Hi everyone. I am a long time reader but I must admit I have posted very little. This is my first thread so here goes: I know this sort of topic has been discussed before but could any of you advise me on this particular situation. I am 2 years into my PhD and my supervisor has asked if it would be ok to send one of my draft chapters to an undergraduate student who is doing a thesis similar to mine. I am a bit cautious of saying 'yes' but I don't feel like I have much choice. Can I say 'no' to my supervisor?! Should I even be worried about this? It's just I have not published or presented yet and I am afraid of this person copying my work especially if it is a topic similar to mine. They have also asked is it ok to have me talk to the student. Now I don't mind that part but giving my written work is something I am worried about. Thanks guys (and thank you for all the threads that I have read. This is a really helpful community :-))

Hi I understand how you feel as it's your work and you can't be too careful with it especially as you haven't published or presented it yet. It's a huge compliment that your supervisor wants to send your work to an undergrad who is probably not going to pay too much attention to it but you never know. It's your work so you can decide whether or not to give it to someone so don't worry about what your supervisor will say!

I had a similar case where an MSc student I was helping asked if she could borrow my dataset as she wanted to practice using a program and needed some data. I was uneasy about giving her my data for the same reasons you stated but wanted to help so in the end I gave her an edited version where I changed the data so it didn't resemble my data as that wasn't the important part. Maybe you could do the same - just provide key points/highlight the main parts of your chapter and a reference list where they could do further reading. I'm sure if you suggested that to your supervisor they would understand especially if you're willing to chat to the undergrad! I'm sure they're just after ideas and your supervisor thought you would be a good example.

Doodles, thank you very much. That is really good advice. It’s a difficult situation because I am afraid if I say no to the written part it would damage relations with my supervisor but maybe I’m getting carried away there. Yes, part of me feels that it is a compliment in a way but the other part is just worried about someone copying ideas. I think I’ll contact him and just let him know I am very happy to talk to the student but a little bit uneasy about sharing my written work because I have not published or presented it and so perhaps it would be most useful for the student if I spoke to them and also highlighted the key areas of my chapter rather than give them my actual chapter. I did help an MA student of his last year, talking to him, giving him useful articles and reading and commenting on his work so I could suggest doing that again. The undergrad thesis is due in a few weeks so I think a chat would really be more useful for her at this stage than my written work. There, I have convinced myself! Thank you very much Doodles. I really appreciate it. It put my mind at rest knowing others would feel uneasy too as I thought I might be overreacting. :-)

I'm glad that has been sorted out and you're definitely not over-reacting as it's natural to be protective of your work as you've put so much effort and time in it to give it to someone. ;-)

If she has to have it finished in a few weeks, then I would be more cautious than if she had longer really. If she writes something very similar, it might look as though you are quoting her rather than the other way round, or worse, it might seem like the whole thing is her idea not yours and that you are copying it, and therefore your unique contribution would be lost. If you are going to talk to her, I would ask her to tell me what she is doing and then comment on that, with some helpful lit/journals if it is close enough to your own area to comment. If she has no idea then I would try to give some pointers, although a few weeks is not long to get it done I would not give her my work to read, and would only advise. If your work is exploring a new area/idea which no doubt it will be I would not want it to 'get out' before I had submitted. It is one thing to talk to your supervisors about your work in progress, but quite another to do it with someone who could pinch it. (This might be worse case scenario, but you never know)

Hi Joyce. Thank you very much. Yes, that is a good point that the short amount of time left should make one more worried about potential plagiarism. I have contacted my supervisor saying no to sharing my work but yes to talking to her. Thankfully supervisor seems understanding about it and has just suggested that I might be able to point the student to some useful readings so I am ok with that. I'm glad I said no. I am also not overjoyed to hear that someone is doing something similar but maybe it's not that similar. I imagine it's going to be that the student doesn't really know what they're doing and I'll have to just suggest texts and so on. I hope that's it because I really don't want to be giving anyone information that took me so long to acquire and work through. My research is new and I want to get it out there first!Thanks both for your replies. You've been really helpful.