PhD student publication - how to handle co-author situation?

[GoingComando]

I am a social science lecturer.

One of my PhD students is just finished and wants to write a paper. There is another social science lecturer involved in the supervision team.

The PhD student asked about co-authorships on this paper.

The other supervisor said she wouldn't expect to be named as a co-author. The thing is that I would expect to be named as a co-author.

In social sciences, supervisors wouldn't automatically be listed on PhD students' papers they way they would in the sciences. There's a debate to be had about that but that's a separate point.

My take is that if I read and comment on PhD student publications (not the thesis), then I would expect to be a co-author. But the other supervisor has said she would be happy to read drafts but wouldn't expect an authorship even with this work.

Will I look like a twat if I say basically say the above (that I'd expect an authorship for reading/commenting)? Am I unreasonable for expecting an authorship on a paper for doing this?

I think that you should only be named as co-author if you can be said to have co-written the paper. Otherwise, I would expect you to be listed in the acknowledgment as having commented on a draft of the article. How extensive are your comments going to be? Can you hand on heart say that this is something that you have co-written? I think your comments would have to be extremely extensive for that to be the case.

I mean if the read and comment rule applied, I would probably not bother sending stuff to colleagues to read before submitting it. I have also revised written work on the basis of comments from others. But I have still written it, not them.

And also, I thought that reading drafts of junior colleagues’ work was something that was done in the spirit of collegiality. I have a research mentor who reads drafts but I don’t name her as co-author unless she genuinely co-authors (ie comes up with the ideas and writes the paper). I think you would be unreasonable unless you haven’t given the full picture here.

For me it is about intellectual contribution.
Did the key novel ideas come solely/mainly from the student or did they emerge through collaborative discussion with you?

TooDamn yes, I think you have phrased it better than me. If it’s work from the PhD which you have just commented on, I would say no authorship. If it’s a genuine contribution to the ideas, suggesting a new framework from what student had considered etc, I would say second author is fine.

Will it make a difference for the student? Is she eligible for REF submission this time around?

Okay, I guess I meant that the arguments/ideas in the paper would come, in part, from our supervisions and comments on her thesis etc. so I would've made some intellectual contribution.

So it goes beyond just reading and comments. Sorry I wasn't clear.

Certainly in the sciences that's the model they seem to operate with. I work a lot with scientists because I'm quite interdisciplinary. They take the approach that PhD supervision automatically warrants a place on a publication because of the supervision, the shaping of ideas, the time, the resources etc.

The student doesn't want an academic career but a publication will be of value to her anyway. She's not REF eligible for this submission.

I read and comment on loads of people's works and wouldn't expect to be co-author on that basis. I do this for my students, other people's students, colleagues, etc. it's part of what doing research means for me. Similarly other people read my wip papers, I acknowledge them in the last footnote, I would never think of adding them as authors. And I have co-authored papers as well, but there we set out to and co-wrote a paper.

This is a really inappropriate thing to ask for, especially given the supervisor/student power disparity and the fact that this is not habitually done in your discipline.

She might not mind but in that case I would expect you to actually edit/redraft it rather than just giving the student some comments. Might make it into a stronger article which is better for the student in the long run.

For me it is about intellectual contribution.
Did the key novel ideas come solely/mainly from the student or did they emerge through collaborative discussion with you?

This.

I’m in the sciences- as you say supervisors normally are listed as co-author, because the phd topic as an idea has come from them, usually expanding on an area currently being worked on in their research group. The student takes this idea and forms their thesis, with guidance and input along the way.

If this student is publishing work from his thesis that you can contributed ideas too, then you should be co-author. If it’s a completely new area, and you are just reading and correcting, then I’d expect and acknowledgement or thanks, but not co-author.

Many thanks for all of your comments on this.

I find it so difficult because I work so closely with scientists who work on such a different model. They're infecting me with their approaches!

I also publish across disciplinary journals so I've been added to papers that I've had absolutely no input into whatsoever just because I'm on the grant and have been to a couple of meetings.

All supervisors make an intellectual contribution to their students' work, as do colleagues who offer comments on drafts, audience members at conferences who ask questions and reviewers who write reports. I think it's a bit disingenuous to take a convention that applies to the sciences where everyone knows the first author did most of the work, and apply it to a discipline where this is not the automatic assumptions.

@Booboostwo There's no question that the PhD student would be first author.

I have so many issues with this difference of approaches across disciplines. It's so bloody hard when you're working across disciplines. My science colleagues regularly ask why we don't publish much in social sciences. Aaaaah.

Hmmm I think the first, second author thing isn’t as established in soc sci so I would be likely to think that a co-authored paper was a 50/50 effort.

But at the same time, the student doesn’t want an academic career, the paper might be better if the OP in fact contributes to the writing process and if it’s in the OP’s name it can go in the REF and potentially attract funding.

As a general rule though I wouldn’t try to copy the sciences because their approach is so different and writing a socsci paper is nothing like writing a natsci paper, hence why we publish less in socsci.

Could the author have written this same paper themselves without your input on theory, research design, analytical interpretations etc gained through their supervision? If the answer is no I would expect to be named as a co-author.

Perhaps this is an opportunity to encourage the student to do some investigating about conventions around co-authorship in different disciplines and suggest what they themselves think is appropriate.

@Pota2 That's really interesting that you say that about 50/50 effort because that hasn't been my experience at all in social sciences. My experience has been that a couple of colleagues will discuss a paper, come up with ideas, do some analysis etc, then one leads on writing it (first author), second one edits, amends and maybe adds some sections but its very much the lead author's paper.

