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How should an advisor handle an underperforming PhD student?
I'm a junior faculty in academia and I was asked to take a PhD student several months ago.
I was not involved in the hiring process, hence I did not have a chance to evaluate his abilities before joining the program. Indeed, this was the student of someone senior (full professor), but he was transferred to me because the senior person was too busy.
The student is in his first year, and I know he has a lot to learn. However, in these few months the student has not been able to make any progress. I am always the one who needs to keep emailing him and asking him what is happening with X or Y. I have to ask him to come for meetings and sometimes he doesn't show up.
During data collection, he was not even able to put together two columns in Excel. Since then I realized that he does not have the abilities, curiosity, and self-learning capabilities for a PhD. I talked about this with the senior person and told him that I was very concerned that the student will not be able to make it as he is not even capable of managing two columns of data. The senior person suggested me to lightly advice and see if the student could perform. Meanwhile, I hired someone to help with the data (with my own grant), which can be used for other projects if this one doesn't come to fruition.
I asked the student to do a literature review and after literally following him for two months, he submitted something and it is the worst literature review that I have ever seen (I have also worked with undergrads as RAs and they have done far better jobs for data management and literature reviews). I have sent the student several examples, commented on his review, revised it, but still the outcome is horrible.
I asked him to write the theory and he just copied verbatim from other papers. At this point, I don't know what to do. The senior person is pissed off that the student is not making progress, but the student is just not capable and I had discussed that with the senior person before.
Now the question is what to do? I don't want to write the paper for him and take him for a free ride. I don't believe on gifting papers, specially to someone incapable. What I am afraid of are the "political" consequences. There are not many PhD students around here and just because of that they may want to keep him. I am a junior and have several other projects to work on and this student is just draining my time with terrible outputs. How should I deal with the issue?
Update
I appreciate the kind advice of everyone. I had a lengthy talk with the student, he admitted that his work is not up to the standard and that he is not putting in enough effort. He is literally taking this time as vacation by enjoying his days beside the pool (we do have a nice pool in campus btw). He just graduated from an undergraduate degree and doesn't know how to function in the adult world, or so to say. His parents always did everything for him and he has never had the need to make any effort to "earn" anything (the student said this himself; I am not making any assumptions, putting my bias, etc. just giving some background information.).
I implemented several actions to make him report his progress daily and we are meeting twice a week. We are getting connected in an online working platform and he can let me know about any issues immediately. I gave him all the materials I used myself during my PhD, which I had to self-learn and I expect him to do the same. He had taken all the basic courses (including how to write theory and do literature reviews) that our school offers, so it is not like he was "left" alone.
I also told him that he needs to fulfill our work plan with the deadlines that we established together. If he is not willing to put the hours to make it happen he has either to look for a new advisor or drop the program. I was just very honest with him.
As a side note, the student and I do not have any issues or wrong perceptions and I am not denying my responsibility. Some have also assumed that I am not willing to put in the time, which is not true. I am putting more time in than other faculty does with other students. As I mentioned in my original post, I am constantly reviewing his work, meeting with him, giving him feedback and materials.
This is just the most I could do for him. Unfortunately, I am not in a good position to devote my entire time to him. I also have to fulfill my own tenure requirements, maybe if I had tenure and more stable job conditions, I could sit with him and teach him how to use the most basic, even Word and Excel (which he is not proficient with).
I hope this works. If you have any other suggestions on how to improve the situation, feel free to post them.

Have you told the student he needs to improve? Does he understand he is on “probation,” so to speak?

@Dawn, I have been telling him that since the last six months. Sometimes it is not an issue of motivation, but of capability. That's more difficult to fix.

Clear, documented expectations and progress reviews (also documented), together with clear consequences of not being able/willing to deliver.

I don't have time to write a full answer (busy looking after PhD students and associated departmental paperwork) but I would just like to say that my own take is more sympathetic to your difficulties than some of the remarks in the answers below, and I disagree strongly with the opinion voiced below that "[dropping the student] is as much your fault as theirs and that you will strive to do better with future students"

Is this student taking classes? (Many PhD programs start out with a year or two of classes before students jump into research in a big way, which might affect both their knowledge & skill base and how much time they have available.)

It is not reasonable to expect the OP to derail their career (which is what happens if too much time is spend on no-result/“service” work) or act unethically to help a student who is not putting in the needed effort. I would like an answer to focus on how the OP can counsel the student to a new mentor or out of the program.

You may want to ask after the mental well being of the student.  Many students get depression during their PhD studies, particularly after events like changing advisers.  I went through it myself and I began to believe I was a terrible student and then lived up to my low expectations.  Once I got myself mentally in order, I ended up having a very successful PhD.

I want to stress @Barker's comment. I have seen similar behaviour in people with anxiety and depression, and proper counselling can greatly improve the situation. Do check if your university provides any mental health help. And on the legal side, nor giving them help may open you up for liabilities, if it turns out they have health problems.

For what it is worth, I think your resolution of the problem is entirely appropriate.

I second @Buffy's support and would just like to reiterate my earlier comment - I think some of the answers below, while well-intentioned, jumped to conclusions based on their own experiences as PhD students/postdocs, and hence some of the criticisms/suggestions might not apply. That said, it would obviously be best for all concerned if the student is able to turn things around

I want to reiterate my comment about the student's mental health.  Some of the things he is saying (like he is not putting in enough effort, he is treating this like a vacation) sound like impostor syndrome.

Could you comment more on the field? Are there no some research training programmes for young postgraduates where that person could learn that a) MS Excel is not a tool for scientific data analysis or research data management? IMHO, the majority of postgraduate programmes that have some analytical components offer people the opportunity to gain some basic insight into principles of data management

I was considering myself unfit for PhD selection. Thanks for this post - given me some hope.

Thanks for the update. That seems like a very responsible and hopefully productive approach.

Some people who start are simply unfit for PhD studies. But for various reasons they end up getting a degree. For example we don't want to admit lack of judgement for taking him on, it will look bad for the department, it will be worse for the professor for every drop out et.c. But it severely washes out the value of the degree every time it happens that unfit students get the degree. The skilled people who see the unsuited people passing and then they should work hard for getting that same diploma. What's the point?

Let's go with the assumption that this student is genuinely unsuited for a PhD. Such people do exist, they do get into graduate programs, and it is not doing them, their advisor, or the field any favors to string them along and waste their time. What should the advisor do with them?
There are two critical things: Communicate, and document.
Communicate with the department chair, with the dean, with the head of the graduate program, and anyone else who is involved with administration.  Explain that you are concerned about this student's progress and potential, assure them that you are going to treat the student fairly, and ask them to help you set up a program to monitor the student's progress. Keep communicating with these people during this program. Prepare and send regular updates (at least quarterly, probably more).
Document the student's progress. To do this, you'll need to communicate with the student. Set clear, objective, unambiguous targets. These targets should be achievable by a PhD student without stress or difficulty; they are not stretch goals, they are the minimum that a PhD student should be able to perform. Set multiple goals, a realistic time apart, so that over a period of say a year a minimally competent student would be able to hit each goal on schedule.
Communicate these goals with your chair, grad student advisor, etc, and make sure everyone is on board. Communicate with the student.  Explain to the student (ideally in the presence of the grad student coordinator, the departmental chair, the dean, etc) that he or she must hit each of these goals or they will be removed from the PhD program. This goes in writing, signed by you and the student and probably some or all administrators, and you store the document where you can refer to it repeatedly.
Each goal has a target date. Document whether the student did or did not achieve that goal. It will be a temptation to say that the student almost made it, or to decide that the goal was too hard and move the goalposts down. Don't do this. You set these goals so they're the minimum a PhD student should do; if the student doesn't completely achieve each goal, they are not a minimally acceptable PhD student.
If they don't reach every one of the goals, then it's up to the administration. The traditional solution at this point is to offer the student the choice of "Mastering out" (taking a MSc instead of a PhD and moving on), dropping out, or finding another advisor; the latter usually comes with warnings that they are on thin ice if they do.
Is this a lot of work? It sure is, and it should be; this is a major life decision for everyone concerned, and it shouldn't be the easy way out. But there are times when the best way forward for a student is to get out of a program, and there are ways to help them to that conclusion.

I think this is very good specific advice on how to move forwards (rather than taking the OP to task for their assessment/opinion of the student)

Isnt this hard way? I agree with you iayort, but this process you describe will take a lot of time

@SSimon: As stated in the last paragraph, Is this a lot of work? It sure is, and it should be; this is a major life decision for everyone concerned, and it shouldn't be the easy way out.

@tonysdg but this decision can impact his tenure

@SSimon: Not to be rude, but what makes you think dropping a student quickly (without the methodical approach described in the answer) will look better to the tenure committee? This is about as close to a no-win-scenario as you can get, so the best answer is to do everything by-the-book and minimize your losses.

