<p>Hello,
I apologize in advance if this is not the type of forum to ask something like this, but I didn't really know were else to ask people with this kind of experience. I'm very new to all of this. As well I'm going to keep this fairly vague for anonymity.</p>
<p>So, I discovered something very important. I presented this at an event, published it through the event's program and was written about on a website; all credible. None of these I claimed my professor as an equal participant, just special thanks; unless he edited something without me knowing.... By the way I say my professor, but I haven't actually taken a class with him. Now I'm about to publish in science journals and such to get it out to the science community. But, I'm wary about how my professor is helping me. He wants me to go through all of the publishing stuff and then send him the stuff and he'll publish it on my behalf with himself as a coauthor. Now that'd be all fine and dandy especially with his professional standing giving it some weight. </p>
<p>But wouldn't this claim him as equal participation and credit? I'm not sure if I should go through with this. I'd hate for this to jeopardize me in the future by people assuming I was his assistant or something.</p>
<p>The largest contribution he gave me was reviewing and editing my event abstract which he required. As well as being part of his required presentation practices which was about half an hour total and had another professor participating. Most of my professors including him initially disputed my hypothesis. I performed all of the research myself under occasional supervision of a professor that I have taken a class with; just making sure I didn't blow something up. I designed the experiment. The equipment and materials were provided by my school's stock room department and cost less than 5 dollars of use which I had access to even without this professor. I mean besides the editing he nor my other professors really took on an active roll in the research besides answering an occasional question. I'm also wary of this because he said I couldn't have done it without him, which is not the case, and clarified saying the credit was 70 me 30 him which is not only quite large percent for him but wouldn't be available to readers in the published work.</p>
<p>So I'm not sure what I should do. I definitely believe all the professors that helped me out however small deserve an honorable mention. But, as far as putting this professor as a coauthor seems a bit stretched. I don't have much of a relationship with him and I definitely have to look out for my future academics/research as a CC student. I'm just afraid this is my ego acting up and what the right thing to do is. Is this reasonable for him? What should I do? Please help and thank you for your time and assistance.</p>
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So what is your relationship? Did he provide facilities, guidance, what?</p>
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No. The reason people pay so much attention to order of authors is because that order describes the contribution level of each participant. If you are the lead/first author, then readers will know that you did the majority of the work. If he does not want you to be lead author, THEN you have a problem, and one that you can take to your department.</p>
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He is not necessarily done contributing. A presentation is not a publication, and the reviewing and editing process will probably see a lot more involvement from him.</p>
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And? The simple question is, “by the time of publication, will he have contributed to this paper?” If the answer is yes, then he should be on there.</p>
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And no one would care regardless - this kind of quibbling is beyond what anyone caress about.</p>
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Yes, this is your ego acting up. You should include him as a coauthor. Not doing so would be a meaningless and self-destructive act. As long as you are the lead author, you are the lead author, and that is the only thing that has any real meaning at all.</p>
<p>Generally, if your name appears first on the title of the research then you are credited with having created the idea/ hypothesis that you are researching (unless you just told the idea to a professor and he/she did all the work… then in that case I suppose you would not have the first name on the research).
The following names farther down the line are seen as having done the data collection or other smaller duties in the research. It seems that his name should not be on the research at all having only reviewed your work, but then again if he is well renown and has a PhD… then it may help to have his name on the research.<br>
Hope this helps a bit.</p>
<p>I don’t know as much about it as PhD students/grads. But from what I know yes, it is the first author that matters in your case. It may help you to get it accepted for publication by having a professor/PhD as one of the authors–I think many places will not take it seriously without that layer of authority on the project and you having no name. you may lack credibility without it. I know the papers my daughter worked on had the professor always listed but she would often go at the end, unless it was her paper.</p>
<p>But your post is really unclear why this professor is involved at all and not the one who you took the class from who helped you. I don’t know that it matters much, but let him help you, just clarify first by email that you will be the lead author.</p>
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<p>Then why did you give him “special thanks?” And how is he involved at all unless he’s an advisor for the research project? I do think it’s strange he would come right out and state that he had 30% of the credit, but really, that doesn’t matter since he can’t claim that in the publication. </p>
<p>Being first author is a great accomplishment, especially if what you discovered is indeed important and can be replicated and expanded upon within your community. I would certainly want some credibility attached to my project by partnering with someone accomplished in the field to help with the manuscript.</p>
