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Attaching previous reviews - avoiding pitfalls of desk rejection?
I just got rejected during a review process in a prestigeous journal. The paper has received a lot of valid criticism, which (to my best current knowledge) could be incorporated in its further versions (although, it won't be an easy task). I am willing to adjust the article properly, however, I also need to start moving fast toward a publication. Furthermore, unfortunately, there are only few journals that I could consider for sending my manuscript.
Thus, I would like to maximize my chances to get into another journal. And here's the thing: Is it optimal for me to attach the decision letter with acknowledging changes (e.g., item-by-item) when sending the manuscript to another journal?

My logic in favor of this approach is as follows:

The journal which rejected me is prestigeous: It may show that the manuscript has a merit.
I will show the targeted journal that I care about the paper.
Editors may feel less work is needed with the paper

On the other hand:

Item-by-item can take a lot of time (with possibly low benefits).
There can be few points in the reviews I may not want to address.
I have written the paper for a different journal: The new target could interpret it as a low fit with their research agenda.
It may feel like I am trying to appeal to authority (which, to be honest, I am).

The question

Does attaching previous reviews increase the chances of getting into review process (avoiding desk rejection)?
If so, shall I attach the whole decision letter with comments from editors or only reviews?
If so, shall I address the whole reviews item-by-item or can I be selective?

I don't quite follow your first positive point. Why is getting rejected from a top journal showing merit? Anybody can submit anything anywhere.

@xLeitix I would say the rationale is such as the paper was not desk rejected; thus, the editors considered that the paper has a potential for publication. Maybe this viewpoint is skewed because I went through the pitfalls of desk rejection with previous paper, so I feel like getting into the real review phase actually means something. And there was a statistics that papers in the review have 40 % probability of getting published, although the original source may have its problems: https://www.aje.com/arc/best-ways-to-avoid-desk-rejection-of-your-manuscript/

All three of your points in favor are basically false.  You are, as you also did in your previous question, overestimating the significance of "a prestigious journal did not desk reject me". No serious editor is going to make any decision based on this. You are in fact creating more work for the editor by asking them to read and take into account another review from someone else (more precisely, another document which you claim is a review from another journal – verifying this would require even more work), so your third point is also false. And the second point is irrelevant.

All of your positive points are unfortunately very false. Please abandon that train of thought. The only way to "maximize your chances" is to make sure the work is sound. You think you currently have some authority because your paper got rejected? All you have is a paper that was peer reviewed and deemed unpublishable. Fix that paper and try again.

I came to this conclusion also because I know of one journal that welcomes attaching previous reviews (considers them useful to speed up the review process), so I have extrapolated from this. However, I was unsure about the relevance of this thought process. That is why I posted this question.

@Athaeneus If your article was reviewed and rejected by the same publisher (different journal), you will be asked to disclose and include a point by point rebuttal/commentary to the referee comments. However, if you are going to a different publisher, you should only disclose this as a good faith effort. However, if your reasoning is that the prestige of the first reviewing journal which rejected you will help, this is false. If anything it states that the work was found unfit. So in your mind you are thinking this has a halo effect that will help, but it actually casts doubt on the work.

Every editor is different and will react differently. I suggest that you don't flood them with information they might not need or want. You could, alternatively, offer to send them prior reviews on request.
You should "address" everything in any review, though one way to address some things is to make no changes. The paper is yours. Make changes that you think are warranted. But sometimes, making changes separately according to a list leaves the paper somewhat pedantic in tone, which you want to avoid. Consider all comments and make changes that improve the paper.
And, as you seem to realize, modify the paper to fit the current journal you will submit to. And say as much in any follow-up communication that requests the prior reviews.

Anyone can get rejected from a prestigious academic journal, but getting to referee review requires that you at least got past the desk review, which is something.
You are correct that a paper that has already gone through a good referee review and been revised to reflect this may now require less work than an unreviewed paper.  However, the referee reports will presumably point out the outstanding deficiencies in the paper that had not been dealt with at the time of their review.  At best they may be evidence of successful revisions on previous points, but they will not be evidence that there are no outstanding problems.  (After all, a rejection means that there is no later review by those referees to look at your changes.)
From the perspective of an editor of a new journal, they are going to be interested in the paper in its current state.  It is not necessarily useful for them to know that your paper previously had other problems that have now been resolved (as attested to in referee reports from a previous journal).  Such information is probably just going to complicate the submission and potentially overwhelm the editor with unecessary information.  You could reasonably use your letter of submission to tell the editor that your paper was previously submitted to this other journal, that it got as far as a referee review, and that you have now revised the paper to respond to that past feedback.  You could also offer to send the previous referee reports on request.  That would make it clear that this information is available without overwhelming the editor at the outset.

Here is some anecdotal personal experience: On several occasions I received "flattering" reviews that basically agreed that my paper was very good but still ended with a rejection for various reasons. On two of those occasions when I thought it made sense, I included the referee reports from the first journal when I resubmitted to another journal, along with a note to the editor explaining the situation. I did this in the hope that this will make everyone life's easier and enable my paper to get accepted with minimal hassle. The gambit worked both times I tried it.
Things to keep in mind about this anecdote:

I work in mathematics; my experience may be less applicable to other disciplines.

I knew the editors of the journals I was resubmitting to and felt comfortable sharing with them the details of the previous submission, judging that they could be trusted to use this information in a sensible way (and that they would trust that I was acting in good faith and wasn't trying to manipulate them into accepting a mediocre paper).

My papers were already well-written on the first submission and did not need any particular revision. (For your situation, since you are doing revisions, I would recommend against your "item-by-item" revision breakdown idea - no editor would be interested in spending the time to check that you did the homework that someone else assigned you. Just make sure they know you put in the work to address any deficiencies in your paper pointed out by the referees.)

I generally know what I'm doing, have a lot of experience with publishing papers, and am good at writing tactful, persuasive emails.

Bottom line:

Try this "academic hack" at your own risk

This approach is an unconventional one which has some chance of working if done in a professional, thoughtful manner, but also has some chance of being perceived negatively and potentially lowering your chance of acceptance. The more conventional approach is to submit your paper in the usual way and let the normal process take its course.

Overall, I would say this maneuver probably isn't advisable for someone without a decent amount of experience interacting with editors and journals. For an inexperienced person who does not have a good understanding of how editors think and make decisions, it will be harder to pull this off successfully.

Good luck with the submission!


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How unusual is this case?
I learned of the following career case: a student was accepted into a PhD program (some sub-discipline of physics) with stellar grades and theses. The PhD nearly failed - normally the PhD takes four years in this department and should result in some three or four papers, but after four years the student had nothing. He was not paid salary and had to earn money elsewhere, still staying in contact with the department (and living in the same city). He managed to finish his PhD 10 (!) years (instead of four) and now has a research career going, being employed at another rather good University as a post-doc with several publications.
I wonder if there is some similar example in Mathematics and how unusual would it be for something like this to happen where the person recovers the career after four years of no research output.

I'm not sure what the question is. Would it be ... How does a PhD (candidate) recover their career after four years of no (near nonexistent) research output?

The question is rather if there are known similar cases in Mathematics.

Please choose a title which actually describes your question. Titles should help other people with the same problem find the question.

I hoped to graduate, post bachelors, in four years, but had a setback, partly due to burnout after the intense BA degree. I recovered and finished in seven. That isn't terribly unusual. But the drop-off per year is likely pretty steep, so ten for a successful outcome is pretty rare.
Everyone's case is different. Life intrudes. More to the point, however, is that true research is open ended and success can't be predicted or scheduled. Some people finish earlier by cutting scope when it gets harder. Some just push on.
Having a truly successful outcome after ten years could just be the difficulty of the problem attacked. Solving a very difficult problem, even in ten years, could put you in a good place for a career. The result is more important than the time it took to achieve it.
Unusual yes, but not especially surprising. Good luck to them.

That is an inspiring story. May I ask then, since you are now a professor, how you explained your delay during the post-doc interviews? Did you mention the burnout? Did you get good results that "compensated" the delay in graduation? Were you strictly inactive during some phase of the PhD or was everything simply slowed down?

I never had a postdoc. There were no gaps in my studies, but I changed institutions. My dissertation was quite remarkable, but I graduated into a dead academic market so my career didn't really take off for several years. It would have been quite different had I finished in 4.

Then how did you make a living between graduation and the next academic job? Was this a permanent position?
I take it that you mean by "remarkable" that your thesis was VERY good?
Was the switch from Mathematics to Computer Science difficult?

There were no gaps, just a teaching focused job at a small college. I love teaching so it wasn't a problem. The pay was good and the location outstanding. I had a family by that time. Thesis was outstanding, actually. A complete math theory within Analysis. Another career issue was that the interest in math moved to other fields about that time. This was 50 years ago.

What's your thesis? May I appreciate it?

@Michael, not if I'm to maintain anonymity. It was very deep into classical real analysis, bringing together some threads created a generation earlier by some superstars. But of little use to advance the path I had to follow. It was also right at the cusp where the field fell out of favor. Alas.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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How do you document in ASA style a journal that the first page is the cover page?
I am citing the article Solving the Mystery of Military Mental Health: A Call to Action from this link.
https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/solving-mystery-military-mental-health-call-action
My issue is that the first page is the cover page.  The other pages are numbered 1, 2, and 3.
For ASA references, I use page numbers so should I reference it as vol#(issue#):Cover-3?

