Can you all suggest me a great up to date site where I can download journal papers through doi links like sci hub.

I work in a social science/health science field at a (recently designated) R1 university. Research faculty in my department are required to pay out of pocket for human participant incentives. This is my third year here, but it's been this way for as long as I can tell. I'm paying my participants $100 each, which adds up quickly, and the reimbursement takes at least a few weeks to come through. The lab funds are already set aside for this purpose, but I can't access them directly or prepurchase gift cards.

It's becoming unsustainable, for me and my colleagues. I'm meeting with my dean tomorrow to discuss the situation, so I'm wondering whether others have experienced similar bureaucratic nightmares or have any suggestions. TIA.

I am a retired US Navy submariner in my early 40s. My family is settled and established in the Raleigh, NC area. I do not wish to uproot them, if possible.

My undergraduate degree is a BS in Data Analytics and my current graduate degree is an MS in Business - Finance. I am currently looking at PhD programs in Business - Finance, or a closely related concentration.

The problem is, I cannot seem to find any programs that fit within the goals I currently perceive as necessary. That is to say, a business PhD from an AACSB accredited R1 university. The career goal is to get a TT position at a LAC/SLAC. I want to focus on teaching while retaining research responsibilities on the side.

My local area contains several R1 schools. Duke has an obviously stellar program but I am a realist and there is next to no chance I get into that program. I will likely still apply but want to have backup options. UNC Chapel Hill is also a remarkable school but their program is Finance and Real Estate, which doesn't fully align with my desired area of study. Similarly, NCSU doesn't seem to have any program that is well aligned.

There are many R1 schools that have hybrid programs, where residencies are completed on-campus at set intervals. Unfortunately, most of those programs are listed as executive and I do not have the senior leadership experience they require for admissions.

I broadened my search to R2 schools. UNC Greensboro is within reach but like UNC and NCSU, they have no program that is well aligned. IUP has a hybrid program that is very well aligned and is currently my most likely candidate.

Then there are the "others". The programs at these universities seem to align well with my desired area of study but are not R1 or R2 nor are they AACSB accredited. I have largely tried to ignore these schools for obvious reasons.

This brings me to the central question of this post.

Am I overthinking this entire process? Is a R2 university with AACSB accreditation sufficient enough to land a TT position at a LAC/SLAC as a business professor? Would I be better suited at a R1 university that doesn't align as well with my desired area of study?

I hope this query is ok to throw out here.

To really summarise been working on a journal article for a while and am in final revisions stage. One of the final points of redrafting process I have been told to do is to clean up parts of the draft which do not fully adhere to APA referencing. One of the key aspects of this has been to change the page numbers.

It was drummed into me during my PhD period to use "(ibid)" to try and avoid my writing being too repetitive when it came to quoting passages from the same texts and pages. With APA referencing I understand that ibid is not allowed and overall I have been able to modify the draft to remove any reference to ibid.

In a few places, however, I am rather confused about how to best adjust the references in some respects and none of the APA style guides seem to be offering a clear answer even after reading them over repeatedly. Under the APA style I am still unsure whether if you quote the same page of a text multiple times in one paragraph in a consecutive form you should write out the exact same date and page number for every quotation or whether instead you should you put the date and page number after the final quotation taken from a particular page after quoting it several times consecutively?

To illustrate using some made up paragraphs and quotations, I am unsure whether appropriate APA referencing on this front looks more like Example 1 or Example 2?

Example 1:

"Post-Eriksonian theories of identity have once again become influential. As Richards (2022) argues "modified forms of Erikson's psychoanalytic ideas are once again proving useful in the social sciences" (2022, p5), with the revival of interest in Erikson's work emerging from "a social world where the same issues Erikson confronted still pose challenges to individuals" (2022, p5). Richards also notes that "feminist reworkings of Erikson's concepts offer rich foundations for intersectional analysis" (2022, p5).

Example 2

"Post-Eriksonian theories of identity have once again become influential. As Richards (2022) argues "modified forms of Erikson's psychoanalytic ideas are once again proving useful in the social sciences," with the revival of interest in Erikson's work emerging from "a social world where the same issues Erikson confronted still pose challenges to individuals." Richards also notes that "feminist reworkings of Erikson's concepts offer rich foundations for intersectional analysis" (2022, p5).

