text:
As a male student, did I say something wrong to this female professor?
A professor and I spoke recently (I'm a grad student), and she told me about her upcoming sabbatical, and I wished her well and was genuinely excited for her and her travel plans.  But the reaction that I got from her was one of caution and displeasure, with no reciprocation of good vibes.  I mostly said stuff like "that sounds amazing that you're going to Country X for Y number of months!  I hope you enjoy your time there, I love Country X!"
I'm a male student.  Have I possibly said something condescending or disrespectful to a female professor, by showing my excitement about her travel plans?
When I analyzed it a bit, I came to the conclusion that I would have had the same reactions if a male professor told me of his sabbatical, travel plans.  So, I don't think that I've said anything sexist.  But I am not 100% sure.

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

Is it possible that the sabbatical is not for pleasure, and is instead to deal with, for example, family crisis or illness? Expressing enthusiasm for something she has no desire to do could well provoke that reaction.

Is there something to suggest this was received as sexist? I'm not sure the reaction you described indicates anything like that, but your description is fairly vague, which makes me think there's some context missing.

@TomW that's definitely possible.  We had a faculty member who took an early sabbatical to deal with some mental health problems.  Especially if they figured you knew the situation, I can't imagine them reacting much differently than the professor in this example.

@TomW: You should post that as an answer... I'd say it's more likely than anything already posted here.

Which country are you and your professor from? In some cultures there is a distance maintained based on seniority. You cannot just talk to an elder person like you talk to a friend.

Why did you immediately think about sexism?

I'd be taken aback if some busybody I'm not well aquainted with walks up and tells me how exited he is about my travel plans.

@TomW Sabbaticals aren't "for pleasure" even if they're not for dealing with some sort of crisis or illness. They're for visiting a different institution to work with somebody there.

It may be that she objected to your being over familiar in a way that is independent of your gender. She may also simply not like you, again irrespective of issues of sexism...

There are two possible reasons for her displeasure: one is that she didn't share your enthusiasm (perhaps she wasn't looking forward to being away from her family for that long), and the other is that she didn't think it was appropriate for you to get so friendly. Or it could be a bit of each. Neither is specifically gender-related.

@DavidRicherby Aren't there also sabbaticals for writing? I'm pretty sure a professor friend of mine took a sabbatical to finish writing a book.

@ToddWilcox Sounds plausible. But that's still not "for pleasure".

X and Y? Perhaps it's a chromosome thing.

Sabbatical is strictly work. It is much harder to do (good) research than e.g., to teach or do admin. It doesn't matter at all if it's in a different country (actually, it might even be harder in a foreign place). There's no comparison. The mental effort put in research is ten times bigger.

It would annoy me too. I did a lot of travel for business in the 1980s, and sometimes got these reactions when I had to mention it in advance. They annoyed me. Travel isn't always exciting, and travel for business is still business, just with a longer tram-ride each way. And as between a grad student and a professor it is open to being viewed as impertinence. Try to retain your composure.

@developerwjk Sounds like that's based on a statistical sample that is too small to conclude significance...

An important lesson for you to learn: sometimes, it's the other person's problem. You said nothing wrong and expressed good wishes.

From what you've said, it doesn't sound like a sexism issue specifically, but it might have come off that you regarded her sabbatical as a vacation rather than serious work. You might be worrying about this a bit too much--she's probably already forgotten the exchange.

A sabbatical is a vacation, so I doubt she considers it 'serious work'.

@TylerH In academia, a sabbatical is usually more of a temporary change of work environment than a vacation. See this Q&A.

In Germany a Sabbatical is a Forschungsfreisemester so the focus is really on research. Usually you have to write a report on your research outcome afterwards.

that sounds amazing that you're going to Country X for Y number of months! I hope you enjoy your time there, I love Country X!

I'm a male, so I can not speak from a female perspective. Although I can not see anything sexist or inappropriate in that quoted text but if anybody had said that to me in a student teacher environment I would for a second be taken aback by the excitement being displayed by the student.
I think the reaction you noticed was exactly that.
Why does it sound amazing? Why do you have to specify the time period? Why do you have to mention your love for that country? All those statements show a lot of excitement about the news and some people do not feel comfortable enough to receive such excitement from others which are not personally close to them.
Some people like to and like others to just keep it cool and that's nothing against your statement. I think it was just that momentary pause that made you feel she didnt like it.

Sounds good, X is a nice country.

May have been received a little better.
Edit
Most of the discussion on this question is focusing on the implied judgment by the OP of the professor's reaction. The professor in question did not explicitly say anything of that sort, nor did she express it by any reaction that she was disturbed by what the OP said.
OP was over excited in the first place and when the OP did not receive a similar reaction OP assumed that probably the professor got offended. There is no need to bash the professor about her lack of enthusiasm without knowing the complete picture.
There is no male/female aspect to the situation known so far to us. Just like the OP is entitled to his sudden excitement, the professor is also entitled to a cold response. This is more of an interpersonal skills question.

