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The Graduate Student's Roadmap: Choosing the Ideal Thesis Supervisor

Embarking on a graduate thesis can be a daunting task, filled with uncertainties and the potential for anxiety. The key to a successful thesis experience often lies in choosing the right thesis supervisor. A supervisor plays a pivotal role in guiding students through the complex process, offering expertise, support, and valuable feedback. This article provides a roadmap for graduate students to navigate the search for an ideal thesis supervisor, ensuring a good match and fostering a productive relationship that can make the thesis journey less intimidating and more rewarding.

Key Takeaways

• Evaluate potential supervisors based on their qualifications, expertise, and compatibility with your research interests to ensure a fruitful mentorship.
• Understand the supervisory styles and expectations to align your working habits and goals, and seek student feedback to gauge the supervisor's effectiveness.
• Approach your chosen supervisor with a clear and professional proposal, set mutual expectations from the start, and employ strategies for effective communication and conflict resolution.

Navigating the Search for a Thesis Supervisor

Assessing potential supervisors: qualifications and expertise.

When embarking on your thesis journey, the first step is to identify potential supervisors who have the qualifications and expertise relevant to your research interests. Begin by reviewing their academic credentials , publications, and research projects to gauge their standing in the field. It's essential to ensure that their expertise aligns with your thesis topic, as this will be crucial for providing you with the guidance and insight you need.

Consider creating a list of potential supervisors and evaluate each based on their academic achievements and contributions to the field. Here's an example of how you might structure your list:

• Dr. Jane Smith: Expert in renewable energy systems, 15+ years of research experience, multiple awards for innovation.
• Prof. John Doe: Renowned for work in cognitive neuroscience, author of a seminal textbook, leads a well-funded research lab.
• Dr. Emily White: Specializes in social psychology, known for groundbreaking studies on behavior, collaborator on international projects.

Remember, a supervisor's reputation and network within the academic community can also play a significant role in opening doors for your future career. Therefore, it's worth considering the broader impact of their work and how it may benefit your own academic and professional development.

Compatibility and Communication: Ensuring a Good Match

When embarking on your graduate journey, the importance of choosing a supervisor whose interests align with yours cannot be overstated. Compatibility with your thesis supervisor is crucial for a fruitful academic relationship. It's essential to consider not only their expertise but also their willingness to communicate effectively and support your research aspirations.

To ensure a good match, consider the following points:

• Assess the supervisor's communication style and availability.
• Determine their approach to supervision; some may be more hands-on, especially at the early stages of your PhD.
• Explore how they facilitate planning and time management for thesis work.
• Seek feedback from current or former students to gauge satisfaction levels.

Remember, a supervisor who offers a structured plan, like the [ Thesis Dialogue Blueprint ](#), can help you prepare for meetings with confidence. Tools for thesis writing, such as worksheets and templates, can also be indicative of a supervisor's commitment to student and professor satisfaction . Ultimately, the goal is to establish a relationship that fosters academic growth and meets mutual expectations.

Evaluating Supervisory Styles and Student Feedback

When you're on the brink of selecting a thesis supervisor, it's crucial to consider not just their academic credentials, but also their supervisory style and the experiences of their past students. A model for the supervisor-doctoral student relationship can be instrumental in understanding the dynamics you might expect. This model, as highlighted in the literature, provides insights into the interpersonal style of potential supervisors and how it may mesh with your expectations for guidance and feedback.

To gain a comprehensive view, seek out qualitative frameworks that analyze feedback within PhD supervision. Such frameworks synthesize rich qualitative data and can inform you about the feedback practices that characterize a supervisor's approach. Remember, the quality of feedback is pivotal to your growth as a researcher.

Lastly, consider the tools and resources that a supervisor might recommend or provide. Websites and platforms that offer tools for thesis writing underscore the importance of a master thesis in graduate programs. They emphasize independent research and the supervisor's role in facilitating this. By evaluating these aspects, you can make an informed decision that aligns with your academic goals and personal working style.

Understanding the Supervisor's Expectations and Commitment

When you embark on your graduate journey, understanding your supervisor's expectations and commitment level is crucial. Clear communication about these expectations will lay the foundation for a successful supervisory relationship. Discuss the specific requirements of your graduate program and align them with your thesis objectives. This discussion should include program-specific expectations and respective timelines, ensuring that both you and your supervisor are on the same page from the outset.

Consider creating a Thesis Dialogue Blueprint, which can serve as a structured plan for your interactions. This blueprint should detail the frequency of meetings, feedback mechanisms, and milestones. Here's an example of what such a blueprint might include:

• Frequency of meetings: Weekly/Bi-weekly/Monthly
• Feedback turnaround time: 5 working days
• Milestone 1: Literature review completion
• Milestone 2: Data collection
• Milestone 3: First draft submission

Remember, a confident supervisor will engage in open discussions about candidature time and progress to completion. It's also important to recognize that supervisor-student fit is crucial to your satisfaction with the learning experience and can influence retention or attrition. By managing feedback effectively and planning meetings strategically, you can navigate challenges and ensure a successful PhD journey.

