What merits inclusion of a supervisor as co-author on a Social Science journal article? If the PhD student has done all planning, fieldwork and writing on their own, the work is their own, and the supervisors have not been directly involved, is the student still 'obliged' to include the supervisors on the paper? I don't, in theory, have a problem with this, but if I wish to use that paper (albeit in a slightly altered form) in my thesis, would having it out there as 'co-authored' be a negative? Would my work (and the extent to which it is 'my' work) be questioned?