It might also be that she simply is very factual about her plans - it's what she wants to do, no reason to be excited about it, and even less to share any excitement with some co-worker or even graduate student. Not everyone is an extrovert. For an introvert it might even come off as somewhat nosy if you're trying to get a personal/emotional response from her.

It still sounds like an overreaction on her part. If you describe something you're doing, and they find it really interesting or exciting, can you really blame them for expressing their reaction? Why was she talking about it in the first place?

To me it sounds like an overreaction on OP’s part and then a normal reaction by the teacher looked like an under reaction n to an over excited OP

And the professor didnt say anything to that effect. It’s OP’s judgement that there’s even a question of blame. And as to why she mentioned it in the first place I find it very normal to inform the students about an upcoming long term leave of absence.

Is this a troll answer? "Why did you mention the time period"... Most people I know would assume that going to a different country for serveral months, is going to be exciting and fun.

@Repmat Most people might assume that, and some people might get exhausted having to respond to that over and over (especially if it so happens that it's not "fun fun fun", but out of necessity)

Another possibility is that the destination and term was not suppose to be commonly known... but was reacting to and annoyed with whoever spread via rumor.

Others have answered the titular question (no), and given some possible reasons for why she may have been unhappy with your enthusiasm.  There's no cultural context in which to speculate about this, but I believe the other answers fail to point out what I see as the most likely explanation:
You may have just misinterpreted the professor's reaction.
I often find that students and I have very different impressions of what transpired during some conversation.

+1 (and it could be NOT because student/professor, but simply because the other party is stressed out/in pain/annoyed at unrelated things/you remind them of unfavourite nephew they'll have to visit).

In this case, I have a hard time seeing where the sexist behavior occurred. It may be the case that the professor was made uncomfortable by your display of enthusiasm for her travel plans, and may have misinterpreted things or was reacting to something else. However, if this was just a casual conversation (waiting for the copy machine, getting coffee in the departmental kitchen, or something similar), and you don't regularly interact with the professor, I don't think it will be a big deal in the long run. If she's someone you do interact with, then you might consider tempering your enthusiasm in future interactions.

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

"As a male student, did I say something wrong to this female professor?"
The answer is NO. You didn't say anything wrong. Also, there is no relevance here for you being male and the professor female. You cannot predict precisely human reactions and there may be many different reasons for her reserved reaction.
Viewing this interaction from the perspective of male-female power structure or feminist theory is wrong in my opinion. It is better, in my experience, not to be overly concerned about these political or social issues when interacting with actual people.

No, I don't think you did anything sexist.
Another possible reason that she didn't seem enthusiastic is that she could be stressed out about travelling, especially if she's leaving soon. Spending several months far from home requires a lot of organization, especially as one gets older and acquires more responsibilities (family, a home, etc.).
If you'd talked about how exciting California is just before I went there for five months last year, I wouldn't have thought it at all rude, but I doubt I'd've managed to reciprocate beyond a fairly flat and unconvincing, "Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. It'll be good."

Much depends on how well acquainted you are with her and whether she runs a more "flat hierarchy" or a more authoritarian style.
In the first one, I wouldn't see a problem, especially if you already worked with her for some while. However, in the second one it may be construed as "patronising" for you to dispense judgement over her choice of sabbatical sojourn.
Much also depends on tone and context, but nothing in your formulation indicates that something would be wrong with it.

There's a disconnect between the title, the actual question, and the tags you've chosen for it.
Here, I'll break it down for you.

As a male student, did I say something wrong to this female professor?

The word "wrong" is ambiguous. There's both a pragmatic meaning to wrong ("Did I do something wrong with respect to the goal of getting along with people and advancing my career?") as well as an ethical meaning ("Did I do something morally wrong?"). These aren't the same thing. For example, in the business world, being a corporate whistleblower is sometimes bad for one's career and not very conducive to getting along with people, but it's morally virtuous and good for the economy as a whole. On the other hand, telling the boss what they want to hear, instead of the truth, can sometimes to be good for your career, but it's morally dubious and it's bad for business and it's bad for the economy as a whole.

A professor and I spoke recently (I'm a grad student), and she told me
  about her upcoming sabbatical, and I wished her well and was genuinely
  excited for her and her travel plans. But the reaction that I got from
  her was one of caution and displeasure, with no reciprocation of good
  vibes.

People are strange sometimes. I wouldn't worry too much about this.

I'm a male student. Have I possibly said something condescending or disrespectful to a female professor, by showing my excitement about her travel plans?