I hope this all makes sense.

We specifically chose a journal from Elsevier where similar papers with similar methods and similar dataset sizes from similar domains had already been published during recent years and we know that typical peer review gets about 02 ~ 03 reviewers. What should we do? It's my second journal paper. We got only 21 days to integrate it all. One of the reviewers (number 9) gave generic & heavily demanding points which seem copied from a chatbot that didn't even try to read our paper before commenting.
(edit 1: information from comments makes me feel that we got very unlucky by pure chance) (edit 2: considering withdrawing & applying somewhere else to avoid reviewers fighting each-other at the expense of our paper for several months due to disagreements)

I’m curious to hear from academics, thesis supervisors, and students who have actually dealt with this.

I use AI (mainly Claude) quite extensively while working on my thesis. I use it to brainstorm, challenge my ideas, structure arguments, sometimes find potentially relevant papers, and most importantly help turn my own thoughts into academic language.

I’m not blindly copying what it gives me. I critically evaluate its suggestions, verify sources, reject ideas I disagree with, and take responsibility for the final argument and content. I also plan to be transparent about my AI use through an AI accountability statement.

But where I’m unsure is the actual writing.

If I know what I want to argue and what a paragraph needs to say, but AI formulates the sentences for me, is that still considered my work? Or does having AI generate the prose cross a line, even if the thinking, argumentation, source evaluation and final decisions are mine?

And how much does AI detection matter in practice? If Turnitin flags AI-generated text, can transparent disclosure and demonstrating genuine understanding of the thesis make a difference?

I know policies differ between universities, but I’d really like to hear from people who have actually supervised, assessed, or written theses using AI.

Where would you personally draw the line between AI-assisted writing and AI-written work?

P.S. please spare me the "if you can’t write it yourself, you shouldn’t have a degree" / "back in my day…" arguments. 😅 I’m interested in how this works today, in 2026. AI exists, we all have access to it and I’m just trying to graduate and understand where the line is.

There are so many advice on line about how to write teaching statement + AI that it seems impossible to stand out if everyone uses the same playbook. Could you please share as members of committees what strike you the most in humanities applications you have ever read?

Caveat: I am applying to both private secondary teaching + FT teaching (non-TT) jobs at R1s.

The jobs are asking for teaching reference letters and, predictably, all my reference letters are geared towards TT jobs.

I'm asking some faculty to come observe my classes but some have never written a teaching reference letter before so they asked me what's supposed to go in it and... I can make some assumptions but I'd love to hear from someone who's actually written/read them and know what makes a good one!

Thanks.

Could undergrad faculty help me think about this? I have a student who emailed me four days before the midterm. He said he is sick and went to the health center. He was evaluated and got a note from medical staff. I don't know what the note says, but I don't think that really matters since I'm not a doctor and can't evaluate it anyway. The point is that he is asking to take the midterm on Friday rather than Tuesday because he is sick today (Saturday). What would you do? On the one hand, I get it: he can't study well because he feels terrible. I gave the students a detailed study guide two weeks ago, but I understand that of course the weekend before is prime studying time. On the other hand, I would normally only give an alternative midterm, which will probably take me about 30 minutes to write, if a student is ill on the day of the midterm. I have no written policy about this either way in the syllabus. What ideas do you have for me?

Hi everyone! First thank you to those that will take the time to respond. I am a medical student in Europe getting involved in some research with a professor from my university. Everything is going well but I just came across another prof/researcher from my area of interest that works with things that are much more interesting to me. I wanted to reach out and present myself and offer help on one of their projects but I am unsure of what the etiquette is here. Is it okay for me to do this without telling the prof that I am currently working for?

Probably just overthinking but you never know, please lmk if there is any type of dos and don't in this situation.

Thank you :)

Controversial, but been thinking about The Ant and the Grasshopper and how we define work-life balance.

The grasshopper enjoys the present. The ant works to prepare for winter. The usual lesson is that the ant is responsible and the grasshopper is shortsighted.

But what if balance isn't about how we divide a day or a week, but how we balance a lifetime?

