Is it normal to make a professor a co-author if you wrote the paper for their class?
Dear Uncertain Co-author,
You’re in good hands here with another first generation PhD student. It is really hard to know the unspoken rules and expectations of academia - particularly around publications and authorship!
I want to start with a question to you: do you want to publish the paper?
There’s plenty of reasons to publish, always, in terms of your career as a researcher/academic/scientist and gaining exposure for your work and solidifying yourself in the field. But there also are plenty of reasons to not publish this paper in terms of your emotional capacity, the relevance of the paper to your research topic, or prioritizing another project.
How you feel about publishing seems like the best place to start. Once you know that, I think the following decisions will become somewhat clearer.
If you decide publishing this paper is not the choice for you now (or maybe ever, for this paper), you can send an email to the professor saying something to the effect of ‘thank you for believing in this paper, I am not interested in pursuing publication at this time’ and you can be done with the co-author confusion as it immediate relates to your life!
But, if you decide publishing this paper is the choice, I think it’s worth considering a few things next:
What journal to submit it to
How much work to transform the paper assignment into a manuscript
What is your relationship like with the professor
One and two go together really because you may come to realize the best fit journal is going to require a dramatic word reduction or is in a different citation style. And this may bring you back to the other conclusion which is: this publication is not worth it at this time.
More importantly though, the journals tend to have guidelines about what constitutes co-authorship.
Which can lead you to a few options for next steps.
—
To-Try #1
One next step would be to create a plan for what changes would need to be made to transform the paper into a manuscript, and (here’s where the relationship with the professor comes in) bring this plan to your professor and ask if they would be able to help with 1, 2 & 3 in order to prepare the manuscript and become a second author.
This depends very much on power dynamics, vibes, and overall ability to have potentially a confrontational conversation.
But it feels as though your uncertainty around co-authorship is based on her not doing any work for the paper (and while usually thought development and initial topic construction can be considered enough for authorship - think conversations in supervision, etc.) it doesn’t sound like the professor even meets that criteria. So I believe there is solid ground under you to ask for her to contribute to the manuscript. Bringing some identified ways for her to contribute might feel better for you and allow you to feel out how much these types of contributions change the feelings of uncertainty.
To-Try #2
Another option for next steps, that still allows you to be armed with the journal expectations for co-authorship, is to send an email addressing what constitute co-authorship for this specific journal and say at this point you don’t feel comfortable with co-authorship based on their criteria. You could then offer ‘if you are able to support with the transition into manuscript I would feel confident with co-authorship based on the guidelines from the journal’. But you also don’t have to offer that; you are allowed to say no.
Again, there is so much to say on power dynamics, working relationships, networking, that it is definitely worth taking some time to consider your unique situation. If you have anyone around you like your supervisor or advisor, friendly post-docs, labmates, or classmates from that course, it is always worth checking in about the situation and hearing their thoughts and opinions.
Pay close attention to how you feel about their suggestions - it’s such a helpful clue to know how to handle the situation based on what it brings up in you as you imagine following through with their suggestions.
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Part of why being a first generation student is so hard, I think, is having to create a support system and network of people that understand the environment of academia. It can be lonely and confusing to figure out the underbelly of academia which people don’t speak aloud or do quietly.
I learned what constituted authorship through Google. Some Reddit rabbit holes, some PhD blogs, some journal guidelines, maybe something in a handbook from Cambridge somewhere, but regardless, when I was first working on papers to publish and I didn’t know who I could talk to yet at my university without them thinking ‘oh she doesn’t belong here’, I scoured the internet.
Here is what I know to be normal about authorship: it brings up so many feelings.
I know people who have resentfully listed people who didn’t contribute as co-authors when they didn’t want to. I know people who have contributed work but have, horrifically, been left off papers. I know people who have, infuriatingly, had their work stolen by other people. I know people who have stressed over how to maintain corresponding author status. I know people who were broken down and gave up the fight on maintaining their second author status and was put into fifth author.
I bring up those examples not to scare you, but to remind you that authorship conversations are something people have whether they are first gen or not. The feelings and strange situations are unfortunately characteristic of academic publishing. Authorship is a negotiation and something that requires intentionality. It will become easier to feel out your boundaries for if you want to offer authorship to someone when planning out a manuscript or when you know you need to advocate for your authorship status on someone else’s manuscript over time. It takes practice.
It’s okay for this situation to be fumble-ly and uncertain as you navigate it for the first time though. (And second and third and however many other times it doesn’t feel easy) Don’t expect to know how to handle it perfectly or super confidently. Do reflect on and consider your situation, your options, and any support you might have along the way.
Academia, as with life, is a series of brand new situations that you figure out how to navigate as best you can with the knowledge you have at the time.
I hope this letter brings to you something that supports your knowledge development for authorship and publishing.
And from one first gen to another, I believe in you.
Til next Sunday,
Dr. Sydney Conroy
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