Suppose we're talking about ethics. Then we should ask the question: is it always morally wrong to be disrespectful? Assuming the answer is "no," then even if your enthusiasm was construed as disrespectful, this still fails to establish that you're morally in the wrong. Ergo, if the other side wishes to establish your moral wrongness, they will have to make a rather precise argument. For example, it might be of the form:

In [specific set of circumstances], it is always morally wrong to perform an act that ends up being construed as disrespectful.
We were in the aforementioned set of circumstances and you performed an act that was construed as disrespectful.
Therefore, the aforementioned act you performed was morally wrong.

To my mind, this seems like a pretty tenuous line of thinking, to say the least. My point is that even if the other side did construe your actions as disrespectful, this is still a long long long long long way from establishing the moral wrongness of those actions. And, I wouldn't worry about the morality of your actions in this context. In my estimation, your actions seem perfectly ethical.
Suppose, on the other hand, we're speaking from a career advancement perspective. Well, it's definitely bad for one's career to perform actions that are construed as disrespectful by the people who are holding the reins of power. However, to some extent, you can't tell what will be construed as respectful or disrespectful. Sometimes, you will be friendly, and this will be construed as disrepectful. Sometimes you will be respectful, and this will be construed as cold and unfriendly. I think that the basic rules, for those who wish to be perceived as respectful, are:

Be friendly, but don't be whimsical, flippant, silly, absurd.
Don't exaggerate.
Don't come off as sexist, racist, or otherwise judgemental of the other person's socioeconomic background.
When people speak, listen to what they have to say.
If you disagree, let them finish speaking; don't interrupt them.
If you disagree, use phrases like "I respectfully disagree," and "I strongly object to...," which make you sound more civilized and worthy of being listened to.

Again, this has very little to do with morality; it's just a bunch of tips & tricks for appearing respectful.
It sounds like you may have violated (2) somewhat, insofar as your excitement may have seemed exaggerated or feigned. I see no reason to think (3) was violated, except perhaps in the other person's mind, and purely as a corollary of moderately violating (2). It's (2) you should be worrying about, not (3). But of course, people are strange, and even if you follow the above dot points, you will still sometimes offend people. I recommend getting used to it, since this will probably happen again, and the alternative to getting used to occasionally offending people is basically a pathetic life lived in fear, which is not something I can, in good conscience, recommend.

When I analyzed it a bit, I came to the conclusion that I would have had the same reactions if a male professor told me of his sabbatical, travel plans. So, I don't think that I've said anything sexist. But I am not 100% sure.

Once again, people are strange sometimes, and I wouldn't worry too much about this. But the idea, implicit in the question and it's tagging with "ethics" that there's this thing called, sexism whose moral wrongness is somehow pre-established and beyond question, is in my very honest opinion deeply suspect. The word "sexism" is thrown around a lot, but in practice a lot of the people who use it can't define it, and those who can define it, usually define it so broadly (e.g. "discrimination on the basis of sex") that it becomes impossible to argue in favor of the position that sexism is always morally wrong, or otherwise use it to establish the moral wrongness of any given act. All they can really do is point out that certain sexist acts are morally wrong. Holding women's mathematics to a different standard than men's mathematics, for example, is certainly is certainly morally wrong, but this can be deduced from general principles of fairness, and more to the point, giving a single example of sexist act that is morally wrong fails to establish anything like a universal moral wrongness of sexism, and therefore fails to establish any viable general principles from which to infer the wrongness of any given act. So, although I do recommend avoiding sexism if you want to advance your academic career, I respectfully object to the position, implicit in your question, that there's this unambiguous thing called sexism (which there isn't), and that all instances of it are morally wrong (which it's not clear that they are).

That's a fun answer. I'm not sure if it is tongue in cheek, but it's the sort of reply you might expect a moral philosopher to give. Upvoted. :-)

Well from what I see is that you're just trying to have an effective communication with your professor by giving the impression that you're excited for her plan. This is one of basic communication skills that people have to connect with others. If she reacted differently/ negatively, I don't think she understands a proper effective communication in human relations.

I think you have overestimated the professor's reaction. All the OP said is that "the reaction that I got from her was one of caution and displeasure, with no reciprocation of good vibes". In other words, she did not react to his small-talk the way he had expected her to, and did not show the emotions he expected to encounter. This doesn't warrant a conclusion about her "basic communication skills" any more than it does about his. It might be that she just was not in the mood for small-talk, or she got a wrong impression of what he was trying to say, or she comes from a culture in which ...

... the kind of small-talk he initiated is considered rude (cf. the many jokes about Scandinavian greetings). (Also, I know of only one "proffesor", and he is fortunately no longer particularly effective at anything :) No offense, but I couldn't leave such a nice and famous typo uncommented.)

