Dear all

I have co-authored a paper with my supervisor and it's now published. However I realised that my supervisor has made a note on the paper saying that her herself alone wrote the paper and that I contributed on running experiment. This is not true because we wrote the paper together. In fact, I was the one who wrote the first draft for the entire paper.

More importantly, I think she intentionally didn't include this statement in the draft that we wrote together. Because when I asked her for the final version of the draft before submission, she reassured me that the version that I had was the same version that she will submit- but this turn out to be not true. She didn't send me the author copy of the paper, neither she informed me that the paper has been published (or send me the published version of the paper).

I have wrote to her about this but she did not reply. Can I write to the editor of the journal directly and ask them to investigate this issue? Any advice?

No offence, I suppose you are not a native English speaker. So your writing may not meet the highest quality standard for publishing in that journal. It is purely a guessing from myself. I am not native speaker. My writing is bad as you could see here. In that case, your supervisor might re-write a quite lot for better clarity of the content, I presume. It is very common. I also knew a couple of rare cases which the supervisors almost re-write their student's PhD thesis at the stage of proofreading/editing/, before submission.

In the case as I stated above, I recommend you to improve it, rather than struggle with these details. Only your improvement and high quality work can prevent similar case happened in future.

Hi Human, it sounds like your supervisor may have acted somewhat dishonestly, but I think there's not much you can do about it now without burning bridges you might need later. No, I wouldn't write to the journal, the issue of who contributed what is rather subjective, and authorship disputes are common- the journal is not going to do anything. Keep in mind that the impact of that extra sentence may not be so huge- you are still an author on the paper, which is the important thing. You can include it on your publication list for applications etc. As you build up a longer publication list it will not be a big deal at all.

As annoying as it is, my advice would be to let this one go. Maintaining as good a relationship with your sup as possible is more important than an incorrect contribution statement in a paper. But I would raise it with your supervisor in person, see if they have some justification for what they wrote, and if they don't then tell them that you think what they wrote was wrong.

Thanks for your comments

Yes, I am not a native speaker and it is true that my supervisor has rewritten some sentences to enhance the clarity. But that does not mean I did not contribute to the writing. In fact, I actually write and spend more time on this than she does, and I really doubt by proofreading the content, once can claim they did the writing.

Unfortunately the relationship between me and my supervisor has broken long time ago. She has been very controlling, and she has been rude to me. I reported to the department (with solid evidence) and she has received warning about it.

I have read case studies that it is possible to raise this issue to the editor, because every single word in a paper should be agreed between the authors. In this case, she did not inform me about this and there is a chance that she did that intentionally as she refused to send me the final draft when I asked.

I actually see this as a misconduct as this is not the first time this has happened. She is actually having similar issue with her other student.

It may well be miscounduct from what you say, but I think getting the journal involved will just make things worse for you. You could have the paper withdrawn from the journal, but this tends to look bad for all involved, and others might assume that your work is fundamentally flawed. Or possibly they could publish a correction, but then your authorship disputes are published for all to see, and this is likely to harm your future career chances more than being under-credited on the paper, as people may see you as a troublemaker. I don't see what else the journal can do after the article has gone to press, basically it's too late to rectify such issues at this stage.

Your sup sounds very insecure, as surely there is plenty of kudos for her if her students are doing good work and publishing! It is quite odd behaviour, and awful that she can get away with it, but if you decide to pursue this be aware that you are unlikely to get an outcome that will benefit you much. I would focus on preventing this happening to you again, getting your degree and moving on to work with someone else less petty and controlling.

Just want to provide some update about this incident.

I reported this to the department, and department has done investigations on this issue.

There are solid evidence that we wrote the paper together (not her alone) and that my supervisor intended to exclude me to be one of the authors. Apparently the department has received a few complains about it and she has similar record in her previous employment.

This is an academic misconduct and the person involved is on suspension.

Dear all, please do not tolerate academic bullies. By doing so, you are giving green pass to these people and they will continue to behave like this.

Everyone has the responsibility to make the academy a better place.

I always feel disregard for professors (and senior lectures) who put their name before their students'.
We all know what happened there!

Hi Human, I'm glad your complaint was taken seriously, and action was taken. You are right- it's better that the misconduct is not allowed to continue, of course. I have seen people get burnt by the system though, where the university protects its own and the student is pushed out with nowhere to turn. But since you had solid evidence of misconduct, it seems to have worked in your favour. Thanks for posting the update, its good to hear that standing up for yourself can sometimes go well!