Academia - Blog Posts

Layla with academia inspired clothes

Imagine

you have a complete day to yourself.

It would be spent in a giant elegant library on a bench or couch in a secluded area where no one ventures.

Quiet classical music, ambient noice from the calm chaos of the atmosphere. A fire place near by so you can hear the crackling.

Maybe you spend it with one person who will not complain when you ignore their sentient presence and wrap myself around them in a way that you can run my fingers through their hair while you read a stack of books that completely keep my attention from start to finish.

There would be tea. Hot, steamy and perfectly made, chai milk tea, jasmine or green tea with mint. Or rose tea because it smells like hugs. Or maybe coffee or a mug of hot chocolate with a stick of peppermint poking out.

Of course the person with you, whose only purpose is to be quiet and cuddle you, would be the one getting you the mug because you couldn’t be bothered with getting up while you’re reading

Since we're all talking about plagiarism now, I'd like to share this video which came out last year about a paper accepted at the CVPR 2022:

For the people not in the know, the Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition conference is the biggest conference in computer science. Last year, in 2022, the paper featured in the video got accepted. A few days later, this video was posted. The first author, a PhD student, apologized and the paper was retracted and removed from the proceedings. Hilariously, the first reaction of the co-authors, including a professor at the Seoul National University, was to say that they had nothing to do with it.

My point here is that scientific papers are not rigorously checked for plagiarism, and a background in academia tells you absolutely nothing about whether or not someone will be diligent in avoiding plagiarism. The biggest difference is that there are consequences if you're caught.

I also don't want people to be too harsh on the first author of this paper, or to think the situation is equivalent to the whole Somerton debacle. For starters, you don't get paid for publishing papers, you (or more commonly your university) pay the publishers. But the phrase publish or perish exists for a reason, and everyone in the field wants to get published in the CVPR, because it's supposed to show that you're great at research. Additionally, the number of papers and the prestige of the venues they're published in criteria on which you will be evaluated as a researcher and a university employee.

The way I see it, there are basically two kinds of plagiarism that are shown in the video. The first one concerns sentences that are lifted completely unchanged from other papers. This is bad, and it is plagiarism, but I can see how this would happen. Most instances of this appear in the introduction and on background information, so if you're insecure about your mastery of English and it's not about your contribution anyway, I can understand how you would take the shortcut of copy-pasting and tell yourself that it's just so that the rest of the paper makes sense, and why waste time on phrasing things differently if others have done it already, and it's not like there are a million way to write these equations anyways.

Let me be clear. I don't approve, or condone. It's still erasing the work of the people who took the time and pain to phrase these things. It's still plagiarism. But I understand how you could get to that point.

The second kind of plagiarism is a way bigger deal in my opinion. At 0:37 , we can see that one of the contributions of the paper is also lifted from another paper. Egregiously, the passage includes "To the best of our knowledge, this is the first [...]" , which is a hell of a thing to copy-paste. So this is not only lazily passing other people's words as your own, it's also pretending that you're making a contribution you damn well know other people have already done. I also wasn't able to find a version of the plagiarized article that had been published in a peer-reviewed venue, which might mean that the authors submitted it, got rejected, and published it on arXiv (an website on which authors can put their papers so that they're accessible to the public, but doesn't "count" as a publication because it's not peer-reviewed. You can also put papers that are under review or have been published on there as long as you're careful with the copyrights and double-blind process). And then parts of it were published in the CVPR under someone else's name.

I think there's also a third kind of plagiarism going on here, one that is incredibly common in academia, but that is not shown in the video. That's the FIVE other authors, including a professor, who were apparently happy to add their name to the paper but obviously didn't do anything meaningful since they didn't notice how much plagiarism was going on.

heya tumblr again

Isis x Bastet

Look, I know everyone in Egyptian mythology is technically related but can't I just have this!

Isis POV

PRISM CRUSH

So

stunningly does the white moon glow,

softened among an arc very slow,

grain high, the water low.

If

cool indigo divides our times

like lapis lazuli rhymes,

could I dance on its lines?

I

flew with all my might,

unending black land by starless night,

fed up on delight.

Love,

until our rendezvous,

you were feeling blue

with deja vu.

You

forget to blink,

cheeks blush pink

when our eyes link.