@darijgrinberg Apologies, for not leaving "such a nice and famous typo" uncorrected. :-)


text:
Is it ethical to cite a reviewer's papers even if they are rather irrelevant?
We have just received reviews on a paper, and in reading through one of the "borderline" reviews, I recognized that the "voice" of the review sounded like a researcher I associated with at a conference a few years ago. In particular, they use a certain terms in parts of their review customary to this researcher's homeland. I checked the review committee, and this individual is indeed listed. Upon reading further, they suggest some past work which may be useful -- one of which I recognized as this researcher's work (we have some overlap in our fields).
I have not reached out to this researcher, nor have I shared my suspicions with any co-authors. This researcher and I socialized in a group setting a few years back, but have had no subsequent contact besides being in the same circles on some social media.
While the paper this researcher authored is tangentially related, it is not one that I would consider particularly relevant in our discussion. However, being quite certain of this reviewer's identity, it is tempting to "play up" the relevance of that paper in the hopes of swaying the reviewer.
My question: Is this ethical? I do not have any concrete evidence of this reviewer's identity (nor will I ever look for it), but the fact that I feel compelled to respond in a way different than I would otherwise has my alarm bells going off.
Reworded bonus question: If I believe I've discerned the identity of a reviewer, should I report that to the PC?
Note: This question is intended to be about my conduct, not the reviewer's. I do not believe the reviewer has done anything unethical.

Is the review otherwise so negative that you think it  will be rejected if you don't cite that one not really relevant paper?

Citing irrelevant papers will ultimately look bad on your publication, and that's for posterity. Whatever petty advantage or games you're playing with citations are merely ephemeral and prone to have no perceptible effects. I find this dilemma a no brainer.

@Scientist I don't think that citing irrelevant papers will do any real harm to a paper. Many people cite a lot of stuff in the introduction, without using anything from the cited papers within their own. One more or less, who cares?

There very few who effectively read papers will notice and care. And these are typically the ones who count.

Don't speculate about who the reviewer(s) of your manuscript are. Nothing good can come out of having the knowledge. In fact thinking you know who the reviewers are can cause you quite a bit of grief.
Forget about who authored the review and focus on the facts. You think the paper suggested is tangentially related and not really relevant. Therefore you think you shouldn't cite it. As in similar situations, the next most natural thing to do would be to not cite it, giving your reasons. It would take a pretty unscrupulous reviewer to reject your manuscript because it doesn't cite his paper, and even if the reviewer attempts this, he would also have to convince the editor that he's actually rejecting your manuscript for valid reasons. Remember the editor can see who the reviewer is, and will notice if the reviewer is pushing his paper even if the relevance is tangential. Further, remember that the editor can accept a paper even if the reviewer recommends rejection.
Finally, about whether to report this, there's no point. You won't learn anything about it anyway because the editors can neither confirm nor deny the identity of the reviewer.

Thanks! That confirms my suspicions.

Nice question. I would mention that the editor easily see if the referee is just sponsoring its/her paper. The latter cannot insistt on this point after OP explains why that work is tangential to the manuscript.

[The reviewer suggests] some past work which may be useful --- one of which I recognized as this researcher's work...  I have not reached out to this researcher, nor have I shared my suspicions with any co-authors.  ... Is this something that should be reported to the PC?

Let's assume that you're right that this recommended paper was written by the reviewer --- so what?
There is nothing unethical about a reviewer recommending citation of his own paper, so long as he believes that work is relevant to the topic.  Indeed, reviewers are often selected precisely because they have published papers in the field they are reviewing, so it is common for reviewers to be aware of work they have published that bears on the research they are reviewing.  It is therefore quite natural that a reviewer will be aware of some piece of work they have written that bears on the topic they are reviewing.  If this is the case then it is quite reasonable for them to recommend citation of that paper.
You say that this paper was just one work embedded within a broader set of past works.  By your own description, this work is "tangentially related" to your paper.  Whether you decide to cite the recommended paper therefore depends on the desired scope of the literature discussion in your own paper ---i.e., the degree to which you wish to relate your own work to parts of the literature that are only tangential to your work.  Whatever your judgment here, there is room for reasonable people to disagree on the proper scope for references to other works, so it is entirely reasonable for the reviewer to recommend the paper in his list of past works.

While the paper this researcher authored is tangentially related, it is not one that I would consider particularly relevant in our discussion.  However, being quite certain of this reviewer's identity, it is tempting to "play up" the relevance of that paper in the hopes of swaying the reviewer.  ... Is this ethical?