Finalizing Your Choice and Fostering a Productive Relationship

Making the initial approach: tips and best practices.

Once you've identified a potential thesis supervisor, the initial approach is a critical step. Begin by conducting thorough research on their academic background and current research interests. Visit their webpage, review their publications , and understand their research trajectory. This will not only prepare you for a meaningful conversation but also show your genuine interest in their work.

When crafting your initial contact email , be concise and articulate your research interests clearly. Highlight how your interests align with theirs and mention any relevant experience or skills you possess. Here's a simple structure to follow:

• Introduction: Briefly introduce yourself and your academic background.
• Research Interests: Clearly state your research interests and how they align with the supervisor's work.
• Experience: Mention any relevant experience or skills that make you a suitable candidate.
• Inquiry: Politely inquire about the possibility of them supervising your thesis.
• Closing: Thank them for their time and express your willingness to discuss further.

Remember, first impressions matter. Your initial approach should reflect your professionalism and commitment to your research. Be prepared to discuss your ideas in more depth if the supervisor shows interest. And most importantly, be respectful of their time; academics often have busy schedules, so a well-thought-out and respectful inquiry is more likely to receive a positive response.

Setting Clear Goals and Expectations from the Start

As you embark on your thesis journey, it is crucial to establish a clear roadmap from the outset. Set clear goals and expectations with your supervisor to ensure that both parties have a mutual understanding of the thesis objectives, timelines, and milestones. This clarity will serve as a foundation for a structured and focused research process.

Begin by discussing the scope of your research with your supervisor. Define the boundaries of your study and identify the key questions you aim to answer. It's important to be realistic about what can be achieved within the time and resources available. Use the following list to guide your initial goal-setting conversation:

• Outline the main objectives of your thesis
• Agree on a timeline with deadlines for each stage of the research
• Determine the frequency and format of supervisory meetings
• Establish criteria for evaluating progress
• Discuss any potential obstacles and strategies for overcoming them

By taking these steps, you will build a solid framework for your research and maintain a balance between your academic pursuits and personal well-being. Remember, setting boundaries and practicing self-discipline are essential for a successful thesis experience.

Strategies for Ongoing Communication and Feedback

Establishing a rhythm of regular and structured communication with your thesis supervisor is crucial for the success of your research journey. Schedule regular meetings to discuss your progress, challenges, and any concerns you may have. These meetings should be seen as an opportunity to receive constructive feedback and to ensure that your research is on track.

Effective communication goes beyond scheduled meetings. It's important to be proactive in seeking feedback and to be open to implementing it. Here's a list of strategies to enhance communication:

• Utilize various communication channels, such as email, video calls, or in-person meetings, to maintain a consistent dialogue.
• Prepare for each meeting with a clear agenda and specific questions to maximize the value of the time spent.
• Be receptive to feedback and critically assess the results you obtain, ensuring alignment with the study objectives.
• Document the feedback received and the outcomes of discussions to track your progress and any agreed-upon changes.

Remember, a productive supervisory relationship is a two-way street. Your supervisor's insights are invaluable, but your own reflections and self-assessment are equally important. Embrace the process of self-reflection, and be prepared to communicate complex information effectively.

Dealing with Challenges and Navigating Conflicts

When you encounter challenges or conflicts with your thesis supervisor, it's essential to address them proactively. Your first step is to talk it out , as direct communication can often resolve misunderstandings and align expectations. If the issue persists, consider the following steps:

• Reflect on the nature of the conflict and your own role in it.
• Prepare for the discussion by outlining your concerns and desired outcomes.
• Schedule a meeting with your supervisor to discuss the issues calmly and professionally.

Remember, the goal is to foster a collaborative environment where both parties feel heard and respected. If conflicts continue to impede your research, it may be necessary to seek advice from a departmental advisor or mediator. They can offer neutral perspectives and suggest strategies for resolution. Ultimately, maintaining a professional demeanor and focusing on your Thesis Action Plan will guide you through these challenges.

Making the right choice for your thesis can be a game-changer in your academic journey. At Research Rebels, we understand the importance of not only choosing wisely but also maintaining a productive relationship with your thesis. That's why we've developed a comprehensive Thesis Action Plan to guide you through every step of the process. Don't let anxiety and sleepless nights dictate your student life. Take control and visit our website to learn more about how we can help you transform your thesis experience. Embrace the clarity and confidence our guides and worksheets provide, and start your journey to academic success today!

In conclusion, the journey to selecting the ideal thesis supervisor is a critical step in a graduate student's academic path. It requires careful consideration of the supervisor's expertise, communication style, and mentorship approach, as well as alignment with the student's research interests and career aspirations. By engaging in structured discussions, utilizing resources like the Thesis Action Plan, and seeking guidance from platforms like Research Rebels, students can navigate this process with greater confidence and clarity. Ultimately, a well-chosen thesis supervisor not only enriches the research experience but also fosters professional growth and paves the way for future academic and career successes.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do i assess a potential thesis supervisor's qualifications and expertise.