@seeingthedots I guess this is the science approach isn't it. I mean arguably, the student couldn't have done anything without supervision but I guess the question is how far routine PhD supervision warrants paper authorship. That seems like a much bigger question!
It's a good idea to ask her to engage with the conventions of other disciplines but she doesn't have an academic background and she's no plans for an academic career so I'd be a bit concerned about her ability to do this and her motivation for doing so. I think her approach to the authorship is that she doesn't care one way or another - she just wants a paper, she's not that bothered who's on it.

I think I meant more about my perception when reading it. In my discipline co-authoring tends to be limited to 2, maybe 3 authors and most often they seem to be listed in alphabetical order. So it’s quite hard to know the level of input.

Whereas generally I would be cautious about trying to muscle in as co-author on the basis of giving comments, as this student doesn’t want an academic career, I would offer to be more involved than just commenting on the draft. That way the paper can go into the REF as one of your contributions and it doesn’t really adversely affect her. But I wouldn’t make a habit of it because personally I would have been pissed off if my former PhD supervisor had wanted in on my articles. Yes, she discussed ideas with me but that was my work, not hers. However, I did want an academic career and those outputs are now going into the REF as mine (we’re still at the same institution so we wouldn’t both have been able to submit them if she was the co-author). Your student is in a different position though.

@GoingComando what's the convention in your department in general, do you know? It's interesting you say the criteria I apply is the science way as it's the way we would tend to operate in our (multi-disciplinary) social science department but I suppose we all tend to collaborate with natural scientists as well so perhaps we have a hybrid approach. Having said that though, I did my PhD at a different institution and I wouldn't have dreamed of not including my supervisors on my publications from it as they were close collaborators in the work that formed the basis of the papers.

I would also assume that a co-authored paper in the humanities and social sciences was 50:50 contribution.

I’ve had to identify my contribution to co-authored papers which, in my case, was easy as it was always 50:50. If your name was in this paper how would you identify your contribution as PhD supervisor? 70:30, 80:20?

I work a lot with scientists because I'm quite interdisciplinary. They take the approach that PhD supervision automatically warrants a place on a publication because of the supervision, the shaping of ideas, the time, the resources etc.

That's not true of all sciences -- particularly not some of the theoretical sciences. Reading, providing background literature and theory, commenting on student work does not necessarily imply co-authorship.

writing a socsci paper is nothing like writing a natsci paper, hence why we publish less in socsci

This is a very sweeping statement. I am always surprised at how many relatively short papers social scientists write, cf the long, in depth papers favoured by theoretical scientists. And similarly surprised by the large numbers of relatively low content papers written by some experimentalists. Expected publication numbers/length of publications really vary a lot across the sciences too.

My take is that if I read and comment on PhD student publications (not the thesis), then I would expect to be a co-author

Totally NOT the practice in the arts/humanities, and actually I think it's border-line a dishonest practice in other sectors of academe.

Unless you contributed data or writing to the article/paper.

But just for doing your job as a teacher in supervising a PhD student (it's still part of our teaching) no way.

Completely agree with Mouthy Harpy (also Arts / Hums). I can't quite believe that people can come by a REF output so easily, just by basically doing their job as a PhD supervisor.

We follow the generally accepted conventions in the Social Sciences (which you can find on many of the subject association webpages) which are that a named author should have made a clear and substative contribution to at least two of:

• conceptualising or designing the research the article is based on (or conceptualising the article itself when using secondary data);
• collecting the data or doing basic processing of the data used in the article;
• analysing and interpreting the data used in the article;
• writing substantial sections of the article.

They should also have critically reviewed drafts of the article and they should be able to defend and take responsibility for the intellectual quality of the article and its findings.

Given the response of your co-supervisor, it would seem that it is not common practice in your subject for supervisors to claim co-authorship on their student's papers, and I would be very wary of getting a reputation as someone who is ethically dubious (because of the power relationship between supervisor and student) and intellectually untrustworthy. Word gets around. At the extreme, there have recently been several academics who have been called out on Twitter for this kind of (what is seen as) academic bad practice. The original tweet never named the individuals, but they were soon identified by name in the responses and now that, and the comments describing them as intellectual thieves who people would never work with, is out there, for every potential collaborator, every potential employer, etc. to see and make of what they will.

This doesn't seem complicated to me.

last Screenshot is from Brit Sociological Association.

My problem is getting people who say they want to be authors to confirm they even read the damn manuscript. (My problem is people who don't answer emails, let's be honest)

I have worked in different disciplines in social science and found differing conventions here. In psychology, there was a lot of co-authorship and the sense that you were working as a team, the supervisor was putting in a lot of work helping you and authorship was the norm. In sociology and especially anthropologist, there's more of a convention of the lone researcher, single author publications are more valued and the norm for PhD publications. I feel this often undervalues the supervisor's contribution (not always, depends how much they contribute). It also differs by academic.

I give mine a choice- co-authorship and a substantial contribution (e.g. rewriting abstract, restructuring work) from me, or no authorship and a quick read through with a few comments. I wouldn't start writing on a paper I wasn't authored on.

I also discuss this from the outset of the PhD so the choices are clear and there's no misunderstandings. I agree authorship without a reasonable contribution is not ok, but editing a paper from an inexperienced writer can be quite a large job and I wouldn't be doing it without authorship.

Thanks again for everyone's comments. I've been thinking about this over the weekend.

I agree with your approach @Nearlyalmost50 and I think you've really identified the different approaches that circulate around making things very complicated!

I'm absolutely not out to steal or muscle in on someone's work. I want to support students to get publications for themselves but if I'm doing a significant amount of work on them I need recognition for that in the form of an authorship.

I get what you mean @GCAcademic about supervision being part of your job. I guess there's just a fuzziness when it comes to how far supervision extends.