Just write your paper the way you think is best --- if you think the recommended paper is tangentially relevant then you can mention it if you want, and if you think that is too much of a stretch, and you'd prefer not to mention it, then say that in your response.  Reviewer recommendations are not mandatory, and if you decide not to follow the recommendation to cite that particular paper, that is up to you.  There is no reason to try to pander to the (suspected) reviewer.

Bonus question: Is this something that should be reported to the PC?

Sigh --- this is the kind of question that really makes me despair for academia.  Here we have a story of an outside academic acting as an unpaid journal reviewer, who has taken time away from other duties to do work reviewing your paper.  Among a list of potentially useful past work he has provided to you, he has mentioned one paper that you think is probably his, which even you concede is "tangentially related" to your own work.  Rather than expressing thank for the time this reviewer has taken to provide you with a list of related works, your instinct is to have "suspicions", and you want to know whether to narc on him for the "unethical" conduct of having mentioned potentially relevant research.

It seems my question was worded incorrectly: I do not believe the reviewer did anything wrong, nor was my question ever meant to make it seem that way.
In particular, my bonus question clearly was worded incorrectly. I meant should I report my fear that my response would be tainted by being able to figure out who the reviewer was (or, at least, thinking I had figured it out). My concern was with my conduct, not with the reviewer's.

I once handled a paper where the reviewer (a distinguished professor at a major North American university, no less) said "this paper is significant, but it should cite these five of my papers". That was the entirety of his review too. Meanwhile the other reviewers were unanimous that the paper should be rejected. That was also depressing.

@deckeresq: Okay, thanks for clarifying.

What @Allure said is possible but it doesn't compare well with the current OP situation. Plus 1 to this answer because I like the ending.

@Alchimista my comment here was about the last part of Ben's answer, about the unethical conduct. This kind of unethical conduct definitely happens, although even in these situations it's not really useful to alert the editor because they undoubtedly already know.

@Allure it wasn't a criticism. I do agree that these things happen. The answer would be fifferent and requiring a more strict reaction while answering so that the editor spots the gratuitous comment. Fortunately editors can be quite collaborative, in such evident situations.

@Ben, I don't think you can definitively say there is nothing unethical. There is a chance that the reviewer was pushing to have their own paper cited merely to increase their citation count. Admittedly, in the current case there is not enough evidence to clearly show this, but I have definitely experienced cases where the reviewer gives a whole list of citations to include, the articles are irrelevant to the article being reviewed, and all the citations have a common author. Some reviewers definitely do act unethically and try to get citations for their own articles.

@Zach: I agree that it is possible that there are additional circumstances that would make this unethical.  Nevertheless, what I mean by my answer is that there is nothing inherently unethical about the situation --- i.e., in order to be unethical it would require additional circumstances (that are not specified as present) that would make it so.  In any case, I think we are in agreement here.

@Ben, ok yes, then I think we are on the same page. It's not just that a reviewer recommends their own paper be cited that makes it unethical, but also additional circumstances. For example, if they would recommend a paper that is irrelevant and with the main goal of increasing their own citation count.

I share the instinct to be a tiny bit wary of the situation. Namely that it is, at the very least, plausible that the motivation for suggesting citing the paper is to increase the citation count of that paper, not because it helps your own. From a step back, it would clearly be better to avoid that from being a factor.
However:

It would be very hard to completely remove this possibility (even some kind of meta-review would eventually be subject to the same issues).
The question is about your behaviour. It is a failing of the system if following a suggestion to improve your chance of publication is a conflict of interest.
Absolute worst case: citation figures change by one, in a borderline case.

I don't think there is any cause to lose sleep over this.

I'd like to address two different points here.

Is it ethical?
Nobody can give a definite answer here. One can only try to articulate what one perceives as some sort of consensus among researchers. And this is difficult, because it may depend on the field, on who the author of the other paper is (regardless of whether he is the reviewer!), and most importantly: What the actual contents of the paper is.
For example, there are some papers that are groundbreaking, seminal, visionary, and - although they are only tangentially related (in a technical sense) to more recent works - often cited by saying something like "The work by [Foo] has inspired many other researchers" (and in fact, not much more than that).
On the other hand, I'd like to emphasize what was already mentioned in the excellent answer by Ben: Even if the work is only tangentially related, it could be worth mentioning it, and explaining the differences between their approach and yours. Of course, there is no point in listing a dozen papers and bluntly saying: "They are all doing something else", but a critical discussion and analysis of related work and identifying the differences and commonalities between approaches is something that I'd consider as an essential part of the literature review.