Review their academic profile, including publications, research interests, and previous supervisory experience. Attend their lectures or seminars to gauge their expertise and reach out to current or former students for feedback.

What should I consider when evaluating a supervisor's communication style?

Consider whether their communication style is clear and responsive. Assess their availability for meetings and willingness to provide timely feedback. It's important that you feel comfortable discussing your ideas and concerns with them.

How can I approach a potential thesis supervisor and make a good impression?

Prepare a concise summary of your research interests and how they align with the supervisor's work. Be professional in your communication and show your enthusiasm for the subject. It's also beneficial to demonstrate your understanding of their research.

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Open Access

Ten simple rules for choosing a PhD supervisor

Contributed equally to this work with: Loay Jabre, Catherine Bannon, J. Scott P. McCain, Yana Eglit

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliation Department of Biology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

• Loay Jabre, 
• Catherine Bannon, 
• J. Scott P. McCain, 

Published: September 30, 2021

• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009330
• Reader Comments

Citation: Jabre L, Bannon C, McCain JSP, Eglit Y (2021) Ten simple rules for choosing a PhD supervisor. PLoS Comput Biol 17(9): e1009330. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009330

Editor: Scott Markel, Dassault Systemes BIOVIA, UNITED STATES

Copyright: © 2021 Jabre et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

The PhD beckons. You thought long and hard about why you want to do it, you understand the sacrifices and commitments it entails, and you have decided that it is the right thing for you. Congratulations! Undertaking a doctoral degree can be an extremely rewarding experience, greatly enhancing your personal, intellectual, and professional development. If you are still on the fence about whether or not you want to pursue a PhD, see [ 1 , 2 ] and others to help you decide.

As a PhD student in the making, you will have many important decisions to consider. Several of them will depend on your chosen discipline and research topic, the institution you want to attend, and even the country where you will undertake your degree. However, one of the earliest and most critical decisions you will need to make transcends most other decisions: choosing your PhD thesis supervisor. Your PhD supervisor will strongly influence the success and quality of your degree as well as your general well-being throughout the program. It is therefore vital to choose the right supervisor for you. A wrong choice or poor fit can be disastrous on both a personal and professional levels—something you obviously want to avoid. Unfortunately, however, most PhD students go through the process of choosing a supervisor only once and thus do not get the opportunity to learn from previous experiences. Additionally, many prospective PhD students do not have access to resources and proper guidance to rely on when making important academic decisions such as those involved in choosing a PhD supervisor.

In this short guide, we—a group of PhD students with varied backgrounds, research disciplines, and academic journeys—share our collective experiences with choosing our own PhD supervisors. We provide tips and advice to help prospective students in various disciplines, including computational biology, in their quest to find a suitable PhD supervisor. Despite procedural differences across countries, institutions, and programs, the following rules and discussions should remain helpful for guiding one’s approach to selecting their future PhD supervisor. These guidelines mostly address how to evaluate a potential PhD supervisor and do not include details on how you might find a supervisor. In brief, you can find a supervisor anywhere: seminars, a class you were taught, internet search of interesting research topics, departmental pages, etc. After reading about a group’s research and convincing yourself it seems interesting, get in touch! Make sure to craft an e-mail carefully, demonstrating you have thought about their research and what you might do in their group. After finding one or several supervisors of interest, we hope that the rules bellow will help you choose the right supervisor for you.

Rule 1: Align research interests

You need to make sure that a prospective supervisor studies, or at the very least, has an interest in what you want to study. A good starting point would be to browse their personal and research group websites (though those are often outdated), their publication profile, and their students’ theses, if possible. Keep in mind that the publication process can be slow, so recent publications may not necessarily reflect current research in that group. Pay special attention to publications where the supervisor is senior author—in life sciences, their name would typically be last. This would help you construct a mental map of where the group interests are going, in addition to where they have been.

Be proactive about pursuing your research interests, but also flexible: Your dream research topic might not currently be conducted in a particular group, but perhaps the supervisor is open to exploring new ideas and research avenues with you. Check that the group or institution of interest has the facilities and resources appropriate for your research, and/or be prepared to establish collaborations to access those resources elsewhere. Make sure you like not only the research topic, but also the “grunt work” it requires, as a topic you find interesting may not be suitable for you in terms of day-to-day work. You can look at the “Methods” sections of published papers to get a sense for what this is like—for example, if you do not like resolving cryptic error messages, programming is probably not for you, and you might want to consider a wet lab–based project. Lastly, any research can be made interesting, and interests change. Perhaps your favorite topic today is difficult to work with now, and you might cut your teeth on a different project.

Rule 2: Seek trusted sources

Discussing your plans with experienced and trustworthy people is a great way to learn more about the reputation of potential supervisors, their research group dynamics, and exciting projects in your field of interest. Your current supervisor, if you have one, could be aware of position openings that are compatible with your interests and time frame and is likely to know talented supervisors with good reputations in their fields. Professors you admire, reliable student advisors, and colleagues might also know your prospective supervisor on various professional or personal levels and could have additional insight about working with them. Listen carefully to what these trusted sources have to say, as they can provide a wealth of insider information (e.g., personality, reputation, interpersonal relationships, and supervisory styles) that might not be readily accessible to you.

