Hi Everyone,

I have nearly finished writing a paper where I did the vast majority of the lab work and writing. I want to include the paper in my thesis unedited and I have confirmation that it is okay. I am just waiting on final approval from the other authors and the authorship order has been agreed (I am the first name). We want to submit the paper to a special edition open-access journal, where my supervisor knows the guest-editor and they have agreed to waive the open-access fee. However, my supervisor wants to be corresponding author because she has organised the fee waiving and thinks it will be easier if she is directly in contact with them. I will still be first name but I don't know the rules around who should be corresponding author.

I just was curious, do I have to be the corresponding author to include the paper in my thesis? I know I should ask my department but getting a quick answer has been difficult recently and we want to submit very soon. My supervisor thinks it will be okay but I don't think she is really impartial in this case. Does anyone have any advice or am I overthinking this?

Well done on getting your paper published. I think it's perfectly OK to include your paper in your thesis as it's your contribution. Also, check whether the paper specifies the contribution of each author by their initials, as that is common with some journals, such as "DC conceived the study, RT performed the analysis etc.". As long as your first author/joint first author, it's alright for your Ph.D. supervisor to be the corresponding author.

Yeah just to add a 2nd opinion; you are indeed overthinking it :)

A supervisor asking to be 1st author, or not be named, is something to worry about. Nobody cares who the corresponding author is (think in all the stuff you've read, have you ever noticed or cared!)

I agree with Jamie, It shouldn't be an issue, in fact in all my paper form my PhD my PI is the corresponding author.
If you worried about your thesis you can always but the contribution at the start of the chapter, indicating what work each person did (My examiners requested this).

Thanks everyone! I appreciate the help. I am probably just overthinking this and shouldn't care about corresponding author. The article does have a contribution section where I have done the vast majority of the work but I had no idea how significant the corresponding author was. I think I was taken a bit by surprise but I really shouldn't be worried.

I have just realised there was a spelling mistake in the title ;) LOL!