Remember that the goal of references is to make it easy for others to find what you are citing. Specific formats and styles just make that more uniform, but the overall goal remains the same. As a consequence, when something doesn't fit a specific style or template, feel free to invent whatever style you think works at identifying where the thing you're referencing can be found.
So, what you propose seems totally fine with me. Or use vol#(issue#):Cover page and pages 1-3. Or anything else that explains what you mean to reference.

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


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Citations don’t show up on Google Scholar
Google Scholar has successfully listed a paper published two weeks ago. However, most of the references are not included in the citation counts of the papers that are referenced. Has that happened to anybody already? What can I do? Will upload the full text on academia.edu eventually help Google to find the citations?

Give some time for Google robot to do its job.


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I think my thesis analysis sucks and I don't know how make it work
I'm writing an undergraduate thesis in linguistics. My topic is about comparing politeness in English to the honorific system in Korean. No one in my school speaks Korean, neither my supervisor, but I wanted to include the language in my thesis to make the writing more fun for me. I think it was a mistake.
I am stuck with my analysis. I've chosen a book in English and the translation of that book in Korean. I chose 4 politeness techniques in English and found around 74 sentences. I wanted to compare them to Korean. However, my analysis has to contain around 100 elements that should be analysed and put into a graph for visual representation. I have no idea how to make this happen so that it makes sense and my supervisor is not helping me. I feel like I've been improvising all the way till now and now I'm stuck
I feel like I'm writing empty work that doesn't make any sense. It's making me very stressed and anxious because I have not even 2 months left, I feel like I'll fail and won't finish my undergrad because I chose a dumb topic. I have a lot of stuff written but everything seems pointless to me, as if my analysis made no sense. I wish someone would give me any advice as to how to progress, how to make this thesis better so that it makes sense. How can I incorporate those graphs, what data should I put in there? I feel so lost. What can I even do with this topic anymore, should I just give up?

What are you comparing or hope to compare: construct, semantic, syntax, tokens ...

Try to find a native Korean speaker at your university and ask if they can provide 25-30 more examples.

Do you speak Korean? Why does your analysis "have" to contain 100 elements that "should" be graphed? It seems strange that there would be such set requirements for a thesis.

If you can't find a native Korean speaker, go to sites where language teacher's and students can meet. You can probably find one to help you there.

What does your advisor say ? Most of them prefer their undergraduates not to fail on the home stretch.

@cag51 Valuable insight there. Thanks. ... Those are some of what OP should give careful thought to. For those, apart from 'native' speakers, OP might carefully consider the 'threshold' for validity and reliability. This comes from engaging the literature and the discipline's approach to linguistic politeness. In any case, being a research engagement, the OP can't even contribute to knowledge by coming up with a new threshold. Say, after engaging existing works and approaches, the OP found out that analysis and graphing of the 74 representative sentences suffices for 'validity and realibility'

If you've not yet tried, I would second the advice of getting help from your advisor: have you tried telling your advisor everything in this post,  including your distress?

Do you speak Korean? That sounds like an important information but you didn't say.

@Stef I do but I'm a self-taught student of the language. I think I messed up by picking a language that no professor at my uni can help me with.

@KevinWang I haven't. I feel very embarrassed to bring this up because I know the response will be something along the lines of "you've chosen this, you have to deal with it now".

@cag51 that's the problem I'm facing and I found out about it after I'd already chosen the topic. Although I talked to my supervisor and she approved of the topic and said it would work I found out that it doesn't make much sense in my analysis and that I don't even have those 100 elements. I added two graphs because of the requirement but at the end they are useless in my opinion. And two is not enough, I need at least 3 or 4.

@infinitezero I haven't thought about this, are there any sites that you can recommend?

I know about italki and preply (although the latter does take a huge chunk of the teacher's payment, so wouldnt exactly recommend it).

Have you tried adding a second (probably short) text? They you could get to 100 items fairly easily. That seems like the kind of a small modification a reasonable advisor would accept, especially with just a couple of months to go. The most important advice I have though is to write and submit something, give them a chance to pass you.

There is possibly a way out that is actually interesting. You have undertaken a difficult task that may not be solvable, especially in the time available.
But the reasons that it is difficult or impossible is something that is worth exploring in any case. Perhaps you can write up the various things you have tried and can also write up the reason(s) why each approach fails. As long as it isn't trivial, this adds something to knowledge that may be sufficient for an undergraduate thesis.
You have learned something even if your original target was out of reach. Make that the basis.

I'm only guessing, since I'm not the person who gave this a thumb-down, and that person didn't leave a comment. But I'm guessing it's because the OP basically said "rescue this thesis" and Buffy said how to write a different thesis that might be worthwhile.  A reasonable person will keep in mind the possibility that the current thesis may not be possible to rescue.

@BobaFit I think it was Einstein who once said "If we knew what we were doing it wouldn't be called research."

In your last paragraph you ask two questions:

... how to make this thesis better so that it makes sense?

and

How can I incorporate those graphs, what data should I put in there?

I think the answer to the first is to write - in English - about the questions you hoped to answer, the relevant things you found out in your comparative readings of the English and the Korean translation, and the conclusions you can draw. You may have discovered that the questions were not properly phrased, or there are no easy conclusions. If so, say so and say why. That's what research is about.
The fact that you have to ask the second question suggests that you have been given a structure you must follow, even if that structure in entirely unsuited to the nature of your research. If that's the case, and your adviser is inflexible, I think you are stuck. Do the best you can to fill in the blanks in the required form. Choose a better advisor for your next project.

Thank you for your answer. I guess the main problem is the second issue, the fact that I have a structure to follow which doesn't make a lot of sense to apply in my analysis. I'll try to work something out because you're right, I have no other choice and I should do better next time.

... I chose 4 politeness techniques in English and found around 74 sentences. I wanted to compare them to Korean. However, my analysis has to contain around 100 elements that should be analysed and put into a graph for visual representation. ...

[EDIT: changed the flow. otherwise, it's essentially the same content]
Give consideration to the natural language processing levels: phonology, morphology, more importantly, those of syntax, semantics and pragmatics.
Give the following a reading and apply the principles.

Linguistic Politiness: Japanese, AmEnglish
Linguistic politiness in Japanese lang
linguistic realization of politeness: English and Setswana

and this one from a romance language comparison.
Romance Languages Comparison Charts
Your theoretical framework might go a long way in shaping 'what' and the 'level' of your comparison and 'graphing'. This book might come in handy for theory and practice.

Watts, R. J., Ide, S., & Ehlich, K. (Eds.). (2008). Politeness in language: Studies in its history, theory and practice. Walter de Gruyter.

NB: Ensure you get native Korean speakers to work with. At least, one native speaker and one with linguistic knowledge/background.
[addition]
When one get 'stuck' at #analysis stage, an approach is to take a moment, step back and reflect on the #design.
PS: I understand you indicated mini-thesis. The principles and approach of research cuts across all levels. The rigour increases as one advance from one level to the other.
In the absence of indicating what constitutes or what is the rationale for the #100 elements, I can only guide along the line of research approaches.
In Hill et al., (1986), they had 22 sentences with 19 categorisation translated into Swedish. They administered to #300 across American and Japanese schools, followed by a 'ranking of politeness' plot and a correlation graph.
What is important is to approach the 'dead end' from a reflective approach.
Reconsider your elements from linguistic levels indicated earlier: those of phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics.

Hill, B., Ide, S., Ikuta, S., Kawasaki, A., & Ogino, T. (1986). Universals of linguistic politeness: Quantitative evidence from Japanese and American English. Journal of pragmatics, 10(3), 347-371.
Ide, S. (1989). Formal forms and discernment: Two neglected aspects of universals of linguistic politeness. Walter de Gruyter.
Drellishak, S. Comparative Linguistics via Language Modeling.
Kasanga, L. A., & Lwanga-Lumu, J. C. (2007). Cross-cultural linguistic realization of politeness: A study of apologies in English and Setswana

I remember the days in my PhD thesis when every plea for help would be met with "just read this article" or "just read this book." That trauma has kept me from voting either way on this answer.

I don't really see how this answers the question. If someone on MathSE asks how to solve an exercise, one typically does not answer "just read this book about analysis".

@BobaFit I hear you, but the OP doesn't indicate that they have read anything beyond the source material, so "read a book/paper" might well be the answer.

note that the question is tagged "undergraduate".

This is not a technical help site, and it's not appropriate to present a technical help answer. This answer provides nothing useful to a future reader on the site unless they have exactly OP's research interests, and it's also not clear this is the type or level of help that OP needs. It's not rude for commenters to point these things out.

I removed some more back-and-forth here. If you have a concern about the comment moderation, please post on meta. We're happy to have that discussion, but this space is reserved for suggestions about how to improve or clarify the answer. I will also add that adding three back-to-back comments is almost never the right thing to do: the comment character limit is there for a reason; if you need to go way over this limit, the content probably belongs in chat, on meta, or as a revision to the answer.

