I may mention a current project in very general terms, but I am not specific until after publication, or at least acceptance.

For example, I may mention that I am working on a robotics paper (which I am) but will say nothing about the context in which the robots are used.

You are right that we should be careful about revealing too much to others who might be working on competing topics. The is a line between being supportive of other researchers and being "scooped" by them.

Muthana Makki Mohammedali

A very interesting question! There is ethically nothing wrong in building on ideas, borrowed from others provided such a debt is overtly acknowledge. In fact, as researchers, we assimilate, appropriate or draw inspiration from other researchers’ works whether consciously or unconsciously. However, researchers are aware that they have to keep the main parts of a project under wraps as long as it is Not safely published.

No one cares. The idea that there are people lurking out there to steal your ideas is a legend that graduate students tell each other. Even if you told someone your idea, the'd still have to do the research and write an article. Ideas a a dime a dozen. In an Hour I could probably come up with ten viable projects. I do it with graduate students in my office. In an hour I send them off with three or four topic ideas. I do it every year with a colleague. We spend half an hour brainstorming, come up with three or four articles, outline them, then pick which ones we want to be first author on. Stop worrying.

Michael L. Kent, thanks for your reassurance. However, it's a bit uncomfortable when you see a little child of yours claimed by others! I do what you mentioned with colleagues and students who ask me for help and it feels great to be sought for to give consultation in your field, but it hurts when a colleague takes over an idea presented by you without even giving you credit.

Muthana Makki Mohammedal. You are correct, it is annoying. But "ideas" are just ideas. A scholar with any integrity would say "I got the idea for this project from Muthana..." People who other steal people's ideas and work and do not give them credit, however, are usually not very competent scholars. What ultimately matters is what YOU do with the idea. My thinking is like no one else, just like your thinking is unique. Two people with the same idea will reach different conclusions. No "idea" belongs to anyone. And a person who cannot come up with their own ideas is unlikely to amount to much in the long term.

I assume when you are at the stage of sharing an idea you have already written a paper, etc., so I still see nothing wrong with someone else running with the "idea" after you. But if you have not written anything and you are still just at the idea stage (let's say in a Ph.D. class, then what is the problem? Based on your introduction I'm not sure what people are "stealing." Can you share an example? I see from your introduction that your area is rather specific. There cannot be that many people (or anyone else?) in your program who studies "perception, self-image and memoir in Emily Dickinson, Theodore Roethke, H.D and Allen Ginsberg" etc. can there be? So what sort of ideas are they taking?

Dear, Muthana Makki Mohammedali,

It sounds like you are in a pretty toxic program. There are of course many such programs out there. And what you describe is appalling. Advisors are supposed to be there to help students.

However, many are petty and narcissistic and do not really care about other people. Given your current environment, I'd say keep your mouth shut—which is what you already know—and look for an honest mentor from outside of your program. I had professors who discouraged projects because they "did not believe in them" or "because they were not real" (he did not like the topic because of his religion). Those people of course did not steal my idea or give them to anyone else, but they forced me to study something I had less interest in.

perhaps consider reaching outside of your network to someone in your field to ask their opinion about an idea. There are good people out there who would never steal someone else's ideas. I answer questions for students I have never met several times each year. There are people out there who are ethical.

Good Luck.

MLK