@tonysdg I agree with you, but committee or PhD program head should do that, Bourden should be on them not on the junior scientist or academic that is on the beginning of the career

This is a so-called Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) and is usually used to reduce the fallout for the superior before the employee is terminated. Although it's goals are theoretically to help the employee demonstrate their worth, in practice it's usually an umbrella to document excessively and to include a number of senior people so that nobody can claim that the termination was the whim of the direct superior. Being as it is, I would consider this the nuclear option. First, I doubt OP is experienced enough to set "clear, objective, unambiguous targets" for the student.  (1/2)

Second, the student, even if they fulfill all the challenges in a timely manner, would be labelled as "problematic" as the administration and other faculty, students, etc. would become aware that their adviser and imminent superior staff are working to keep them in the program. A grad student is still a student. My opinion is that less radical options have to be explored first which do include the adviser's experience and competence. Of course, if it proves too much for the student, they should be expelled, but I doubt that a PIP is necessary in an academic setting. (2/2)

@user3209815 this should be added to answer!

if it proves too much for the student, they should be expelled According to the question, it has already proved too much for the student. You want to answer a different question based on the assumption that the actual question is wrong. It seems that your answer to the actual question is "they should be expelled". That seems extremely harsh. "Expelling" (in North America anyway) is for serious academic crimes - plagiarism, theft, etc. You're arguing that a PIP is too hard on a student, but expulsion is acceptable. I don't agree.

@iayork I think you misunderstood. Of course is expulsion a serious thing, even if you want to make a difference between being forced to drop out or actually expelled. And it is acceptable only as the final resort. But my point about the PIP is that it either leads to expulsion or to a severely damaged career, especially for borderline students. I argue that a student-mentor relationship is primarily an informal one, with clearly defined responsibilities and mutual understanding on both sides. If formal or legal ways are needed for the two to communicate, they probably should go separate ways.

I will share my perspective. To give a little background, I went from being the doctoral student you described above to being a postdoc with a strong publication rate at a prestigious university. I suppose my major professor was feeling very much the way you are. I know this because I was put on probation after my first year in my phd program. Suffice to say, though, I was completely unprepared to conduct research at a PhD level, even for a first year.
I was put under a junior faculty member to RA by my major professor during my first year and its interesting that what you refer to are the same problems I had. I even produced a terrible literature review as well! I imagine I was more of a hindrance than a help. My second semester was spent doing clerical/inventory work out of the way of the rest of the lab. My major professor and the junior faculty member told me that I was unfit for PhD.
So what changed for me?
I had a senior faculty member take interest in me and take me under his wing. He was closer to retirement and I imagine had more time for mentoring. He was patient with me, took time to talk with me, and took an active interest in me. Slowly and surely I started to turn things around and ended up graduating with a strong publication record that included multiple first authored journal articles and numerous conference proceedings.
In my reflection on my phd career I realize that my core issue was facing the reality of my unpreparedness and then emotionally retreating. This created a spiral of negativity that only kept making things worse and worse. I performed a task poorly, then was chastised, then my motivation declined, then I performed a task even more poorly, then was further chastised, then my motivation declined even further, etc, etc, etc.
For me, the best thing that happened was for my supervisor and the junior faculty member to let another faculty member mentor me. I realize that the relationship I had with the junior faculty member was likely poisoned as she perceived the issues relating to my work as character deficiencies and general inadequacy of abilities.
It seems that you are in this place with your graduate student. You view their performance due to character deficiencies (laziness) and inadequate abilities. It is likely that this will color your perception of any positive progress that the student might make.
If you feel that you can not make a clean start with the student, then perhaps letting someone else mentor them might be best. It was for me.
I will strongly caution you though in making judgments about their character, potential, and abilities. The core issue might be the relationship between you and the student rather than some inherent problem with the student.

unfortunately, this is true, and there is also scientific evidence that confirms this answer. Thank you JWH2006 for writing this.

You are welcome, I hope that my perspective might give the OP a little insight to a possible explanation for their situation. My personal guess is that the issue is the relationship between the OP and their student. This relationship is likely a negative influence on the patience/understanding of the OP and motivation of the student. But, again, i am probably very biased in this regard.

actually OP stated in a comment below that this is the fault of Program, they hire student bcs there was lack of one. Now he needs to deal with him, I hope he can understand-

Very good answer; shows how much difference better mentoring can make.

First, I think you were abused if you were forced to take on a student other than by mutual agreement. I feel bad for your situation. But you gave some level of buy in to it, even if under duress. This gives you responsibilities to the student that are no different than if your relationship had been more traditionally arranged. He is a person, not an artifact.
I think your responsibilities are clear. You must teach him what he needs to know. No professor can ever expect that a student is so well trained/educated in the past that nothing is expected of themselves and that all will be well. If that were true there would be no need for you in the first place.
Teach him how to do data collection. Teach him how to do a lit review. Don't complain about him or compare him to others. He isn't them. His background is different. If it is deficient that isn't your fault, of course, but someone has failed him and you have taken on the responsibility to mentor him.
If you are incapable of that then you need to find a way to sever the relationship in an equitable way. I don't know if that is possible here.
Note that this isn't a rant. I've been in similar situations with unprepared and (seemingly) unmotivated students. It was a royal pain but through a lot of work and coaching, the students I have in mind ended up at the very top of their class. But my office hours were always occupied by these students. At first they don't understand anything and require constant repetition. By the end, they are explaining things to me - correctly, it turns out. Easy? NO. Required. Well, that is the job description of a professor, really.
I'm sorry for your situation, but you need to either fulfill the responsibilities or find a way out. Letting the student naturally fail shouldn't be one of the options.

I include this addendum due to new information from the OP. While I still believe that the solution I stated above is the correct one (teach the student what he needs to know), there are ethical issues for the University itself as well as for its faculty. In fact, my view is that "the University" IS "the faculty".
It is not unethical for a university to accept unprepared students. It may be commendable, in fact. However if it also puts its head in the sand and refuses to see what it is doing and account for it then it is acting unethically. However, if it also wants to organize itself so that such unprepared students are given the specific help they need to be successful, then I congratulate them. Otherwise, however, they are acting unethically.
In the particular case, it seems that the student was admitted with no compensating help. Everything was simply thrown on the student. Sink or Swim, not my problem. Of course, such a student can't do a literature search effectively the first time. Neither can they swim two laps the first time they are pushed into the pool.
However, it isn't completely the responsibility (or shouldn't be) of the OP, here. I think it is equally unethical for a university (and especially a full professor) to push problematic/marginal students off on junior (read inexperienced) faculty. Such faculty typically don't know how to effectively handle such cases since they are, themselves in the pool for the first time.
So, either the university need to uphold stated standards or must find a way to equitably compensate when they don't. And it needs to be equitable for all concerned, both students and (junior) faculty.
But, to be doubly clear, the university and its faculty doesn't owe the candidate a degree. But it does, IMO, owe him all the support he needs. And that doesn't include lowering standards of performance or writing their papers for them. Support and encouragement.
As to advice to the OP, if at all possible, I hope you are looking for a better situation, in which you can more fairly do your own job and work more gradually into the advising game.

The discussion about the student’s suitability and who is to blame has been has been moved to chat. Please read this FAQ before posting any new comments.

In my academic department all faculty who advise graduate students meet once a year and discuss, in detail, each student in turn.  It is a gruelling meeting, but it's incredibly useful.  In your career you may only have a handful of graduate students, but the department as a whole has had many more, and has probably seen your problems before.  They also may interact with your student (in classes, at talks, etc.) and may have information you do not.  For example, a student who just isn't performing in your lab is a different situation than one who is also struggling in classes, unable to give talks, etc.
I don't know how to make a department do this if it has not been happening, as it's quite an uncomfortable process.  Maybe you could start by asking for a meeting with senior people in your department, if they are any you trust.  Be sure to respect your institutional rules on confidentiality.
I will close by saying that I was this grad student myself.  My advisor said very pointedly to me late in my second year "You aren't getting anything done; are you in the wrong place?"  I blurted out, "My project isn't working and I have no faith it will ever work, for technical reasons X and Y."  She responded, "It's good that you know this; now, what are you going to do about it?"
By being pushy in this way, she got me to admit to myself that the project was a failure, and got me moving on finding a new project.  I might have sat there for years doing nothing, otherwise.
I have also been the labmate of a struggling student whose advisor just let him skate along.  He skated for ten years, doing nothing for the last four (we didn't even see him) and then was informed that the University would discharge him without a degree, at which point he rallied and finished it.  I am fairly sure this was a mental health issue, and I have come to feel we did the student no favors by letting him skate for so long; a confrontation would have been better.  Ten years is a big chunk of a person's life.