Rule 3: Expectations, expectations, expectations

A considerable portion of PhD students feel that their program does not meet original expectations [ 3 ]. To avoid being part of this group, we stress the importance of aligning your expectations with the supervisor’s expectations before joining a research group or PhD program. Also, remember that one person’s dream supervisor can be another’s worst nightmare and vice versa—it is about a good fit for you. Identifying what a “good fit” looks like requires a serious self-appraisal of your goals (see Rule 1 ), working style (see Rule 5 ), and what you expect in a mentor (see Rule 4 ). One way to conduct this self-appraisal is to work in a research lab to get experiences similar to a PhD student (if this is possible).

Money!—Many people have been conditioned to avoid the subject of finances at all costs, but setting financial expectations early is crucial for maintaining your well-being inside and outside the lab. Inside the lab, funding will provide chemicals and equipment required for you to do cool research. It is also important to know if there will be sufficient funding for your potential projects to be completed. Outside the lab, you deserve to get paid a reasonable, livable stipend. What is the minimum required take-home stipend, or does that even exist at the institution you are interested in? Are there hard cutoffs for funding once your time runs out, or does the institution have support for students who take longer than anticipated? If the supervisor supplies the funding, do they end up cutting off students when funds run low, or do they have contingency plans? ( Fig 1 ).

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009330.g001

Professional development opportunities—A key aspect of graduate school training is professional development. In some research groups, it is normal for PhD students to mentor undergraduate students or take a semester to work in industry to get more diverse experiences. Other research groups have clear links with government entities, which is helpful for going into policy or government-based research. These opportunities (and others) are critical for your career and next steps. What are the career development opportunities and expectations of a potential supervisor? Is a potential supervisor happy to send students to workshops to learn new skills? Are they supportive of public outreach activities? If you are looking at joining a newer group, these sorts of questions will have to be part of the larger set of conversations about expectations. Ask: “What sort of professional development opportunities are there at the institution?”

Publications—Some PhD programs have minimum requirements for finishing a thesis (i.e., you must publish a certain number of papers prior to defending), while other programs leave it up to the student and supervisor to decide on this. A simple and important topic to discuss is: How many publications are expected from your PhD and when will you publish them? If you are keen to publish in high-impact journals, does your prospective supervisor share that aim? (Although question why you are so keen to do so, see the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment ( www.sfdora.org ) to learn about the pitfalls of journal impact factor.)

Rule 4: It takes two to tango

Sooner or later, you will get to meet and interview with a prospective PhD supervisor. This should go both ways: Interview them just as much as they are interviewing you. Prepare questions and pay close attention to how they respond. For example, ask them about their “lab culture,” research interests (especially for the future/long term), and what they are looking for in a graduate student. Do you feel like you need to “put on an act” to go along with the supervisor (beyond just the standard interview mode)? Represent yourself, and not the person you think they are looking for. All of us will have some interviews go badly. Remember that discovering a poor fit during the interview has way fewer consequences than the incompatibility that could arise once you have committed to a position.

To come up with good questions for the prospective supervisor, first ask yourself questions. What are you looking for in a mentor? People differ in their optimal levels of supervision, and there is nothing wrong with wanting more or less than your peers. How much career guidance do you expect and does the potential supervisor respect your interests, particularly if your long-term goals do not include academia? What kind of student might not thrive in this research group?

Treat the PhD position like a partnership: What do you seek to get out of it? Keep in mind that a large portion of research is conducted by PhD students [ 4 ], so you are also an asset. Your supervisor will provide guidance, but the PhD is your work. Make sure you and your mentor are on the same page before committing to what is fundamentally a professional contract akin to an apprenticeship (see “ Rule 3 ”).

Rule 5: Workstyle compatibility

Sharing interests with a supervisor does not necessarily guarantee you would work well together, and just because you enjoyed a course by a certain professor does not mean they are the right PhD supervisor for you. Make sure your expectations for work and work–life approaches are compatible. Do you thrive on structure, or do you need freedom to proceed at your own pace? Do they expect you to be in the lab from 6:00 AM to midnight on a regular basis (red flag!)? Are they comfortable with you working from home when you can? Are they around the lab enough for it to work for you? Are they supportive of alternative work hours if you have other obligations (e.g., childcare, other employment, extracurriculars)? How is the group itself organized? Is there a lab manager or are the logistics shared (fairly?) between the group members? Discuss this before you commit!

Two key attributes of a research group are the supervisor’s career stage and number of people in the group. A supervisor in a later career stage may have more established research connections and protocols. An earlier career stage supervisor comes with more opportunities to shape the research direction of the lab, but less access to academic political power and less certainty in what their supervision style will be (even to themselves). Joining new research groups provides a great opportunity to learn how to build a lab if you are considering that career path but may take away time and energy from your thesis project. Similarly, be aware of pros and cons of different lab sizes. While big labs provide more opportunity for collaborations and learning from fellow lab members, their supervisors generally have less time available for each trainee. Smaller labs tend to have better access to the supervisor but may be more isolating [ 5 , 6 ]. Also note that large research groups tend to be better for developing extant research topics further, while small groups can conduct more disruptive research [ 7 ].