<p>What do you mean by giving him “all the publishing stuff?” What kind of work would he be doing to “publish on your behalf?” I’ve submitted to journals in the past and there was always a peer review process by a board of individuals on behalf of the journal. If they were not satisfied with the manuscript then it was sent back for edits until it was accepted. If this is a respected academic journal in your field, I would suspect you or your professor would need to submit the manuscript for the same peer review process before it would be accepted and published. This would take time, and personally, if I were first author, I would want to know what edits were being made to my manuscript - although I am super picky with my writing, so that could just be a personal thing. I would explain to my professor that I want to go through the process of publication myself, but with his assistance, so that I fully understand the process for future papers. </p>
<p>And I agree to communicate through e-mail to clarify some points. I have heard of advisors taking credit for their students’ work. While this is not the norm, this situation isn’t clear by your post. If I had a funny feeling about the situation then I would want some sort of paper trail until I knew whether I could trust working with that individual.</p>
<p>Make sure when you submit your manuscript for publication that you clearly indicate on the author line that you are the corresonding author. Traditionally, the first author contributes most and also receives most of the credit, whereas the position of subsequent authors is usually decided by contribution or seniority. What area of science is your publication focused? Biologists tended to place a principal investigator (supervisor or lab head) last in an author list whereas organic chemists might have put him or her first. You need to talk to your professor about these issues</p>
<p>Can you get this published without the help/name on the manuscript of this prof? If not, make sure you are listed first so people know it’s mostly your work. Isn’t this type of thing done fairly often in STEM fields when submitting manuscripts for publication?</p>
<p>You should know that in many STEM fields, it’s pretty standard for your advisor to be the last author on papers you write. First of all, they are very likely providing a lot of resources - their time and guidance, the use of their lab space, other things you may not even realize they pay for (I only found out last year, for example, that the copy code my advisor gave me means that all of my copies come out of his lab budget. My department doesn’t have a copy allowance for graduate students).</p>
<p>Second, what you may consider as “light editing” may actually be a substantial investment of time on his part, depending on how well you write and how advanced you are in the field. For example, this</p>
<p>The largest contribution he gave me was reviewing and editing my event abstract which he required. As well as being part of his required presentation practices which was about half an hour total and had another professor participating</p>
<p>That’s a lot of time for a busy professor - he set aside the time to review your presentation and recruited the help of another colleague for an independent opinion. He clearly sees your work as being under his work’s umbrella, which is pretty standard when you’re a student.</p>
<p>But no, him being your second author wouldn’t be claiming equal credit. That’s sort of the point of having an order of authors. It’s good for students to publish with their advisors; it’s very very very common (my own advisor is the last author on all of my own papers). Just make sure that you have a frank, up-front discussion with him about the authorship order so you know where you stand.</p>
<p>Also, here’s the last piece. Part of academics is playing politics. Maybe your advisor only made a 5 percent contribution to the paper; maybe he didn’t write a single word; maybe he just looked over the final draft. That doesn’t remove the fact that in science, it’s kind of the norm for your advisor to get senior authorship on papers you write in his lab. Technically, you’re right - if all he contributes is insubstantial editing, then he probably doesn’t deserve authorship. But, trying to argue the point may make your life very difficult in your department - at best, you’ll have generated a sense of distrust between you and your advisor for something that doesn’t really matter at all.</p>
<p>^My dad has been a professor involved in a lot of research for the past 50 years, and juillet’s post is 100% correct. She stated it better than I would have.</p>
<p>Just as they have said, just have your name first on authors</p>
<p>But you are nobody, so have the professor name is going to help you. A lot of its is politics too.
Anecdote here, my husband was called for an interview and he had to present his ideas about one area, the audience had a lot Phd types from Princeton, he later discovered they stole his ideas and he never got the job. Just be aware of it because you will find it recurring a lot more in real life.</p>
<p>The guidance he mainly provided was for the event that I was originally doing my research for and was through my school’s honors program. The editing was for roughly 750 words of work. He’d most likely edit the publishing work too. As for the publishing stuff, he wanted me to go through with the online submission writing all of the abstract and materials and then send him all of this with graphs and such. The special thanks was just at the end of the presentation I did with person, person, and the rest of ___ dept. on a p.p. slide. </p>
<p>Materials and facilities wise. The professor that was occasionally checking up on me was the one who provided the laboratory, one time during one of his other labs. The materials were from another classes lab which I adapted to my experiment and was allowed to use by the stock room techs.</p>
<p>~ As you all have said, if it’s mainly just an order of authors and having him on there will boost by “cred” so-to-speak then great. I’ll go through with it and include my other prof. too; maybe others as well. I also have time stamped works, carbon copy lab book pages with witness signatures, e-mail exchanges one with “eureka check out this data” and the like. The research is in Chemistry and Physics.</p>
<p>I’m just so fresh to this publishing thing that I wanted to make sure I didn’t make a mistake. I really appreciate the guidance, thank you guys very much!</p>