My answer here is one applicable to many questions about difficulties during a thesis: Talk to your thesis supervisor!  Writing a thesis is supposed to be somewhat challenging and unpredictable — it’s a first introduction to research — and it’s the job of your thesis supervisor (or advisor, or whatever your institution calls them) to help you navigate those challenges.
Issues like what you describe — the original thesis plan meets unforeseen difficulties — are very common, and there are many possible approaches to “damage control” for them.  These approaches can be fairly subtle, or very drastic — you can remove some material that wasn’t working, or you can add in some extra material to plug a gap, or you can switch to an analysis of the problems the original plan encountered, or you can switch to a completely different project but drawing on the same background reading, so that you don’t have to re-prepare from scratch…  Other answers describe some of these “damage control” measures in more detail, but the person who can best advise you on which strategy is more appropriate is your thesis supervisor — so talk to them!
In the unusual scenario that your thesis advisor is unsympathetic or unhelpful, ask advice from some other mentor-figure or authority figure in your department.  You can’t necessarily expect as much time and attention from someone else as you can ask from a thesis advisor, but most academics should be willing to help out a student in that situation.
In the most unfortunate case, if your advisor is unhelpful and you can’t find anyone better to ask, then come back here and ask a different question: “I’m stuck on my thesis, and no-one at my instution is willing to help me… what should I do?”  But that’s a last resort: the first port of call is always talk to your supervisor, and listen to their advice!

+1. I was going to write an answer along the same lines. One addition/ tip to the OP: To make sure you have an effective discussion with you advisor, plan ahead what you say.  Focus on the one or two things that are most important to you. make sure they know how you currently feel. It can go something like: "I want to make sure my thesis is at a reasonable academic level and fulfills the requirements. I have many doubts right now if what I did actually works. Please help me pave the best path forward. Let's forge a week-by-week plan to finish this project".

I will do so. Thank you for your answer. I emailed the professor to have a consultation so I hope we'll work something out. I think I the biggest mistake I made was choosing a language which no advisor can help me with. Although I can speak Korean I have no mentor who would help me tackle certain problems.

You need only 24 more Korean sentences. This is not a difficult task at all.
Get on social media, such as Facebook, Tiktok, Instagram, etc. to find Korean speakers and then ask for help by using those polite sentences in Korean that you already know. If they help you, it means you can use Korean language to some extent. This would be convincible to your advisor and the exam committee that your thesis is practical and makes sense.
My point is that we are in year 2023 now. Use the modern tools that are available to you to conduct research.
BTW, we do have Korean Language SE. You can also ask users there about how to say polite sentences in Korean and the corresponding sentences in English.
Lastly, don't forget to cite the help that you get from others.


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What opportunities are there for me if I hold an undergraduate degree in translation?
I'm finishing an undergraduate degree in translation this year. Actually, the focus was on learning business English and I took more classes related to linguistics, the literature and history of Eng speaking countries than actual translation classes.
I would like to apply for a different graduate degree. Something that would open more opportunities for me because I know that this degree won't get me hired (maybe if I knew more languages but I don't). I'm also not sure translation is the path I wanna take.
I'm kind of stuck in terms of what I want to do. I've always been interested in languages, it was the only thing I was good at when I was a kid. As an adult I've realized that there are many people who are far better at them than me. Now I regret that I didn't try to learn more skills when I was younger.
I value hands-on experience the most, something practical where I can apply my skills. My undergrad subjects have been nothing but boring theory that I gradually forget overtime. I have no idea what kind of graduate degree I could apply for. I think my choices are very limited. I cannot simply switch to a completely unrelated field, no uni would accept my application because I do not meet the requirements. I've tried searching online for some degrees but I haven't found anything. I live in central Europe.
Does anyone have any idea what opportunities I have if I hold an undergrad degree in translation? My initial plan was to expand my language skills in Korean and German so I can be fluent in 4 languages. But I'm not sure if this will get me anywhere in life in terms of employment opportunities. Even though I'm currently learning both, it will still take me a lot of time to reach fluency.

This might depend on where you are and where you want to study. Needs more information.

I live in Slovakia. I've been looking for different schools around Europe or some scholarships outside of Europe because my financial situation doesn't allow me to just simply move abroad to whatever country I want to. I prefer Austria or Germany the most tho. But my degree has to be in English.

Any local linguistic people/workshops you could ask?


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I unintentionally self-plagiarized in my graduate courses last semester and just realized, what should I do?
I am currently a master's student in the second semester of my first year. I have just returned to graduate school after taking several years off due to the pandemic. Last semester I had two classes that required book reviews. The book I picked met the criteria for both classes and at the time, I figured "work smarter, not harder" so I turned in the same review for both classes. I received good grades from both professors and nothing ever came up about it. Today, approximately 4 months later, my current professor mentioned how using the same work for two classes is considered self-plagiarism. The moment she said this my stomach dropped and after looking it up on the school's academic misconduct policy, I realized I had messed up big time. Now, I am at a loss about what to do. Do I come forward and admit my mistake? Do I vow never to repeat it and hope it doesn't come up? I consider myself a highly ethical person, I have never plagiarized in the past, and this topic never came up in my undergrad. Please give me some advice!

Is it self-plagiarism?  The work is yours and you didn't sign off on the copyright.  The main problem is that it goes against university policy, which specifies that you must not use previously submitted work.  Otherwise, you are getting a 'free' ride.

Juts a clarification: you intentionally self-plagiarized, without knowing it was against the rules. Its still your work, so while you probably should have checked, its not the same as just plagiarism, as you are not claiming someone else work to be yours. But don't build your defense (if you need to) with the word unintentionally, because it was intentional, the unintentional thing was to break the rules, not self-plagiarize. I agree with Michael's answer anyway.

I think there's a question worth answering: was it really an instance of "work smarter not harder", or rather an instance of "I'm trying to find a way to avoid doing work which I have to do"? The difference may be slim, but still...

Plagiarism is a serious matter. Now that you are aware of it: You should write a cease-and-desist letter to the copycat and demand a compensation; perhaps he could invite you and your partner to a posh restaurant downtown? Be stern and let him not get away with it! ;-) [I know your concern is with the double use university rules but I could not resist.]

@Prof.SantaClaus plagiarism has nothing to do with copyright.

By any chance, the academic policy wouldn't have been updated in the last 4 months, would it?

You spent twice as much time on this review than you would have done if you had written two separate reviews, didn't you? So it was a better "product", you learned as much as you would if you had written two reviews etc.

First and foremost, please stop panicking.
Second, you have no reason for questioning your ethics, because you were not aware of the rules.
There exist things that are obviously gross -- like forging lab results or plagiarising other people's work. Cheating on exams is not good either. All this is evident, and there is no need to explain to anyone how wrong these things are.
The use of the same work for two classes is less obvious a misdemeanor on the part of a student uninformed about the rules. In my opinion, what you have done was a mistake, and not an act of deliberate cheating.
So, whatever your decision, don't castigate yourself too harshly. Calm down, to begin with.

Ethically you are correct. From a quasi-legal standpoint, ignorance of the rules, as promulgated in the misconduct policy, is no defence because such a defence would create an incentive for ignorance, and because that aspect of guilt is difficult to prove. Of course, the harm of self-plagiarism is less serious (does not misrepresent the author's ability, and does not expose anyone else to accusations of plagiarism based on the duplication) and so one would hope the punishment would be significantly less severe.

@user234461: True, but conversely, making zero allowance for ignorance of the rules creates the incentive for people in OP’s position to cover up good-faith mistakes, which leads to its own problems.  Which is why many institutions have some amount of sympathy towards ignorance of the rules when it’s reasonably plausible, while certainly not accepting it as a universal get-out clause.  I’m aware that some institutions are absolutely zero-tolerance, but in the cases I’ve heard of, that’s a well-known part of the school’s culture and very clearly communicated to all students.

you have no reason for questioning your ethics, because you were not aware of the rules I would argue that "being ethical" doesn't necessarily means "always follow the rules". Even if it wasn't in the rules, I would say that it's not the nicests of things to turn in the same work as two different solutions to two different assignments in two different classes. Now, I'm not saying that OP is "the worst person ever" but I wouldn't say either that Op is free of moral charge just because they didn't knew that specific rule.

@user234461: The reality is knowing the rules is no longer possible in the general case; and we must make reasonable allowances for not knowing the rules in passing judgment. The digital age has created the ability to promulgate rules beyond all sense so that a lifetime is needed to read them.

I mostly agree with Michael_1812's answer: This is relatively low on the scale of seriousness of academic misconduct, and you weren't aware of the rule, which mitigates somewhat. However, you are now aware of the rule.
While you have so far 'got away with it', it's entirely possible that it is discovered later on. If that were to occur, your excuse of not knowing the rule may not be believed. It's always better to own up to a mistake before someone else discovers it.
I would suggest you speak to a member of staff about this. If you have a 'personal tutor' or similar who is responsible for your welfare, they may be the best person to speak to. Otherwise, you may directly speak to the two instructors concerned. In my opinion, owning up to such an error would reflect extremely well on you.
Based on my personal experience, such an infraction would not be harshly punished, although you may be scored zero for either or both the assignments you submitted, and it is possible your university policy requires some formal reprimand. However, the consequences are likely to be worse if it is discovered rather than admitted to.