Rule 6: Be sure to meet current students

Meeting with current students is one of the most important steps prior to joining a lab. Current students will give you the most direct and complete sense of what working with a certain supervisor is actually like. They can also give you a valuable sense of departmental culture and nonacademic life. You could also ask to meet with other students in the department to get a broader sense of the latter. However, if current students are not happy with their current supervisor, they are unlikely to tell you directly. Try to ask specific questions: “How often do you meet with your supervisor?”, “What are the typical turnaround times for a paper draft?”, “How would you describe the lab culture?”, “How does your supervisor react to mistakes or unexpected results?”, “How does your supervisor react to interruptions to research from, e.g., personal life?”, and yes, even “What would you say is the biggest weakness of your supervisor?”

Rule 7: But also try to meet past students

While not always possible, meeting with past students can be very informative. Past students give you information on career outcomes (i.e., what are they doing now?) and can provide insight into what the lab was like when they were in it. Previous students will provide a unique perspective because they have gone through the entire process, from start to finish—and, in some cases, no longer feel obligated to speak well of their now former supervisor. It can also be helpful to look at previous students’ experiences by reading the acknowledgement section in their theses.

Rule 8: Consider the entire experience

Your PhD supervisor is only one—albeit large—piece of your PhD puzzle. It is therefore essential to consider your PhD experience as whole when deciding on a supervisor. One important aspect to contemplate is your mental health. Graduate students have disproportionately higher rates of depression and anxiety compared to the general population [ 8 ], so your mental health will be tested greatly throughout your PhD experience. We suggest taking the time to reflect on what factors would enable you to do your best work while maintaining a healthy work–life balance. Does your happiness depend on surfing regularly? Check out coastal areas. Do you despise being cold? Consider being closer to the equator. Do you have a deep-rooted phobia of koalas? Maybe avoid Australia. Consider these potentially even more important questions like: Do you want to be close to your friends and family? Will there be adequate childcare support? Are you comfortable with studying abroad? How does the potential university treat international or underrepresented students? When thinking about your next steps, keep in mind that although obtaining your PhD will come with many challenges, you will be at your most productive when you are well rested, financially stable, nourished, and enjoying your experience.

Rule 9: Trust your gut

You have made it to our most “hand-wavy” rule! As academics, we understand the desire for quantifiable data and some sort of statistic to make logical decisions. If this is more your style, consider every interaction with a prospective supervisor, from the first e-mail onwards, as a piece of data.

However, there is considerable value in trusting gut instincts. One way to trust your gut is to listen to your internal dialogue while making your decision on a PhD supervisor. For example, if your internal dialogue includes such phrases as “it will be different for me,” “I’ll just put my head down and work hard,” or “maybe their students were exaggerating,” you might want to proceed with caution. If you are saying “Wow! How are they so kind and intelligent?” or “I cannot wait to start!”, then you might have found a winner ( Fig 2 ).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009330.g002

Rule 10: Wash, rinse, repeat

The last piece of advice we give you is to do this lengthy process all over again. Comparing your options is a key step during the search for a PhD supervisor. By screening multiple different groups, you ultimately learn more about what red flags to look for, compatible work styles, your personal expectations, and group atmospheres. Repeat this entire process with another supervisor, another university, or even another country. We suggest you reject the notion that you would be “wasting someone’s time.” You deserve to take your time and inform yourself to choose a PhD supervisor wisely. The time and energy invested in a “failed” supervisor search would still be far less than what is consumed by a bad PhD experience ( Fig 3 ).

The more supervisors your interview and the more advice you get from peers, the more apparent these red flags will become.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009330.g003

Conclusions

Pursuing a PhD can be an extremely rewarding endeavor and a time of immense personal growth. The relationship you have with your PhD supervisor can make or break an entire experience, so make this choice carefully. Above, we have outlined some key points to think about while making this decision. Clarifying your own expectations is a particularly important step, as conflicts can arise when there are expectation mismatches. In outlining these topics, we hope to share pieces of advice that sometimes require “insider” knowledge and experience.

After thoroughly evaluating your options, go ahead and tackle the PhD! In our own experiences, carefully choosing a supervisor has led to relationships that morph from mentor to mentee into a collaborative partnership where we can pose new questions and construct novel approaches to answer them. Science is hard enough by itself. If you choose your supervisor well and end up developing a positive relationship with them and their group, you will be better suited for sound and enjoyable science.

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• 5. Smith D. The big benefits of working in a small lab. University Affairs. 2013. Available from: https://www.universityaffairs.ca/career-advice/career-advice-article/the-big-benefits-of-working-in-a-small-lab/

Thesis supervision

Find a thesis supervisor.

Thesis supervisors must be authorized by their Faculty to supervise theses.