I'm just an undergrad myself, but I felt compelled to give my two cents. It seems to me that this student is severely lacking in some foundational skills and courses. Can you not recommend remedial classes? Tell him what your expectations are for deadlines and quality on his work, and that if they aren't met, you expect him to enroll in undergraduate courses to get up to speed. While looking at grad schools I often saw programs that stated students with insufficient background in the subject matter would be required to make up undergraduate courses. It seems reasonable for you to expect the same. Also make it clear that it is incredibly unprofessional for him to make you chase after him for updates-- that's ridiculous. That's unacceptable for a 17-year-old where I come from, much less an adult. Set up a schedule for his progress and checking-in, and if he fails to keep it, have consequences ready. As someone who often struggles with executive functioning-related tasks like these, I sympathize with him. But, if the quality of his work is so low, I don't see how he will be an asset to the department longterm unless it improves.

If you want to continue helping the student (or are going to help students in the future), I would stress the importance of communication with the student. Being merely a student myself, I always appreciate it if teachers (at any level) take the time to explain or discuss what they expect.
In your case, you mention that the literature study took 2 months and didn't meet your expectations. I don't know how regularly you were in contact with the student, but I believe that if you maintained proper communication this wouldn't have gone on for so long. The reason for that is that you and your student need to know what you want from each other.
At the start of the literature review, you should have a meeting with the student in which you make clear your expectations (try being as specific as possible) and tell them that you are open to communication (this should take no more than 30 minutes, I think). That means that if the student thinks they have a problem or are unsure about something then they contact you. You can even tell them that you rather have a request you have to reject ('you have to figure that out yourself') than to have no communication for (a) week(s) and then finding out the work isn't good enough. This also makes the student feel at ease, they know they aren't in it alone.
Then, in the same meeting, you discuss with the student if they think they can meet those expectations. Ask them how they are going to approach this. Ask them what they think might be problems they will come across and discuss those to give the student some ideas (and boost their confidence).
At the end of the meeting you stress that they can contact you if they have questions or if they think they are going to (have to) diverge from the approach discussed in that meeting. Tell them that you have time (I'm assuming you have) to meet in person to discuss new problems or if approaches don't work.
If you really want to push them to do work ('following him' as you say), tell them to send (by email or in person) a weekly progress update. Tell them to be brief (this should take them at most 15 minutes per week), but informative. You expect to be kept in the loop, make sure the student knows that and that it's their task to do so. That way, reaching out becomes their task, not yours.
By implementing this, you don't give the student any unfair advantage, however, you encourage them to make the most of the project. Now, as one mentor said to his pupil: now, the ball is in your court. ;)

There is a rather fine line that divides what students are expected to know before entering a program and what they are expected to learn. That is relevant at any educational level really, not only exclusive to grad school.
@Buffy's answer focuses on your own competence / willingness to shape your student into a PhD candidate. There is another line there. Sure, you could drop this student and wait for another, then, if he doesn't perform either, drop him too. At some point you will run out of students, and/or the job, as there simply aren't enough high level people out there. On the other hand, you could also invest a tremendous amount of time in a student's career until they realize that that isn't their career of choice and quit. You have again lost a student, admittedly through no fault of your own, but at a cost of your career. As a professor, you are expected to be able to assess whether a student is cut out for the challenge or not.
This is not something that can be initially done at an interview, as it seems you are worried about the student being "forced on you". It is bad practice, but for other reasons. Most of the time, it takes time to get to know the student, their work dynamic, capabilities, strengths and weaknesses. Some students take a longer time to start producing results.
On the other hand you need to pay your part of the bill. As the question reads, I'm getting the feeling that you are not willing to put in the time to actually see whether the student makes any progress. It is their first year, a few months in, yet you are complaining that they produced the worst literature review (I'm assuming their first also) and that they are unable to handle two columns of data. The first occurrence is on you. It is your job to teach them how to write a paper, literature review, thesis, etc. Sure, grad students are expected to show a degree of independence, but the mentor is still critical primarily in those "academic" crafts. The second is in my opinion rather irrelevant. I've met distinguished professors (computer scientists at that) who were unable to restart a PowerPoint presentation. The good thing is, these skills are much easier to learn and be taught than the ones above. If you don't want to invest a few minutes to show how the columns are formatted, at least instruct them to google it and let them figure it out themselves.
The bottom line is, it is easy to dismiss students as incompetent and a waste of time / resources, but doing so reflects badly on you as a person and as a mentor. First and foremost you should ask yourself and perhaps someone senior what you can do to improve the student's performance. Then, if that proves insufficient, you can talk with the student in an effort to identify problems. If all fails, you should consider dropping the student, with the understanding that that is as much your fault as theirs and that you will strive to do better with future students.

I think this answer may be getting at some important points, but the style of writing is a bit hard to follow in paragraphs 2-4.

Just a partial answer addressing the question how to end the advisor–advisee relationship in a way that reduces political repercussions: Is there any chance that the student quits the PhD on their own account, so you would not have to be the one that fires him? They must be somehow aware that they are doing badly and are probably not happy, so it may only need a nudge to dissolve some gridlocked thought patterns.
For example, you could ask him (honestly) why he is still clinging to the PhD programme despite all his troubles. (Such a question may also help to uncover some underlying problems such as psychiatric issues, family troubles, mastering out, etc. that you may help to address.)
Note:

I assume the case that the student has no realistic chance of finishing his PhD.
I do not suggest to talk or even push the student into quitting – just bring up the option.

Wrzlprmft, OP wrote in comments, that Program accepted this student. I think they should deal with it, bcs it would look negative in his file that student didnt success to finish. Not good idea fro tenure

@SSimon: As written in my first note, this answer covers the case that it is clear that the student will not successfully finish either way.

Other answers here have already discussed the role of the adviser in the scientific and personal growth of a PhD student and advised you against being too eager in negatively judging your student. On the basis of my experience, I totally agree with them. Here, I want to suggest a possible last resort, as implemented in some PhD programmes at my university. Indeed, its applicability depends on your university rules, but let me stress that it's an extreme solution and that the final decision should be that of a whole committee, not just yours.
When a student is really not able to make any progress after the first or second year (e.g. out of laziness), the PhD committee can give a six-months probation period after which either the student has shown some progress (at least in the commitment) or they are expelled from the programme. After six months, the committee reexamines the situation and takes the decision.

I think that a meeting with the candidate and a probation period is perfectly acceptable, even commendable. The student has notice, and, I hope, a plan for success that he can accept or not. But I note for the record, that many students stumble early on for reasons completely unrelated to "laziness". But a suitable meeting should bring that out.

This can even be the default way of things, evaluation after one year and maybe after approx. half-time.

@mathreadler We actually evaluate the students each year, but probation is a strong warning.

@MassimoOrtolano So why not connect it to the yearly evaluations?

@mathreadler In fact, it is connected to the yearly evaluations, when the PhD committee meets to discuss students' evaluations. In these occasions an adviser can present critical cases and ask if they can be put on probation. As I said, however, probation is not the norm and is given only in rather extreme cases (< 1%, I'd say).

@MassimoOrtolano of course. A failure looks bad for the professor and is a lost opportunity for his bosses and also costs money for the department. It is completely natural they want to minimize that. The real problem is that this causes excuses to let the students continue and pass no matter how sucky they are. And when really skilled students realize that, then they voluntarily quit because they realize no matter how much better they are and how much harder they work it's not gonna show on paper.

TLDR: GET YOUR STUDENT IN CONTACT WITH A MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONAL
The way you describe this student sounds like there is a reasonable possibility they are struggling with depression.  Remember, grad school isn't the easy choice.  It is much easier to just get a job out of undergrad and it pays way better than grad school.  If the student didn't have a passion for the research, they most likely wouldn't have applied to grad school in the first place.  Something happened that is causing this student to feel like their passion isn't worth it any more.
Many PhD students experience feelings of inadequacy while in grad school.  Learning how to do good research, keeping up with classes and TA activities you might have, and getting used to the more adult lifestyle of a graduate student is hard.  When you look around though, no one else looks like it they are struggling as much as you.  At my university, we called this Stanford Duck Syndrome because of the way when viewed from the surface ducks seem to be calmly gliding along, but under the water their feet are paddling like crazy.  It is related to Impostor Syndrome where the individual feels like they got where they are based on luck and people will eventually realize they are a "fraud".
The situation you have described sounds like a prime candidate to cause Stanford Duck Syndrome.  Being forced to change advisers can make a student feel like a failure and unwanted.  Also, I am sure that some of your frustration is coming through as you are trying to encourage your student to improve their performance.  It is important you investigate your student's mental well being because they could be in danger.  I am good friends with the Vice Provost of Graduate Education at Stanford, and every single quarter he has to use an emergency entry into the grad student housing and hospitalize students who have not left their room in months or tried to harm themselves.
One of the ironies of this syndrome is that the best students are more likely to get it because they are used to standing out as the best.  When they get to an environment like grad school where everyone is one of the top people from where ever they came from, even if they are still above average, they feel like they are doing worse than they should be.  Once they start feeling bad, their performance drops and it becomes and ugly cycle.
Now it isn't your job to fix this, but as their adviser, you should try to get them to seek help.  Many universities offer psychological counseling, so getting them in contact with those services is a good place to start.  Talking with some of the more senior facility or your department head is another avenue as your department may have policies in place for dealing with students at risk for depression.  The last thing you want is to ignore this or write the student off and then later discover that they came to self harm.  Even if it turns out that this student is fine and grad school really just isn't a good fit for them, a counselor may be able to help them realize that and decide to move on.

