Grant fraud, should I bust my PhD advisor? tl;dr: Should I report this large grant fraud, and what consequences could it have for me?

For obvious reasons, I will try to maintain some anonymity here.

So I defended my thesis. Which was funded through a government grant.

In order to obtain this type of grant, a professor needs to cooperate with several other research organizations and privately-owned industries. Then it is required for some people to exchange between these places for extended periods of time. Relocate to a different place, live and work there.

So my industrious professor submitted all the required paperwork and received enough money to support multiple PhD students, post-docs and senior professors. However, almost none of them actually did any exchange. Instead, everyone just stayed at their home institutions.

Of course, I had no idea that the grant money was being mishandled until a monitoring meeting with the grant authorities that took place a long time after I started. All the other PhD students had no idea what was going on as well. We ended up making ridiculous statements about our accommodation, work hours, health insurance as the senior professors convinced us to lie about fictitious exchanges taking place.

The whole scheme is based on deliberate misinformation about people working at places they have never seen in their lives. I suspect a ton of papers and documents had been forged and submitted as evidence. The government thinks it's a research project with cooperation among multiple institutions. The only time we see each other is at set-up (pretended) conferences.

Naturally, all the documentation is kept secret, but a quick Google search would reveal that one can't simultaneously work at place x, and give lectures at place y, while x and y are hours of travel away. But again the people who control the grant money only check the paperwork they are provided. Is there a bogus employment contract in my name? I don't know but I have reasons to believe so.

Should I report this as a fraud?

There is an anti-fraud unit which should deal with it. This could, however, backfire in so many unimaginable ways. Forgery is rather a serious offense: a few PhD students and post-docs could end up being deported. More money is being awarded each year which could go to other researchers that are at least honest about what they spend it on. A funded PhD position is still available at my university, so more unsuspecting students will be involved.

I don't even know how I should approach this problem myself. It is an ethical dilemma as to whether I should support my supervisors. The procedure is definitely illegal, but the consequences could vary from not receiving future funding from the same source, to grant recovery (many millions of an unspecified currency) or even criminal charges. I can only speculate on what documents have been forged in the process, employment contracts, visa documents etc. A large number of involved researchers don't even live on the same continent, and that is where most of the money might go to. It is also very personal. Apart from being fooled with many false promises into writing a PhD, I did not sign up for, nor intended to, lie about living in a place I have never been to.

TLDR: You need a lawyer.

I think, ethically, speaking out is the right thing. Falsifying grants is despicable and has a very negative impact on science in general. It has happened to me multiple times that when I say in a pub that I am in science and that I got a grant people say things like "All those grants are just frauds to get money from the government/EU". I don't think I need to explain why this kind of perception hurts on both personal and systemic level.

Regarding your own well being, things are much more difficult. The fact is that you have willingly participated in a non-trivial fraud for a prolonged period of time. Speaking out will not erase this neither ethically nor legally.

You need to consult a lawyer (not an Internet law advice, a real lawyer). As pointed out in the comments - you may easily be considered a part of the fraud. You may want to check your country's whistleblower/cooperating defendant protection laws, but those (if existent) usually do not provide any strict protection - court will have to decide whether you will face charges. OTOH, if the scheme is revealed later without your involvement, you will be in much worse situation than if you had spoken.
You may also claim to have acted in good faith or under serious threat (losing employment). Once again, a lawyer should be able to tell you to what extent this may protect you under the relevant jurisdiction, given the specific circumstances (there is no simple general rule).

Be aware, that you are in trouble. I don't think there are so many grants of this kind and much fewer of them are being cheated like the one you speak about. There is a non-negligible chance that someone overseeing the project reads this post and may consider checking whether this isn't "his" project. Some other participant of the grant may read this as well and consider speaking out himself to get into a better situation. And as this sounds like a big and ongoing fraud, it may easily burst on its own - once people get too much used to bending rules they usually do not know when to stop.

This is not a "we used a questionable accounting trick to be able to buy a new device we really needed for research" kind of problem, there is no good intent, neither was the money used in the spirit of the grant.

EDIT: One more bad scenario in response to some of the comments. Let's suppose the fraud is exposed. Even if the funding agency does not initiate a criminal investigation and even if they cannot directly claim money from you (as your contract is probably with the uni) you still have trouble. Since the uni will likely have to return a large sum of money, they can file civil suit against the people involved in the fraud seeking financial compensation for the loss. As you have made false statements about accommodation and other stuff, this can easily include you.

EDIT 2: I would like to highlight a good point made in AndrejaKo's answer: If the corruption is sufficiently deep in the system, it might not be actually possible to bust your advisor (read the answer for detailed reasoning).

I am not a lawyer, but I know enough to say that this matter is not Criminal or Civil, it is Contractual. In Contractual law, individuals who are involved in a breech of contract MAY be required to pay a fine, but only in very very rare circumstances. Typically it is the company, university or institution - the one that INITIATED the contract - that has to foot the payout. I'll repeat, because there are a few sensationalist posts above mine that seem to suggest otherwise - it is not criminal to breach a contract. When the contract is initiated on behalf a registered organisation/university, it is not even Civil. Extracting money for saying you will do X and instead you do Y is NOT a criminal offence unless common law is broken or significant harm to person or persons was brought about by deliberately (and with full knowledge of the consequences) breeching the contract. This is really only ever used when safety companies fail to provide due diligence to turn a quick profit and people die.

So any legal issues with the contract will be brought to your employer, not you personally. Your employer may then wish to seek damages against you for some of their costs because you did not report it to them sooner, but such a case is certain to fail. For one, even if they win, you probably have no money to pay them and can file for bankruptcy instantly. If they lose, they will have substantial court costs to pay. What probability do they have of winning? Slim to none. You can offer both ignorance AND/OR duress as credible defences. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duress_in_English_law

So to answer your question, you should report it, and you should get a lawyer. Based on the information you have provided, you are not legally vulnerable. You are however extremely vulnerable academically. The university may revoke your PhD, and worse they might discredit your work, and make it very difficult for you to work in Science elsewhere. They do not need to provide any legal basis for doing either of these things, since PhDs are 'awarded' rather than earned. However, game theory would suggest that such a Pyrrhic victory is unlikely to be performed by a university of supposedly smart people. The effort spend in revoking your PhD is a no-win situation. But it really depends on the university when all is said and done.

Also, the only thing more impressive than a PhD is turning one down because the system failed you. Then go get a job at the grant-awarding body.

EDIT:
Due to "popular demand", and the fact that this post sits at a healthy -4, I am adding this edit.
In the above text I mention that I am not a lawyer. It goes without saying therefore that what i present isn't to be considered legal council. It is just an internet comment. However, it does contain actual legal information, which other commenters deemed incorrect, despite they themselves being frighteningly unclear on, if this went to trial, who would actually be suing whom.
They also request that I make it quite clear when I state "/Duress_in_English_Law", that I only refer to English law, because this was perhaps unclear.
In my defence, Common Law, which was developed in England and spread to the rest of the English-speaking world is actually rather... Common. Unsurprisingly, that is both why it is called Common Law, and why I referenced it in the first place. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_legal_systems#Common_law

One of the nice things about Common Law is that many things, like the definition of basic legal terms such as "fraud", are very very similar wherever Common Law is applied. This is what makes having a conversation about law over the internet possible, without having to constantly qualify everything.

So I think it's fair to say that everything in this post is probably relevant to the OP, and isn't just some wishy-washy "do it because it's the right thing" or "if you don't do it you'll burn in hell" vote bait. I dont care for votes. What matters is that this guy DOES go to a lawyer, and DOES bring this matter to the attention of the grant-funding body. The chances of that happening is so very very much higher if he appreciates that he is not personally liable, as all the above nonesense brolawyer posts above suggest.


I did something I am not proud of, and was rightly accused of cheating by the instructor. What is next for me? A throwaway account for this issue I need advice in. I am in an engineering course and had an online exam (thanks to COVID-19) with no form of protection for cheating, just an "open now, turn in within 2 hours" exam. I spent way too much time perfecting one particular question (I blame my diagnosed test anxiety for that part of this situation), so I, quite moronically may I add, used a resource that I was not allowed to use. I got an email from the instructor saying that I was accused of cheating.

After fainting once and vomiting twice I read the message and learned that I had 2 options. First of which is to refute and provide evidence in contrary of the accusation, for which I had none. The second option was to accept a zero-marking on the heftily-weighted question, but keep the grade and accept it as the grade on the exam. This was quite a lenient punishment as it was outlined in the syllabus that any form of cheating on any exam will result in a 0 on said exam and a failure within the course. I can only attribute this to the fact that I always went to lecture, actively took notes, asked many questions, and sat in the front row (really like ALL students should do). Therefore, I accepted that option and still ended up with a passing average in the class, because I worked extremely hard to understand the material well (I am not an academically gifted person, may I add.).