I'd imagine the worst that would happen if he came forward is that he'd be asked to create new work for one of them... It would be obscenely harsh to award a zero grade for an infraction this minor that was confessed to long after the likelihood of being found out was passed

I agree with this. If you are in the UK, there is a process of final external moderation that happens. If this has already happened for your marks, you may find that they're all finalised and you don't face consequences. If this has not happened there is a possibility that the moderator might discover your accidental error, which is really really not what you want.

Nothing. If there are two assignments that are similar to the extent that the same text can satisfy both and that text is your own work, then all you need to do to get completely clear of any plagiarism accusations is to explicitly say in each text that it was also submitted to another class (plagiarism is using the ideas without proper reference, not just reusing them; if we weren't allowed to reuse the ideas (our own or somebody else's), the science would come to a screeching halt in no time) but even that is necessary only if somebody around you believes in "self-plagiarism", which, IMHO is an oxymoron. It is ridiculous to expect that you will come up with two completely disjoint in terms of ideas, conclusions, trains of thought, or even passages texts when writing two reviews for the same book. Most of the stuff would be the same or, at least, similar anyway. So, I see no ethical problem with submitting the same work for two classes if it can satisfy all requirements and if it is your own. The rule that you cannot do it can be put forth by the university for other reasons or "just because", but trying to base it on the plagiarism considerations or any ethical issues is an abuse of the notions of plagiarism and ethics as well as of the common sense IMHO.
So just relax for now and continue studying.

It is ridiculous to expect that you will come up with two completely disjoint in terms of ideas, conclusions, trains of thought, or even passages texts when writing two reviews for the same book sounds like OP chose the books to review and realised they could just choose the same book for both. Had they known the rules, they should have chosen different books. So, I see no ethical problem with submitting the same work for two classes if it can satisfy all requirements and if it is your own But this is not the rule at OP's and many other institutions.

For the ethical part the question should be: What was the goal of the assignment? Usually it is not to create some work with any usefulness, but rather to verify the abilities of the student. The work itself is usually only marked by the professor and afterwards thrown away/never read again by anybody. So if the intent of the professors was primarily to check is abilities, he has done nothing wrong ethically.

@Falco I disagree. When I give homework to the students, the goal is never to grade them. The goal is to make them learn stuff.

@Stef - If the goal is to make them learn, then presumably that homework doesn't factor into their final grade? A grade should reflect what the student knows at the end, not what their personal learning curve looks like

@Falco While perhaps you could arguably fulfill the goal of the assignment while violating rules, I think the violation of rules is still ethically problematic.

@Stef fair enough. But I would argue that by doing the work he did learn how to do it. Another example: Imagine I was bored last semester and did some book-summaries just for fun in my free time. Now I get the homework to do exactly this book-review as an assignment - would you expect me to do it again, or would it be ethical to just use the stuff I already did for another reason (in my free time because I was bored?) Both cases are analogous because I did the work and learned by doing it, just for another reason.

@MichaelMior I think in general violating a rule, while upholding the spirit of the rule (assuming the spirit of the rule is morally sound) is often even more ethically sound than the other way around. Since the "spirit of the rule" or intent of the collective body representing the benefactors for this rule is often very hard to ascertain, our judiciary systems usually focus on upholding the "law as written". But ethically I think breaking a "rule as written" is not ethically problematic in of itself.

One Example: There is a rule that mobile phones need to be turned off during exams. Clearly intended to prevent cheating. A student with anxiety may need his phone to be turned on in his pocket, because he fears missing a call from a sick family member and may not be able to focus on the exam at all if the phone is turned off. I think in this case it would be ethical for him to keep the phone turned on hidden in his pocket, even if it is in clear violation of the rule (and assuming the rule does not specify exceptions for such cases).

"self-plagiarism is an oxymoron" -- I would disagree on this point. At least one of the goals of proper referencing is to be able to trade ideas to their origins: who and when presented the idea/result first. So, while omitting a reference to your own, older work, does not missattribute somebody else's work as your own, it does "hide" the history of the idea: in which context was it first presented and when.

@Falco That's assuming you have a correct understanding of the intent of the rule, which is a difficult assumption to make in general.

@penelope Well, are we ever sure that we do know the actual history of any idea? All we can say is where we learned it from and what traces of it we could find in the literature after some decent but by no means exhaustive search. The "when", at least in mathematics, is a tricky thing too: the chronological timeline here is more or less an irrelevant anthropomorphic notion. What really matters is the logical dependence of ideas. What is really useful for communication is this logical context. Specifying whether something was done in 1816 or 2016 and by J. Smith or S. Jones adds very little.

@penelope In general we just view "plagiarism" from different perspectives. For me it is purely about relations between people with the underlying idea that everybody should get due credit for their work. The mathematical theorems do not care about any credit or work. They are just "facts of life". Reprinted 100 times (or not discovered at all), each of them remains just a single theorem in a timeless Platonic word. As to the people, the only thing that is unethical is trying to pass something done 20 years ago for the work done in the last year. But that is not "plagiarism", just "cheating"

So far you have two kinds of answers here. Let me summarize. One sort of answer (that I agree with) is that you have no real ethical concern if you honestly didn't know it was a violation. It was technical, but not intentional, plagiarism.
The other sort of answer (that I also agree with) is that the ethical question being settled doesn't lessen your risk if someone learns of the "violation - not violation" and complains about it.
So, I suggest that you think about the risk and whether you should come forward (hat in hand) and explain to people what happened and vow to "sin (not sin)" no more. That requires something about your knowledge of the professors involved.
No one here can really help you balance that risk since we don't know either the people or the procedures. My best guess is that you are safe to ignore it, but I don't know.
In terms of your own feelings of self worth, I think you can relax. You made a mistake that didn't feel like a mistake when you made it. Life is life.

It isn't technical or any other kind of plagiarism.  It was a violation of the school's policy against repeat submissions of the same work.

@BenVoigt, that may be. It might also have been a personal opinion by that other professor, not a statement of policy. OTOH, policies need to be promulgated to be known and therefore valid. I think a lot of places fail to do that effectively.


text:
Is article type "Perspectives" considered a scholarly paper?
Description: "Perspectives have the same basic structure and length as review articles, however, they should be more speculative and very forward looking, even visionary. They offer the author the opportunity to present criticism or address controversy. Authors of perspectives are encouraged to be highly opinionated."
"Discover Environment publishes a wide range of article types, including but not limited to Research, Reviews, Perspectives, Comments, Brief Communications, Case Studies, Registered Reports, and Data Notes."

If you are asking whether your depertment (char, dean, promotion committee) will consider this a scholarly paper, I think it is best to ask them in advance.

Sure, they are scholarly, but probably not on the same scale as research reports. I think many professional societies publish at least one series, such as Communications of the ACM, that contain such a variety of reports.
How much it "counts" toward things like promotion, however, is an individual judgement and, especially for an early career, academic, they probably count fairly low.
Senior academics with a long history of publishing research that expands the knowledge in a field have more natural credibility in such things.
So, yes, scholarly, but not a replacement for more fundamental things. Not all papers are created equal.

"Sure, they are scholarly" - Some journals mentioned that for "Perspectives" papers peer-review is optional, at the discretion of the editor.

"Perspectives will be typically reviewed by a member of the editorial board who may ask the help of and an additional reviewer if needed, so the publication is expected to be fast." https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10827-021-00781-w


text:
What leverage does an author have when he receives extremely short review reports that look like a joke?
This is cross-disciplinary conceptual research on existing engineering solutions that could be employed for the new industry, 10-15 years from now. These ideas about future tasks are discussed in popular science but lack fundamental academic research yet. This is the third journal that accepted our article for peer-review.
Reviewer 1 (report):

Checked all the 'Yes' (accept) boxes,
Copied the sentence from article's Abstract.
Added "The paper is intersting [spelling error] and prospective, "
And copied half a line from the end of article's Introduction.

Reviewer 2 (report):

Checked all 'Must be improved' boxes.

[I copied most of the Reviewer 2 report as is]
"
This manuscript is not a scientific work. It is an accumulation of information without any actual scientific contribution. ... . The authors do not even cite the actual scientific papers.
"

The email title: "Declined for Publication ... Encourage Resubmission ..."
There was nothing in the email from the editor, just a template sentence.

Review reports from our previous journal submission did say that this is a well written article that puts forward important ideas. But they criticized the overall article's structure and some of the used references.

In Elsevier journal we waited 6 months with no action from the editor, and finally withdrew the manuscript. In the Taylor & Francis Group journal we waited 3.5 months to receive pretty shallow review reports. Never the less, they were helpful in improving this article. At MDPI we waited 1 month, but now don't have many ideas for improvement.

I think the first review is useless and should not have been sent to you. Probably the editor ignored it. The second review is a full reject. If the editor agrees then it would likely be rejected in my field. This reviewer is basically saying you have an essay or a review article, not an empirical paper. In some journals that would be okay; in others it should be an automatic reject and no comments would be given.

@Dawn - Thank you. I've been dealing with multiple journals and still cannot rectify the paradox of how low grade and unintelligent all my communications with editorial offices were. I was expecting 'the best', but only saw 'the worst'.