Forever

will the sun thrown from the hot sky,

will the moon change its high,

will you cry?

Cat,

My favorite trinket is a glass pyramid

of infinite colors I hid,

worth more than was bid.

Girl,

even the yellow sands, ha,

they bandy “laa laa laa”.

Maybe I miss ya.

Oh to be a heroine in a Jane Austen novel

No university, no program, no opportunity can infix in you a desire for furtherance if there is none, to begin with.

The holy grail of searching through academic literature is coming across a string of publications that are like:

Here’s An Idea. Smith et al. 2016

Terrible Idea; a comment on Smith et al. 2016. Johnson 2016.

You’re Wrong Too; a response to Johnson 2016. Nelson 2016.

Guys Just Stop Fighting, None Of Us Know What’s Going On; a Review of the Current Literature. McBrien 2017.

are all the academia girlies hydrated? well fed? remember to tuck yourself into bed and dream sweet dreams. you're very smart and your grades don't define who you are. take a nice warm bath because you deserve it ❤️❤️

isn't it enough that i am sexy and smart? i have to be good at math too? bitch

cringemaxxing at the examination hall

[04.09.2023]

Another day, this time preparing for the next exam on Monday.

I'm more absent since my routine is so hectic, but my pride in dedicating myself has gone.

Now I have to catch up on everything this week and organize my routine (because that's the only way it works) and prepare for the exam.

[24.08.2023]

It's the day before my exam, and I'm like

=͟͟͞͞ ﾍ ( ' Д `)ﾉ

[19.08.2023]

It's not even a month since my classes started again and I've already got an exam.......

[13.08.2023]

☆°•°○☆°○☆°○☆•°☆•°○☆°•☆○•°☆

My week has been tiring, but I am happy to see that I am getting more done.

And I managed to pass the monitoring process for an event of my course (ﾉ'ヮ`)ﾉ*:

Even though it's Sunday I still need to study some texts, so wish me luck (*꒦ິ꒳꒦ີ).

Coffee and admiring the campus scenery are a constant part of my routine.

hes picking out a book at the library and he writes on a lil notecard the book number and hes just thumbing thru the shelves trying to find his book and u see his eyes light up when he picks out the right one

Where the ancient meets the city

These are my own photos ^.^

The feminine urge to take 21 credit hours and then complain about it when finals start up.

I am both the worst and best partner for group work. On the one hand we won the debate and destroyed the team so successfully that the prof had to step in to help the prosecution. On the other I made them meet in person three times before today and ensured that nobody left the study room before everyone of us knew what we were saying. It took 4 hours. We have 10 pages of notes.

I now have an academic rival. He is also my fencing rival. He is also my debate partner. I have achieved what all academic movies strive for. 

Academia is misplacing a stack of 64 flashcards and crying for three minutes only to realize your laptop was on them..

Okay, so:

Upon meeting Todd: is he, ya know,*hand gay gesture*

“I think neil is my favourite” *soft smile* (Oh noooo)

Laughs at todds improv poem, goes silent, “ahhhhhhhh” 

“Half a roll?”

Saxophone in the cave scene: “Oh shit! Buddy can play it! I thought his only skill was making turkey noises” 

“Oh this movie is making me feel things.”

About the unmanned flying desk set: *soft eyes* oh it was so good but so sad

Charlie talking to Gloria: *I made that up* “haha! No you didn’t!”

“Can they kick the girls out again?”

Neil, is doing nothing: I love neil!!

“I knew this man was a prune.” (To Nolan when he stood up before the phone call from God scene)

After the play: oh no. oh no, *looks me dead in the eyes* you fucker

When Charlie punches cameron: Suck it less valid red head!

*camera pans to Pitts, during the end scene* Yes!! You got this Pittsie!!

After, the movie: You fucker you fucker, you made me feel things

About to introduce The Dead Poets Society to my best friend, will update on his thoughts.

About to introduce The Dead Poets Society to my best friend, will update on his thoughts.

I didn't even notice. I thought they meant "write shit" as in "write low quality works" and I was like "yeah, college will do that."

Bro İ hate being an academic they're making me write shit 😭 İ thought İ was just supposed to sit in an old chair smoke & say something french every now and then 😢