Along with both options, a report of academic misconduct will be reported to the chair of the engineering department of my discipline. From there I am unsure where the situation will go. The university does not have any set-in-stone rules for a situation like this within the academic policy or student guideline book, which is where I turn to  Academia. I have never done anything of this sort and I am unsure on where to turn or where to go next, depending on where this situation escalates to.

I also fear for my eligibility for security clearances once I graduate (United States). I only fear that this will be seen as a major, major red flag and may result in me unable to gain said clearance, even though I have nothing on my record (not even as minor as a traffic stop). I feel like that will most definitely ruin my career (rightfully so if so, may I add), as any form of my work will most likely require said clearance. But, having never gotten a clearance before, I am unsure about how it will be affected. To anyone who has experience in this realm, is this a major red flag? Should I switch majors now to something where I can get a job without one?

Regardless of any switching majors, if I lose my academic scholarship for the university (again, rightfully so), I will be forced to drop and/or go far into debt to complete my academic career. Most definitely worth it if so, but still upsetting. Again, this is not set in stone anywhere within the documentation I have access to, so would something like this be a possible/fitting punishment for my academic dishonesty?

I thoroughly understand that this shows that I have little experience in a particular realm of this class, and that in the workforce, if I make a mistake due to it, I may cost lives. If anything, that's the most sickening part of this whole situation. For that reason, I am currently re-studying all material within the class and making sure that I will keep the knowledge that I have been taught. But employers, would you even consider hiring someone like me if you found this out?

I really appreciate anyone reading this. Please leave any comments about my integrity to the comment section, and not the answer section.

What you are doing is called catastrophizing. This incident, unpleasant and mildly serious though it is, is simply not the life-destroying event you imagine it to be, and you are not the evil person you imagine yourself to be for having committed this act of dishonesty.

In fact, I think the worst aspect of the situation is the negative thoughts you are having about it, which sound like they have a much greater potential to derail your studies, mental health, and (if left unchecked) your future career, than the facts of the actual situation you described.

I can’t comment authoritatively about your specific hypothetical scenarios of losing your clearance, becoming a failure professionally etc, but they simply sound highly implausible based on my years of experience in academia in the US. My advice is, take a deep breath, and seek counseling and advice from knowledgeable people in your institution who can give you:

useful practical information about the possible effects of the cheating on your career (which frankly my guess is will be essentially zero if it’s a one-off incident, although there may be a temporary punishment that could set you back a bit);
separately from that, mental health advice to help you keep yourself from becoming overwhelmed with anxiety.

Good luck!

Cheating on academic work is so heavily frowned upon and has negative consequences if caught for two reasons, and it's important to understand these two reasons. The one most people conjure up is that for the act of cheating, you are being dishonest.

As most everyone will point out, if it's an isolated event, the best thing to do to combat dishonesty is honesty in turn. If ever this situation comes up during a background check for a position, answer as honestly as possible. It is far more important to demonstrate that you've made a mistake and you've learned from it. Your integrity may come into question, but there are also ways to prove that the incident itself taught you not just that you shouldn't cheat, but also made you a better person somehow.

The second, and more important reason, I think, is that people don't learn from cheating. That is, if you're not properly learning the material you should know, your work will be of low quality. In some situations, this can, down the line, have very serious consequences. If, for example, you cheat and go uncaught in, say, medicine school, down the line you may cause a serious malpractice error, and cost someone's life, because you didn't learn all that you needed to know. There, the important thing to do is go back and properly learn the material you felt you needed to cheat for. Not only does this aid in your case in proving that you have learned your lesson on honesty, but you'll prevent actual, "real-world" mistakes when you undertake your career.


What is the best "last slide" in a thesis presentation? There are some possible options as the last slide of a typical thesis presentation. I've heard of some possibilities:

A question-mark image (as the time to be slaughtered by the referees!),
A Thank You declaration (There are some negative viewpoints about these two options.),
A slide including summary of the presented ideas,
A slide reflecting the presenter's contact info (I think it does not really make sense for a thesis presenter.),
A slide including a quote (I really doubt it's the best way.),
...

What is the best practice to arrange the last slide, then?!

The last slide will typically be seen for some minutes after you finished talking – until you jump to some other slide for addressing a question. This is something that you should use. If you ended your talk with a summary (which is a good thing in most cases), leaving that slide gives the audience opportunity to reflect on your talk, remember what they wanted to ask a question about, or just let your central messages sink in. If they do not want to do this, but focus on the questions, they are not distracted by anything new that you didn’t talk about.

The main exception is if you find it difficult to orally convey that the talk has finished – in that case a thank you slide or an any questions? slide may be the lesser evil and save you from a few seconds of awkward silence that everybody needs to realise your talk is over. Note that you can use such a slide as a backup behind your summary slide – if you manage to finish your talk on the summary slide, the audience never gets to see it. If you botch it, you can quickly jump to the summary slide.

In most situations, however, I consider thank you slides and any questions? slides pointless, as they do not tell the audience anything new and are things that you or the chair have to say. A quote would distract the audience from the questions – unless you are going to read it, but then the quote has to really fit the occasion. Your contact information does not need an entire slide and can usually be fitted on the bottom of the summary slide.

Finally note that on some rare occasions, the following order of slides may work:

main talk with main results
summary and outlook
one or two appetiser slides illustrating first steps into what you just announced as future work, e.g., to show that you paved the way for something interesting.

In this case, you can either jump back to the summary slide or stay on your last appetizer slide – depending on what is more attractive.

Best way to end your presentation is to give an overview of whole things you described in earlier slides. you can also request for feedbacks for your presentation to improve according to audience point of view.


Journal allows me to choose whether to transfer copyright – why would I do so? I am a mathematics undergraduate in the USA. Recently I had a paper accepted to a math journal, and in the final steps of the process I had to fill out a “consent to publish” form, in which I had the choice of whether to transfer the copyright to the journal. My question is: given the option to still have the paper published while retaining the copyright, is there any reason to still transfer the copyright?
In this situation I don’t think it matters much, because regardless of which option you choose you still retain the right to post on ArXiv and your personal website, etc. But I’m curious about what is considered acceptable and/or standard, in case I have to make the decision again.
The specific form I had to fill out is that of the AMS, and choosing not to transfer the copyright has the effect of deleting points 3 and 6.

To expand a little on user2768's answer, the text provided by the publisher normally explains the benefits and implications of the different options quite well.

If you choose to retain your copyright, you are only giving the publisher permission to publish and sell your work, but all rights to your work remain with you. You are in principle free to give other publishers permission to print your work, but there still may or may not be a rider about exclusivity (for a specific time or forever) in the copyright agreement even if you choose to retain the rights to your work.

If you choose to transfer your copyright, the publisher becomes the owner of this piece of text, similar to if you had written a book through a contract with them. You cannot simply turn around and sell or give away the same work to another party.

The (theoretical) incentive for you to transfer is that if the copyright is with the publisher, the publisher has the legal opportunities and incentives to protect their intellectual property, for instance by taking legal action against plagiarized versions of your manuscript. If you retain your copyright, the publisher basically can't know whether you have given another publisher permission to reprint your work, and they also don't really care since it's your work, not theirs.
However, in practice a publisher is only willing to protect your work to the extent that they suffer actual financial damages. For instance, if an obscure spam open access publisher publishes a plagiarized version of your article, you may be very annoyed but the publisher is unlikely to take legal action (or at least none that goes beyond sending them an unfriendly email), since the actual financial damage for them is very, very limited. In that light I agree with you that for most people retaining their copyright is probably the more natural choice.

Retaining the copyright as an individual is fairly meaningless. First, you can't afford to deal with copyright violations, and second, assigning the copyright to the journal won't prevent you from using the intellectual property of the paper in any way you like.
On the other hand, if you are employed in industry (or a national lab, etc) and the work reported in the paper was done "for hire", the copyright most likely belongs to your employer and not to you personally, so it is not yours go "give away" in any case.


Is it appropriate to email a professor with a simpler solution than the one she provided? I am in a graduate math program in the US, and the professor is teaching via online lectures. The proof she provideed for one of the theorems is a little bit tricky to understand. I think I found a proof that, though is about the same length, I think is much simpler. Could it be considered inappropriate to email the professor out of the blue and give her the proof?

Email the professor, explain that you came up with an alternate proof, and ask if it is correct.
If you approach it this way, it should be perfectly acceptable to anyone.  You get to find out if your more-clear approach is correct, and assuming it is, the professor maybe uses it in the future.  If it's not correct, you get to learn where you went wrong.  A good exercise for all involved.

I would think that its perfectly okay to tell the professor that you think you have found an easier way. As long as your polite, and not telling the professor that they are doing a bad job (Or anything like that) then you should be fine. Just make sure you bring it up politely and ask if your easier solution would also work. Professors just want to educate students, so if you find an easier way, let the professor know as soon as possible so that she can teach other students your way, (if it works). That way you will be helping students in the future grasp a topic easier.


