Second, I didn't get into trouble because of adding his name, but mainly because of submitting a paper without his approval and approval from my school's dean. Nevertheless, the advisor had no input so I thought I'll give it a try. I basically wanted to do him a favour by adding his name but instead I got into trouble for having the nerve to try to publish my own work. Shows the state of academia, if you ask me.

"LOL! What an utterly ridiculous thing to do! You say that your supervisor wasn't involved or contributed to the work in the paper, so why on Earth did you add his name?!? No wonder he was livid. What if the work was total tripe? I wouldn't want my name added to something of which I took no part in and gave no authorisation for, would you? That's not independent thought, it's misrepresentation."

Sorry, but that's not true, Procrastinator. First of all, the paper got accepted in a well respected journal, peer-reviewed and one of the better ones. So the work wasn't "total tripe".

Your advice is about 4 years too late!

the supervisor will influence your topic and research either way, so one can usually not pursue ones' own ideas.

What are you talking about?? Who said there is a choice?

"I know that in the UK, there's a choice of pursuing a supervisor's research idea or one's own."

What Shani said reminded me of the episode where I submitted a journal article without telling my supervisor. He wasn't involved or contributed to it anyway. Once it finally got accepted I asked the editors to add him as a second author. When I told him, I expected respect or gratefulness. Instead I nearly got kicked out of my programme and had to explain myself in front of a committee. Shows that, unfortunately, they dont always honour independent thought, although they should, really.

In most supervisory situations, even if no close relationship, I do not believe this would be a normal procedure or an OK thing to do, to be honest. Now that it's done, just make sure you don't do it again but don't worry about it. We all do mistakes.

I think you DID make a mistake and should have talked to your supervisor first. If I were the supervisor, such behaviour would really push me over the edge. Not only do you somehow undermine his authority, but you also did not inform him about this, so no wonder he feels betrayed. On the other hand, I'm sure he won't hold the grudge for long and things will calm down quickly. Just don't confront him with it until he got over it.

Academics are a funny species, very sensitive and easily annoyed by minor things.

This is NOT the Oracle of Delphi.

I agree with Olivia. Lately, this forum has been spammed with posters who either cannot read, have no brain or just don't know what they want to know. This is, after all, a Postgrad Forum, so expecting certain degrees of literacy and intelligence appears like a legitimate expectation to me.

Could you please post your phonenumber as well? I have experience and know Dr Smith very well. Grazie.

Sorry. There were a few earlier threads before which were clearly written by one person, so sorry about my suspicion. I'm going paranoid!

I suspect that this thread is going to develop into one of these conversations where one person pretends to be two and they go on and on although they are basically by themselves. I'm watching. Some indicators are time spans between answers and the writing style.

From a male perspective, I agree with what Leone said. There are two in the relationship so it is important that both partners' life plans are incorporated into the decision making process. In other words, if your partner is not ready to settle down, then settling down may not be the right way forward at this point in time. Detached from this general point I would also like to emphasise that the choice for the PhD may ultimately and indirectly lead to the demise of the relationship due to the idiosyncratic characteristics of the process. See older threads for different views on the issue. I hope you make the right decision but I advocate not to underestimate the impact of the PhD on your life which may be comparable to the impact of a baby on your life. With regard to the latter, I obviously don't speak from experience, though.

That's fascinating.

Do you have complete freedom regarding the content or theme of your novel? Do you know what it will be about? What influence will the advisors have on the development or wrting of the novel?