In answer to your question "What leverage does an author have ... ?" , I would say, "Fortunately, none!".
That probably sounds harsh but if it were the case that you had "leverage" then so to would everybody else, suggesting that it would be leverage, rather than merit, that resulted in papers being published.
It is the job of an editor to cull through hundreds and hundreds of submissions and to select from among those submitted, the few that best fit the goals of the journal. It is the job of a reviewer (and I used the words "job"  very very loosely since most reviewers are unpaid) to assist the editorial team to do their job. Because the number of papers submitted to a journal usually far exceeds the number that can be published (or even read completely), the first task of a reviewer is actually the exact opposite of what you might think. It is to read enough of each paper to be able to decide whether it is unpublishable. Since the vast majority of papers reveal themselves to be unpublishable fairly quickly, a reviewer can devote more time to the few papers that are (double negative here) not unpublishable.
It is your job and yours alone to ensure that the alarm bell for unpublishable is never sounded in the mind of a reviewer. Again, my comments might sound harsh but a brief digression will illustrate my points so far.
A colleague of mine is a major review-handler for a funding agency. Because a funding agency gives money away for nothing, the number of submissions is high and funding-reviewers face a worse nightmare, with even tighter deadlines, than journal reviewers. My colleague conducted a double-blind experiment over a few years. To one group of reviewers, she sent only the first 150 word abstract of each funding application and asked for an "accept/reject" decision. To the second group of reviewers, she sent the entire grant applications, again with requests for "accept/reject" decisions. There were no funding applications that got a rejection based on the 150 word abstract yet received a positive rating on the full application. In other words, out of a 5000 word application, most could be rejected on the basis of the first 150 words.
I know from harsh experience how annoying, frustrating, and downright discouraging it can be to receive so few comments, or such contradictory comments from reviewers, that you cannot see how to overcome the apparent impediments to publication. But while I understand how nice, helpful, useful and encouraging it would be to receive detailed information on improving your publication, you have to understand that no one owes you. The system is not broken. It is not an obligation of the reviewers or of the editors to try to understand or improve your paper, nor even to help you to improve it. It is your responsibility to make it so clear why your paper is worth publishing that an editor will be doing everything they can to get your paper into print.
Extended response to your comment
I hesitated over responding to your comment because I don't wish to offend you. I do understand how extremely frustrated you are with feedback that has not so far enabled you to get your paper published. However, there are things in your original post and your question that shed light on at least some problems.
First, and as a somewhat minor issue, I assume that you are writing for an English language journal and that you are not a native English speaker.
Second, and far more important than the native-quality of your English, is that your ideas are not, in my view, expressed clearly. Consider, for example, two sentences (one in your original post, one in your comment) that relate to the same issue.

Original post sentence: Review reports from our previous journal submission did say that this is a well written article that puts forward important ideas. But they criticized the overall article's structure and some of the used references.
Comment sentence: This paper was accepted by 3 journals. Two of them were pretty high ranking.

When I read your comment I initially thought that I must have completely misread your original posting. I thought "Wow, this person has already had their paper accepted by three journals and they're still unhappy!" But I had not misread your post. Instead, you have not consistently expressed yourself clearly. That might be connected with your successive rejections! If I have pieced together the information correctly, what you really mean is something like the following:

We have now submitted our paper to three journals, two of which are fairly high ranking, and we have had the paper rejected by all three journals. In each case, the paper has gotten through the editor's "desk check", without being rejected, and has then been sent out for peer review. After having been peer reviewed (now three times!) we have received rejections from the journal editors, accompanied by mixed reviews.

From this, you have some useful information. The opening of your paper expresses itself sufficiently clearly to make three editors think that it will not be a complete waste of time to ask other people to read the remainder of your paper carefully. What then has gone wrong? From what you have written, I don't know! Instead, I have made some guesses, and made suggestions. The guesses are not in any particular order.

As I argued above, the evidence is that you do not consistently express yourself clearly. Solution: have an experienced author (not necessarily an engineer) read your paper and give you feedback about your writing.
Your paper might simply be a poor fit for a particular journal, in which case, continue your search. I think, from some of your remarks, however, that this is not the problem.
You oversold your ideas in the first 150 words of the paper and it appeared to be more interesting initially than it later turned out. The editor was impressed by the initial sell, but the reviewers saw "hot-air" rather than real substance.
You can express yourself very clearly in your native language and might also be a very good speaker of English but you are not so good at expressing complicated ideas in English. Solution: if necessary, pay a native English editor to help you improve your paper.

There are numerous other possibilities. I suggest that you also read this question (which reflects struggles that are similar to your own) ... and this answer.

"CrimsonDark" - Do you think that if the editor's first look at the manuscript after submission would create a similar impression: "this is not a science", they would go for the next step to do peer-review? This paper was accepted by 3 journals. Two of them were pretty high ranking.

@TheMatrixEquation-balance You submitted to four journals?

@TheMatrixEquation-balance See the addition to my answer.

@CrimsonDark did your friend publish the results of this interesting experiment?

I think the OP is using the word “accepted” to mean “sent for review”

@Dawn I know. I think I refer to it as not expressing oneself in a consistently clear fashion.

@CrimsonDark - I did read your answer(s), but it does not apply in my case.
My article is about particular methodologies in rock-engineering, but used in space missions. This subject was never discussed or researched (at least to my knowledge). The only strategy I can see at this point, is to find an open-minded peer-reviewers and recommend them to another MDPI journal.

@CrimsonDark - Thank you for expanding your answer. I think you have a somewhat rigid view on this subject. You don't allow to suggest that there are cases when good ideas, good research and good presentation might not fit very well in standard formats and expectations. Excerpt from previous journal reviewers: "The manuscript is generally well written, and I congratulate the authors' effort in putting this trans and interdisciplinary study together. However, I recommend the rejection of the manuscript as it is. In my opinion, it lacks a minimum scientific strictness for a proper review..."

I think this is the crux of the issue. Reviewers are looking for a hypothesis, a methods section, and findings re the hypothesis from those methods. Without those, they can’t even give you useful comments because it is an essay, not a reviewable research article.

I often have to give a lecture to my grad students about the differences between what undergraduate faculty called a “research paper” and what is peer-reviewable empirical research. Unless you are doing hard-core theoretical modeling (which is its own kind of method) there is no such thing as “conceptual research.”

@Dawn - Why not? If a particular subject of research was not funded yet, and as a result, did not have the attention of the research community, it does not mean this subject will not attract billions of research money and generate dozens of papers, 5-10 years from now. And how would you write a Review Article on a subject that was not researched yet???

Why is there no such thing as "conceptual research"? It comes down to the scientific method - hypothesize, gather and test evidence, reject/don't reject the hypothesis. It sounds like your paper/essay stops at hypothesize. Sometimes a review article is used to point to the state of the literature and its gaps/natural next steps for research, which may be what you are trying to do, I am not sure.

You probably have what is known as a “commentary” vs a research article. Look for journals that accept these.

Having your paper rejected is no fun. It’s especially bad when you feel like the reviewers didn’t even read the paper.
You have very little leverage. Instead of thinking about how to change this editor’s mind, reformat for the next journal.

While I agree in theory that could be damaging to a company’s reputation, I think a single instance would probably come across to most as petty. You’d also risk damaging your own reputation in the process.

The editor in charge clearly choose to consider the short referee report.  You can always escalate to the editor-in-chief, but unless there is a technical error or you can rebut in details the majority of the points of the referee it’s unlikely the EiC will overrule the handling editor.  After all, by construction editors make a judgement to accept or reject a manuscript, so you better have solid reasons to challenge that judgement.
If you feel poorly treated by the journal, the only real leverage you have to not to resubmit to this journal just like if you don’t like a restaurant the leverage you have is to go elsewhere.

"ZeroTheHero" - I thought that a 5 words (original from the peer-reviewer) review report for the 27-page review article covering different disciplines of science and engineering - would be an outrage for people involved with manuscript publishing. But, apparently, no one in this community considers it unusual or bad. My co-author published dozens of articles and several books. And he is as surprised as I am.

Not to be picky but what you pasted is more than 5 words and fairly specific.  If you want to vent, do it on the back of the handling editor, who may have made a decision based on a bad referee report.  Do not however expect decisions to reject to be paragraphs long as the decision comes with supporting documents.

"ZeroTheHero" - I was talking about "Reviewer 1 (report)". It is an unusual paper that analyses technologies that can be used for something that does not exist yet. This area was not properly researched yet because there was no funding for such research. But we worked on this article for more than a year and I need to find a way to publish it.

so what’s you’re saying is the report in favour is not useful, and the report against is detailed and specific.  Sorry I’m not sure what you want to do here, except never re-submit to this journal.

This is the crux of the issue- I would ignore the first referee report as an editor (and would not have sent it on to the author). I would find the second report damming enough that I would take a look myself and reject if I agreed. Think of it as a belated desk reject.

You have no leverage other than to make the work better fit the journal. You seem to describe a bunch of "blue sky" ideas that might work out in the future if explored. There is value in that, but those ideas are only the beginnings of research, proposals or research questions, not results. This journal wants more.
The editor has rejected the paper, implying that they agree with this review. It isn't a statement, necessarily, about the quality of your ideas, but a statement of the focus of the journal and what sorts of things they choose to publish. I interpret it as they want evidence of the value of these things, not just proposals.
Other journals may have a different focus and different requirements, but if you want this particular journal to publish then you have a lot of work to do I think. Happily, though, they didn't say "go away and don't come back".