Now, since the first question cannot be answered with a clear "yes" or "no", this raises another question:
Should you do it?
One could argue that if it's unethical, you should not do it. But I wonder how far one can stretch this. The limit is in the question of whether it is "ethical" to do anything that ("only") brings an advantage for yourself. And at that point, one has to say: You can always act ethically if and only if you can afford it.
Or to put it that way: If you think that it helps your progress and career, you should do it.
In the world of mutual citations, mutual reviews (that are only formally but not factually "double-blind"), mutual conference invitations and other forms of "mutual approvals and justifications" of small groups of researchers, a single citation in a single paper is one of the things that you should least be concerned about.

It's not that big a deal.  I would just do it (and I am prickly as hell if my text, ideas get affected).
Just attach the questionable reference. But make sure there is a relevant one right next to it.  So people see both.  Not much harm done.

You state an opinion but don't give a reason.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
How can authors use LLMs (like ChatGPT) without accidentally plagiarising?
Leading scientific venues in machine learning allow LLMs as a “general-purpose assist tool,” provided that authors assume “full responsibility for the contents.” Such policies raise the question of how to assess whether LLM suggestions are problematic.
This post specifically concerns plagiarism, i.e., (unintentionally) copying the work of other (human) authors by using LLMs as a tool.
This raises the question of whether it is possible for the authors to detect plagiarism in LLM output:
If authors can reliably detect such plagiarism in LLM output, they can exclude it from their papers.
Conversely, if they cannot reliably detect it, plagiarism could unintentionally be incorporated into an author’s work.
Example
Consider authors writing a paper with a new mathematical theorem as its central contribution.
They use an LLM to help them edit the draft, brainstorm, and develop ideas.
This LLM suggests editing improvements (such as improved grammatical structures and stylistic improvements) and broader changes, such as improvements in narrative structure and new analogies.
The authors check these suggestions and partially integrate them into their draft.
Crucially, the authors detect scenarios where the LLM suggests exact copies or core contributions of other works, as they use an automatic plagiarism checker and have a broad knowledge of their field.
The authors have no unethical intentions.
Some may argue that the above practice could still constitute plagiarism, as the author's manuscript may contain underlying structures derived from other papers, such as specific analogies or the overall organization of ideas.
Crucially, the authors could not identify this content to exclude it from their work:
Detection would be possible if the authors knew the reference works the LLM used to generate its output. However, since these references are unknown and may span the entire body of academic literature, comparing the new work against all paragraphs of all existing works would be intractable. Automated plagiarism detection checkers are also unreliable, as they often miss non-verbatim similarities.
Is there a consensus on the above question?
Is it always practically possible for the authors to detect problematic LLM suggestions (to exclude them from their works), or are there areas where using LLMs as a tool is always unethical (as one cannot rule out plagiarism)?
LLMs as tools and not authors
Many policies of leading scientific venues define LLMs like ChatGPT as tools, not authors (as they cannot be held accountable for their output). In this view, the text in a manuscript is ultimately the product of an author, who decides to which extent to use its tools. Tools can produce harmful and harmless output, and the author must distinguish the two. This raises the question of to what extent this is possible.
Example: Consider using LLMs as a spell and grammar checker, which many people would not consider plagiarism. Conversely, using LLMs to copy other works verbatim is clearly (easily detectable) plagiarism. This post concerns scenarios located between these extremes.
What this post is not about
This post:

assumes that authors do not blindly copy/paste LLM output into their manuscripts,
does not advocate for using LLMs as a complete replacement for human skills, and
does not discuss whether LLMs can improve scientific work in principle.

The concern I have with ChatGPT is that it seemingly tries to sound confident about its results despite doing no kind of verification of its own. You've probably had those students who, when they don't know how to solve a problem, will try to "BS" and fudge or obscure any steps they are unsure about. Would you let one of those students draft your paper for you?

By "safe" you seem to mean "don't get caught", rather than "do no harm". I think it is unsafe on both counts. Why do you focus on the first only???

Even though you have dropped the word "safe" from the title question, you are still focused on getting caught, not on assuring the validity of your results.

@Nate Eldredge: The user can verify the LLM output. If an LLM (or student) output is “BS” to me, I would simply not use it. I'd argue that "BS" (e.g., a mathematically incorrect statement) is usually identifiable (at least in the context of writing a scientific paper). However, I wonder whether all problematic LLM output is identifiable (e.g., some forms of plagiarism as outlined in the main post).

@Buffy: I edited the title to remove the word “safe.” Thanks for the hint!
Why would you think that it does harm? Do you think there is a way to use LLMs in science without doing harm?
Why do you think that I focus on “not getting caught”? This is not my intention. I am happy to edit the main post to avoid misunderstandings if helpful.

LLMs have no mind, they have no ethics or morals, they have no understanding. They can't explain their reasoning (having none). What they produce based on the writings of others is inherently plagiarism. And you have tagged it as plagiarism, revealing your motivation.

