't prove their claims or contains obvious methodology errors, it's not worth it.

I'll speak only about math and CS, by main academic interests. In both of those fields, and perhaps others, the conclusions alone, which are probably what you see in the abstract, don't contain enough of the insights that make true understanding possible.
Science isn't about just facts and it doesn't proceed from fact to fact seamlessly. The arguments are often where the insights lie, and it is the insights that lead you to an understanding of what it is important to pursue and how to go about it.
In math, in particular, the methodology of the proof of a new theorem may be far more important than the statement of the theorem itself. There are some long standing conjectures in math that yearn to be settled. But when and if they are settled, it will be the how of it that matters, and for that, it is the details that matter.
Note also that some proportion of papers, even published papers, have errors. Specialists in an area may find results (in the abstract) somewhat implausible, and want to know why, requiring a deep dive into the methodology.


text:
Help finding a research paper published 70 years ago, not able to find it anywhere
Title : Ein zahlentheoretische-logarithmischer Rechenstab
Author : Ivan Paasche
It's written in German and was published in "MNU. Der Mathematische und Naturwissenschaftliche Unterricht" 6, 26-28 (1953/54)
It's been cited multiple times, but I'm not able to find this paper anywhere, tried searching over multiple academic databases and search engines but failed.
Issues from this publication are available from 2014 onwards but not
for the previous years.

Have you asked your librarian?

Chances are that it hasn't been digitised and will only be available by interlibrary loan (which might be done by scanning) from a few libraries in Germany.

According to Google Scholar the work was published in "Mathematik und Naturwissenschaften im Unterricht" rather than "Unterrichtsblätter für mathematik und naturwissenschaften" (assuming that's what Math. Naturwiss. Unterr stands for). Volume 6 of the latter appears to be from 1900, and is available on Google Books.

It's written as "Math. Naturwiss. Unterr. 6, 26---28 1953,1954" in citation of other papers, german is not my native language so might have messed up

Putting the citation in my local library search finds "Der mathematische und naturwissenschaftliche Unterricht". Older volumes should be available through German university libraries.

This might ultimately make no difference, but in this context "zahlentheoretische-logarithmischer" looks strange to me; I'd expect "zahlentheoretisch-logarithmischer" (with no "e" at the end of the first word). Google finds more occurrences of the former than the latter, but that might result from a single typo propagating through later citations. Another possibility might be "zahlentheoretischer logarithmischer".

To look for a paper/publication/book, there is one definitive solution, succesful in 99.9999999% of cases:

ask the librarians.

Maybe you do not want to contact librarians, because you cannot phone them, you cannot write an email, you cannot visit a library, so you are left with performing these 3 steps:

look in the library.
ask the librarians.
ask researchers who cited it (if you can ask other researchers around the world, you should have first contacted a librarian, anywhere in the world).

But it must be stressed that 2) is the solution in 99.9999999% of the cases, because... if you have an issue with your eye, do you google it or do you make an appointment with an ophthalmologist?
An iterative google search may help you, for example searching part of the title, not the complete title and reference, pinpointing which library has the required object in their catalog. However you may still have to contact the library having the desired publication... therefore you save time by asking the librarian and completely skipping the multiple google research, plus the outcome is most likely to be successful (by asking the librarians).

Feel free to collectively improve this answer, I tried to flag the question as a duplicate but I could not find any.

"improve the answer"??? Add a few more 9's? Anyway, lots of librarians can help, even those not specifically in academic libraries. Even my local village librarian is very helpful since they have many contacts.

This is what librarians (particularly research librarians) live for. The OP would make their day asking them to track down an obscure paper in an even more obscure journal. It’s like finding the Holy Grail for them.

@Buffy Something like creating a community answer or even a community post https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/11740/what-are-community-wiki-posts .
It's quite annoying to see again and again the same question. without a clear easygoing answer. In the early day of my carreer, I become a ninja in google search (well, first geocities and then metacrawler) to look for obscure pieces of informations. Nowadays, you need to be google ninja. Or, back then as today, just get in touch with librarians. They will not know/understand what is inside the document, but they will find it.

ophthalmologists charge money @EarlGrey

@user270610 only in some countries... Librarians don't, you get the idea.

@user270610 they charge money, whether they charge you through taxes (i.e. eveyone can access it) or via a discrete amount (i.e. only who can pay can access it), well, it depends on whether you live in a modern state or in a technological but retrograde country.

Some places are getting rid of libraries (and librarians)...

@JonCuster I mean they spent 4 years at Uni training for this very question

You do realize that probably 99.999999% of the ppl here, if they have an eye problem, they google it, right?