Finding a thesis supervisor arrow_drop_down

Before thinking about a supervisor, students should make sure they are committing to the area of study that most interests them. They should ask themselves whether they are enthusiastic enough about a topic area to sustain this enthusiasm over the period of time it will take to prepare the thesis. Speaking to students and professors who do research in the proposed area of study will help clarify the students’ thoughts. The students should make sure they are well-informed before they approach any potential supervisors.

A professor is not obligated to take on a student if he or she feels the match-up would not be a good one, or if the professor lacks lab space, time or funding.

A student may have more than one supervisor. When mention is made of the thesis supervisor, it is implicit that there may be a co-supervisor.

• Information to collect before contacting a potential supervisor
• Questions to ask after the meeting with the potential supervisor
• Professors, by research interest

Appointment of a thesis supervisor arrow_drop_down

From the uoZone Application tab, click Service Requests to create a service request and appoint a thesis supervisor.

Meetings between the supervisor and the student arrow_drop_down

Preliminary meetings.

Before a student begins researching and writing a thesis, the supervisor and the student should have a detailed discussion of expectations and requirements. Below are examples of general and specific issues to be discussed during the preliminary meetings.

As soon as possible, the student should obtain ethics approvals or any other required approvals to conduct research. The student should discuss with the thesis supervisor and visit the  Office of Research Ethics and Integrity  Website.

• General and specific topics to be discussed

Regular meetings

The student and the supervisor should plan to meet regularly whether or not the student has any finished work to show to the supervisor.

If it is a major meeting, the student should draw up and deliver to the supervisor an agenda beforehand. If the meeting is to discuss text that has already been written, the student must send the draft well in advance of the meeting. 

After the meeting, and based on this agenda, the student prepares a brief report on what was discussed and decided, and shares this report with the supervisor.

It is important to be productive at these major meetings, but it is also crucial to just keep in touch.

Components of a typical agenda

• a summary of the purpose of the meeting
• a review of what was discussed at the previous meeting and what has been accomplished to date
• a discussion and clarification of the current topics, ideas and issues
• next steps as a result of this discussion
• agree with a date for the next meeting

Feedback and revision arrow_drop_down

All along during the thesis preparation process, a student will receive feedback and should expect to do revisions. Revising a thesis based on feedback from the thesis supervisor, advisory committee (if applicable) and from the jury is an important part of the thesis preparation process.

Part of the advancement of knowledge that preparing a thesis fosters involves engaging in dialogue and learning from these discussions, learning how to communicate clearly, and responding appropriately to suggestions for improvement

Already a student?

Types of supervision, co-supervision arrow_drop_down.

A joint management with a professor in another discipline may be considered if the research project of a student is favoured.

Cotutelle arrow_drop_down

A doctoral student may prepare a thesis under a cotutelle agreement. You find below additional information to help familiarize yourself with the roles played by each of the stakeholders.  

Learn more about Cotutelle.

Thesis advisory committee arrow_drop_down

In many academic units, a thesis advisory committee, also referred to as thesis committee, is assembled as soon as a student finds a thesis supervisor. Please note that not all academic units have thesis committees, the students must check on the protocol in their own academic unit.

Constitution of the thesis committee

How the thesis committee is formed varies from academic unit to academic unit. The thesis supervisor plays the biggest role by approaching colleagues who have the expertise and inviting them to join the committee.

A thesis committee is made up of:

• the student
• the thesis supervisor, and
• usually at least two other professors.

The thesis supervisor is usually the chair of the thesis committee.

Role of the thesis committee

While the roles and responsibilities of thesis committees may vary from one academic unit to another, members of the committee should provide guidance to the student on thesis planning, research and writing; be available to discuss ideas or for consultation on any other matter related to the thesis; and, if this is the practice within the discipline, evaluate the thesis after submission.

Thesis committees meet according to a schedule set either by the academic unit or by the committee itself. The student is usually responsible for initiating the meetings. When concerns about the progress of the research arise, the supervisor and/or academic unit may require meetings at more frequent intervals.

Useful information

Contracts arrow_drop_down.

Some supervisors and students have contracts or agreements to formalize the expectations and delineate the responsibilities in the preparation of a thesis.

Although these agreements are not considered official documents with force of law, they set out the expectations of the student and supervisor in relation to many of the issues covered in this Website section and help avoid conflict and misunderstandings.

A student should not make assumptions about who will do what in the research and who gets credit for any new discoveries or inventions. A supervisor should not assume the supervised student is aware of any assumptions the supervisor has or any authorship or credit protocols that may exist in the area of research.

Professors who use contracts do so because they have found such agreements are a good tool for helping students achieve their goals and finish their theses. However, while a written agreement can be very useful, one of the keys to a successful supervisor–student relationship is good communication and mutual trust. Both sides need to foster and build on that. 

Absences arrow_drop_down

Sometimes a potential supervisor is approached by a student looking for a thesis supervisor and both the student and professor agree it would be a good match, but the professor is going on an academic leave partway through the period in which the student will be preparing this thesis. In the event of a scheduled absence from the University for more than one month, the thesis supervisor must make the necessary arrangements with his students and the academic unit concerned to ensure that students continue to be accompanied during the supervisor's absence.

