I simply can't imagine a Ph.D. situation in which the advisor knows so little about the candidate that this would actually work. I could maybe see if the candi

I simply can't imagine a Ph.D. situation in which the advisor knows so little about the candidate that this would actually work. I could maybe see if the candidate did the work but wanted help with the 'wordsmithing' that s/he could pull it off. But even then. An alert advisor would get suspicious, I would think. Maybe the word alert in the above sentence is where it breaks down.