GPA rounding 2.498 to 2.5. How ethical is this? I finished this year with a cumulative GPA of 2.498 (pretty low, not gonna lie). The main concern that I have is that when rounding to 2 digits, it will be pushed to a 2.5, and I'm worried that in interviews when I say that I have a 2.5, and if the interviewer checks my transcript, he/she may think that I am bumping up to meet requirements, even through it's very close to the line.

I am already aware of past questions regarding gpa rounding, but those seem to deal with round from 2 digits to 1 digit, which doesn't fit my situtation. Am I wrong in thinking I shouldn't do this? I don't want to want anyone to think down on me.

There's no way to know how someone will react to a given situation but I would suggest to at least have a reason if you are challenged.

For instance, it might be reasonable to supply the same number of digits that they are asking for. If they ask for a 2.5 minimum GPA, then you report a 2.5, if they ask for a 2.50 then report a 2.50, but if they ask for a 2.500 then report a 2.498. If there is no reference number then I would assume the precision is up to you and report a 2.5.

That being said, I doubt anyone would think anything unethical happened over a .002 rounding that follows all the normal rounding rules.

I feel like any person who graduated the 3rd grade understands the concept of rounding, thus rounding up to 2.5 is fine. I can only imagine folks who even care would be those in a science or math field where numerical precision is necessary. In that case its more about the culture of the company than the validity of your GPA. Of course, my school automatically rounded to the nearest decimal and that's what went out in my transcripts.


How to shut ears to office gossip? Our institute has office spaces for the PhD students with a number of cubicles in the same room. I happen to be an introvert and dislike people talking to me when I am in the office space, or otherwise. But people just love to gossip. They will talk about how bad their supervisor is or how bad my supervisor is, and even though a lot of what they say might be true, it takes a lot of unnecessary toll on me. It makes me very unsettled about my future.

I simply do not understand why people love to talk so much. Are they trying to be helpful? Are the seniors among them trying to guide me? How do I make it happen that I keep going to the office space and not have to make small talk or gossip with other folks there?

I like the headphones idea, and perhaps a baseball cap, worn rather low, would help in a similar way.  Some more ideas:

You could put an embroidered sign on your cubicle wall (or a
calligraphy version) saying something like "If you can't say
something nice, don't say anything at all" or "If you can't say
something nice, say it in French."  If those are too blatant,
perhaps you could post the latter phrase in French.  Or choose one
of the many images available online that represent the concept.
I particularly liked "NO Trashing OR Bashing Zone."
When someone approaches you and starts yakking, there are two ways
of stopping them:

(a) Look interested, respond with a wide variety of facial
expressions, but without saying anything.

(b) Say, "I don't want to lose my train of thought, and I've got a deadline -- can you tell
me the rest tomorrow?"
Start coughing, grab an empty water bottle from your desk drawer, point at your throat, and walk quickly to the bathroom.  If the person is still in your visitor's chair when you come back, point at your throat and communicate nonverbally that you can't talk -- until he goes away.
For the really stubborn person who needs a more careful explanation -- just tell them the truth: "I'm the sensitive type, and when I hear negative remarks, I soak them up like a sponge, and they affect me way too much.  This is nothing against you -- but I have to protect myself.  So when I hear you starting to tell me something that's going to affect me this way, I'm going to say, "I'm sorry, Rafael, but I don't want to listen to this."  (And then if he tries again next week, say it.)

Just say "Sorry, I have to interrupt.  I'm working on X."  Perhaps the X will be interesting to them and you've found a new use of their logorrhea and can hone your dialectic skills or even learn something that has value to YOU.

It doesn't even matter if you working on it right then, because now you are.


How to validate scientific ideas outside the academia? Long story short, I have some ideas regarding the field of psychology and I looking into ways to validate them with people with experience.

Options I see:

Submit a paper and wait feedback from a journal. I understand the hurdles that come with this option. I'm wondering if this is totally unrealistic for non statistics based psychology.
Contact people in the academia. I'm not sure If anyone would even listen. Moreover, I am not very familiar with the jargon and I can't quite communicate my ideas in a casual conversation.
Write a book. This is definitely a non-scientific approach but may be more feasible considering how revolutionizing was Eric Ries and Lean Startup in the field of management.

I appreciate deeply any insights, personal experiences or comments.

First, I am not from the field of psychology, but I assume that the research rules are equally applied to all fields.

A general comment: any idea you think that it is new -in any research area-, it is more likely to collide with the fact that it has already been explored and patented -if you have a small experience in the field of course-.

Validating your idea does not necessitate a direct involvement in academia. However, it is important to know the academic process, that consists of:

Reviewing the state-of-the-art sufficiently. This means, reading the recently published papers (mainly from reputed journals and proceedings) and books by using specific search engines (e.g. google scholar) and references/cited-by of the publications you know. Please be aware that key-words might be different across different communities.
If you are not directly involved in research, you may contact researchers interested in your topic and idea. Btw. your assumption that they wouldn't even listen is wrong. Researchers and academics (regardless of their research area) are always open to new ideas. We (a CS research group) do this all the time, where we discuss with companies and individuals about new ideas and collaborations.
If you don't prefer contacting research groups and labs or you don't get an answer for any reason (which I don't it would happen), you can write the paper by yourself following what you have learnt in reviewing similar works (you can also check tutorial how to write a good paper). You will need to follow the journal or conference instructions (e.g. number of pages, etc). You then submit the paper and wait a couple of months to get the first decision.

Now regarding your assumption:

  Write a book. This is definitely a non-scientific approach ....

It is incorrect if you aim to publish a scientific book. Generally, good publishers won't easily publish the work of unknown authors unless they publish it in a series which requires the acceptation of its editor. Here also, the work has to be proved by the editor to has the chance to be published.

Try publishing on trade and industry magazines. Some do have a sort of review process.

Especially if your psychology ideas are interesting to marketing they might be picked up, and do write a book, it will be just for copyright, though.

Remember that academia is a vicious cycle full of insidious incentives to publish as many random papers as unnecessarily as possible, which is why a lot of practical research is being done outside of it now.


How to improve scientific writing skills? What do you do to write better proposals, grants, and papers?

Do you think reading books about how to write scientific content is a good way to improve it?

The way to learn to write is, simply, to write.

But then get feedback on your writing and re-write in light of the feedback.

The Software Patterns community has a process called Writer's Workshops that are quite detailed. When you submit a paper to a patterns conference you are assigned a Shepherd who is an experienced pattern writer, usually with knowledge of your field. The shepherd works with you (the "sheep") to improve the paper over three or four iterations of feedback-rewrite.

After shepherding your paper may be accepted to the conference, though not for presentation in the traditional sense. The conference consists of a set of writer's workshops in which a few (8-10) authors each have their papers discussed by the other participants while they listen and take notes. The author has a very small part in the workshop other than to think about what others suggest about how the paper can be improved.

After the workshop the author can ask questions, but never gets to "defend" the work. The idea is that if others misunderstand you then it is your job, not theirs, to fix it.

The paper is then revised one more time and it is this version that makes it in to the proceedings. The whole idea is to improve the print version, not present a version prepared without help.

The patterns community is pretty close knit because of this working together to improve one-another's work.

This process was brought to the software development community by Richard P Gabriel who is both a geek (Lisp et al.) and a poet. The same process is used by poets, in fact and is quite old. RPG has written a book on the process: Writers' Workshops & the Work of Making Things

If you don't have the patterns community behind you, or if you aren't writing patterns, it is relatively easy to set up a local writers workshop and follow the process. You can do this for any sort of writing as long as you have some people with domain knowledge and some writing experience.

Scientific writing skills are mostly the same as general writing skills. Read good works of fiction, non-fiction, journalism, etc. These are easier to find, and more enjoyable, than good pieces of scientific writing.

Nature recently published a career column titled "Novelist Cormac McCarthy’s tips on how to write a great science paper".


As a course lecturer, should I excuse late assignment submissions if I wrote the assignment deadline slightly wrong? I am the course lecturer of an undergraduate course.
For a recent assignment, I had written the assignment deadline as 23 November 2018 (Saturday). Unfortunately, 23 November is actually a Friday, and not a Saturday.

I received an email from a student asking for me to excuse his/her assignment which was submitted late. The student explained that he/she marked the deadline as Saturday, without checking the assignment date.

Question

Should I excuse the student's late submission because I made a slight mistake in specifying the assignment deadline?

Note: We use a learning management system to receive assignment submissions, and the assignment deadline was entered correctly in the learning management system.

What I decided to do

For the current incident:
After reading the answers, and thinking it through, I decided that it is better to use the later of the two deadlines (i.e., 24 November Saturday) as the official deadline for the assignment.
I did make a mistake in writing the wrong day of the week for the deadline,
and students could have been misled with my mistake.
It is not fair to punish such students for my mistake.

For future courses:

The more places I put the deadline in
(e.g., the syllabus, the assignment itself, the learning management system),
it becomes likely that I will make a mistake somewhere.
In the future, I will put the deadline in only the learning management system, and refer students to check the deadlines there.

If the assignment deadline was not shown correctly to the students, then it is your error and they cannot be penalized for being late.

