Authorship

[PsychResearch]

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Hi!

I am in a very delicate position. I am starting on a manusript that is based on my thesis research. At the time of the thesis, I was paired up with a senior student, but things did not work out. She was giving me the run around saying that she'll help me, but never did. From there I brought up the situation to my mentor and my relationship with this student suffered thereafter. Things are changing lately and she seems willing to compromise and work things out. I offered that we work together on the manuscript and she accepted. However, I still don't trust her and based on some recent incident we had (where she put her name 1st on a project I came up with), I worry she intends to go as a first author on my thesis research. She is somewhat more advanced in terms of stats skills than I am, but there isn't anything that she knows that I can't learn on my own and through consulting with other people. It would be nice to work with someone as working alone takes lots of time, but I wouldn't want to get involved if she wants to take over.

How can I bring this up in a nice, polite way and get an understanding of this? Do I bring it up to the student? Mentor? Both? I hope someone can help! Thank you.

 

[deadmau5]

Hi!

I am in a very delicate position. I am starting on a manusript that is based on my thesis research. At the time of the thesis, I was paired up with a senior student, but things did not work out. She was giving me the run around saying that she'll help me, but never did. From there I brought up the situation to my mentor and my relationship with this student suffered thereafter. Things are changing lately and she seems willing to compromise and work things out. I offered that we work together on the manuscript and she accepted. However, I still don't trust her and based on some recent incident we had (where she put her name 1st on a project I came up with), I worry she intends to go as a first author on my thesis research. She is somewhat more advanced in terms of stats skills than I am, but there isn't anything that she knows that I can't learn on my own and through consulting with other people. It would be nice to work with someone as working alone takes lots of time, but I wouldn't want to get involved if she wants to take over.

How can I bring this up in a nice, polite way and get an understanding of this? Do I bring it up to the student? Mentor? Both? I hope someone can help! Thank you.

There is no way she reasonably can suggest first authorship. The MS is based on your own research.

 

[cara susanna]

There's an APA ethical rule against being a first author on a paper based on someone else's thesis.

 

[psychapps]

How can I bring this up in a nice, polite way and get an understanding of this? Do I bring it up to the student? Mentor? Both? I hope someone can help! Thank you.

If you and the senior student are working together in the same lab (the mentor's), I would just e-mail the mentor to ask for his/her opinion on authorship. If I were in your situation, I'd do it casually, rather than bringing up any of the problems you've had with the senior student (at least at first). Once you have your mentor's response (as other people have said, I can't imagine it not being in your favor), I would forward it to the senior student and say "Oh, btw, I talked to Dr. W and he/she said the authorship on this project should be X, Y, and Z."

Since it is a pretty clear-cut example of first authorship, you could even email your mentor with what you think is the fair order and ask him/her for an opinion on it.

 

[PsychResearch]

Thanks everyone. I wasn't aware of the APA rule. However, I do know that there are some exceptions. I know a student who got her analyses done by another student, so there was a conversation at the beginning of the thesis project that the student who has done the analyses (and also conceptualization) will be first. But perhaps that is an exception.

I wouldn't want this student helping me with let's say creating the syntax for the analyses (i need to run everything again in Mplus) to take over. She's pretty aggressive and someone else told me that she can see how it could happen.

I'm just starting on this, so having a conversation at the beginning won't hurt, but I'm not too sure about as I don't want to make an issue out of a non-issue.

Does it have to be in an e-mail or getting a verbal agreement also worK?

 

[PsychResearch]

If you and the senior student are working together in the same lab (the mentor's), I would just e-mail the mentor to ask for his/her opinion on authorship. If I were in your situation, I'd do it casually, rather than bringing up any of the problems you've had with the senior student (at least at first). Once you have your mentor's response (as other people have said, I can't imagine it not being in your favor), I would forward it to the senior student and say "Oh, btw, I talked to Dr. W and he/she said the authorship on this project should be X, Y, and Z."

Since it is a pretty clear-cut example of first authorship, you could even email your mentor with what you think is the fair order and ask him/her for an opinion on it.

I somewhat feel it's too early to e-mail with the order. I'd rather have a draft first and then list the order. But then again, I would like to get an understanding of this from the start. I also need to inform my mentor that me and the other student are working on this together.

I'm thinking to say that I'll be doing most of the work but that student X will help out mostly in terms of stats. And then say that with this said I would like to be the leader on the project...I'm also worried b/c I've been in this lab for 4 years + and it is only now that I start getting papers out. So, I could bring this up, too. In my opinion, I don't think the mentor is thinking otherwise, but since this student will be involved and she is running the lab, I don't know how things will play out.