"Buffy" - What you say is common wisdom. I cannot disagree with that. But when the process is broken, when they tell you to resubmit but don't bother to say what needs to be changed, there is a need to think outside of the box.

But they are telling you that you don't have the detail you need. Providing that is your job, not theirs. They aren't in a position to say more without doing your research. They are saying that the gap is large, too large for them to fill.

@TheMatrixEquation-balance Actually it sounds like the process worked as intended: an article that didn't fit the journal was rejected, and they explained why. It's not necessarily up to them to give you a framework to fix if you're that far off.

@TheMatrixEquation-balance I'm not really a fan of MDPI but I'm impressed that even they found your paper poor enough to reject, as my impression from reading papers in MDPI, especially those that evoke questions on scientific SE sites, is that they will publish anything that appears from a distance to possibly be a manuscript. Peer reviews are primarily for recommending to the editor. If you need advice to improve your paper, send it to some scientists you know and ask for their feedback. It seems likely that their first feedback will be the same as this review: cite some existing work.

@TheMatrixEquation-balance Not sure I follow how that applies here, but if it's helpful to you then that's good.


text:
Master degree after getting a PhD degree
I completed my Ph.D. studies and was rewarded a Doctorate degree in Dental science, with a major in Biomaterials for odontology and orthopedic bone regeneration purposes. Although I like my field. I have always been interested in cancer treatment and fascinated by molecular and Biotechnology science, after searching here and there I am thinking to apply for an MSc in Molecular biology, Biotechnology, and Genetics. Is it okay to get a Master's degree after my Ph.D.?
The reasons that made me think about this besides my forever interest in this field, are that I am a one-year Ph.D. graduate now, and still I did not get a job offer, and also I did not get an opportunity to learn the programs and techniques for data science analysis such as (MATLAB, Python...etc)

What do you define by "okay"? Do you have a certain country in mind? Also, for your last paragraph: Can you clarify whether these are reasons for or against the master? I don't quite understand if you say "against the master because I'm longer without job" or "for the master because I learn programs". Are studies in your country paid by the state? Can you just enroll in a university or does someone needs to accept you?

You don't need to enroll in a masters program to learn a few tools like MATLAB or Python.

See also: (How) Can I switch from field X to field Y after getting my PhD?


text:
Do you any have access to Computer Science Review Elsevier Journal MS word Template?
I'm in the process of submitting a paper to the Computer Science Review Elsevier Journal. I've gone through their "Guide for Authors," but I'm finding it a bit challenging to discern the specific font, size, and other formatting details. Would anyone happen to have experience with this journal and perhaps possess a Microsoft Word template tailored for their submissions? Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

For papers in computer science, I would really recommend you use LaTeX. Here is information on LaTeX for Elsevier journals.

First of all, I suggest to follow @Stephan Kolassa advice and use Latex.
You can find the Latex instruction linked in comment here.
According to their FAQ as of the 16th of November linked here:

Most journals accept a PDF of your manuscript at initial submission and require you to submit your manuscript with source files at a later stage. However, some journals require a manuscript to be submitted in a specific template file. In these cases, the template is probably in LaTeX and in exceptional cases in CRC.

Additionally, the FAQ also gives the following information:

If a journal requires you to use a certain template for submission, you can find this in the journal's Guide for Authors. Consult your Guide for Authors from the journal homepage. To go to your journal's homepage, search for the journal using the search box under 'Find by journal title' in the journal author's page.

Going to the Guide for Authors for Computer Science Review Elsevier Journal which you can find ehre, I can find the following information (emphasis mine):

Our online submission system guides you stepwise through the process of entering your article details and uploading your files. The system converts your article files to a single PDF file used in the peer-review process. Editable files (e.g., Word, LaTeX) are required to typeset your article for final publication. All correspondence, including notification of the Editor's decision and requests for revision, is sent by e-mail.

I also find the following quote a bit below in the "Use of word processing software" paragraph:

Keep the layout of the text as simple as possible. Most formatting codes will be removed and replaced on processing the article. In particular, do not use the word processor's options to justify text or to hyphenate words. However, do use bold face, italics, subscripts, superscripts etc.

From those quotes, it appears the manuscript is gonna go through typesetting, and thus those formatting details you are wondering about are not important, and are only relevant to your first submission, if you submit only a PDF. In later stages, you will be asked to submit source files and format won't matter anymore.
The guide for authors also suggest using Latex:

You are recommended to use the Elsevier article class elsarticle.cls to prepare your manuscript and BibTeX to generate your bibliography.
Our LaTeX site has detailed submission instructions, templates and other information.


text:
Storing scientific content on github
I have a scientific paper that I would like to protect from theft or other proprietary data, is it possible to store the data and the manuscript in a private github repository as a pre-print in order to prove my ownership just in case? There are supposed to be timestamps and such.
Thanks for the help.
I tried storing it on my personal website however I am not sure if this might be enough.

Who is going to steal your paper? Who’s proprietary data?

@JonCuster Regarding the first question I don't think that's relevant, by proprietary data I mean anything that goes with my article.

The reason it's relevant to know what you're protecting and who you're protecting it from is that the answers will depend on these answers to these questions. Security analysis requires a threat model. If this is purely about establishing scientific precedence, then the best thing is probably to post it to ArXiv or another public preprint server. If it's not at the preprint stage but you're worried about someone stealing it from your computer, work on storing it more securely. If you're worried about commercially valuable IP, there would be yet another answer ...

Since you are afraid someone will steal something, yes it is relevant. People don’t ‘steal’ papers…


text:
Shifting to Applied Math from Civil Engineering
I recently Graduated. My major was Civil Engineering. I want to apply for an Applied math Ph.D. My undergraduate thesis was on continuum mechanics that use heavy tensor machinery. Would any applied math Ph.D. program in the US take students from an Engineering background?

Please edit the question to limit it to a specific problem with enough detail to identify an adequate answer.

"that use heavy tensor machinery" most likely not, if you define your thesis in these terms. Applied math is that machinery: by calling it machinery it looks like either it is a black box for you, or that you mildly despise it...

Your question is akin to "Does the Nobel Prize committee consider nominees of Spanish nationality?". It is easy to verify empirically that the answer is "yes", but of course this gives little certainty to anyone from Spain who may have been nominated for a Nobel Prize about whether they will actually get it.  What matters, of course, is whether the nominee is qualified, and that is true for your case as well.
The question for you to answer is then "Have I taken enough mathematics courses to be competitive with applicants who are mathematics undergraduates?", "How have I done in these classes?", "Are there other ways in which I can demonstrate that I am qualified?"

As @WolfgangBangerth observes, tautologically they will consider you, but the question is about your competitiveness against other applicants. Not that everything is some sort of bloodthirsty competition, but, rather, that each program has limited resources, both faculty and money to support students.
In the U.S., in my observation, the notion of "applied math program" varies greatly. Some programs do allow fairly narrow focus within mathematics, and huge emphasis on the engineering and scientific applications, while others do not see "applied math" as being wildly different from "math". Indeed, the traditional notion that applied math is numerical solution of PDEs is a bit narrow-archaic, now that we have crypto, coding, big data, machine learning, etc.
In particular, to avoid spending toooo much on application fees to programs that are not a good fit for you, you'll need to look at the individual programs. They are not all the same. Some might value your engineering experience, while others might worry about your limited mathematical experience.


text:
Ph.D candidate (ABD) in a tough position. Any advice?
I am an upcoming fourth year doctoral candidate (ABD) in an experimental psychology Ph.D program with a Master's (before matriculation to my Ph.D program) who is expected to wrap up sometime next academic year. My program experience has been rough to say the least. Although I am ABD, my battle was a major uphill one to get to this point.
First, I did my open house and interview for my program back in February 2020, which was one month before COVID happened and stay at home orders continued into 2020-2021. Although I was given an offer before everything happened and I secured funding for my first year, I had an advisor for my first two years who was extremely capricious and had a history of not treating her past advisees well. I did not know about this since she only ever had two other advisees due to being a newer faculty at the time. One of her advisees trained me before he graduated with his Ph.D. My ex-advisor ultimately dumped me after a series of miscommunications we had related to lab procedures. My current advisor, who is also the department chair, apologized alongside the current interim program director (my ex-advisor was the full program director at the time) after I told them about what happened to me. I mention all of this since my ex-advisor knew about my neurodivergent conditions (e.g., autism, ADHD-I, emotion dysregulation, etc.) and intentionally said or did things that were extremely unaccommodating.
I have clinical trauma from the experience and it is classified as unspecified clinical trauma (I have symptoms albeit with no pre-existing classification for it). My pre-existing symptoms, particularly emotion dysregulation, are exacerbated to the point I have recently need to adjust my medication. I have also taken a "medical leave" of sorts this summer by not working full-time. I had a summer course assigned to me, but it was cut due to low enrollment and is a blessing in disguise. My current medical doctors who treat me wanted me to not work full time between my work and studies since I was recently at risk for major self-harm in addition to severe inattention from my newfound trauma to the point where driving is occasionally unsafe.
This past academic year, I made sure to enroll in the final remaining credit hours I had with what may have been my final assistantship even though I was told funding was four years at the start of the program (verbally, not in writing). My full tuition waiver was intact, but my stipend got cut in half, which was devastating until I got an adjunct position at a community college near me. This means I cannot do student employment on campus or accept an assistantship for my department (assuming they do not get cut like most feared right now) since I need to be enrolled in 6 credit hours. I am hoping that I can be an adjunct instructor for the university at my current program in addition to two other universities where I am also an adjunct. However, I've learned the hard way how unstable being an adjunct truly is right now with enrollment issues at my current university and community college near me. Fortunately, the one that currently employed me doesn't seem to have those issues and I can live frugally off of the funding they gave me.
I was also able to propose my dissertation this past academic year since my current advisor accepted an idea I pitched to my ex-advisor before she ultimately rejected it after I did a full literature review no less. My current advisor has told me that he is happy with my program progress on multiple occasions. However, I've had difficulty with juggling other research projects since I taught 3 classes this past semester while I was in an unproductive state due to my untreated medical issues I was not aware of how to resolve until recently. Even then, I still have to experiment with new medical routines till Fall 2023 begins for me with the hope that I will be in a manageable state by then.
I am also moving apartments for the cheaper rent that will save me a huge amount of money going forward to the point my savings can cover it worst case. However, I have a ton of questions in the back of my head right now.
If funding for students gets cut to the point they cannot take any more, how will those plans work (June 28th is when decisions for funding will be public)? If I lost my current advisor due to my situation, how can I go about finding another advisor if I am not paired with someone else by then? Any other recommendations for managing my responsibilities despite my current situation?