"If the student didn't have a passion for the research, they most likely wouldn't have applied to grad school in the first place" - I think that this is an admirable view of human nature and current realities but I am not sure this should be taken as an axiom. (Speaking as someone who has supervised students and seen others' students) Your rationalisation of choosing grad school rather than a job also makes implicit assumptions about where the student is from, what the sources are for their financial support, where they are studying, etc

@YemonChoi The words "most likely" were in there for a reason.  I am not saying there are no students who go to grad school for the wrong reason.  However in my experience (and in the experience of my Vice Provost friend) there are way more who get labeled as bad fits for grad school and are actually having psychological issues.  Also, most students who actually just don't care decide to leave on their own when they see how much work it is.  Either way, investigating the possibility of mental health problems is the safe way to go.

I appreciate your intent, but I think you are presuming an awful lot about what the situation is of the OP's student, and not really taking account of the specific details that the OP gives. It is certainly very important that students get mental health support; I am not convinced that a lengthy answer about this aspect is really addressing what the OP is describing. Anyway, I don't wish to argue and I don't doubt your sincerity, so we'll just let the upvoting decide :-)

Since then I realised that he does not have the abilities, curiosity,
  and self-learning capabilities for a PhD

Lack of abilities: this can be improved with time
Lack of self-learning capabilities: this can be improved with a lot a lot of time.
Lack of curiosity: this will lead to lack of motivation and determination. Drop him.

No matter how slow one is, (s)he can still move forward if they have the determination. On the other hand, no matter how fast one is, he cannot move forward without determination. Doing a PhD requires a lot a lot of determination.

You are completely right, people can mature and get insight several years after a course or a conference. The problem is that a PhD degree is in many cases time-limited connected to a funded project that leaps not much longer than same amound of time. If no other funding can be found then it will crash and burn.

If I understand it correctly, he is just a Bachelor student and he is enrolled as a PhD student now? In my opinion this should only be offered to extremely gifted students and the norm should be to get the Master first, because of exactly the problems you describe. I would switch him to a Masters degree and tell him to apply again when he is finished with that.

Depending on place/subject, going from Bachelors straight to Ph.D. (and possibly not even picking up a Masters along the way) is standard; e.g. in mathematics in the USA.

This is correct. Today's bachelors and masters programmes are so much suckier than just 30 years ago that you (in general) neither have the maturity nor the required knowledge for academic research after just a BSc.


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Bibliographic entry for a pseudymous work with known real author
This question is the bibliographic pendant to this question.
Let us suppose I write an academic paper where I cite the well known paper English sentences without overt grammatical subject  (pdf), written by James d. McCawley under the pseudonym Quang Phúc Đông. What is the bes way to format the bibliography?

[1] Đông Q. P., “English sentences without overt grammatical subject”, doi: 10.1075/z.63.06don. Actually written by McCawlay, J.D. under pseudonym
[2] Đông Q. P. (alias McCawlay, J.D.), “English sentences without overt grammatical subject”, doi: 10.1075/z.63.06don.
[3] McCawlay, J.D. (as Đông Q. P.), “English sentences without overt grammatical subject”, doi: 10.1075/z.63.06don.
Something else ?

I want to make both the name and pseudonym appear in the bibliography.
Bonus question: Once the “academically correct” solution is known, how to implement it in a bibtex bibliography?

The "academically correct" solution is usually to format that bibliographical item as any other item, with the name which appears on the paper (this is also remarked in the answers to the linked question). Then, you can add a bibliographical note saying that the name is a pseudonym: in bibtex you can do this by means of the field note. However, about this, take into account the objections that have been pointed out in the answers and comments to the linked question.
The above solution would roughly correspond to your [1], with the exact details depending on the chosen style.
Of course, if you are writing a paper for a journal, the style guide might require a different formatting or might not accept notes.
Edit: I've checked The Chicago Manual of Style, 16th edition, and it suggest a slightly different style, more similar to your example [2]:

14.81 Pseudonyms -- unknown authorship. If an author's real name is not known, pseud. (roman, in brackets) may follow the name. (In a
  text citation, pseud. is omitted.)

and

14.82 Pseudonyms -- known authorship. A widely used pseudonym is generally treated as if it were the author's real name.
[...]
The real name, if of interest to readers, may follow the pseudonym in
  brackets.

According to the above, your example would become:
Đông, Q. P. [McCawlay, J.D.], “English sentences without overt grammatical subject”, doi: 10.1075/z.63.06don.
The New Oxford Style Manual suggests the same format.
For what concerns LaTeX, if you want to follow the above format, it appears that the biblatex-chicago supports it. However, it is probably not applicable to specific publications. For instance, the IEEE BibTeX style does not support explicitly pseudonyms, but it has a note field. The people at TeX.SE can probably give you better information on which is the best way to implement that specific format.

The common-sense approach as well as the academically correct one, happily :-). As a good (if extreme example) - consider what you'd do if writing a study of, say, dystopian literary fiction. The bibliography would look very strange if it had "Blair, E. "Nineteen Eighty-Four" (1949)" in it, even if everyone knows that's the author's real name...

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text:
How can I work with a senior researcher who is less knowledgeable than myself?
This question is partially inspired by this comment on a recent post which says

[...] Part of being successful is working out how to work productively with people who are not as good/knowledgeable/skillful as you at something and still find that interaction useful.

I have often struggled with this myself where a particular senior researcher is unable to meet me at my level and we often spend a lot of meetings going over the same things. This often leaves me feeling tired and frustrated as things are not moving quickly enough. On the other hand, I have also (and admittedly more often) worked with people who are significantly smarter than me, and have found it to be an inspiring environment where I have been able to learn new ideas relatively fast. The difference (I think) being that I make time to read and learn independently, whereas the senior researcher in question, for whatever reason, relies solely on our meetings to learn about the background research.
The fact that this researcher is significantly more senior than me is perhaps relevant, since if the relationship was the other way around I think the answer would be much more straightforward.
My question specifically concerns the suggestion in the comment — how do I work productively with people who are not as good, knowledgeable, or skillful?

There's a very big difference between working with people who are not as knowledgeable as you are in some area and working with people who are not as smart as you.

Is this your project you're discussing with a collaborator/supervisor/mentor, or theirs??

I do not appreciate user176372's comment above, although I hope it was made in jest. I am borrowing the "good/knowledgeable/skillful" terminology from the linked comment. I don't believe I am more knowledgeable than my senior colleague in some absolute sense. While I tried to describe my experience accurately, I have made a presupposition of knowledge only to simplify the question a little and to keep it sufficiently general (relative to the linked comment).

What is the purpose of these meetings ? I have a colleague who will go into excruciating detail about their work in meetings where what we are actually trying to determine is if we need to send them to a specific workshop/buy some specific hardware etc. If your meeting goals are at cross-purposes (perhaps inadvertently) it might be good to talk about why you ar ehaving these conversations.

@IvoryTower I removed the comment, but I think the point it was trying to make is that your post comes across as possibly entitled or grandiose, by putting the blame on someone else for being "less than" you and assuming someone who you may know more than in some small area is therefore not skillful and taking that to label them as not good. It sounds like you're lacking in appreciation of other skills with this language.

If they can be in senior position, it is likely that they should be smart enough. Maybe you should consider it may be you who cannot explain your idea/details to him.

@BryanKrause, again, I'm just extending from the comment. That is my error.

"whereas the senior researcher in question, for whatever reason, relies solely on our meetings to learn about the background research"
Being a young researcher you are likely much sharper in terms of learning things quickly. You are either still in or fresh out of your training. Of course you are likely to be more knowledgeable than some and less than others and you will experience this at every level in your career.
More senior people are further away from their very active learning phase of their academic career, they often become stretched thinner across multiple projects and multiple ideas, and other duties commensurate with seniority, and find it harder to keep up with all the details all the time. They often have very demanding family dynamics such as young kids, aging parents, and often the onset of nuisance health issues that come about with hitting middle age.... etc... all of these things add up to less time to be an active learner on every topic.
In many ways, they probably enjoy learning from you and your enthusiasm as you do from those who you find more knowledgeable than yourself. The best way to deal with them is the same way you deal with your superiors, your family, your janitorial staff, the barista who makes you coffee..... with kindness and respect.
How do you deal with them professionally? You continue plying your skills to drive projects forward and progress your career... and hope that some day when a new person you've hired finds themselves bored with having to explain things to you, they may show you some grace and continue working with you in a friendly and productive manner.