A thesis supervisor who is going to be away should let the student know well in advance. The same goes for the student. The student should discuss this with the thesis supervisor well ahead of time. In case of illness, the student should let the supervisor know the expected timeline for recovery.

If the student is planning to suspend work on the thesis for a term or more, for whatever reason, the student needs to apply for and receive approval for a leave of absence. Please note that absence has an impact on eligibility for funding.

Professionalism arrow_drop_down

As a student, the development of professional skills—for example, communicating appropriately in writing and in person, responding promptly to e-mails, coming prepared to meetings, following up after meetings, respecting deadlines, tracking changes to the text so that it is easy for the supervisor to review each draft after revisions—is important in the preparation of the thesis. Some faculties offer courses in professional skills.

If the student feels aspects of the supervisor’s behavior are unprofessional, he or she should consult the graduate program director or the chair of the academic unit.

Changing supervisors arrow_drop_down

As for changing supervisors partway through a thesis, this is not recommended. Keep in mind that as long as the thesis is logical and the conclusions drawn from the data are valid, the student and the supervisor do not need to be in total agreement on methodology, analysis or interpretation.

The thesis committee may be able to fill in whatever gaps the student perceives in the relationship with the supervisor. If the research goes off in an unexpected direction, one that is not very familiar to the thesis supervisor, the student could see what opportunities are available and what guidelines the academic unit has for this situation. The student could consider joint supervision as an alternative to finding a new supervisor.

If the student has explored all other options and still wish to change supervisors, he or she should talk to the graduate program director. If the supervisor happens to be the graduate program director, the student should talk to the director of the academic unit. If the student remains uncertain or dissatisfied, he or she should talk to the vice-dean graduate studies of his/her home faculty. Beyond that, the student can talk to the university ombudsperson. The student can request that the exchanges with any or all of these individuals (directors, vice-dean, ombudsperson) remain confidential.

The student should be sure to explore options carefully before withdrawing from the supervisory arrangement—a student who terminates the relationship with a supervisor before finding another supervisor may have difficulty securing another supervisor and compromise the thesis project.

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Tress Academic

#80: Do I have to include my supervisor as a co-author?

February 9, 2021 by Tress Academic

The co-authorship of supervisors on papers of their PhD students is a hot topic in academia. Should they be included or not? All sorts of rules, conventions, and rumours seem to exist. Let’s clarify a few of them here!  

1. Why worry about co-authorship of supervisors?

Oh dear, when we started to look into the question of whether PhD supervisors should be included as co-authors on a paper, we had no idea what kind of discussion we’d end up in. Of course, we always had our own opinion on it, but let us explain the situation: The question regarding whether PhD students should or must include their supervisors as co-authors/main author on the paper is a question that we get asked in almost every other course. Last time this question came up was only last week in one of our writing courses. So it must be a question of great interest to early-career researchers and PhD students! But it must also be a question that displays a lot of insecurity and perplexity. 

The answer to this question seems to be so easy because there are clear rules about what makes somebody an author on a paper and what does not. Ethical bodies dealing with publication ethics, like the COPE, CSE or ICMJE (see below) provide great guidance about authorship, and most journal publishers have adopted their suggestions. So it should be clear who is expected to be credited as an author and who is not. But having discussed it so many times in courses with students, we know a simple YES or a NO on the question above is not enough. So, we’re not providing a simple answer here either.  

2. The case of Rebecca and her supervisor

Rebecca is a 3rd year student in a biology programme and she told us her story: She is doing exciting research in a field that she loves. She’s highly motivated and brings a lot of energy and effort to her PhD work. The regulations of her university, where she will hopefully get awarded a PhD soon, require that she has to write and publish three papers in international peer-reviewed journals. Rebecca’s research is going fine, she is progressing well, and is just about one and a half months behind her original schedule for her PhD. She’s in a good mood and optimistic to bring the research work to an end, to get the papers published, and complete the degree. But she still has one big problem: She has no idea if she should include her supervisor as co-author on the paper.      

She spoke to many fellow PhD students and Postdocs and asked for their advice. The stories she heard were so diverse that she still has no idea how to do it right. Some suggested the supervisor has to be on every paper, while others said they wrote their papers totally without them, got no input and, consequently, did not include them as co-author. Another suggestion was to include the supervisor as the main author, even if they contributed very little because it might be helpful to have a “big name” as a first author on the paper. A former PhD student told Rebecca that in his lab, it was a “must” to include the supervisor as the last author on all the papers, regardless of whether they were written by Master students, PhD students or Postdocs. One friend directed Rebecca to another friend who did a PhD and included the supervisor on all his papers because he was afraid that if he didn’t do it, it would affect the successful completion of his doctorate. 

3. Is Rebecca a solitary case? 

No! We spoke to many people like Rebecca and it was surprising how diverse the advice was that students like her had received. But as diverse as the single stories are, they have one common thread: Co-authorship of supervisors on the papers of their PhD students seems to be dominated by confusion, fears, and a lack of communication. 