Claiming it is correct in one area while incorrect in another does not absolve you, you caused the confusion so you have to accept late submissions, as long as they arrived on Saturday...

Any submissions on Sunday will, of course, be late.

Re-reading this, it sounds a bit blunt... Probably because I have done exactly the same and had to sort it out after... Peace reigns if you stick to being fair, so giving them the extra time does not usually make much of a difference, except for the recognition from the students.

I think there is no other choice for you than to excuse your student. As he/ she already mentioned that he/ she follow calendar day deadline instead of  calendar date  which is also clearly mentioned in your submission deadline . So being a very valid reason and a typo mistake on your part, your student should be given excuse .


No response from recommenders after they agreed to write recommendation letter I am planning to apply for green card for which I need recommendation letters from well known researchers/professors. In February 2019, I had contacted one professor and one industry based researcher to write the letters for me. Both these people know me through my research and have frequently cited my paper. At first I did not get any reply from them. A week later I reminded them while copying my PhD advisor in the mail. My advisor knows both of them. I got immediate reply from them that they would be happy to write the letter if I could given them an initial draft. I think it is OK to copy your PhD advisor while asking for recommendation letter from independent people who don't know you personally but only through research and papers.

Anyways, A month later i.e. in last week of March, I gave them the draft. Since then, I have sent 3 reminders to them but have not heard back from them. I am getting anxious and don't know what to do.
Does no response after 3 reminders and 2 months mean they backed out? Is it ethical?

I have all the documents ready for filing my application and I am just waiting for them to give me the letter. Since there is no deadline to apply for green card application, I can't even provide them a deadline. But I have tried to convey my feelings about the delay using mild language.

You need to move on and find new references, people who actually know you.

Realistically, it's hard to imagine anyone wanting to write an LOR for someone they've never met and know only as a name on a paper they've cited.  But then you further poisoned the relationships by waiting a month to respond to their requests for a draft (of the letter you want?) and CC'ing your advisor on your requests, as if to "report" them for not responding quickly enough.  And who knows what you put in your draft or your "reminders".

If someone did that to me, I'd permanently ignore them.  I certainly wouldn't waste my time recommending them.

No response after 2 months AND that they never met you personally means very likely yes. If you don't know someone in person, how could you objectively recommend him. Without this condition there would be a "recommendation letter industry" where everyone tries to get the best letters from the most prestigious recommenders and looks a bit like cheating?! Ask someone less known you really worked with/had contact with, in best case co-authors or supervisors.

The point of a recommendation letter for the people examining you is to get independent objective opinions on you as a person (ambition, work style/experiences,...) than reading short redundant letters (with similar, by you drafted, content) of "big names", who are unlikely to have worked with you due to very different location/field not appearing in your CV. If these letters look strongly copy/pasted and the persons are not willing to invest the time to write 2-3 pages, it's really better to look for less "known/influential" persons which had a topical and local relation with your work (post-docs, assístant/associate profs.). Some fields of research are very small, it is rather important to be cited by someone who is very active in research/publications than older/well-known researchers, especially if they never met you, to stress this again.


Postdoc salary negotiation (UK) I am interested in taking up a postdoctoral position in a UK institution. The appointment details write:

  Appointment will be on a Fixed Term Contract for 3 years and with a
  starting salary in the range of £29,517 to £42,187 p.a. inclusive
  dependent on postdoctoral experience.  It is anticipated that the
  starting salary will be in the range from £29,517 to £33,740 p.a.
  inclusive.

I just started a family and I will need ~£36,000 p.a. to break even when calculating living costs in UK (London).
Is it reasonable to negotiate for a ~£36,000 p.a. salary? (I know it is somewhat on the high side but not insane by UK standards.)
It is reasonable to apply in such a position and explain that I will expect an substantial increase (~10%) in my salary within my first year of employment if I start around the £32-33,000 mark?

I do not want to waste my time or theirs on this matter but clearly my cover letter is not a place to put this concern forward. I also think ill of the idea of e-mailing a potential hiring manager/team lead with queries about a salary raise right off the bat.

The USA-based post-doctoral appointment I currently hold pays ~£40,000 p.a. I do not mean to sound like a money-grubber; I am genuinely interested in the position and I think I will be a great fit for that team but I do not want to endure a ~20% pay-cut.

This depends heavily on the funding source. For all UK funded postdocs the pay will be set on the national scale - current rates without London weighting are up-to-date, but I'm not sure if the comments about the London weighting are correct.

For research council funded postdocs I would expect the salary range to be fixed somewhere between spine point 27 and 40, with the initial upper limit more likely around spine point 34. This is close to the numbers you quote. I would not expect much flexibility unless they can find additional funds to supplement the (fixed) funding from the grant.

On the salary increase in post: there would typically be a 1 (one!) spine point increment after the second year. I'd be very surprised if a substantial increase along the lines you're wanting could be negotiated, let alone after the first year.

If the funding is not pure research council then there may be more flexibility.

As someone who's been on both sides: I have fielded salary questions, particularly from overseas candidates, and (done sensitively) I don't think it will be held against you. The above is more a warning that the constraints of RCUK funding may make it impossible to get a solution that's acceptable to you.

This is an old post so probably noone will see this reply... but...

I would not give someone a salary rise to someone just because they have a family. Why? This is discrimination against people who don't have families. What you're saying is that two people can work equally hard, produce equally valid science, but the one who has a spouse and kids is entitled to more money. This (among others) is the reason why many academic institutions have fixed pay scales with fixed criteria determined by HR and not the PI.

Now on the other hand, if the applicant can demonstrate that they have the skills and experience to be paid more than the basic rate, that's another story. Then there is the possibility to go to a different level on the pay scale. But personal circumstances cannot be used because it is unfair on all the other employees. People without families can have expenses and difficulties for other reasons. Postdocs are in general poorly paid and when the salary is too low to support one's personal circumstances, one has to consider other options.

I am writing this as someone who was a postdoc for many years, now hiring my own staff.


Faculty job application - search committee chair, dept head, and follow up emails I recently interviewed for a tenure track position in a public R1 University. There were 4 candidates. The last one interviewed at the beginning of April. Two weeks ago, I have been told by the chair of the search committee that they have submitted the summary to the dept head and now the choice is in her hand. Currently, I am still waiting.
The emails from the chair and the dept head have always been very matter-of-fact and straight-to-the-point. Particularly, when I sent thank you emails to all the people I met during the interview, the chair is one of the few who did not reply back (overall reply rate ~75%). Does it mean anything? Should I be worried about it? Or am I overthinking? Did you have a similar experience to mine but got the offer anyway?

Probably overthinking. The chair has other duties, of course. And, since they have the responsibility to make a decision, they might find it improper to communicate outside the committee.
Let it go. You will learn soon enough.

Thanks for all of your responses. I did not get the position. Therefore, I still think the "vibe" matters. I assume that if I was their top candidate, our interaction would have been more positive.


How to grow as a researcher outside of research? I am a Ph.D. student (after mid stage) working in theory. I do as much hard work as I can, but there is something I think I am missing. My experience so far is many people don't know what I do and many people don't want to know what I am currently doing. Many of my fellow researchers (Ph.D. students) are very good at organizing various events that happen in the department. I've also tried but have not been as successful. I mean to say: non-research activities also seem to be very important for a researcher and also as an academician.

To be frank, I don't like non-research events very much but still try to give my best. Many professors also know that I am not that good at organizing and managing events, but they always support me. I don't know how much this is going to hurt my career as a researcher and as an academician. I am an introverted kind of person and not that good at talking to other people (especially ones who I meet for the first time).

Question: How to grow in these ways as a researcher? After my Ph.D. I will be looking for postdoc or another job specific to research.

I would describe the areas you're concerned about as networking and service.

While neither of these are critical path for your ability to succeed as a researcher, they most certainly will make you more well-rounded and can help you in many ways, so they are definitely worthy of investing a small but significant fraction of your time and effort.

What I would advise you, however, is that there are more ways to do networking and service than taking a leadership role in organizing events.  There are many other types of role that you can ask to take on that can ease you more slowly into such organizations and roles, but which won't push you out of your comfort zone too quickly.  Two good directions that I would recommend are:

Secondary event organizing positions, such as web chair, publication chair (i.e., the person who turns accepted papers into proceedings), local arrangements chair, tutorials chair, publicity chair, etc.
Reviewing for journals and conferences (often starting as a "sub-reviewer" for your advisor or other professors you work closely with)

The professors that support you can likely help you get such opportunities, and from these "training wheels" positions you can start to establish yourself as a known contributor in your professional community and start getting more comfortable with more visible roles and more active forms of networking.

The best way to grow as a researcher is to do research: ask questions, find answers, disseminate results.

Networking and participation in / organisation of various events are important for your development as an all-rounded academic, but this is more expected at the tenure-track stage. Your postdoc applications will be judged based on your research results in the first place.


Ethics of making students purchase lecture notes I have a professor who has published his lecture notes in the form of a book. The only way to get access to his lecture notes is to purchase them from an off-campus bookstore. To me, this seems like a highly unethical, if not illegal, practice. Shouldn't students have access to lecture notes as part of the tuition fees that they have paid?