While all answers are helpful, I think this offers the perspective I needed. I appreciate it very much.

@DanielHatton the OP mentioned senior researcher, not professor, so I did not belabor on teaching and faculty workload because they may well not have teaching requirements as the question is ambiguous in that regard.

Well, one thing you should learn is to explain and to write things in such a way that understanding them (versus inventing/discovering them) would be possible 2 or 3 levels below yours (ideally any decent graduate student in your field should be able to understand your explanations the way you present them). It is not unusual to communicate in some kind of shorthand with your collaborators when all of you are on the same page, but if you see that for some reason it doesn't work, switch to the full explanations, go slower and include more details.
Another thing is that many people have a lot of duties and just cannot devote a lot of their time to the project, so "relying solely on meetings" is not as unusual as you may think. Try to make these meetings as productive as you can. If you want someone to think of something, present him/her with the simplest setup where the problem arises. If you want to communicate something new, present one idea/result/whatever a time and give your collaborator some time to digest it before going to the next step. Never be in a hurry. There are smart people who think fast and there are smart people who think slowly. You can do nothing about that until Elon Musk or somebody else figures out how to rewire the human brain and fuse it with silicon chips in an efficient way. Just take it for granted that you'll meet both people with abilities superior to yours and with abilities inferior to yours and the rule of thumb is that a more able person should adjust (for the trivial reason that it requires much less effort from him/her).
Also, don't confuse being smart with being knowledgeable. Nobody knows everything and even smart people can be rather slow learners when presented with new stuff.
At last, if you see total lack of interest in your collaborators and it is clear that they would rather drop off, just let them go. If doesn't mean that you should abruptly stop all communication, merely that you should stop relying upon them and try to figure everything out by yourself.
The seniority per se plays little role in that all. Most people are at their full strength as soon as 3-4 years after their PhD (and quite a few even earlier than that), so we are all more or less on equal footing regardless of our age, official titles, or accolades, though, of course, some will always be more equal than others.
Just my two cents.

You mean somebody paid by E.M. figures out how to rewire the human brain and fuse it with silicon chips in an efficient way :)

@IvoryTower Not "paid", but "hired". The difference is that a good administrator is way more than just a rich person paying others to do the job. The selection of what to do and whom to put in charge is crucial. As the current NASA director put it, the best decision Musk made regarding SpaceX was to put Gwynne Shotwell in charge (https://jalopnik.com/nasa-director-says-he-trusts-spacex-because-elon-musk-i-1851459790) though I somewhat disagree: IMHO it was his second best. The best one was to start the enterprise. And Gwynne Shotwell doesn't make rocket engines single-handedly too ;-)

You should have a conversation with this senior researcher about what you each hope to gain from these meetings.
I cannot say for certain but it is definitely possible that you currently have very different understandings.  For example:

You think that you are collaborating on the project as peers.  You expect them to invest in learning the fundamental of the project and make significant contributions.
They think they are providing "high altitude" assistance to a budding researcher.  They expect to be a sounding board for your ideas and to give you high level advice without understanding the details.

Differing implicit assumptions can often lead to frustration.  The solution is always to be make implicit assumptions explicit in a professional manner.  In particular your aim should be to explore difference with curiosity, rather than with an eye to assign blame, and then to try to reach a new understanding which is mutually agreeable.
Many outcomes are possible:

You might adjust your expectations and see the value in the meetings as they are.
They might realize that they would like to invest in the project as a collaborator.
Some sort of compromise might be reached, where they agree to invest a bit more into learning the background stuff so they can give you more fine-grained advice.
Some other completely unexpected creative re-thinking of your purpose could occur.
You might mutually decide that what you each need and have to offer to each other are incompatible, and end your collaboration.

I have personally found the framework of compassionate communication to be invaluable in both my personal and professional life.  This cheatsheet (direct pdf link) does a pretty good job of summarizing and might be useful to you as you prepare for this conversation.

Usually, a collaboration arises when both (or several) collaborators have something nontrivial to contribute to a project. It appears that you are asking about a situation when this is not the case. Most frequently, this happens when one is advising a student. In this case what one hopes for is that eventually a student would start to contribute something (after learning enough from the advisor in the process). In the worst case, this never happens and it results in a paper/dissertation written effectively by the advisor. This has happened to me a couple of times. (In one case, the student never finished and in the other case the student defended his dissertation but the paper was never published. This was still not a complete loss since student's dissertation is available as a reference and people still refer to it.) Your situation is different as you are interacting with a senior researcher. This happened to me only once (even though I had many collaborators). This was quite frustrating as my collaborator has decided to "correct" the paper by introducing incorrect theorems. It took quite a bit of effort to convince him that he was wrong.
My suggestion would be to try your best explaining the staff carefully and patiently again and again. You might (and probably will) find this frustrating but this will prepare you for future student advising and also help to sharpen your exposition skills as you may find novel ways to explain some of the ideas. (In my experience, as a research mathematician, the first explanation is usually suboptimal and finding a better one involves quite a bit of thinking.)
If this does not work and things do not seem to be going anywhere, cut your losses and either take over the project completely and write the paper by yourself adding the name of your senior collaborator if you have to, or abandon the entire project and work on something else.

@Trunk: Yes, likely. But I tried to make my advice more general than the situation when a young researcher completely depends on the senior one. For instance, in math (in the US), postdoctoral positions are typically supported by departmental funds rather than individual grants and, as the result, postdocs have more independence.

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Should I notify the teacher that he accidentally gave out the answers to an assignment?
For one of my class projects, the teacher coded the entire solution, then took out a few sections that we are supposed to complete for our assignment. This incomplete code was distributed to the class as a starting point. When he was writing the solution, he used source control. He forgot to delete his repository, so all of his commits are there... You can checkout the commits to get the full solution. I don't think he is aware of it, because he hasn't brought it up in class.
I found this while I was working on my solution. Once I found it, it was difficult to find a different path to the solution. I think my solution is dissimilar, but I feel I am playing a dangerous game here.
I'm not sure what I should do here. I could choose to not tell him and hope they don't catch it, or I could choose to tell him and basically admit I had access to the solution while I was working on it.

I wouldn't worry about my grades at this point.  Reporting the problem will probably render the whole assignment moot. Just be quick to report the problem in order to reduce the amount of hassle for everyone involved.

When this occurred at my uni, it was quickly swept under the rug, grades were lowered, and it wasn't mentioned again. However, I'm suspicious to this day that the mistake was more likely necessity, to keep the few students still enrolled on the course, and achieve performance targets. I personally delivered everything in the leaked example as well as additional info, only to have my grade capped anyway. If you know how to do it already, and why they did it that way, I'd keep shtum and play completely innocent. Else if you struggled with it, own up because you're more likely to be discovered.

@Dom I disagree. It is more ethical, in my opinion, to assume that the professor released the answers by accident and act accordingly than to assume that something corrupt is happening. "Do not ascribe to malice what can be ascribed to stupidity." Also, give the professor in question the benefit of the doubt instead of assuming the worst of him. In Finally, if it really was a mistake and lemondandy does not report it, he may be in a lot of trouble, and rightfully so.

@Kevin I'm not suggesting that ill-doing is likely in this case, only explaining about when I experienced this. What I find absolutely unacceptable is that I had to pay for someone else's mistake. I only found out about it after I'd finished 3/4 of my assignment, and it turned out I was pretty bang on with what was being asked for, regardless though, I lost (ultimately needed) points on my grade because no one had trained this fellow to use a computer/the system (very old chap). FYI, it was an absolutely appalling uni, unless you include the few good professors, than it was barely-okay.

How did he introduce the project? Something like: A fired colleague deleted a part of the application just before he was kicked out. We need the application working, can you help to fill in the missing part? You would be a hero when you pointed out that the colleague didn't really remove the code !

A tangent: I remember hearing about a colleague who realised, returning to his interrupted task shortly after a busy office hour, that the bit of scrap paper on which he and a student had been scribbling solutions was in fact the proof copy of the exam paper.  Bum.  Moral: I've become slightly paranoid about scrap paper + students ever since (and repos are the new ‘scrap paper’).

It also triggers the question: is competition and grade ethical? The answer may changes depending on the way we look at it.

I remember hearing about professors that had done this on purpose as a test, handing out an assignment with the answers on the back... some people just start working on it problem by problem - others look through at what is on the page - The important part is what you do once you see that the answers are there.