 

[Ollie123]

If memory serves, the APA code technically only states that the student should always be first author for dissertations, not theses. That said, that's obviously the "norm".

If the student hasn't done anything up to this point, I can't imagine them getting first authorship. The only time I really hear of the driving force behind a project not getting first author is senior people giving it away to advanced graduate students and post-docs because frankly, they often are well past the point of "needing" publications to build their reputation and would just as soon have someone else do it so they don't have to spend the time.

Frankly, I think anyone besides you as first would be nearly impossible to justify given you will be doing the vast majority of the writing (I assume) for your defense, and that will likely be cut down into the manuscript. Helping with stats in no way justifies first authorship.


Selfish part: Not to steal the thread, but I actually have a highly related question. My professor has data from another student's master's thesis that I basically have been granted open access to. I can't go into too much detail for confidentiality, so suffice it to say the student is no longer in the field, and it is highly unlikely that we will be able to contact her about anything related to this project. My advisor would like to publish it because its a decent study that fills a gap in the literature, and he spent a fair amount of time mentoring the project, and a few thousand dollars of money that could have been spent on other things for participant payments, etc. Despite the fact that it was technically the student's project, that seems perfectly reasonable to me though I'm not sure who "technically" retains data ownership in that situation. If we were to write it up, my inclination would be to put the student as first author even if I ended up completely rewriting it to get it into a manuscript (as I would likely have to do). However, the fact that we would not be able to get her permission before submitting it is obviously a serious problem. Any thoughts?

 

[deadmau5]

^ did the student actually write up a thesis or just collect data. As I understand they wrote the thesis, but never cut it down for a submission. This one is tougher but... just to give my two cents: I'd say professor (b/c he/she supervised the collection, funded it, conceived the idea or at least contributed to the theoretical rationale/design) goes first, then you, then the student... who hasn't contributed to the current MS but did collect data is fine. Or professor, student who left, then you.

 

[Ollie123]

Student did the full blown proposal/data collection/defense. Its a finished project, though if I took it on would likely start over with data cleaning since I'm obsessive and paranoid like that.

I might actually contact APA ethics board to get their input if this actually looks like something that will happen - I have far more important papers to get done first. I'm less concerned about the author order - I'd be fine taking first, middle, last, whatever. I suspect my advisor feels the same - in the past he has been all too happy to let me take the lead on his own projects if it means he won't have to do the writing. My bigger concern was that it would likely mean submitting a manuscript with an author included who hasn't "signed off" on agreeing to be included, and I can't imagine a situation where she wouldn't be included at all.

 

[RileyG]

My bigger concern was that it would likely mean submitting a manuscript with an author included who hasn't "signed off" on agreeing to be included, and I can't imagine a situation where she wouldn't be included at all.

This is against the ethics code...I think your idea to contact the board and get their opinion is a wise one as all authors must agree to accept the responsibilities of authorship if/when it is accepted for publication.

 

[RileyG]

I somewhat feel it's too early to e-mail with the order.

Don't worry about feeling like it's too early...the ethics code suggests agreeing on authorship order as early as possible. I think it's perfectly acceptable to decide it now before your co-authors start contributing too much so they understand their responsibilities.

 

[Ollie123]

This is against the ethics code...I think your idea to contact the board and get their opinion is a wise one as all authors must agree to accept the responsibilities of authorship if/when it is accepted for publication.

Precisely. It would not be an issue if we could contact this person and get permission, but circumstances preclude that from happening. Thus the question becomes, is it better to submit a paper where someone hasn't agreed to be listed as an author, better to drop a deserving author's name from a manuscript, or better to let valid, publishable data rot in a file drawer while others potentially spend time and resources running the same study to avoid having to make that decision

 

[Marissa4usa]

Quite frankly, and as awkward as it may be, I would address this issue with her beforehand. I mean, it's YOUR project, you thought it out, so I would make clear to her that you will be taking the main responsibility, and her job will be to assist you.

If I was in your place, I would probably avoid trying to work with her as much as I can and maybe even consult with others. Things like this rarely end on good terms.

I would probably try to do this via email as you will have proof of what was agreed on.

 

[psychapps]

Quite frankly, and as awkward as it may be, I would address this issue with her beforehand. I mean, it's YOUR project, you thought it out, so I would make clear to her that you will be taking the main responsibility, and her job will be to assist you.

I agree, it might be a good idea to discuss authorship beforehand, so that you can avoid any confusion later. In my current lab, my mentor usually works with us to determine the order, with the idea that it's always subject to change if someone doesn't contribute as expected.

We've always done this informally (sometimes via email, sometimes not). But in your case, with someone who's already proven untrustworthy, email's a nice way to document things.