Work now can compound (compound interest) into expertise, financial security (interest earning interest turning into sole source of income), and freedom later. But time spent working can't always be recovered. Some experiences have an expiration date (AI evolution), and we don't know how long we'll live (hit by a bus tomorrow)

Then there's the question of offspring. If the ant has a family, its reserves benefit the next generation. Sacrificing now may make sense if we're thinking beyond our own lifetime. But how much is enough? At what point does preparing for the future become sacrificing the present indefinitely?

The stakes in Aesop's fable are survival, not retirement comfort. Get the balance wrong, and the consequence is death.

Maybe work-life balance is a lifetime problem, not a daily or weekly one. The hard part is that we don't know how long we have to enjoy the returns.

How do you decide when to invest more in the future and when to enjoy the present?

https://read.gov/aesop/052.html

I’m looking for a free writing app or studio for academic work, particularly research papers and articles.
I recently tried Scrivener during its 30-day free trial and really liked it. I especially liked the idea of having separate projects, organising my writing, and keeping everything in one place rather than juggling multiple apps.
My field is quite theory-heavy (law) so I don’t need anything for mathematical equations, diagrams, or technical work.

Ideally, I’m looking for something that:
1. Lets me keep different papers and projects separate, preferably with tabs or a similar system.
2. Provides a clean, distraction-free writing environment.
3. Makes it easy to organise drafts, notes, and research.
4. Is completely free, rather than just offering a limited trial.
5. Ideally supports cloud backup or syncing.

I know Scrivener isn’t particularly expensive, but I’d like to explore free alternatives before deciding whether to buy it.

For those who use writing software for academic research, what would you recommend? I’m interested in something that feels like a dedicated writing studio rather than an overly complicated note-taking or knowledge-management tool.

Thanks!

I have 4 years of software dev experience and am doing MSc in AI at a very fast paced university in France now. Came here a month ago, and I'm supposed to be locking in my internship already.

I'm also a trans man, I've just started my transition, and am figuring out this new phase of life (while recovering from burnout). At this point, I just want something stable and comfortable.

Would doing an interdisciplinary PhD in philosophy/psychology and AI be a good choice because I'm really passionate about the subject, or should I just work towards a 9-5 in corporate given the current market and push myself now for financial stability?

My top priority is my mental health as I'm just recovering from burnout and years of dysphoria, and I can't decide if a PhD would really give the life I want or it would suck my soul regardless and I'd be better off earning at corporate

TL;DR at the end.

I am writing this partially to vent and partially to ask for advice.

I submitted a paper 6 month ago to a well-reputed and respected but not top tier journal (Q2, but close to Q1 in my field).

In first round of reviews, I got the typical 3 major revision reviews, basically what happened to me several times before. All of them were kind of normal, and I was able to adress all points and revise the manuscript.

On re-review, I saw in the system that only 1 of the 3 original reviewers responded to the request (seems unprofessional, no? To not respond to re-review request. It rarely happened to me before...). The editor invited 2 new reviewers, both of which accepted. The decision was again major revision.

Basically the 1 original and 1 new reviewers said "Accept. The author adequatelly revised the manuscript.", but the 2nd new reviewer submitted a full-blown review with like 20 points, some adressing the made revisions, saying they leave something to be improved, and some completely new. I understand this is normal if a new reviewer is asked to review a revision, and I would happily deal with it. However, in my opinion, the remarks were either largely irrelevant and borderline non-sensical, or focusing on inconsequential minor stuff. Moreover, they requested some modifications to things I already modified, which made it seem like they accidentally mixep up the original submission and revision.

I revised the manuscript, replied to all comments (in my opinion fully adequatelly) and the paper was sent to only this one new reviewer. Revision again.

The reviewer basically submitted another review with several remarks, some again adressing the comments and answers from the previous review and some again completely new! Not adressing something that would come up in the revised manuscript, I'm talking about remarks that he could have made the first time! The "quality" of the review was same as last time, including requesting changes to stuff that was removed in the previous revision.

So I again revised the manuscript and this time I see in the system that the editor sent it to 2 reviewers, this one and one new.

here come the reviews. The new one says minor revision with some very minor remarks and easily done fixes, but previous guy still has several remarks, some again adressing the revised stuff and my answers, and some again completely new things!

So this is where I am at now. I am in 4th revision (!). I didn't even know journals allow it to get that far before simply rejecting the manuscripts).