I have a CS professor that I could almost see doing this on purpose. He likes giving out assignments where being diligent and knowing what you're doing can provide a solution a lot easier than the obvious way.

Send him a polite email explaining that, while you completed the assignment on your own (which I am assuming to be true), by stumbling upon the solutions in advance you had a hard time doing anything different. Professors are people--he should recognize his mistake and appreciate that you were forthcoming. Chances are he'll reassign the project or discount its weight toward your grade and just tell people to review it anyway because you need to know the material. The sooner you say something the better though. Indeed, after a while it may look like you were trying to hide it from him.

And let's face it, someone else in the class will have discovered the same, so he will find out one way or another. And kudos to you for discovering it first!

Professors are people? Can you cite a source on this?

You should tell him. It's going to be a headache for him when he finds out, so you may as well give him a heads up. Tell him you've gotten a solution which is similar but that does contain original thought and see what he says. Best case, he'll be appreciative of your honesty. Basically the way I see it is you have one path that's ethically sketchy and one that's a good thing to do (because, again, he'll have to deal with this). So, you know. Do the right thing.

I am a retired university teacher and have made similar mistakes a couple of times during my 32 years at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.
Each time, be it on a written exam, or on a home assignment, it was rapidly discovered, mainly because students realized it would cause a problem when grading the results.
So, if you don't report it to the teacher, someone else most probably will and all those who took advantage will stick out in a bad manner.
Do tell him.

Not that I disagree with your conclusion, but I find your path to that conclusion perplexing. How do you know all of your mistakes were discovered?

You have a point there. Maybe I should write "Some times" instead of "Each time".

Part of finding a solution for a problem is taking a small amount of time looking for known solutions in available resources. The teacher should not only appreciate your honesty, but also your effort to look for existing solutions and reusing the best parts of it.
You did a good job and could tell him that you did some research during the development and found that a similar solution to yours was found in the source control history.

Well, it seems that the finding of known solutions in this case was not related to a specific search for knwon solutions, so I'm not with you here

Tell him. Your integrity is worth more than any pass mark. If your teacher isn't teaching you that, then he isn't worth jack.

Why question the teacher here?  They seem to have simply made a simple mistake...

@jakebeal I don't think Wes is saying the instructor is worthless since he made a mistake. He's saying instructors who don't value integrity are worthless.

Yes, tell the teacher. It's just the right thing to do.
If for some reason you need a self-serving reason: the teacher will immediately realise that your solution is exactly the same as theirs, the whole assignment will have to be reset and you and everyone else will have to do another piece of work. Tell them now so it can be rectified, it's better for everyone.

Tell him. Failing to do so may result in dire repercussions for your academic career. But don't panic, honesty is always appreciated.

Dire repercussions? The student didn't do anything wrong, the prof. did. Please don't overblow the situation.

To be honest I don't know if there is anything you can do at this point. You have completed your assignment and as a fellow student I feel like once you know the answer, its hard to unseen the answer and forget about it and come up with a new one. And if you do tell the teacher about this, most students will probably have realized this too and the sneaky ones will probably have copied it and stored it somewhere before redistributing it again (believe me, and I am probably one of the sneaky ones). So yeah if you do tell him, I don't think it changes anything to be honest. I have a feeling my answer is a bad one.

I think your feeling is correct, and your answer is a bad one.

Yeah. I mean, man, even without having the answers posted or something some people would have the answers anyway and they probably spread it or something. Well I am just saying in a general student point of view.

I appreciate your "speak against the crowd" attitude

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Unreasonable requests to a TA from a student
One of my students' behaviour just feels always disrespectful to me. A homework was due tonight, and she asked me yesterday evening how to solve multiple questions. I try to respond as soon as I can, so I replied to her this morning. She asked me a lot of questions and though I already answered her question, I guess she was confused, and kept asking the same question to which I had already answered to.
I wanted to avoid giving her the wrong advice due to miscommunication, so I told her to attend an office hour this evening, which is a couple of hours before the deadline. She then told me she has a family dinner to attend, so she can't attend an office hour by then and needs me to answer immediately. I would understand if I had a class today, but I don't, so I told her that I'm busy and cannot respond right now and that she should go check out the office hour. Was this unreasonable of me? I'm scared of being upfront with her as it may lead to a negative teaching evaluation.

She emails me the evening on the day before the deadline
She expects me to answer immediately as she cannot attend an office hour because of her family dinner.
I've already answered her question. She should go back and think instead of fetching the answers from me. I apologize whenever I can't meet her demands, but she keeps replying "no worries". "No worries"??? No, you have to be more respectful. When she comes to class, she also asks me questions that are not related to the work we are currently doing in class.

What are your thoughts?

Can you explain what you find rude about "no worries"? The general behavior you describe certainly comes across as entitled and pushy, but I don't see anything particularly wrong with someone replying "no worries" to an apology. Sure, it isn't super formal, but it's perfectly civil.

I'm not the one to be apologizing but I just say it to keep it amicable, so she should not be saying "no worries" she should be the one apologizing for pestering me so much with out considering about other students and my time. I know it's my fault as I should've been more firm but I did after all this and all she did was like my text and didn't even say a single thank you or apologize. She's so entitled, I don't give a f about your thanksgiving family plans, what about mine? Respect my time.

one thought: she might be asking you questions from the other class because you are available. at least more available then the other TA, perhaps they are more "rough" in their communication or just more strict in their response policy. Can you judge whether that is the case?

Yes you're right. The other TA, I can't even understand her English. Also, I genuinely wanted to help students and made a group chat to make it easier for them to communicate. None of the other TAs do this, and a lot of my students say thank you so much because their other TAs are not as attentive. Most of my students appreciate me and respect me, it's just this one girl. Perhaps she doesn't know the etiquette of academia since my course is taken in the first semester of undergrads but still, I'd expect them to get the hint when I've politely declined her request saying that I'm busy.

I'm just looking at the timestamp of this question and the calendar, and I wonder...was this assignment due on the evening of Thanksgiving Day? If so, the instructor did you no favors with that.

@MatthewLeingang No, it was the day before thanksgiving day so the instructor was right on this one. The student by her own choice chose to go back home and spend time with her family.

Let me be clear: you do not need to answer questions outside of normal office hours.  Students are aware of deadlines and of our office hours so it’s up to them to manage their time so they are not in the situation you describe.
I am never in a rush to answer when I get such a request outside regular hours.  I made clear at the start of the term that email questions are not ideal and that discussing questions in person are much more constructive academically. It is fine to try to remove last minute confusion but if the same issue comes back again with the same student I will usually politely state that I’ve already done my best with that question.
Some students will make it a habit of being insistent and test the pliability of TAs or instructors.  I have found that being polite (especially early in the term) but firm usually solves the problem.

Thank you so much! Ok I'll be more firm and polite from next time on and try to remind them it's their responsibility to finish their work on time.

Your action was reasonable, and she should have shown some respect. It seems she took you for granted.
I faced the same situation many times with a very lazy student. She rarely went to lectures. Before any exam, she spammed my WhatsApp with a lot of questions regarding the course material. I only gave her a partial answer for any question she asked. Sometimes, she asked me if A (a very specific question) would be in the exam. I refused to answer such a question. Once, I offered a Teams meeting to help her with problem-solving. Eventually, it became very annoying. I decided to give her non-informative answers only. It might be unethical.
I wish I could have done it differently by telling her that her exams were her responsibility, not mine. She should have gone to lectures regularly instead of cramming everything just a few days before the exams. She should have asked questions during the teaching period. Then I would have been very happy to help her.

Thanks! Glad to hear I'm not the only one. Yeah, I can tell her it's her responsibility from next time. My student's not lazy, she has the best grades but she's just not appreciative enough. Just because she has her own "dinner", doesn't mean I'm the one to be dealing with of course if it was an emergency situation I will help but in that case she should just ask the prof for extension. Like you, I've also held extra office hours numerous times privately with her and even though I keep telling her there's office hours, she doesn't get the hint and doesn't go to any. Sorry for the rant!

"I wish I could have done it differently [...]" - why couldn't you?