@Buffy: LLM output is only plagiarism if it is sufficiently similar to the work of others, not generally. I ask whether it is, in principle, possible for authors to detect all cases when LLM output is plagiarism (to avoid unintentionally placing plagiarism in a paper).

You mean, "to avoid unintentionally placing detectable plagiarism in a paper". I know you don't think that, nor will you accept that characterization, but that is the root of it. Sorry to be blunt.

@Buffy: Plagiarism (as characterized in the main post) is always detectable, e.g., by the authors of a plagiarized paper. I want to avoid a scenario where a paper contains plagiarism (included by an LLM) that is not reliably detectable by the authors, both for ethical and practical reasons.

"The user can verify the LLM output." Easy to say, hard to do.  As humans, we're used to verifying the work of other humans, ideally ones who write in good faith and make an honest effort at correctness.  There's a difference between that and LLMs which, in effect, actively try to sound confident and convincing about stuff whose correctness they have no reason to believe in.  It's the difference between an inexperienced collaborator who makes honest mistakes, and a deliberately deceptive adversary.

Plagiarism is when you take someone else's ideas and represent them as your own. Assuming the authors did not explicitly disclose that the text is AI-generated, the following:

plagiarism could unintentionally be incorporated

is impossible because "unintentional" is impossible. Accordingly, the question is moot. If the authors used ChatGPT, and didn't disclose it as such, they are plagiarizing and they know it.
PS: they are also breaking the ChatGPT end user license agreement, which prohibits representing the output as human-generated.

If authors used LLMs as spell checkers, would you consider this plagiarism? Should the authors then disclose the resulting text as “AI-generated”? Would others plagiarise when not disclosing the usage of the MS Word spell checker?

This argument is confidently presented but incorrect, akin to an LLM hallucination. Even fairly complex LLM-generated content could sometimes be included in academic papers without getting anywhere near plagiarism. For example, someone might use an LLM to implement an algorithm that they came up with, verify the implementation, use the results, and publish LLM-generated pseudocode in their paper after verifying the pseudocode as well. I don't think this would be plagiarism any more than not saying R was used to compute the results shown in Figure 5 (although acknowledging both would be good).

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


text:
What is the advantage of m·s^(-1) over m/s?
It's everywhere, but no matter who I ask I can never get a straight answer, only "I don't know"s. What is the advantage of using multiplication and negative powers over just using division when writing out units, as in the question title. Granted, in most cases they use superscript rather than how I formatted it in the title, but my phone keyboard would not let me do that.
I don't have a problem reading units written this way, but it just seems inefficient as it uses more characters and makes it more difficult for "regular people" to follow. I'm suspecting it's nothing more than a style choice, possibly because it looks "more scientific".

I'm voting to close as off-topic. This isn't a question about academia: it's a question about one of the subjects that academics study.

@DavidRicherby This is just a question about writing style, exactly as we have questions about styling code or citations.

Generally speaking, the choice of one form over another is better done on a case-by-case basis, according to readability.
If I have to specify a speed of 5 meters per second, I'll write v = 5 m/s rather than v = 5 m·s-1, because for most people the first form is more readable than the latter.
However, if I have to label the axis of a quantity with some complex unit, I may choose the form with the exponents. For, instance, if I have to report the spectral density function Sv(f) of some voltage noise, whose unit is V2/Hz, I may label the vertical axis (according to the style I described here) either
Sv(f)/(V2/Hz) (with parentheses to avoid any ambiguity)
or
Sv(f)/V2Hz-1 (for compactness).
In this case, I'd probably choose the second form because is probably more readable even in the case of more complex units. Strictly speaking, also this second form without parentheses is ambiguous because multiplication and division are associative from left to right, but frequently people understand that unit as a single block.
Remark. If you use LaTeX to write papers I cannot but recommend to use the package siunitx to typeset the units, because it allows you to switch between the two forms with just one option (per-mode=symbol or per-mode=reciprocal). Moreover, it automatically adds a small space between the units.

Has anyone ever asked you "wait, what are $H$ and $z^{-1}$?"?

@FedericoPoloni He he... no. In any case, I write my papers in LaTeX and the siunitx package adds automatically a small spaces between each unit, and there's no risk of confusion.

Hold up, isn't $Hz^{-1}$ just $s$? Because isn't a Hz simply 1/s?

@vikarjramun Yes it is, but certain units are commonly written in certain preferred, more recognizable ways.

You can't write "5 ms^-1" because "ms" means millisecond. You would have to write "5 m·s^-1" instead.

@Nayuki Unfortunately there's no way here to render the small space, but using the dot between units is generally discouraged. See also my comment above to Federico.

Who said middle dot is discouraged? I see documents like this and it seems fine. https://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/checklist.html

@Nayuki I would not rate that source as they say "That dog weighs 10 kg" ... kg is a unit of mass not weight...

