Hi all again,
A situation has sort of come up that I would like your advice on.
Basically speaking throughout my PhD my plans for research publications have changed. However I was under the impression that at my last milestone they were pretty much good to go and that my supervisor agreed with all this and was in on the plan.
Fast forward to last Friday supervisor talks to be briefly while walking to a seminar about paper plans to which he outlined his idea in about 30secs to which I responded "I may have some different ideas". So later that evening he sends an email out to a few of us with this plan. And I have to say it's not a bad plan, there are few strange bits in there which I wouldn't do because I don't think it adds anything to the paper. But what got me was the list of authors on his plan which was commented "rder to be arranged at end to fairly reflect contribution.".
Now the general idea of this paper was to be mine. And as far as I am concerned it contains most of my data although supervisor has listed some data analysis to be performed by others (which I will fight to do).
Now the paper plan as he's written is slightly more vast then what I was going to do. And while it may be a higher impact paper, it's much better for me to be first author of a lower impact paper containing my work then a second author on a higher impact paper. So I am prepared to veto the plan and remove permission for the use of my data which would ruin the paper plan as it stands.
But am I permitted to do that? As a paid researcher I know that the data and any ideas developed on my paid time is technically owned by the lab. But how does this stand as a PhD student and how much say do I have in how it is used?
Who is writing the paper? The person actually writing the paper is usually first author.
If you are largest contributor of data but are not actually writing the paper, then I'd say being listed as second author is actually reasonable. If you are writing the paper as well as contributing the bulk of the data, then you should be first author.
I'll add that at this stage you are a student and have not yet been awarded your PhD. In your position, I'd concentrate on doing what is necessary to achieve that aim and go along with your supervisor's wishes. You do not want to ailienate your supervisor whilst you are a student, as you may find the supervisor becomes less supportive, more ambivolent and even hostile towards you.
Unless you have an industrial sponsor or there are other stipulations in any agreement you signed when you started your PhD, you are correct in that you hold the intellectual ownership of the data. However, owning the data does not necessarily mean you have right to be first author. That is the person who contributes most to the paper, normally the actual writer.
If you feel unhappy with this, once you have your PhD then as intellectual owner of the data then you can put out publications with your name as first author. But whilst you have not been awarded your PhD, earning that should be your primary aim and you should not act to detract from that. Concentrat on getting the PhD.
Ian (Mackem_Beefy)
Wow OK then. That last comment was basically saying "bend over and take it from your supervisor as he is your God and you do not want to anger him".
Sorry, but I believe I have a spine and a bit of self respect. Sure I can graduate from my PhD with no first author publications, however having at least one first author publication makes my CV look so much better.
And NO, the person who physically sits down to write the paper is NOT the person who automatically gets their name as first author. It's the person who does the most work, including taking into account the effort of writing.
You know what? At this point, to all intents and purposes, your supervisor IS your God. They can make or break your career and it would be pretty stupid to throw a hissy fit and 'remove permission' for your work to be published. By all means discuss it calmly with your supervisor and perhaps a compromise could be reached, but if I were you I'd be very careful about the approach I took.
Also, it is generally understood that the first author is the person who actually wrote the paper. By implication, they are often the person who did most of the work, as they understand it the best and therefore wrote the bulk of it, but not necessarily. The last name is the person who was officially in charge of the work (ie. your supervisor), and the people in the middle are those who contributed. Many journals now actually require you to list who did what in the production of the paper to ensure everyone listed actually did enough to be considered an 'author'. Additionally, having a first author paper in a low impact is not necessarily better than a co-author on a high impact - for example being a co-author on a Nature paper would far out-rank being a first author almost anywhere else, so it would be worth giving this some thought - obviously this will depend on the specific journals you're talking about.
Finally, your attitude speaks volumes about you - Mackem_Beefy is a highly respected poster on this forum who took the time to answer your question, so in future I'd give a bit more thought to how you respond.
I should probably add, although I don't have to justify the opinions we are giving you FOR FREE, that I happen to know Mackem_Beefy has a large number of publications under their belt, and I work in medical communications, so we do know what we're talking about.
======= Date Modified 25 Apr 2012 11:49:50 =======
======= Date Modified 25 Apr 2012 11:49:06 =======
OK well I'll come out and apologise for my knee jerk response. I do appreciate replies to my posts.
However, I am a bit sick and tired of the supervisor as a seemingly all-powerful non-benevolent being thing, especially after reading around here and finding so many students hard done by as a result of poor supervision. And yes, I did search but did not find anyone in a really similar position.
I'm thinking of it as the same as an investment decision. If I invest a huge time and effort into something (a paper) and expect an appropriate award (acknowledgement). And if I don't believe this will happen I have no reason to comply and am just being taken advantage of.
At the end of the day I believe the PhD system is broken. I just don't want to keep it how it is by bowing to what is has become.
======= Date Modified 25 Apr 2012 12:59:51 =======
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