@DonQuiKong since I cannot decide how the 99.999999% of the ppl here  waste their time, I can only let them know that before spending time on googling (let's say 20 minutes), the best way is to spend the same amount of time contacting a librarian (2 minutes of unsuccesful googling + 18 minutes to write a proper email to the librarians of choice)

Hyperbole works better without numbers. At least in 1 in a billion cases... ;-)


text:
Consequences of not attending a conference
So I did research over the summer and applied to and got funded to go to a conference in Hawaii. I would have to leave to the conference early Wednesday morning and wouldn't return until about 1am Monday morning. The main problem I have is that since I'll be expected to be at the conference for most of the day and be pressured into having fun by my peers during the night, I don't think that going to this conference would help my goal of getting an A on the test's I have to take on Monday/Tuesday. I told my professor that this conference would be a burden on me and my studies so I wouldn't be able to go. She replied and said "I was making a huge mistake and that I would have to face financial and other consequences for my decision." Is she trying to scare me or can the university punish me financially for wasting funding money that I earned In order to attend to my studies. It's not like I'm blowing this conference off because "I'm not feeling it" Going to this conference would really set me back in all of my classes. Any advice, this is really stressing me out.

I'm not sure if your worries are justified. You get to decide which sessions and social activities you attend; nobody will care if you're missing most of them. In fact, I know more than one researcher who claims to be more productive during conferences, as they're freed from the interruptions of their usual environment.

You say "all of my classes", but even though I know some PhD programmes have classes in the early years, it is not clear from your question if you are in currently at the Masters or PhD level. Also, was it a conference with a peer reviewed submission, or not? And finally, in every case, not spending funding money which was granted for any reason (and surely for something as "after some more consideration, I've changed my mind" makes it much less likely for the same funding source to ever consider funding that same person and even lab again.

If your goal is to have an academic research career, the professional connections you can make at conference will have a greater and a longer lasting value than an A on any single test

I suggest that you go and make the best use of the time, both at the conference and otherwise. You have a long plane ride in both directions. You have evenings if you forgo socializing. You have time between sessions to review course material if you have some notes on index cards or otherwise that are easy to carry.
You might even be successful in begging to put off the exam(s) for a day or so.
And, as others have said, if you have had a paper accepted then you have an obligation to present it. Making your advisor happy is worth something also.
And remember that in the last analysis, for moving on to grad school, more than your grades will be considered. Most especially letters from your advisor.

Actually, I hope you did go, since you asked for advice so late.

First, you have to check the conference website. Most (if not all) conferences state clearly that submitting a paper REQUIRES at least one of the authors to attend to present the paper, and that if you do not, your paper is out (will not be included in the proceeding), so you have to look for another place.
Everyone is busy, but we must plan and respect others. The attendees' time is also valuable as yours. When they come and found many people behave like you, wouldn't this be a waste for their time and money?
Remember that you are building your own reputation. So by breaking your word you give the organizers and attendees (who are your fellows) a bad impression.
To me, frankly, how can I take you seriously as a researcher if I can not trust your promises? If you break your promises in attending the conference you can also break many rules in your research.

It wasn't clear, actually, whether the OP had a paper accepted.

@Buffy OP got the request for funding accepted, that makes a strong enough point. That money may now not be available to some other student, depending on financial deadlines of the department. The reaction of the prof seems to indicate that dropping the ball on this might create problems for her.

In addition to the answer by None, who correctly identifies that the paper will most likely not be included in the conference proceeding if none of the authors attend, there can be additional repercussions.
As far as I know, all the peer-reviewed conferences (in Computer Science) require at least one author to attend the conference and present the work in order to publish it. The session chairs will take note of any no-shows. The people that have not shown up can get blacklisted from all the conferences by the same publisher.1
Sending a replacement presenter is usually acceptable. If an author registered to attend but was unable due to last-minute developments (travel documents, illness, etc) they are required to prove that they have made a good-faith attempt to attend - or at last communicate this to the organisers who then may ask for proof (i.e. booked flight tickets, or a document showing you applied for a visa, or similar). I don't know what the official policy is if the author decides to retract the paper and not attend due to personal reasons (e.g. exam, friends birthday party), but in case of professional reasons I would still recommend notifying the organisers with the hopes of avoid or soften future negative consequences (e.g. it was not possible to obtain travel funding in the end).
While I do not through which mechanics this is enforced exactly, similar repercussions exist for not spending the granted funding money (or trying to re-purpose it in case of purpose-specific grants). I have often heard it said that not spending the grant money would diminish the chances, or even prevent the person from applying for funding with the same source again (occasionally resulting in a big project dinner to spend the "leftovers" around the end of the project).
1 This is true at least for IEEE conferences (IEEE being one of the larges Computer Science publishers), as I had it confirmed by a session chair at a large international conference.