I showed the manuscript to my senior collegue and he is sure that the reviews from this one reviewer are AI generated. I didn't think about it before but looking at it now, he is probably correct. They are written in extremely formal, gramatically spotless english, the remarks are all structured the same way, and assuming they just upload the review pdf file to chatbot (which contains both the original submission as well as the revised manuscript), it explains why reviews keep refering to stuff from the original submission and previous revisions. The AI treats the entire pdf file as one document. It also explains why the reviews keep bringing up new remarks unrelated to the previous revisions, since the AI doesn't understand it has reviewed the paper before.

........

In my next revision, should I directly adress the editor and bring up my feelings and concerns? I have never done this before, so I'm not sure how effective it is and how to go about it... I always assumed editors carefully read at least the author response letters during revisions, but honestly this experience is making me feel like the editor is just automatically sending e-mails as long as the decision isn't just "accept".

TL;DR: I am on 4th revision. 1 reviewer, who only came in during the 2nd round of reviews, just cannot be pleased and keeps coming back with more remarks. The reviews are probably AI generated. Should I directly adress editor this round?

I uploaded a paper on arxiv in 2022 with 2 authors and now i took help from some more authors and paper got accepted in journal with 5 authors.

My question is that can i update in arxiv, that paper already gets 100 citations? what will happen? because the paper already in google scholar

writing a review article and I want to publish it, the journal asks for a cover letter how do I write it what to keep in mind and make a perfect submission

I noticed that some full professors have assistant professors as part of their lab.

What is the autonomy like for the assistant professor in this arrangement? Is it postdoc 2.0? Genuinely curious.

I’m a PhD student in biomedical research, about two years in. My daily supervisor is a postdoc whose manuscript deadline is driving a lot of the lab’s priorities. My PI is rarely in the lab because of clinical work, so this postdoc effectively controls my day-to-day experiments, resources, and priorities.
Recently, I came back after taking only three days off for a cultural festival. Immediately, I was asked to prioritise someone else’s manuscript experiment, which meant potentially setting aside my own planned work. The experiment involved cell models that take about a month to establish, and using them for someone else’s project would mean thawing more precious organoid stocks and delaying my own experiments by another month.

When I said I would do microscopy analysis instead, my supervisor called me into his office and criticised my data organisation. He called my files a “messy chaos” because he could not immediately find the most recent data. The problem is that I had organised the data in a separate folder.
I was already overwhelmed, and I almost started crying in front of him. He seemed completely unaffected. Then he told me something like: “Do microscopy, do long shifts, night shifts, weekend shifts, but get everything done—time is very limited.”
I feel like my evenings, weekends, and own PhD timeline are treated as infinitely flexible, while his manuscript deadline is treated as sacred. I am not against working hard, and I understand publications matter. But I am exhausted by constantly reprioritising, absorbing other people’s urgency, and being criticised when communication was unclear in the first place.
Am I overreacting? How do other PhD students deal with a supervisor who treats every deadline as an emergency and every boundary as an inconvenience?

I just got a postdoc offer from a university in Turkey (Ankara), and I’m not sure if it’s a good move. I’d love to hear what academic opportunities look like there after a postdoc, and what I should keep in mind if I want to stay long term.

The position pays around 100k TRY with housing, but I read that assistant and associate professors only make around 50-70k TRY. Did I read that wrong? How does someone end up making less after a postdoc? If anyone knows the real numbers, I’d really appreciate it.

I’m also worried about the economy. I looked at the inflation numbers and how much the lira has dropped, and I even asked GPT to project the next 10 years, graph made me worried! How do people in academia there deal with it? Is the salary enough to live comfortably, and what are the chances of getting a permanent position or funding later on?

If you’ve worked or studied in Turkey, I’d love to hear about your experience. Thanks!

NYU math professor Tristan Buckmaster says OpenAl's Tuesday drop of 722 Al-generated math papers wiped out entire research programs.

Anyone else impacted?

Hi there! Are PhD programs in the US that offer a full tuition waiver and a small stipend really difficult to get into?

I'm currently living outside the US and looking to pursue a PhD in a field related to my background because I haven't been able to find a job. I'm open to studying again, and I have a bachelor's degree in Business Administration and an MBA, along with extensive research experience and several peer-reviewed publications.

Realistically speaking, how difficult is it to get into a program that offers these benefits? I can't afford to pay for a PhD right now, but I feel I have a lot to contribute academically and professionally.