This is classic ask vs. guess culture.
In ask culture, questions have low emotional involvement. You ask for something. If the answer is no then all that's happened is you've learned the answer.
In guess culture, questions have high emotional involvement. Asking something is seen as pressuring/rude. Saying no is seen as rebuking someone/also rude. To avoid that, people often hint or use smaller related questions to find out the answer to something without directly asking.
Actually this is a spectrum--it's more about where you draw the line of which questions are OK to ask outright and which questions aren't, but it's obvious that people draw that line in very different places. Since this question is tagged United States, you can probably move your line far more to the "ask" side than you have it right now.
Look back at your current situation and take your emotion out of it. Imagine your student was asking if you have a particular brand of soda, "No, I only have (other brand of soda)." Question asked, question answered, done. "Are you available at this time?" "No, only at (other time)."
This applies to your personal boundaries, too. E-mails aren't a demand, they just exist. Check your e-mail on your own schedule. Reply to the factual content of e-mails from your students and ignore the emotional content. If someone has a personal emergency they can document it via X, Y, Z steps from the university policy.
I find the best way to take emotion out of things is to assume good intent. That is, whatever behavior someone is doing might need to change but that doesn't mean they're a bad person. So I don't think "this person is so lazy they want me to do all the work for them", instead I think "this person doesn't understand how to use/apply the thing we went over last week". Based on that, "This is the same as ABC problem we worked on last week--which part in particular are you having trouble with?" or even "Actually, this is the same as a problem we did already--do you remember (thing) that let's you determine which category of problem this is?" This is obviously more natural when someone is asking the question in person in conversation vs. e-mail, but if students are treating e-mail as conversation anyway you might as well lean in to it. Someone who's lazy will give up and go away, someone who actually needs help will learn something, either way is fine.

This is very interesting. Why is it called "guess" culture? Do you have some more references?

I agree, I come from a culture where saying a firm "no" is considered rude. Back in my country if I even slightly acted like the way I do in the U.S., people would freak out. Since she doesn't seem to get the hint, she probably comes from an "ask" culture and so if I firmly tell her "no", she probably wouldn't get offended as well. Although, I do think she's still pushy no matter what her culture may be as she kept texting me even after I told her not to. Next time, I'll just reply to her at my own pace so that she doesn't think I'm 24/7 available for her at her disposal.

@PeterMortensen The linked post is somewhat internet-famous, and every reference I've seen to "ask vs guess culture" links to it. I'm guessing that whoever wrote it made the terminology up.

@PeterMortensen Yes, as far as I'm aware the post I linked is the original source for the term. It might be called ask vs. hint or direct vs. indirect or anything along those lines, but the linked post is the earliest I know which identifies the difference so specifically so the term has stuck.

Be very careful. This type of student is likely to cause further problems, and this may even end in a law suit against you. Make sure you are very formal and transparent, but firm,  towards the student and keep a written record of all your interactions with the student. You may also inform you superior or even hr already.
This may sound hard, but I have had the exact same experience in an industry context where an employee reporting to me showed a very similar pattern of behaviour and then ended up suing the company for discrimination. (the employee lost of course)

Thank you! Yes, I'm pretty aware of that and how vulnerable being in the position of a TA can be. I'll try to be extra cautious.

You should discuss this student's behavior with the lead instructor for the course.  They will probably agree with everyone here that this is not OK, and will take steps to back you up, e.g. sending the student in question a note to tell them to knock it off, making an announcement at the next class to remind everyone that TAs have their own responsibilities and there's a schedule of office hours for a reason, etc.
(If the lead instructor isn't willing to back you up on this sort of thing, you have bigger problems, and in your shoes I'd suggest quietly reporting the entire situation to your department's "TA coordinator" or equivalent role.)

Thank you! Yes, I'll try talking to the instructor if this happens again.

I apologize whenever I can't meet her demands

It's not up to you to meet her demands. It's up to her and other students to work their schedule in line with your previously defined (in the very first class ideally) hours.

I'm scared of being upfront with her as it may lead to a negative teaching evaluation.

There is no need to feel scared. Your superiors will understand that one or two bad evaluations more than likely is not a reflection of your ability. They are experienced educators, so they understand that a student can be disgruntled and try to shift blame. But they will look at how all of your students rated you.
There is also the possibility that this student may in fact be the first one to admit that she is having problems understanding the topics, but also understands that you have been doing your best, and she is in fact very appreciative.
I'm actually taken back by the fact that you communicate with your students and answer their queries at arbitrary times. While that may be admirable, as stated above, you should make it very clear when you can see students outside class hours. The student you speak of might be entitled, but it appears as though you may have inadvertently opened the door to this. Remember this for the next academic year.
Good luck and I'm confident you'll get good evaluations.

Thank you very much, your comment is very useful and encouraging. I will indeed try to make it clear for when I am available in future quarters.

No worries, and good luck with it. cheers.

You seem to believe that if you put in extra time and effort, you are thereby entitled to being appreciated and respected by your students. (You talk about respect and appreciation over and over in your question and in the comments.) Consequently, you get angry when you try to accommodate a student's request only to receive further requests instead of an appreciative response. Particularly when they are entitled, absurd requests like working around her family dinner time.
Here's the thing:
You are not entitled to being appreciated by your students. Not even if you are the single most attentive, available, and accommodating TA at your university. You really are not.
You want to go out of your way to help your students? That's great. It really is. But you need to accept that going above and beyond your duties is your own decision. And it makes no sense to be angry at someone for your own decisions. If you are unhappy with the result, then it's not your student's request that is the cause of your unhappiness, it's your unfounded feeling that you ought to try to accommodate it.
Or, you know, perhaps you are angry with her because you would have loved to play the role of the super-attentive TA if she had displayed the slighest amount of consideration for you, but she didn't, so you can't, and that's frustrating to you. That's another possibility.
Instead of getting hung up on being appreciated by your students, here's a healthier mental frame for your interactions with students:
They are entitled to make whatever requests they like. You are entitled to reject them if you find them unreasonable, and to respond to emails outside of office hours at your leisure. It's great if students are appreciative of your work, but they have no obligation to be. A student asks you to work around her family's dinner time? No skin off your back. Just send her a one-line email in response at your leisure instead of ruminating about how disrespectful you find this.
On the plus side, you get to decide how much you want to go out of your way to help your students. It really is entirely up to you. On the negative side, you don't get to be angry with them if they are (in your opinion) not appreciative enough of your efforts. That's your own problem that you gotta work on, just like your student should probably work on understanding that the world does not revolve around her family's dinner time.

Thanks for taking your time to respond. I believe there are some discrepancies in my thoughts and what you thought I was implying. First of all, I'm not mad. Second, I don't expect them to thank me. I was just asking others how they would deal with the situation if a particular student keeps messaging me after a denial of request and bothers other students. Nonetheless, appreciate your response.

@happypenguin I did not say anything about being thanked. But you do repeatedly complain about this student not being, in your own words, appreciative and respectful enough. It does not make sense to repeatedly complain about the student not being appreciative and respectful enough of your time and effort and then claim that you have no such expectation.

I guess I worded "thanks" and "appreciative" wrong, although I'm implying a similar thing. But thanks for spending a lot of time replying!

@happypenguin It's not about wording. You said: "I know it's my fault as I should've been more firm but I did after all this and all she did was like my text and didn't even say a single thank you or apologize." Also you: "their other TAs are not as attentive. Most of my students appreciate me and respect me, it's just this one girl. " Also you: "she's just not appreciative enough" Again, it seems pretty clear based on what you wrote that her lack of appreciation and respect is something that significantly bothers you about her behavior to the extent that you bring it up over and over again.

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How do I choose an appropriate scope for a master's thesis in mathematics?
I am a new Master's seeking student in Mathematics, and I'm trying to get a jump on my research focus/concentration for eventually writing my Master's Thesis. My interest is primarily prime, perfect, and Mersenne numbers. When I try to formulate a plan though, my ideas are always too broad and vague, or are way too specific. Does anybody have advice on how to decide on a topic? How long is the average such thesis? Perhaps what I thought was too vague and expansive would be a perfect length and I was just second-guessing myself too much.

Talk to your advisor. If you don't have an advisor, find one now. Only your advisor can tell you the right answer.


text:
About multiple applications for graduate programs to the same school
Suppose I applied to a Master's Degree Program when I was at my last year in undergraduate. I got accepted but I couldn't enroll at this school because I failed to finish the undergraduate on time, and I need to spend one more semester in undergraduate.
I want to apply again when I'm finished so what I want ask is how my previous application will affect my next one? Will it affect positively since I got accepted last time, will it affect negatively because I rejected the previous one or will it have no affect at all and they will consider my next application independent than previous one?

This is a very good, but very difficult question. The problem is that there's no definitive answer here.
What we do know:

You turned down a previous offer. This is never helpful for future admissions at a given school.
You were not able to accept because you weren't qualified to start. So long as you clarified this with the school in question, this may be a mitigating factor.

What we don't know:

How the school evaluates candidates. Is it a "rolling" admissions process, in which candidates are considered year round, or is it done on an annual basis?

