I'm in the process of submitting my dissertation for publishing for which I worked long and hard and eventually gained a distinction. However, now my supervisor who contributed nothing except recommending a few books (which I already had) is muscling their way in saying things like 'when I submit my paper...' and I have a strong feeling that they will want to be authored on this. At best I will acknowledge them for fear my uni will turn its back on me and sour my research career before its even properly begun. I just want to know if I can submit my work without their assistance to prevent them using this as a reason to gain authorship in some way? Plus, we had to write a declaration that our supervisor can recreate our work after submitting our dissertation. I was in two minds about this but went along at the last high pressured minutes of submittal thinking that if I left it out or queried it I'd get marked down. I just feel duped and a bit out of control.

'Dissertation' as in PhD?

No it was for my masters

http://www.findamasters.com/students/forum.asp

thanks- does this mean you'll answer my question if I post here?

This is often the case. Its a contentious issue but universities often have some claim over research carried out at their institution. I would think very carefully before challenging it. as you say, it could really harm your research career..and thinking positively..perhaps having your supervisor will give the paper some prestige and added weight in the field. To be authored on a paper at all is fantastic at this stage! Being able to demonstrate an ability to create a good working relationship is all important. Academia is all about standing on other peoples shoulders. With a bit of luck your time at the top will come!

I have just written a paper for submission and am working on number 2 the order of publishers is important. I have cited myself as the main author them my supervisor and another supervisor who helped with some on the data. If your supervisor is helping with the paper i.e. putting it into a format that would be accepted by a journal or adding his credentials as being experiance in the field then I would cite then as an author. If he is doing sweet FA I would find someone who would be prepared to help and stick them in as an author

Thanks for your advice Rookie and Johnn. Yes, with some after thought I don't think challenging their authorship would be beneficial at this point. Its difficult because I do get along with my supervisor otherwise, but I couldn’t agree to them being first author, which for some reason is something masters students are made to agree to at my uni. I just feel its unfair as my tutor knew nothing of my topic area when I begun and didn’t contribute anything intellectually.

Do you really think helping to set it out into an acceptable format warrants authorship?

Well I think it's very unreasonable for your supervisor to expect first authorship and I am surprised that your uni expects it. It was stressed to me that it is important for my furture career that I get first authorship and have some sole author papers (sole authorship being very unrealistic in some e.g. lab fields). If this is a standard policy for everyone though you may have a hard time fighting it. I would get advice from your graduate tutor (you should have one - although I could never figure out who mine was until this year).

It's generally understood that the head of the lab/team/whatever goes last in authorship and the person who actually did all the actual work goes first. I ecpect I will put my supervisor on papers that he has not had input on - but hopefully not all of them (hahahaha - always supposing I have this heap of pepers to publish!!!).

I wonder if this is discipline-specific? I wouldn't dream of putting any of my supervisors on any of my papers unless they had physically written some of it....

I would of thought it is pretty much convention that your supervisor should get their name on what ever paper you publish, but as group author.

The university having the intellectual property rights is common...but not saying that your supervisor has to be first author. I've just published something from my undergraduate work (in sciences), and I was first author.

AS others have said, it would be hard to challenge yout supervisors's authorship overall - I think it's a given that they are listed somewhere.

However they should not automatically assume that they are the first author. If he/she creates a fuss, you can suggest joint first authorship. By going 50/50 on things neither will lose out.

Thanks for your responses. Yes, it seems that at this particular stage it is an unwritten rule to include your supervisor within the authorship. I think what I will do is actually broach the subject with them and ask outright what the standard form of acknowledgement is for the weight of their contribution and take it from there. I will definitely acknowledge them in my work as they have been quite encouraging over the course of my study, but I'm hoping they might be quite sympathetic to the situation. Here's keeping everything crossed...