Asking my research professor about publishing

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paul411

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Background: My professor joined the university in February 2009 and three months later, in May 2009, I contacted him to see if I could work in his lab. I was his first student/lab assistant and we essentially set up the lab. It's been almost two years now and I'll be working with him over the upcoming fall semester as well.

He is planning to publish a methods paper (on isolating synaptic vesicles from cow brains) this summer or early next fall based on the last two years of work. I've pretty much been there every step along the way but I was more of an assistant; he would come up with ideas, etc. and I would help implement them and sometimes suggest minor improvements. I setup a lot of the machine, software and equipment we use in the lab.

My question is, firstly, whether I should ask about authorship on the paper and, secondly, how I should go about asking? Any advice? This is my first and only lab I've worked in... so I don't really know how such things are handled.

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Who else works in the lab? Does he have post-docs? Is the PI writing the paper, or is a doctoral or post-doc going to do it?

Strictly speaking, lab technicians don't really get published much, as they don't contribute intellectually to the content of the work. That isn't to say they aren't important, but without guidance and direction the research wouldn't have gotten done or led to anything. Now, if you perfected techniques used in the lab or something along those lines, it would be somewhat different, because your initiative and reasoning contributed to the advancement of the project in a quantifiable way.

If you were making reagents and cleaning glassware for your PI, then you likely deserve an acknowledgment in a paper or two and a great letter of recommendation. If you did something more than that, it would not be at all unreasonable to ask if you could be involved in the manuscript.

As a post-doc who has students ask me about things like this not infrequently, it helps if you show that you want to be associated with the project rather than just building your CV or looking for recognition. Offer to help draft the manuscript, particularly if you were involved with a specific area of the methods section that you could specifically write about. Offer to help proofread or make figures as well. This gets you intimately involved with the manuscript drafting phase, which post-docs and PIs usually find to be tedious. Once you are invested in that way, there is really no way they could exclude you from the paper (manuscript preparation and/or critical revision are strong criteria for authorship).

Frankly, if you were with this guy from the beginning and have been a loyal lab worker, he should feel obligated to find a role for you on at least one manuscript (I would, but then again I'm a softie).
 
I agree with all of ^

For emphasis, and to address your original question, perhaps the best way to approach your PI is to ask him if he'd like any help writing the paper (rather than ask to simply have your name added to the end of the author list).
 
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Who else works in the lab? Does he have post-docs? Is the PI writing the paper, or is a doctoral or post-doc going to do it?

Strictly speaking, lab technicians don't really get published much, as they don't contribute intellectually to the content of the work. That isn't to say they aren't important, but without guidance and direction the research wouldn't have gotten done or led to anything. Now, if you perfected techniques used in the lab or something along those lines, it would be somewhat different, because your initiative and reasoning contributed to the advancement of the project in a quantifiable way.

If you were making reagents and cleaning glassware for your PI, then you likely deserve an acknowledgment in a paper or two and a great letter of recommendation. If you did something more than that, it would not be at all unreasonable to ask if you could be involved in the manuscript.

As a post-doc who has students ask me about things like this not infrequently, it helps if you show that you want to be associated with the project rather than just building your CV or looking for recognition. Offer to help draft the manuscript, particularly if you were involved with a specific area of the methods section that you could specifically write about. Offer to help proofread or make figures as well. This gets you intimately involved with the manuscript drafting phase, which post-docs and PIs usually find to be tedious. Once you are invested in that way, there is really no way they could exclude you from the paper (manuscript preparation and/or critical revision are strong criteria for authorship).

Frankly, if you were with this guy from the beginning and have been a loyal lab worker, he should feel obligated to find a role for you on at least one manuscript (I would, but then again I'm a softie).

My PI's writing the paper. We just got a PhD student this spring semester and he's still learning all the lab techniques and stuff.

I like your suggestion about contributing to the methods part of the manuscript because I'm essentially the only guy who does some parts of the protocol. I also wrote up (documented) all the protocols in the lab. So when we have new students, they usually refer to these protocols to do the steps, etc.

I'm going to get dinner with my prof this week because I'm taking a little break from the lab for a few weeks to focus on my MCAT re-studying. This might be a good opportunity to bring it up.
 
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