A common question seems to be whether we are actually required to purchase the notes. To clarify, he routinely skips teaching chapters in class and asks them to read them from the notes on our own. So yes, we have to buy the notes if we want to be taught the entire syllabus.

Edit: The notes are different from the textbook. The textbook is not really needed, while the notes are fully needed. I'm seeing people confusing the two and claiming that many professors prescribe their own textbooks for the courses. My question is to whether access to notes should be free and universal for every student in the lecture.

(This answer is based on US university practices.  I don't know if it is directly applicable to Canada, but the two systems generally tend to be similar.)

It's hard to be sure, but this might be a practice that's old-fashioned but not unethical.

First of all:

  Shouldn't students have access to lecture notes as part of the tuition fees that they have paid?

Not necessarily.  If the course requires materials that have a non-negligible cost, then typically students will be required to pay for them separately.  This includes textbooks, lab supplies, and, as in this case, custom-printed "course packets" of notes or other reading material.

Now, normally the university has its own service for printing course packets and selling them "at cost" through the university bookstore.  However, it sometimes happens that professors decide that some other bookstore or print shop can produce the packets better or cheaper, and so they have them made and sold there.  This may or may not be technically allowed by university rules, but it may be tolerated, especially if it's actually saving money for the students.  Note that in such cases, the professor normally doesn't receive any of the price of the packet; it all goes to the print shop.

So this isn't a completely unheard-of system for distributing printed material.

You could certainly ask the professor why they've chosen to do it this way.  My guess is you'll get a response like "I used to use the university bookstore, but the packets were always late / fell apart at the binding / ran out of stock / cost twice as much."  So you could try and complain about the use of an unofficial distributor, but be careful what you wish for.

It raises the question of why the notes have to be distributed in printed form at all, instead of electronically (in which case there should be no costs at all).  I can imagine this happening if the professor is very old-fashioned and  hasn't ever realized that this would be better, or if the notes don't exist in electronic form (e.g. they are handwritten or typed on a typewriter), or just "has always done it this way".  But it would be reasonable to suggest, either directly to the professor or in a course evaluation, that they consider electronic distribution.

The university and/or the teacher must, in my opinion, do both of the following:

Make a copy available as a file (e.g. PDF).
Have multiple printed copies available at the university libraries.

Doing just one of these is insufficient, but not terrible. Doing none is basically a shake-down for extra tuition, which I believe students (and junior faculty!) should not tolerate.

However, as @Wetlabstudent has pointed out - perhaps you should first give the Professor the benefit of the doubt, for, shall we say, having been remiss in his duty, or not having taken notice of how problematic this is. If that's the case, then just asking him to make the notes otherwise available could work. I'm skeptical of course.

Assuming it's been made clear that the Professor will not allow access to his notes except by purchase at the store, I suggest you do the following:

Talk to fellow students in your class about this.
Approach, together, the course teacher, demanding that at least one of the above forms of availability be realized.
If he refuses, confront him, jointly, in class, demanding that this be addressed and trying not to let him get away with it. Caveat: This may theoretically get you into disciplinary trouble, although that's unlikely. I would still do it though.
get your student union reps to intervene and pressure him and/or the department - if they exist, are willing and are able.
If your student union reps don't act, pool some money together and by a copy which you could define as "owned jointly by the students taking the class". Scan the printed lecture notes and distribute the file everyone who contributed or to every student in class who asks, depending on your generosity. Caveat: This may theoretically get you into disciplinary/legal trouble, you have been warned. I would still do it though.
Make sure that if anybody asks, this be described as a collective class project rather than something you did, so that you don't get singled out.


What are the best question to ask a committee panel after a PhD interview? I've a Skype interview for PhD application (it will make me miss one of my classes today.) I've been asked, in advance, to prepare a short presentation and then there would be some discussion with the panel (I guess.) I expect that they will ask if I have some questions so, I'm wondering what are the best (type of) questions one might consider?

It is not mandatory to ask questions. Generally they offer you the opportunity to ask questions in case you are not sure or confused about anything or any process related to application/lab/university.

When I had given PhD application interview almost all times interviewer asked me if I have any question. I didn't ask questions for most of the time. However few times I do asked question specially when position they were offering had partial financial support from supervisor. That case I asked about chances of getting rest of financial support. They were quite helpful and actually suggested me to check for RA positions in other related departments. In another case, I asked professor about possibility of collaborative work because I was interested in some interdisciplinary work. He was very impressed by question as it showed that I had already focused area of interest.

I also remember few of my friends have asked questions like, "Are there many flowering plants around campus because I am allergic to pollen-grains?" , "Can I get accommodation on campus if a dependent is accompanying me? ", "You were working on XX problem before are you still working on that?" etc.

You should ask questions depending on university you are applying and professors interviewing you. Do some basic research on their background from university web page. Don't ask cliche questions and don't ask for the sake of asking.

you should ask something around the lines: What qualities do you think I am missing, that would make me a better candidate?
He will tell you what he perceives as your weak points and give you a chance to elaborate.
E.g.:

Student: What qualities do you think I am missing, that would make me a better candidate?
Prof: It would be nice if you have more publications
Student: I didn't manage to publish anything yet, however we have  3 manuscripts submitted, 2 in preparation and I am a columnist for 'Cats and Dogs' magazine.
Prof: You're hired!


Using other people's data for dissertation: ethical or not? It was recently shared with me that a professor in my department (and if anyone saw my question about the verbally abusive ex-advisor...yeah, same guy) offered one of his PhD students his own corpus of data for writing her dissertation, and apparently made this offer in response to her deciding to quit the PhD program. As I understand it, she accepted this offer and decided to stay in the PhD program because of it; I also believe that this corpus -while used in a number of publications - as a whole is not publicly available or anything.

Because I am admittedly biased (see the aforementioned question for context) against this professor, I don't entirely trust my judgement. Is it just me, or is this a ridiculously unethical offer?

Next question, if it is unethical, do I say anything about it to anyone? The person who told me did so in confidence, and I don't want to betray that. I'm hoping he reports it (he said he's thinking of talking to the graduate director in our department about it, as he thinks it's shady too) but if he doesn't - should I say something or just let it go? Because I already have a bad relationship with this professor and have complained about him, I feel like me complaining yet again about something else will just make me look bad and not be taken seriously, not to mention there is the whole matter of this not being any of my business.

My heart and soul are all riled up because I just want to see this professor be held accountable for something (I'm pretty sure he's going to get away with how he treated me. See linked post), but my self-interested brain is telling me to let it go and stay out of it. Thoughts?

Unless the student claims that they collects the data himself/herself. I do not see any scientific misconduct in using other people's data with their permission.

Of course collecting good data is a contribution. However, even if the student collects data themselves, I would be very surprised if that is more than 30% of the contribution in their thesis.

TL;DR: No big deal. That might be a bad professor, but it doesn't mean everything he does is wrong.

Let's deal with the ethics first. It is undoubtedly unethical if:

(1) The corpus was generated by other people who are not credited.

(2) The data used from the corpus was used for another dissertation or for publications not part of the dissertation.
(Edit: It has been pointed out by @Dawn, @Fomite and @Stella that this is not applicable to several fields, eg. Economics & Public Policy. Possibly this point is relevant only if you are in an experimental field, so please judge if it's applicable to you.)

Anything outside this falls into a grey zone, which can be defended as:

(1) PhD is a joint work between the supervisor and student,  so between them data may be freely shared.

(2) The student is able to answer questions based on data, meaning she has understood and engaged with it. If she credits it partly to superviser, it may again be accepted. Remember, there is no evidence of who actually generated the data between these two.

Now coming to what you can/should do- let somebody else take it up. Preferably the whistleblower who told you. Encourage that person. A complaint coming from you could be dismissed on grounds of prior bias.


How do I politely decline student requests to meet during my "research time?" I'm a young (female) professor in a (U.S.) department with a small graduate program and a research expectation.  I usually teach Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and try to save Tuesday and Thursday for research (where possible).  On MWF, I'm quite good about meeting with students, even if they stop by outside of office hours (or on any day during exam weeks).  My week or more homework assignments are generally due on Monday, Wednesday, or Friday (there's no good place for students to drop them off outside of class and I like discussing them as they turn them in) so I get requests by students who have put off their homework to meet on Tuesday or Thursday, even when I mention this preference in advance.  I've yet to come up with a nice response that I'm satisfied both:

Reminds students I'm busy with other work (despite the fact that
their tuition pays part of my salary).
that still encourages them to keep reaching out for help and encourages them to think of me as the approachable professor I try to be (at least on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday).

Suggestions for a nice email response?

I've yet to come up with a nice response that I'm satisfied both:

Reminds students I'm busy with other work (despite the fact that their tuition pays part of my salary).