The last point is probably the most important. If it's a rolling admissions, and you were a high-quality candidate in the previous cycle, you'd probably have a good chance of getting admitted, provided you explain what happened and why you couldn't get in.
On the other hand, if the admissions process is done once a year, then you will have to compete against all of the other candidates in this year's pool. Then, it's not necessarily a given that you would get in having gotten in previously. If you were a "bubble" applicant last time, You may be below the "cutoff" given a different pool of candidates—or you could be a clear admit.


text:
How can we find out who was nominated for Nobel Prizes?
While the Nobel laureates are announced each year, are there any online resources that list who was nominated?
In particular, I am asking the Academic side of Nobel prizes, especially in Chemistry, Economics, Literature, Physics, or Physiology-Medicine.
For example, Wikipedia says that Kazuhiko Nishijima (西島 和彦) was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1960 and 1961, but it is not clear where can we find the official/secondary information about other "short-list" nominees.

The nominations are confidential.  Claims seen that someone was "nominated" for a Nobel Prize may be true, may be false, may be guesses, may be meaningless (e.g. self-nominations by cranks).

The Nobel prize nominations are confidential for 50 years. An official online database that has most of the nominations (that aren't confidential) can be found at the website of the Nobel prize. As of today the site claims that it covers nominations up to 1963 for all prizes*, except for the physiology and medicine prize, which has data up to 1953 only. However, it does appear to list some more recent nominations. Perhaps it's best to consider lists for later years as incomplete for now.
In particular, for the case of Kazuhiko Nishijima you can find that he was nominated at least four times.
*The prize in Economic Sciences was instituted only in 1968, with the first prize awarded a year later. Thus, 50 years have not yet passed, so you won't find any of those nominations in the database.


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Publishing previous results from a previous lab
I just looked over this article from Retraction Watch.
To make a long story short, a student used previous data from their former lab and then published it without the PI's permission or knowledge.
While the above is a rather extreme example of poor ethics, I'm curious where the line gets drawn regarding the ownership of research. I can understand if the data was produced in one environment and then get published in another. What about reagents (clones come to mind) that were produced in a previous lab and then were transported to a new lab? What about ideas that were developed in one lab and then taken to another?

I'll leave this to lab scientists to answer, since I think this question is more relevant there.  However, it's worth pointing out that you should be very careful about ideas that include input from other people.  If there's even the slightest doubt or ambiguity, it's much better to discuss it in advance than to sort it out after a paper has been written.  For example, the messiest situation I've ever seen a grad student get into involved an idea they thought someone else had abandoned, but where that person did not think so.  You don't want to end up on either side of that mess.

@bobthejoe I totally don't get how does publishing materials from a previous lab, under the previous affiliation, relates in any way to an extreme example of poor ethics. Could you explain it a bit?

@Piotr: Based on the Retraction Watch story, it sounds like the materials were published without including collaborators in the research (who had been asked about publishing but had said it was too preliminary and needed replication first) and without mentioning the original lab at all.

I think that so long as the principal investigator is actively involved in the planning, performance, or analysis of the research being funded, it is the duty of any researcher working in that group to determine the PI's status as a co-author. However, only if there is no active intellectual activity taking place—in other words, it's an entirely self-driven initiative, then it might be possible to say that the PI doesn't merit co-author status. (Even then, though, the provision of financial support should be clearly recognized.)


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How should a postdoc address senior research staff and faculty members in the USA?
What is the etiquette for addressing senior research staff and faculty members in an academic setting in the USA? A postdoc is no longer a student but at the same time he or she is (in general) not at the level of senior research engineers/scientists and professors. How should he or she address them ("FirstName" or "Dr. LastName") so that proper respect as well as confidence in one's "above-the-students" position is maintained?
Does it depend on the University, Lab group or the level of experience one has acquired before joining the present postdoc position?

This must be field dependent.  In computer science, or at least in my subfield and in the departments I've been affiliated with as both student and faculty, most grad students address faculty by their first names, and most faculty strongly encourage this practice.

In my department, it is encouraged that all people address all others by first name, from receptionist to professor.

When I was a grad student, my initial preference was to call faculty "Doctor" or "Professor".  At some point (about halfway through, I think) one professor said to me: "If you want them to see you as a peer, you should call the professors the same way that they call each other."  At my university, all the professors called each other by their first names (it didn't matter if they were assistant, associate, or full).  Since I planned to make a career in academia, I really did want to be viewed as a peer.  So I started calling them by their first name (and no one ever told me to do otherwise).

I think you have to make that transition as you go along. Unless asked by your advisor to do so, you should refer to them as "Professor," at least to start. Don't start off on a bad footing by assuming equality right off the bat—unless given license to do so.

@aeismail I agree with aeismail.  I think it was a mentor of mine who told me this, and it was after I had taken 3 or 4 classes with him.

I disagree; by default, use their first name.  Any objection indicates that that they don't think of you as a colleague, in which case you should immediately start calling them "Professor" and start looking for another advisor.  (Again, this advice may be country- and field-dependent)

@JeffE: There's a big difference between your primary advisor and other faculty members. I would never have called another professor by her first name until invited.  And I believe that it doesn't take into account the issues of differences in "educational upbringing": faculty who didn't get their degrees in the US may view this issue very differently.

A bit of a rhetorical exaggeration: if someone thinks of me as a "colleague", in the sense of "peer", in the sense of "equal", then they'd surely not want me as their advisor. I claim that there is sometimes an unhelpful confusion of the social or moral sense of "peer", with the professional sense. It is not reasonable to use one to argue about the other.

When I was a grad student, I got into the habit of always referring to everyone as "Professor" or "Doctor". The theory was that no one would be insulted by your referring to them as "Professor", whereas some folks would be insulted if you called them by their first name. This worked very well; the few people who wanted to be on a first-name basis always told me so at our first meeting ("Oh, please, call me Bob").

I have colleagues who would be insulted to be called anything but their first name.

@JeffE - I met people like that as well, and they let me know at our first meeting.

Address senior research staff and faculty members in the same way that they do with you. You're "Robert Doe" and full profs are calling you "Bob"? Then you can do the same.
And if you are the senior, you are supposed to tell explicitly what is the tradition, in order to avoid embarrassment for juniors.

Some risks in this militant egalitarianism, I think. Depends what point one is wanting to make.

As a grad student I was lucky and faculty in my program tended to be clear about what they wanted to be called. Since everyone but the medics wanted to be called by first name, I came to the conclusion that faculty should expect to be called by the first name unless they say otherwise.
There was one awkward Professor in my grad program who never made it clear what he wanted to be called. Soon after deciding to call him by his first name (Lou) I heard my advisor, who has known Lou for 40 years, called him Louis. At that point I decided if my advisor calls him Louis I better stick with Professor. About two weeks later another colleague was talking to me about how he and Louie used to play football together. At my next interaction with Lou I related the stories and asked him what he wanted to be called. He thought Lou would be fine.

What is likely true is that first/given-name form of address expresses a peer-relationship attitude. In some contexts, there is a nearly-mandatory pose that "we are all peers", etc. While, ideally, this is true at a moral or civil level, it is equally obviously false in terms of sheer experience, and, usually commensurately, expertise.
(There is an auxiliary-but-related question simply about age... Given the extreme disparity between my own kids and myself, I don't expect them to address me by my first name... nor as "Professor Garrett" ... but hopefully by some affectionate honorific that does acknowledge (the complexity of) our relationship. Similarly, I pointedly adopt a stylized form of address for my kids. We are all acquainted with the trope that when the mom addresses the kid by the kid's full name, they're in trouble. I myself, especially at the point that I'm older than many postdocs' parents, have a similar feeling about that relationship. Opinions differ, of course.)
Use of an honorific, even if informal-honorific, form of address does express respect. Use of given name expresses familiarity, etc. At worst, given-name address implies a sort of "good ol' buddy" relationship that verges on the demeaning.
Perhaps the genuine issue isn't the words uttered, per se, but the tone-of-voice and body language. But, if we agree with this, then the original question becomes enlarged to the question of whether one should express deference or respect for ... ok, the real question is about how one fills in the blank about the object of this sentence! If it's "one's boss", well, one does what is necessary. If it's "one's mentor/teacher", then perhaps a systematic tone of respect is appropriate. If it's simply "the old person", then who knows? What is your attitude toward your mentor/advisor/teacher?
Operationally, as in some of the other answers, unless there's a pervasive conformity pressure to do "given name address", surely it's better to err on the side of slightly-excessive expression-of-respect, rather than the other way. Wait till some says "Please, just call me ...", rather than the awkward opposite.
(In French and some other languages perhaps-inappropriate first-name address used to have its own name: "tutoyer", meaning to address toooo many people with the familiar "tu", rather than formal-er "vous", but I gather that times have changed...)
In terms of quips, I might suggest that, ... in contrast to the suggestion that if your thesis advisor or postdoc mentor doesn't want you to call them by their first name,then get another, ... if you don't have a mentor you respect enough ... for good reason, that their expertise and insights are nearly-unimaginably superior to yours at this point in your career... to throw a little honorific their way, then you should get a new advisor/mentor.
People won't be offended by your being too polite and respectful, but may be by the opposite. Pretty straightforward, I think.