Are there any websites, platforms, or strategies you would recommend for finding and applying to fully funded PhD programs in the US?

Thanks in advance!

Hey everyone,

I’m a BSc student, and a professor I’ve collaborated with recently asked me to hand over the source code for a tool I developed.

I wrote the code myself, specifically for a research paper we co-authored and published. All my work was voluntary and unpaid, and I never signed any agreement regarding intellectual property or ownership.

Now, the professor wants the source code to reuse it in future publications and give it to another researcher for their PhD work.

I’m concerned about ownership and losing control over something I developed myself. When I expressed these concerns, the professor became somewhat intimidating, which made the situation uncomfortable given the power imbalance.

As a compromise, I offered to turn the code into an application that he could use as a black box, without accessing the underlying source code.

Is this normal in academia?
Am I being unreasonable for wanting to protect my work?
Is my proposed compromise fair, or should I approach this differently?

I’d especially appreciate advice from researchers who’ve dealt with similar situations.

​

For researchers who've needed expertise outside their group, such as advanced statistics, mathematical modelling or computational methods, how did you find someone?

Did you collaborate with another department or hire an external consultant? What influenced that decision?

Is everyone in academia always working constantly or is this just my imagination?

I feel like every successful scholar I know is working constantly, and I just can't live up to these models of productivity. I'm a neurodivergent person who needs recovery time after high-masking events (which is basically constant with teaching, even if I enjoy it. And it's infinitely worse for conferences and interviews).

I've started my first position (a Visiting Prof job) after a rough PhD. I feel so burnt out, and the teaching load isn't even bad ---I suspect the workload will get even worse in a TT job (assuming I can even land one).

Can anyone offer some hope at the end of the tunnel? I'm trying to figure out if my perception is wrong and I just need to push through, or this is the real situation and I need to rethink my life choices.

I’m currently on the tenure-track at a pseudo-R1 university in a decently sized city in a red state. It's pretty much been in shambles since I arrived. The university has its R1 designation, but my College is clearly operating in a different universe that prioritizes teaching above all else. I enjoy teaching but I’ve had 10 new preps in the last eight semesters... It’s relentless.

I’m in the social sciences and my work is interdisciplinary enough that I work with other STEM fields and the differences between them are stark. Some of these differences are not surprising (3/3 teaching load, lots of service, meager resources, stagnant pay, no admin, labs, etc), but the attitudes around them are frustrating. I’m made to feel guilty whenever I try to prioritize research and writing, and have been denied opportunities to do so (was recently told to decline an external fellowship that I was awarded…).

Given how much they value teaching, I’ve tried to find ways to create more overlaps between my research and teaching, or to frame my research to highlight how it benefits student outcomes, but my research overall has definitely suffered as a consequence. I’m told that I’ll have nothing to worry about for tenure, but I just think we have different ideas of success.

I suspect that a lot of this is related to my university (and others) being in utter survival mode. Our only degree program was recently cut and it feels like our days are numbered. I just don’t feel like I can be the best version of myself here.

Like many of my colleagues, I’ve been looking elsewhere. Unsurprisingly the academic market for my discipline has been pretty sparse.

Recently I’ve been in talks with a non-profit that I’ve worked with for awhile. They’re mostly known for education and outreach, but they’re looking to a hire a director to expand their research profile. This would mean much higher pay, an extremely flexible schedule, and a very healthy annual budget to support research, equipment, travel, and hiring research staff members, postdocs, etc.

Their grass is looking awfully green right now, but I also worry that I’ll regret it. The org itself is small and has not been active in research in many years. It’ll be a lot of work to build their reputation. It’ll also potentially be very isolating. It's in a rural area and I worry that I’ll miss the intellectual stimulation of a university campus and the diversity of a city, where I have lots of friends and am constantly introduced to unexpected ideas and perspectives.

But my current “dream job” isn’t at all what I expected and I’ve been very unhappy.

What am I missing though? What will I regret if I leave my tenure-track position? Access to resources, grants, people, benefits…? What if it sucks? Am I going to lock myself into the non-profit world forever? Could I still be marketable in academia later? Could I still be affiliated with a university? Or maintain collaborations? Or is it worth trying to weather the storm at my current institution?