There is no need to "remind" students of anything. They likely neither know nor spend any meaningful amount of their time wondering what you are up to when you're not teaching them. Nor is it any business of theirs where your salary comes from.

that still encourages them to keep reaching out for help and encourages them to think of me as the approachable professor I try to be (at least on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday).

It is commendable that you want to be approachable, and to be seen as approachable, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. However, from the students' point of view it is likely to be seen as inconsistent that you are so approachable on those days and yet refuse to meet them on other days. In my opinion, any attempt to explain the logical reasons for this inconsistency is going to have very limited (if any) effectiveness -- the students simply don't have a good enough understanding of what the life of a professor (or any professional of a similar age and career status) looks like to be receptive to your explanation.
The upshot of this analysis is that you need to accept that setting the boundaries that you need to set to get your distraction-free time for research is going to make you look slightly less approachable and/or likeable in the eyes of the students. The problem is not one of finding the right words to put in an email, but instead of accepting that "nice" and "approachable" is sometimes inconsistent with "gets things done".

Suggestions for a nice email response?

Here is my suggestion:

Dear [name of student],
I am afraid I am not available to meet with you tomorrow. As I mentioned in class and in the syllabus, my office hours are [insert office hours], and I may have limited availability to meet at other times on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, but I am not available on Tuesdays and Thursdays. If you have an urgent need for help, feel free to try talking to [name of TA] or to a fellow student. I do very much appreciate that you are seeking help to improve your understanding of the material, which is a positive thing that sadly not enough students do, and look forward to seeing you at my office hours sometime soon.
Best,
[your name]

I hate to burst your angelic bubble, but you are the boss, not the students. Some women professionals may tend toward being played by colleagues or underlings because they don't wish to seem aggressive, mean, un-approachable, etc., etc. Traits males in the same position have and display with regularity.

You have a TA, right? That person should be doing the work, not you.  Your office hours should be set and adhered to.  It's not your job to offer a short order, cafeteria-style set of office hours.  Stick to your office hours and keep your door closed the rest of the time.  Make sure your office hours are posted on your door, and that's it.

The people who have responded, excepting Elizabeth, are trying to be just as nice as you. You will get more respect if you stop being so worried about being liked and concentrate on getting your PhD, or Nobel, or whatever. The suggested e-mail is laughable, absolutely silly. Why all the fol de rol?

If you must respond by email (thus taking away your very important personal time) simply send them your office hours and tell them you look forward to seeing them during those times.

As an undergrad I never saw my full professor, I went through my TA. As a graduate student I was able to confer with professors, but was on my own, excepting for my thesis material.

Grow a spine and take care of yourself, your not their mother so stop trying to be one.


Should I send professors money for illegally downloading their books? I illegally download almost all the books I need for my studies. While I'm more than happy to give a middle finger to the publisher mafia, it does of course mean that the author of the book is not appropriately compensated for their work.

But: it is well-known that professors do not make substantial amounts of money for each copy sold of their textbook. Perhaps 5–15 % of the sales price of each unit sold. This usually corresponds to roughly 5–10 dollars.

With that in mind, would it be appropriate to simply send those odd 10 dollars to the author of the book that I am illegally downloading? If you are a professor who authored a book, how would you feel about this?

With that in mind, would it be appropriate to simply send those odd 10 dollars to the author of the book that I am illegally downloading?

First, I would be concerned about your legal exposure. You would be effectively admitting piracy.

Second, you cannot unilaterally change the terms of sale. When the professor published the book, they agreed to sell it through the publisher in exchange for certain terms. The legal and (in my view) ethical options are to accept or decline these terms; you cannot invent and execute your own terms instead, even if they seem reasonable. In short, this is a rationalization. (That said, I personally am sympathetic to your concerns about publishing companies exploiting college students.)

Thus, the "appropriate" thing to do is to buy the books through legal channels.

  If you are a professor who authored a book, how would you feel about this?

Not a professor, but I have taught and written a book with thousands of copies sold. I'm sure I am losing money due to piracy, but I have never received a payment like you describe.

Realistically, if I were to receive cash anonymously, I would probably chuckle and pocket the cash, or maybe set it aside for a few years to see if anything came of it.
If I received money from a known student, I would be very concerned about the appearance of impropriety, and would not accept it. I would also be concerned about whether I should report the piracy, though I probably wouldn't.
If this "caught on" and I was receiving a non-negligible amount of money from many pirates, I would have to talk to the publisher and seek guidance.

I think a reasonable answer would be to create an anonymous email account and ask those authors this question. That said, I wouldn't worry about any full (tenured) professors' going hungry, nor would I worry about the publishers, who have an obscene profit motive with hugely inflated costs (and a very wasteful business model). There is a reason why there is huge consolidation in publishing: it is a capital intensive, highly profitable business. If you've got money burning a hole in your pocket and a desire to make a contribution, then find some way of puting that money toward the book purchases of someone less able to afford them.


Dealing with students who sent email with empty body but the homework attached I am responsible for the exercises for a graduate course. The students submit their solutions via email and all of them send a normal email: greeting me and telling that the solutions file is attached then (most of them) wishing me a good weekend as the due dates are Fridays.

One group sends me an empty email: just an attachment without any word!
I believe that this behaviour is odd, should I take an action or it is not my business?

I don't really think this is odd: they have been asked to send the assignment by email and they did.  There isn't really a need to say anything further and they didn't.  Maybe it would be slightly more courteous if they were to add a couple of words of greeting, but your job is not to be Emily Post.

If the assignments were submitted on paper, and they left their assignment in your mailbox, would you insist that they include a note wishing you a nice day?  No, that would be silly.

There isn't anything you need to do about this.

Our world is a "behavioral thing" We are all becoming the reasons of some behavior. We can't say for sure, which behavior or which events have led to such situation with your students- and it could be the result of previous matters, which even don't depend on you. Anyway, you've got it and you want to change it. Very simple solution: You can tell to your students that your email internet filters dont allow you to receive empty emails, as well as emails with rudy content. After that- you can start checking only those which are not empty and those which don't have rude content. Belive me- their behavior will change very quickly. Cheerz


Can one blow the whistle on a professor who excludes students on the basis of their personal life? This post is an attempt to reformulate this misunderstood question. I (and others) did add clarifying information, taken from the OP's comments, to the question, but I believe the whole Q&A&discussion sequence got so muddied that a fresh start would be the best way to get good answers to what the OP was actually trying to find out.

There is a professor in OP's department who only takes students who are willing to commit to spending all their waking time studying.  He manages to effectively excludes students who have families or close personal relationships.  He wants only students who will dedicate any free time left (after doing their required work) on related reading in their field.

The professor doesn't come right out and say, "Only single people who are driven to spend every waking moment on their studies are welcome in my group," but effectively, that is his policy.  Quoting from OP's comments:

  One way I hear about how he "weeds" out the normal people is by telling them how much work it takes to succeed, and gives examples of previous "successful" students, and what their lifestyles were. I suppose he says something like: "this is how much you know from being an undergrad, this is how much you need to know to succeed in this field, here is a humongous list of topics you should know before you can competently do research with me, come back to me when you're ready." But I don't think that's all he does.... I think he intimidates prospective advisees with his demeanor, and so this fact along with his reputation leads to him select students who work day and night everyday.

This professor is in the United States.  He is very good in his field and manages to get students who fit his requirements; but it doesn't seem right to OP (or to me), and we would like to know:

Is there any way of blowing the whistle on such a professor?

Along with several commenters, I think that first we have to understand and agree on at least one unambiguously unethical or illegal practice is being committed before we can discuss whistle-blowing.  I find myself having to stretch rather far to see such a practice here.

We are asked to consider a professor "who only takes students who are willing to commit to spending all their waking time studying." I think this could be an exaggeration, because

  This professor is in the United States. He is very good in his field and manages to get students who fit his requirements;

Devoting all your waking time to studying is highly unwise and unhealthy.  Even in the short term it does not lead to increases in productivity, and it will lead to burnout in the (not so terribly) long-term.  Such an advisor would likely burn through his students faster than he can get them, and if too many students burn out, the professor's work will be affected and also other students will notice and not want to sign on with him.

However, let us assume for the sake of argument that a professor is only willing to take students who devote, say, 100 hours a week to work for him (not so far from "all their waking time").  Although thoroughly unadvisable, I don't know what rule would be broken by setting this ridiculously high bar for student workload.  A student and an advisor must both choose to work together in order for this to take place.  (For students who have not already been admitted to the program, the department and university has some role to play, at least in vetting the process.)  In this choice there are competitive aspects on both sides: given that throughout the academic world the vast majority of advisors would (sanely) require much less of their students, it is not clear why a student would choose to work with an advisor under these conditions unless they foresee an amazing long-term benefit to their career.

The only legal angle I see is that if an advisor terminates a student for failing to do more than 40 hours per week of work in a lab or other environment where specific duties are being done and can be timed: that would probably be actionable.  But it seems to me that an employer can ask an employee to complete tasks that would take that employee (or most, or all employees) more than 40 hours a week and can terminate the employee if they fail to complete those tasks.