Sorry, but this is far too specific to your own personal situation for us to answer. Stack Exchange is intended to be a Q&A site where the answers will help others. For that, the questions need to be general.

Is this about a doctoral students running into financial meltdown/crusing and losing advisor?


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The consequence of a good letter of recommendation when things do not work out
In a recent conversation I had with a University Professor about letters of recommendation he explained that if he recommends me (or anyone) and things do not work out, his letters become completely worthless.
This strikes me as rather extreme, as he can (and should) only assess me based on what he has seen in his collaboration with me (assume that he has been my supervisor for Masters or PhD and I want to apply for a PhD or post-doc) and many things can happen in the next workplace with the next supervisor that this rather limited time of collaboration cannot predict.
To what extent is his statement true? He clearly had other sectors of society in mind as well, such as banks and finance, industry etc. when discussing this. To what extent would the next employer/supervisor be forgiving/understanding this?

Don't most applications not work out? I'm not in academia, but I assume there are usually many applicants for a position, and only one of them can get it. Why is there any stigma associated with being among the rest? Especially to the professor.

@Barmar I interpreted "things not working out" as OP getting the position but not doing well in it.

@user1149748 Now I get it. And the professor is worried that his future recommendations will not be believed, not that past letters become worthless.

I think this is hyperbole; it's meant to communicate the professor's high standards for recommendations and that they see offering a recommendation as putting their professional reputation on the line. It's likely not meant as a statement that conveys a true/literal thing about recommendation letters in academia.
Certainly one professor who receives a positive recommendation from another professor for a student that doesn't work out may be skeptical of future recommendations from that person, and it's possible that these things could become parts of conversation among colleagues, but otherwise there's no central database for listing recommenders of students who went on to fail and therefore cannot be trusted.

And of course the reason it doesn’t work out is important too. If the student has only ever worked alone and focussed on research under the recommending professor and the recommendation is based on this, and the ‘new’ professor then throws the student into a heavily group work–oriented and admin-heavy position and this doesn’t work out because the student turns out not to be good at team work and admin or due to a clash of personalities… well, that can hardly be held against the recommending professor who had no way of knowing this.

@JanusBahsJacquet in an ideal world professor B that worked with the student following the recommendation from professor A would look at it that way. But professors are humans and humans tend to find fault when they can in other places than themselves. And the recommendation letter might have not made it clear that the student is a loner not fit for teamwork etc. Chances are that in any case the trust level in recommendations from professor A is reduced at the very least on professor B's side and gossip might widen the circle beyond what is objectively reasonable.

Let me rephrase it a bit. If I give you a glowing letter of recommendation, extolling your many virtues, but knowing that you are, in fact, sort of average, or even mediocre, then, if you later fail, as you may, that will come back on me with colleagues who know of the history and my mis-statements.
That may be all the professor intends.
I once gave a glowing letter of recommendation to a student applying to a top research institution. He truly deserved it, but he failed miserably in the doctoral program. Luckily I knew a person there who asked me about it. What I didn't realize at the time I wrote the letter was that the student was dying of AIDS at the time. He had no symptoms when he was in my courses or when I wrote the letter, but it advanced rapidly after he graduated and started the new program.
But, had that later conversation not taken place, my own reputation for honest evaluation would be damaged.
The mirror image story is that I once went out on a limb for a student (Russian immigrant) that I thought was brilliant, but who didn't do all that well on the GRE. He was in danger of not being accepted at a top research university. I knew the dean there, who asked me about my letter and I assured him of the likelihood of success and why I had such confidence. That former student was accepted is now a full professor at another top university.
Reputation matters.
I always avoid saying such over the top things as "best student ever" or "top 5%" since my memory isn't perfect.
And, if I think that an honest letter wouldn't help the student, I suggest that they look elsewhere.

The story about your student is unclear. You wrote a strong letter because you believed the student was good, the student, however, was ill and did not perform at that time. Can you please unpack the timeline a bit, I think I know what you mean, but it sounds contradictory or confusing as written.

@CaptainEmacs, better now?

Yes, clear now, thank you.

I would say professor's statement is a bit extreme, as quoted, but it reflects reality to a certain extent: every time one writes a recommendation letter, one bets (a part) of his/her reputation (at least, in the respect of the ability to judge professional qualities of other people) on the performance of the recommended candidate. So, indeed, if one recommends a candidate at some point and the things obviously "do not work out" in the sense that the candidate fails to perform up to the expectations raised by the letter, the next letter will carry less weight and, conversely, if the expectations are exceeded, the weight will increase. I doubt very much that the corresponding reduction or amplification factors can ever reach $0$ and $\infty$, so the "completely worthless" part looks like a clear exaggeration to me. But those factors may be noticeable, indeed.
I look at my reputation just as at any other spendable resource I have (money, time,...), so when it runs low, I become frugal and try to replenish it, but when it runs high, I'm using it to push for things I want to happen, even if doing so costs me a bit in reputation points (like, say, submitting a paper to some journal nobody has ever heard of instead of some "prestigious" one just because I like it for some reason and want to support it). However quite many people want to pile it to the sky (don't ask me why), so the attitude you just met is not very uncommon.
There are several other possibilities of what such a statement might mean in some particular conversation, but you haven't provided enough information to discuss them in any meaningful way, so I'll stop here.
Just my 2 cents...

I'm not that familiar with academia world, so take what follows with a grain of salt, and more like an answer for recommendation letters in general and not only academia. There are already good answers but in my opinion they don't insist enough on one detail, hence this answer.
This strikes me as rather extreme, as he can (and should) only assess me based on what he has seen in his collaboration with me (assume that he has been my supervisor for Masters or PhD and I want to apply for a PhD or post-doc) and many things can happen in the next workplace with the next supervisor that this rather limited time of collaboration cannot predict.
There are often other, objective assessment of your performance as a scientist/student/employee. Past projects you worked on, grading reports, papers you published, ...
A recommendation letter, as objective and honest it can be, is usually an implicit compliment by its very existence. Because the person writing it considers you as worthy of their personal recommendation, and that other means (grading reports etc) are not enough. Often, the recommendation letter is written from one person to another specifically, and engages the trust the recipient may have for the sender.
Regarding this, if "things go wrong", and the recipient is dissatisfied with your performance, the trust the recipient has regarding the sender may be reduced. In addition, some academic or professional domains have a small population, and everyone knows everyone. So words that "X recommended a bad student/worker/researcher" may travel extremely fast.


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Made potentially unauthorized copies or adaptations of copyrighted test material. Can I keep the data I have collected for my dissertation?
I am a fourth year doctoral candidate in Experimental Psychology who recently finished data collection for my dissertation. I recently discovered something that may be a potential issue, but I am not sure if me or the university will be liable.
In my scenario, I am using the word reading measure of the Wide Range Achievement Test 5th Edition (WRAT-5 for short) published by Pearson. Under my previous training for my qualifier project under my first advisor, I was told that I could readily reproduce copies of the list of words on the WRAT-4 (was not 5 at the time) as I ran each participant. I eventually learned after contacting Pearson customer support that this was not allowed at all. Regardless, I presented a poster on my qualifier project at a well known psychology conference in my particular region (I had no chance of getting a publication unless I did a second study per what my advisor told me).
For my dissertation, I had course corrected and ordered 25 sheets for the WRAT-5 so I could run each participant using them. However, after I ran out, I used adaptations of the WRAT-5 word list I had already printed (prior to my conversation with Pearson) until I could order new copies. Unfortunately, I never got around to ordering more copies before I finished data collection with what I had (I got 49 participants total). This is a potential problem as I recently finished data collection for my dissertation using those copies of the word list that I know were unauthorized based on a policy from Pearson that explicitly stated reproduction of the test is not allowed when test materials were purchased under the Research Assistance Program (RAP). However, since it is not a direct scan or copy of the material itself, would it technically be a violation?
Regardless, my primary concern is if what will happen to the data I have already collected in this case. Could it be thrown out potentially? Even if I order new forms? I remember a clinical faculty warning me about the pictures of the WRAT-5 I had shown during my dissertation defense and I am extremely worried now.
If this question seems like its too individualized, mods are more than free to edit this post or take it down. I tried to make sure it is something useful this time as I imagine I am not the first one to make such a mistake.

