I would be very grateful if some of you could provide some pieces of advice to my current situation. I have just completed my first year of PhD, and the situation with my peers is getting worse. Due to Corona pandemic, the research seminars with other master's and PhD students were held online. Everyone shared a cop of his/her work, but my research has been leaked by a master's student (me and my supervisor do not have a concrete evidence, but he run a little investigation, and it's most likely the case). No proper action was taken, because according to him, a literature review and a research model is not such a big deal! In addition, one PhD peer is really not competent (writing no one can understand, and I'm not even exaggerating, no proficiency in his field, very poor logic and reasoning). I took a look at his previous publications, and it's awful to see the very poor level of his previous publications (grammatical mistakes in every single phrase, very weak logic, no pertinence in writing). I'm a non-native English speaker myself (4th spoken language, but I'm still doing many efforts to improve my academic writing skills). I'm a foreign student with very good previous academic records, and I feel like I'm wasting my time in this lab. My professor is a very good supervisor, but the lab ecosystem is awful. I feel isolated, and not understood. My professor is literally writing the paper for the other PhD student. It is unethical, and very unfair. I tried to indirectly mention that, but the professor seems to underestimate the importance of such a problem. (He just mentioned that my peer was a bad researcher). Other than that, I feel like he's not doing any efforts in creating a fruitful research environment. I want to change lab, but I very much appreciate working "individually" with my current professor. What do you think I should do? I feel powerless.

You seem to have become bogged down in issues which don't concern you in the slightest, such as the professionalism of your supervisor and fellow PhD students. What business is it of yours if your supervisor is writing a paper for another student?

My strong advice is that you knuckle down and focus on your own work and stop worrying about what other people are or are not doing. Getting your PhD and then getting a permanent academic post is going to be hard enough without all this unnecessary baggage.

Once you get your own career sorted out, you can run your group in whatever way you want.

Sounds like a normal research lab to me. Most labs are dysfunctional in some way. I don't know anyone who likes there lab environment, you just get used to it. So I wouldn't worry unless you are getting zero results.

That is very serious but what does leaked mean? Was it just a presentation or have they published it? If it is just a presentation you can still salvage it by publishing ASAP. Presenting intermediary results generally doesn't lead to scooping unless someone else is already working on it. If they shared a hard copy, I would raise it further.



Every paper author is allowed to write as much or as little of the paper as they want. It doesn't matter the supervisor writes all of it, as long as his name is on the paper it is fine. I have seen several papers in which the supervisor writes the entire publication because the student is too lazy. In my opinion not publishing the research is unethical.



Have you told your supervisor this or have you made any suggestions to him? Generally if you make sensible suggestions you can change things. A lot of the time people don't even know there is an issue and being proactive can yield significant results. I would recommend you make some suggestions to your supervisor of what you think will improve the lab environment and see what he says.

Often the supervisor will write up the paper and then be first author (sometimes when the student has already left).

If you like working with that professor then I would very strongly suggest that you stay there and just learn to tolerate the chaos and the things you don't like. It will be tough as it sounds like it is getting under your skin, but there are two advantages I see. One is that you work well with the professor and this is possibly the most important thing one can have during a PhD, and there is no guarantee that you would get this again if you switched lab (unless you already know where you would go and you know that you work well with that person too). And secondly, learning to tolerate an irritating situation will probably reflect well on you and help you build more character (what doesn't kill you makes you stronger). I hate saying this as I can imagine how irritated you feel from the way your message is written. But I do think it is worth it!

What pm133 said. And honestly, other students' grammatical mistakes and publications are none of your business. It's not your job to judge them. You are just a student like them. I'd suggest you focus on your work.