The idea that advisors specifically require students to have no "personal life" just sounds a little silly to me: an advisor has no right to know a student's marital or relationship status, and in academic environments I'm familiar with there is no natural path for an advisor to find out this information if the student does not want to reveal it.  Hinting that a student should not or will not have time for dating, family life, other hobbies or whatever is much as above: obviously highly unadvisable on the professor's part but probably not really actionable.  If a professor saw a student's wedding ring on Monday, made a point of asking about it, responded disapprovingly and then terminated the student on Tuesday for no compelling reason, then whistle-blowing would be in order.  In the absence of such egregious behavior it's hard to see what can be done.

Graduate students often feel that "they don't have a choice" and must put up with poor behavior or poor deals on the part of their advisor.  I think the best thing that we can tell students is that they do have a choice.  Healthy academic programs should engineer and foster mechanisms for students to stand up for themselves and switch out of bad situations.  Students should not assume in advance that they are enrolling in a healthy academic program.  They should be very hesitant to work with an advisor whose current and/or former students are unsatisfied.

When facing a thorny problem, I like to start by brainstorming, listing every approach I can think of.  (The second step is to see if any of them can easily be eliminated.)  Here's what I've come up with:

Meet with a dean, with an informal concern.
Approach the press.
File a formal (internal) university grievance, based on your university's specific policies.
File a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR).
If your university has a graduate student union, file a grievance through the union.
Guerrilla tactics.

Did I leave anything out?

Now for a commented version of this list.

1. Meet with a dean, with an informal concern.

(a) If you're unsure how well protected you'd be in practice, it might be good to find out what other students' experience has been with this avenue.

(b) It might be helpful, in deciding whether to use this approach, to check how much grant money the professor is bringing into the department, compared to other professors.

(c) Even with an informal approach, it would be good to read your university's policies very carefully before meeting with anyone.  The Graduate Students United at the University of Chicago has published advice for the specific context of discrimination, sexual harassment, and assault, that strikes me as good advice in general: "In making a report or complaint, or even in informal advising, describe your situation with language that mirrors the language in the University policy. Using such language in email communications is particularly important."

2. Approach the press.

If you want to pursue this, it might be helpful to find a couple of similar cases, perhaps in another department, and to identify some students who might be willing to speak to the press, anonymously if necessary.  In other words, some preliminary legwork on your part would make this project easier for a journalist to tackle.

A letter to the editor could draw attention to the problem and raise awareness.  It might be possible to ask the college newspaper not to publish the author's real name.

3. File a formal (internal) university grievance, based on your university's specific policies.

See comments for #1.

I took a quick look at part of the University of Chicago policy, and saw a few sentences that started to go in a helpful direction, talking about imbalances of power, but my quick look didn't turn up any slam dunk language.  At any rate, for this approach, I think you'd have to work from your own university's specific policy language.

4. File a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR).

This approach is limited by OCR's mandates -- see http://www2.ed.gov/policy/rights/reg/ocr/index.html.

Here's an example of something that would fit OCR's mandates: if a female student were to notify the professor by email she is pregnant, and the professor were to kick her out, also by email, because of that.  I'm not sure if OCR would be an option for a male student who announces he's expecting a baby.  One could ask them, though.

5. If your university has a graduate student union, file a grievance through the union.

I didn't see anything in the OP's problem description related to employment as a teaching assistant or research assistant, so I feel doubtful about this approach.  Nevertheless, it couldn't hurt to talk to a union representative, to at least get their perspective.

6. Guerrilla tactics.

For example, flyers posted in public places warning people from joining the professor's group.  I think this is too risky.

Another possibility would be to post online, e.g. ratemyprofessor.com.  This seems like a safer option than flyers on bulletin boards.

General note: for all of the above, the whistleblower's position would be strengthened by numbers, i.e. by other students getting involved.


Can I exclude my own thesis submission on Turnitin repository saved by mistake? I uploaded my thesis to a Turnitin ID which my friend got from some other university than where I am studying. Due to some reason, my thesis got uploaded to Turnitin repository and the university is very far away from my home. I made a blunder mistake.
Now I have to make my thesis submission this month but the plagiarism is showing 100 %. It is comparing my own thesis with the one I submitted earlier to the other university. I cannot contact the university turnitin administrator regarding deletion of my thesis.
In my thesis submission, can I exclude the student paper source of my own work?

No. As far as I am aware there isn't. The person reviewing your thesis after submission can exclude the earlier submission though. You should probably make whoever is checking this aware.
You should however, be aware that submitting your thesis to a user account provided by someone else at a different university may be breaking some rules, or at least expectations - either at your university, at your friends university or turnitin's rules (possibly all three). This is not a serious infraction, and I wouldn't expect any comeback other than disapproving tuts, but its still bad practice.
Students often want to submit their work to check the turnitin score to see if they have paraphrased things sufficiently not to trigger the plagiarism checks. This betrays a misunderstanding of what plagiarism is. Taking text from another source and paraphrasing it, even with attribution, is still on the "plagiarism spectrum".

A thesis must typically be an original work, so re-submitting a thesis submitted earlier to [an]other university may constitute self-plagiarism.


Another instructor is pushing me out of the classroom right after my class ends I am a graduate student in math in my final year, and for several years have been teaching at my department as a lecturer. This semester, in the same lecture hall there is another lecture that starts 20 minutes after my class ends. It's taught by another instructor from my department. I usually have many students coming to office hours and there are also students asking questions immediately after lecture. Due to other activities, I cannot have office hours right after the lecture this semester and can only stay for about 15 minutes to answer questions.

Many times in the past I had a similar situation and never had any issues with it. This semester the instructor who is teaching right after often arrives 20-15 minutes before her class starts and tells me immediately that I have to go with my students somewhere else.

I make sure to leave the blackboard clean and take all my stuff away from the instructor's desk before she arrives, but I do believe that I have a right to stay in the classroom after my lecture for at least 5-10 minutes. There is no vacant classroom around, and I don't have time to go with students to my office, which is in a different building.

Last time the instructor told me in front of my students that I don't understand "simple things" and that I am "playing games". When I was talking to one of my students, she stood very close to us and clearly demonstrated that she wanted us out. I tried to explain her that I couldn't go anywhere else due to my time constraints, but she didn't want to listen to me. I really don't understand what "simple" things she meant and what "games" I am playing.

We leave the board clean. She doesn't need to set up a projector. She can still talk to her students before her class starts, if she wants to (even though it seems like her students don't ask her any questions before their class). So, I don't see how I cause any disruption.

I had met this woman many times before this semester, but we never talked. I didn't see her talking to other instructors/students much, and she seems to be quite reserved and a bit neurotic. She doesn't want to have any conversation with me regarding the issue.

I felt really offended after last class when she said those things to me in front of my students. What would you do in my case?

Added later: There are no official rules regarding classroom occupancy between classes. Instructors are supposed to use common sense and be reasonable. For me using 50% of the break time seems reasonable to answer questions after lecture seems reasonable. I agree that for some people it may not.

I don't block the entrance to the classroom. A few students from the next class who come earlier always go ahead and take their seats as soon as my students start leaving the room. I also had one of the students from the next class listening to my explanation to one of those after-class questions and asking me further questions before their class (which is the same class as I am teaching, just a different section). Maybe the instructor got jealous, I don't know.

The entrance to the classroom is from its front (not back), so I do stay in the front. But it is a big lecture hall, and there is a plenty of space in front of the room (the board itself consists of 8 huge panels).

Also, during my career as a grad.student who is also teaching for the department, I have had several observations from experienced professors who are considered to be great teachers at the department and are in charge of undergraduate teaching policy. In my evaluations the fact that there are always several students approaching me with questions after class considered as very positive, meaning that students find me approachable.

Thank you everyone for answers.

You should first find out what is the standard convention for when you have to vacate the room.  Since the other instructor is in your department, you can take this up at the department level: talk to your advisor and/or a trusted faculty mentor about it.

In my experience though this is often left a little fungible and people need to be reasonable about it.  In my opinion it is reasonable to expect to have access to the room five minutes before your class begins.  Ideally the previous instructor will have vacated the room at that point; if not, s/he should be occupying the room in a way which doesn't interfere with your own use of it.  (For instance, a lot of times students will not enter a room if an instructor is still writing on the blackboard.  It can be annoying to come to your class a few minutes before you want to start and find everyone waiting out in the hall.)

In the absence of a clear directive about how to split the time, it seems reasonable for the departing instructor to take half of the time, as long as they leave at least five minutes for the other instructor.  In your case 20 minutes is a very nice cushion (in my university it's 15 minutes), to the extent that I find it a little strange that the other instructor is arriving 15-20 minutes early.  What is she doing with that time?  Do more than a few students arrive that early?  If you are using the time to talk to your students and she's using the time for nothing, then I think you are morally in the right and should push back on it a bit.  You should be able to stay for the first half of the 20 minute break.