@Nayuki You're right, in principle they're both correct, also the SI brochure concurs. I amended the writing. In practice, however, metrologists usually avoid the dot.

There is a better way (in my opinion) to write the complex example in your answer in a correct and unambiguous way without parentheses: S_v(f) • Hz V^-2

@Alexander That's true, but when you write a paper you have to keep in mind the target audience and what's easily readable for them, not only the correctness.

@Massimo Ortolano: I disagree, only correct and unambiguous information can be understood the right way, especially if it gets complicated.

@Alexander You can disagree, but my experience is that sometimes it is better to present the information in a certain way rather than sticking to correctness at all cost. For instance, a common example is that of circuit diagrams: sometimes it is better to avoid certain IEC symbols in favour of more easily interpretable ones, albeit non standard.

I think the main advantage is that an ambiguity of a/bc is avoided. For example, g/m^2s may be read as g m^{-2} s^{-1} or g m^{-2} s depending on whether multiplication takes priority over division.  As far as I know, there is no consistency in opinions about it, so to avoid confusion a slightly uglier notation with negative powers may be worth accepting.

Though in programming, the pretty much universal convention is a / b * c ≡ (a / b) * c. This is exactly analogous to a − b + c ≡ (a − b) + c. But of course, these language don't allow writing b * c as b c (let alone bc).

In that case you can write $gs/m^2$ or $g/m^2/s$.

@leftaroundabout I agree about conventions in programming, however, my maths students often miscode $\frac{a}{b c}$ as a/b*c which makes me think they've used to a different convention somewhere.

@leftaroundabout: but few will say that 1/2pi is equal to pi/2.

But, if you're attempting to eliminate ambiguity, then a/bc can be trivially written as a/(bc), or g/(m^2s) as in your example, which adds two characters to the representation, whereas g m^{-2} s^{-1} and g m^{-2} s adds 7 characters and 3 characters respectively (not counting the space characters added to your examples). Arguably, those also remove the ambiguity between interpreting the original as g/((m^2)s) and g/(m^(2s)), but that could be resolved by writing it as g/(sm^2).

+1 because avoiding ambiguity/ensuring correctness is indeed the main reason. I would add that especially for more complicated units, using parentheses or fraction bars is not very practical especially when integrated into a text or into an axis label in a plot. In order to keep things consistent, the way of writing units with negative exponents is then also used for rather simple units like the one in the question. And for me, it is also better in terms of readability.

@MartinArgerami When reading your comment, I read 1/2pi as "one half pi", soooo...

@OldBunny2800: I said "few", not "none".

Personal preference, but having the numbers be explicit helps me with checking the dimensions of the final answer (it's easier to see which terms cancel, especially if the exponents are non integers as I don't need to keep subtracting 1 as 1/x^0.5 is actually x^-0.5)

Another significant advantage of using negative powers to me is that checking for correctness of units becomes easier. In physics especially, any physically meaningful formula or identity should have units which match up on both sides, so if the units not match up for an equation, this can be an effective check that the equation can't possibly be correct. This is a common way to check one's work, and can even be taken further: see Dimensional Analysis.
Now, working with units is much easier with negative exponents. Consider the equation distance = velocity × time. The (SI) units of the LHS are (m), that of velocity is (m/s), and that of time is (s). It is easier to see that m·s^(-1)s=m than that (m/s)s=m to many people. Of course the difference is slight because the formula is simple in this case, but once one starts working with more complicated equations dimensional analysis becomes much easier once you abandon the forward slash notation.

Dimitry's answer is probably the most complete, but for me, the issue is around ambiguity in fractions.  For example I would never write a/bc, because it is ambiguous, I would right (in LaTeX) \frac{a}{bc} or ab^{-1}c^{-1}.  The former I find much neater for an equation out in the open, while the later looks a bit better if included in-line text.

Perhaps its not an academic reason, but more of a practical reason combined with tradition/preference for the earlier format learned?
Historically, typesetters may not have been able to render what is now easy with various markup notations.
39.3396 m/s might be accidentally read as "mis" or "mls" or "mi5"  where (m.s^-1) is unambiguous.

A horizontal fraction bar will also break up the flow of a paragraph of printed text, so this presentation keeps the units to be one "line of text" high.

"m/s"  when sent by morse code is
   --     -..-.    ...

Since the forward slash is a relatively rare character, could be accidentally transcribed as one of these:
   --     -..     -.    ...
    m      d      n      s

   --     -.     .-.    ...
    m      n      r      s

   --     -   ..   -   .    ...
    m    you get the idea...

  $39.3396 \frac{m}{s}$

should render unambiguously like this   (if mathtex were supported here)