In general that I think "reproduction" normally includes direct adaptation even if it isn't literally a photocopy or picture of the form. And publishing research using unlicensed versions of tests have led to retractions in the past. So yes, your data could be tossed.
I would bet that since they sell the test per-unit and explicitly prohibit reproduction, you don't have much of a leg to stand on.  I don't know how strict Pearson is with this, but since their RAP asks for a copy of the study, it could be easy for someone to notice the discrepancy in your study n and the number of tests purchased. Whether they care or not, I can't say.
In terms of retroactively ordering new forms to cover yourself, I don't know. My gut reaction is that it is still a problem. You violated the terms of the RAP. But (I don't know if I'll get pushback on this) the reality is that, if you purchase the correct number of forms, this is probably a case of no harm, no foul.
At this point I would buy the correct number of forms and leave it at that. It isn't worth the worry. Don't go around announcing that you reproduced the test in a way you weren't supposed to though. From this point forward, everything is above board.
I will say, it isn't clear to me how this test was implemented. You mention an "adaptation". Is this something you need to detail in the methods? If so, it will be clear that you reproduced the test in a way that is not allowed. This would be a case where you should consult an advisor who know the project intimately and has some experience using licensed material.

Going to answer in reverse order. When I say "adaptation," I just mean that the participant has the list of words itself that were on the scoring sheet in this case and they had to read aloud. Participants never had the actual word list (although a scan someone posted online shows what the actual word list looks like if you Google it) from the testing kit itself since my grant couldn't afford the full kit. As for announcing it, I didn't do that but I did send an I inquiry to the permissions team mentioning that I used one copy of a form at one point to score multiple folks and if that's ok.

I also ran out of space but my primary purpose for sending that inquiry was to ask them if could back up my WRAT-5 data digitally. After I reviewed my old responses, the representative who emailed me explicitly stated that I would've had to ask to digitally back up my data at a different point.

Ah, I would talk to your advisor about all this and see what they think.

@sErlSaNo They said that, since I am not using it to clinically assess participants, it is completely ok. However, I think my advisor might be oblivious to my agreement.

So it sounds like they are okay with you using the test in this way? What is the issue?

@sErlSaNo They are fine with it, but the main issue is when I have to report this back to Pearson before I potentially publish my dissertation. My advisor wants me to do that, but I may have "shot myself in the foot" (not literally of course) for publishing it by not ordering more copies when I needed them.


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Could my visiting instructor position be terminated due to low course reviews? Full time instructor position is not going well at all
I'm a fourth year doctoral student in Applied Experimental Psychology who earned a Master's prior to enrolling in my program (which my Ph.D program accepted on full). Long story short, my funding ran out for this academic year so I was looking into work I could do in my last year. I applied to a visiting full time instructor position at a SLAC despite my odds not looking good. Shockingly, I got the position.
This position has been absolutely brutal for me and I've heard many concerning comments about my course when they thought I was out of earshot and when I gave them a mid semester feedback form. I've consistently been 2 to 2.5 weeks behind grading all papers, difficult time replying to emails in a timely manner, shower every other day, and sleep for long amounts of time including long naps. I also don't wave or say anything to students (I do for faculty though, oddly enough) when I walk past them partially because I'm trying to get in and out alongside nervousness. I've been encouraged to also use a tool called Starfish to report student attendance and such but I do random in class assignments to keep track of everyone.
As much as I've come to realize I dislike teaching (since I expected to enjoy it), it's my only source of income right now and losing it would be devastating for me. This SLAC is in Michigan (20 minutes away from the R2 where I'm doing my Ph.D) and I signed a contract that stated my salary and teaching course load. Can they terminate the rest of my appointment if my course reviews end up being extremely low?

Does your contract (or employment law) say anything about that?

Given my kids’ experience with bad teaching by adjunct instructors I’d say the reviews may have limited impact. But you need to work on overcoming your nervousness. Being polite and welcoming to your students is just good manners. Acting like you don’t care about them at all will not help.

@JonCuster I initially deleted this post but I decided to undelete it. Hopefully, those reviews have limited impact for sure.

Are you talking about termination of a contract or non-renewal of a contract.  There's a huge difference.

@ScottSeidman Termination of contract. My position is only for a year but I'm concerned I'll be fired in between this semester and the next one.

Yes, a contract can be terminated for cause and poor student evaluations might be a factor, though probably not the only factor. You probably have some protections, however, and the process can take time. Normally some consultation with administration and/or experienced faculty is part of the process. It is very unlikely that you are an "at will" employee who can be summarily fired.
But non-renewal is more likely than termination. The university has a number of objectives. Effective teaching (in a liberal arts college) is high on the list, but so is fairness to faculty.
Contracts and published policies they point to should spell out the various options.


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C+ in a core Master's class years ago. Will postdocs and/or employers mind it at all?
I graduated with a Master's in Experimental psychology in 2020 with a C+ in research methods (core course and it actually counted even though other programs normally don't do that). Reason my grade was that low was because I finished a final project and final exam worth half of the class grade with severe dental pain from a dead tooth. At the time, accessible dental care was hours away. If I knew how incompletes for medical reasons worked, I would've just drove back and got a note from the dentist.
Finishing a Ph.D and got an A for their research methods equivalent when I took it there. Will employers care about the C+ if I apply for research positions (industry, post doc, etc.)? I understand that this concern is years after the fact, but I have heard of some instances where that matters to some.

No
Only the grades from your highest degree matters, and even then, not a lot.

We only care about the quality and visibility of your results. Publish strong papers and give brilliant talks at top conferences. Convince well-known active researchers to write letters raving about your work. Make a good product and get superstars to sell it for you. Do all that, and we'll definitely want to hire you, no matter where you got your degree.

Though the above is for academic careers, the same goes for industry. If they care about your grades at all (which they probably won't; in most industry job applications they ask for your CV, not your transcripts) they'll look only at your PhD grades.


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Worried about an old grade coming back to potentially halt my Ph.D graduation. How can I address my concern?
I am currently an ABD doctoral candidate at my current Ph.D program in Experimental Psychology. Long story short, I got a C+ in a core class during my Master's program (Research Methods) back in Fall 2018 and graduated from it in December 2020 regardless of this grade. I understand the majority of programs would not count this grade (especially for a core class), but my Master's program university had a default policy for programs without a handbook (mine did not have a handbook) where a 3.0 GPA was necessary for good standing and they defaulted to the graduate school policy of being allowed up to 3 C level (C+, C, C-) grades.
Long story short, I contacted the Master's program chair and director about whether my C+ grade counted towards my Master's degree and fulfilled my statistics proficiency requirement (with a "cover story" that an auditor at my current program questioned this grade) and they said it did. Despite this, my current Ph.D program accepted my Master's in full since it was also an Experimental Psychology degree. Since my current program's handbook said someone would not be allowed to graduate with a grade less than a B-, I asked an office manager who audited degrees of those in the department whether my C+ would not allow me to graduate. I was told that my previous grades would not affect anything at all.
Despite all of this, I am concerned about what may happen when the graduate school themselves has to audit my degree before I graduate. They have a default policy to accept up to a certain number of C grades towards a doctoral degree, but I am concerned that they may use the lowest acceptable grade as a B- (specified in the Ph.D program handbook) against me potentially and not allow me to graduate. In case its important, I took my current Ph.D program's equivalent of Research Methods and got an A in it. This was not to replace my C+ grade, but to get the credit since I needed it.

Only your current school and program can answer this question.  However, it seems very unlikely that your current school, having reviewed your transcripts prior to admitting you, will look beyond your performance in their own program when it is time for your degree audit.

@BobBrown Just heard back from the graduate office. You were correct!

I would hope and expect that if such a grade would be a problem with your doctorate that you would have heard of it long before now. I don't think it would have been ethical to even admit you to a doctoral program if a C grade in the masters would be a block.
Go talk to the administration, or maybe just your advisor. But I think the issue is moot.

Yes, I'd suspect that the questioner is over-thinking this... but, as Buffy suggests, talking to an official person at your university might be reassuring.

Thanks, everyone. I emailed the graduate school email address and asked them to verify. I'm probably overthinking this only because my first advisor in my program did not tell me news that should've come up until it was almost too late.

Grading practices vary greatly from university-to-university. A C at one university cannot necessarily be compared to a C at another university. A third university may not be even using letters for grades.
Consequently, it makes no sense to try apply the passing criteria for courses at your current university to courses taken as part of a program at a different university. It is therefore extremely unlikely that your current university would try to do that. Instead what is relevant for them is is whether: A) you obtained a master's degree (you did) B) that the degree program is of sufficient quality that can consider it equivalent to their own (given that you were admitted to the PhD, they apparently did.). What actual grades you got during your Master's degree, is almost certainly completely irrelevant at this stage.