How should you do that?  As above, I would find out what other people do.  If the standard convention is that you can take those 10 minutes, then talk to the department head (or other departmental authority figure; e.g. whoever schedules the teaching) about it and get their support.  (You don't need to phrase it as a grievance or even identify the other instructor by name.)  Assuming you get backed, then you should pay a visit to the instructor in her office and explain that you looked into the matter, that you have a clear instructional purpose for how to use the time, and that the head (or whoever) has confirmed that this is a standard practice.  Definitely do this outside of the classroom so that you two can have the conversation you need to have not in front of the students and so that there is not a direct confrontation to be resolved.

In my opinion it is probably not worth trying to seek redress for your poor treatment by this instructor.  We are not obligated to be nice to each other; it's just better if we are.  If you respond to the treatment in a professional way and show that you are neither going to get pushed around nor retaliate in any personal or emotional way, then you're basically just rising above.  What some random person who you're only going to see for one more semester thinks of you isn't really so important, is it?  Especially if you're confident that you're in the right?

I must be missing a point but if the schedule is

your class is 10:00 - 11:00
there is a break between 11:00 and 11:15
her class starts at 11:15 - ...

then I fail to understand where the problem is. She comes in, tells you to leave in front of your students, you first respond first nicely (for her not to interrupt you), and if she insists you just tell her to shut the [censored] up.

Is there something I missed?

If she is offended by the fact that you dare to talk to her, tell her to escalate to her boss, ideally on the spot - and turn your back to her. This is a fantastic mechanism as soon as you are right (and have a supportive boss , etc.).

A behavior like hers is either psychopathic, not enough parent supervision when she was growing up or seen in nature by individuals who pee in selected places to mark territory.

Note: an edit for the last paragraph was suggested (and accepted by a vote 2/3)  (on the grounds that it is insulting or loaded with assumptions). For me, it is not. If one feels that the answer is wrong and that a bully like her should be approached in a kind or elegant way please, by all means, downvote my answer. Everyone has its own subjective way of dealing with psychopathic, badly brought up or territory-marking people.


Has anyone heard of the "Central Library of Medicine Foundation"? I recently got a request for an article I'm a coauthor on, which reads:

  Dear Dr. NAME REMOVED:

  My name is Victoria Hornos and I am contacting you on behalf of the
  Central Library of Medicine Foundation.  Dr. SANTIAGO ATEHORTUA has
  contacted us asking for a reprint that you wrote. He is a Terapia
  Intensiva and Dr. is in need of your article as Dr. is making a
  research on this subjet .

  JOURNAL NAME 2013;XX(YY):ZZZZ-ZZ On the Reasons Why This Is Clearly A
  Paper That Needs To Be Read, Cited, And Manifest Itself In Fame And
  Fortune For the Authors.

  If my request is possible, please send it to the following e-mail
  address or by fax so I can send him or another doctor on the same
  situation the article.

  Thanks very much in advance for your response.

  E-mail: victoria.hornos@fbcm.md Fax: (+34 91) 133 30 81 Post Address:
  B1638 CAA Central Library of Medicine Foundation. Zufriategui 627 8º
  (D4D7) - Vicente Lopez Buenos Aires Argentina

  Sincerely yours,  Victoria Hornos

I'm not really clear on the legality of this request. I know many people are fine with sending PDFs to particular people, but this sounds like sending it to a clearing house, and that makes me a little nervous. Beyond that, I'm not the corresponding author, 'fbcm.md' doesn't resolve to a webpage, and well...this feels like many, many scam journal requests, but this time as a paper request.

Has anyone encountered this? Thoughts?

After googling for the Central Library of Medicine Foundation, I found the following post on the University of Muenster site (note I used Google Translate to translate the piece from German to English):

  Recently, faculty members have received many article requests from a
  "Central Library of Medicine Foundation", which was apparently
  acting on behalf of South American doctors.

  While researchers are usually happy to accommodate private, direct inquiries
  from colleagues, there is naturally some skepticism, since we do not
  know if this service costs the requesting physician or how much
  the "Central Library of Medicine Foundation" receives.

  After some inquiries with South American and Spanish-speaking
  colleagues the following picture emerges: the website www.rima.org (The
  "Central Library of Medicine Foundation" aka "Fundación Biblioteca
  Central de Medicina" aka "Red Informática de Medicina Avanzada" (RIMA))
  is a non-library organization based in Buenos Aires that offers physicians
  and researchers to get an article for a given fee (the exact amount is unknown). RIMA neither
  buys the article from the publisher nor copies it from a local library (which
  presumably cannot afford journals), but services the requests by directly
  forwarding them to the authors, in many cases, Münster faculty members.
  This probably the name "Central Library of Medicine Foundation" is
  used to simulate the unselfish non-profit library.

  Everyone must of course know how to handle it themselves. To send a
  reprint by email costs only a push of a button and it helps indeed
  ultimately a colleague who is certainly not as well supplied with
  magazines as oneself. On the other hand, you will be benefiting a commercial (?)
  intermediary organization, which may not help you,
  either. But maybe it is just a clever business idea of 10 unemployed
  Argentine doctors, to help them earn a living. . . .

So it seems that this Central Library of Medicine Foundation is a business that charges a fee to its clients for obtaining a paper, via you. Although this is probably not really legal or moral, this fee is probably lower than what, say, Elsevier is asking for the same paper. I think this situation makes a good argument for open-access journals.

The Central Library of Medicine Foundation is a legally supported organization

The Central Library of Medicine Foundation (CLMF) is an institution of public good with transparent proceedings and a non-profit foundation. It was founded in the last century.
The CLMF has developed multiple systems to assist health professionals in clinical decision-making based on best available medical evidence. All its services are free of charge.
Our institution is independent from Governmental and political interests as well as from commercial interests of the pharmaceutical industry. It is supported by donations and sponsorships of private companies from Argentina as well as other countries.
All members of the Foundation's advisory board, of which I am the general director, are unpaid honorary positions.
The Foundation purchases from publishers a large quantity of subscriptions to the best journals in each specialty and a limited number of copies of articles from these journals are provided to medical investigators by request. In a few exceptional instances, when a physician asks for a reprint that we don't have in our library, the CLMF contacts the authors directly for a copy and then forwards it to the requesting doctor at no cost. This service does not have any profit-making or commercial purpose. Additionally, as a proof of our transparent procedures, our institutional data such as the name of the foundation and the postal and email address are always included in the request letters submitted to authors.

Under no circumstances a reprint sent to us by an author is reproduced or distributed in any way on a larger scale and in no way do we profit from this occasional service. In the same way, it is also important to note that the above mentioned procedure of reprint request to authors is really unusual and of little significance compared to the rest of the CLMF services and activities aimed at promoting continuing professional development.

The Central Library of Medicine Foundation is supported by the most recognized scientific societies of Argentina as well as the Pan American Health Organization, regional office of the World Health Organization (WHO).

We´ve created the “RIMA Award for Excellence in the Medical Scientific Update" to recognize the work of the doctors that keep updated and to improve the quality of their clinical practice.

Among the numerous awards and honors received by the Foundation for its work to support the Continuing  Professional Development, is the "Sadosky Award for Argentine intelligence " given by the president of the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET) of Argentina.
Rather than being a group of unemployed doctors who makes profit by commercializing copies of medical articles, we are an organization, which expends considerable efforts to meet the continuing professional development physicians’ requirements, despite our limited economic resources.
We believe that it would have been more appropriate to contact us to clarify any question before posting comments that could jeopardize our institutional reputation and public image without any real foundation.
Our organizational culture is centered around strong values such as innovation, respect, honesty, excellence and independence. We are very proud of what we do to contribute to a better quality of patient care.


Should I agree to teach a class for my supervisor even though I don't get any acknowledgement for it? I'm not contractually obligated to teach in my postdoc position, but she just asked me as a favor... I don't mind of course, but I'd rather be formally acknowledged as co-teaching on the syllabus, etc.  It's good for my CV, etc.

Is it expected that I comply with my supervisor or am I within my rights to expect formal acknowledgement?

This already has too many answers, but I can't help myself: academia entirely runs on people doing stuff they are not contractually obligated to do.  This generates a lot of problems along the way, but that is how things stand.  "It's not a formal requirement that I do this" is not likely to be a satisfying answer for your supervisor.  If the amount of lecturing is not a huge burden, and you feel like it will not make a huge dent in your productivity, then it is probably a worthwhile thing to do (if only as a favor to your supervisor); if you feel like the amount asked is a large burden, see if you can negotiate to reduce it.  I also agree that you want to get something in writing.  I would phrase it as "I want to be sure I understand what needs to be done for the class.  If it's writing, it's less likely I'll forget or misunderstand," rather than making it seem like you are suspicious.

Don't do it. From own experience and colleagues' experiences: Some universities don't consider your teaching experience if you don't show a student evaluation. If you don't get credit for teaching, the only thing what remains is to show your productivity with publications. (Since for proposal writing you won't get any credit as well as postdoc). Focus on your research or negotiate that you get credit for your teaching (student evaluation etc), because good teaching will take a lot of your time, if you do it for the first time.