You can browse the web and you will find many references and cases that deal with all sorts of problems, opinions, conventions, and misconduct in the PhD student-supervisor relationship with regard to co-authorship on publications (see e.g. Find a PhD 2014 , Thompson 2017,  Academia Stackexchange 2018 ). Cases are even reported where supervisors either neglect to co-author with their students, or where they publish work from their PhD students without even considering the student as co-author (e.g. COPE 2010 ,  Hayter & Watson 2017 ). So, it is definitely a tense field in which we’re operating when trying to answer this question.

4. Who is an author on a paper?  

Luckily, you can find clear instructions in publication ethics guidelines. According to them, an author on a paper is somebody who has contributed to the research, written parts of the paper, reviewed successive manuscript versions, and taken part in the revision process. Sole provision of research funding or carrying out routine based activities that are linked to the research presented in a paper does not qualify for authorship ( COPE 2000 , CSE 2012 , ICMJE 2019 ).  

So let’s go back to our question: Do you have to include your supervisor as co-author on your papers? The answer is YES and NO!

5. No! Supervisors should not be included as co-authors!

There is no rule that says PhD supervisors have to be a co-author on a paper of their PhD students. So, you don’t have to include your supervisor due to one of the cases described below: 

• Just because they happen to be your supervisor. 
• They are in a hierarchically higher academic position than you.
• They are well-known and respected in the field.
• You think you have to be grateful and pay back your supervisor.
• You’ve been told that it is always done like that in your field. 
• You’ll feel guilty if you don’t include them as co-author. 
• You fear a negative impact on your PhD if you don’t do it.
• You have applied for a PhD position at your supervisor’s lab/institute and think you’re obliged to include them.  
• They provide funding for your project.  

6. YES! Supervisors should be included as co-authors!

We do not suggest that your supervisors have to be excluded in all circumstances from your paper. No! There are very valid and compelling reasons that make your supervisor a co-author on your paper, e.g. if …

• they contributed to your work
• they contributed to your writing
• they were advising you on the steps of the writing process
• if they provided substantial intellectual support for the work you publish
• if they provided substantial input to help you with the revision of the paper  

In the cases reported above, your supervisor is a natural co-author, and withdrawing their right to become a co-author would be a violation of publishing ethics. 

7. How to avoid a co-authorship dispute

Rebecca’s problem in the case reported above is obvious: She was never involved in any discussion with her supervisor about co-authorship on any of the three papers she has to do. She kept silent, and the supervisor didn’t initiate a talk about it. Both are operating on the assumption that things will work out in their interest. 

Another question deals with how far supervisors involve themselves in the research of their PhD students, and how much support they offer, but this is a different question which we’re not going to discuss at this time. Regardless of whether the supervisor has contributed a lot or only very little, it would have been wise for both PhD student and supervisor to sit together and get the co-authorship question out of the way. 

For Rebecca, it would have been helpful to get familiar with the rules that apply to her institute or faculty. She could speak to somebody at the university who can advise her independently. 

A good way to avoid the hassle and frustration from unsettled authorship-disputes would be to take the PhD student-supervisor relationship seriously, and let both sides do what they’re supposed to do: The supervisor is providing a supportive framework and involves themself in the student’s work only insofar as they allow the student to grow and reach their goal. Get your supervisor involved in your work, and then co-authorship will never be questioned.This would be mutually beneficial, and would provide benefits to both parties.

We hope that this article has helped you get a clearer idea of YOUR answer regarding the question of whether to include YOUR supervisor on your papers or not. Make a good decision, and then move on with your good work! 

Relevant resources: 

• Academia Stackexchange 2018. Telling PhD supervisor I published a paper about my thesis without telling them or listing them as authors?
• COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics), 2000. The COPE Report 1999. Guidelines on good publication practice. Family Practice 17, 218-221.
• COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) 2010: Supervisor published PhD students work.  
• CSE (Scott-Lichter, D., the Editorial Policy Committee, Council of Science Editors) 2012. CSE’s White Paper on Promoting Integrity in Scientific Journal Publications, 2012 Update. 3rd Revised Edition. Wheat Ridge, CO.
• Find a PhD, 2014. Co-authorship with the supervisor.  
• Haytor, M., Watson, R. 2017. Supervisors are morally obliged to publish with their PhD students.
• ICMJE (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors), 2019. Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals: Writing and editing for biomedical publication. Updated version April 2019.
• Thompson, P. 2017: Co–writing with your supervisor – the authorship question . 

More information: 

Do you want to successfully write and publish a journal paper? If so, please sign up to receive our free guides.  

© 2021 Tress Academic

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Enrichment Programs

Individualized & Interdisciplinary Studies Program

Guide for thesis supervisors.

Thank you for supervising an individualized major senior thesis project. Your expertise is critical in guiding the student’s project and setting the criteria for its evaluation. The guidelines below outline some considerations particular to individualized major students. They are most appropriate for traditional research projects but may also be relevant to less traditional final projects.

All individualized majors complete a capstone, which provides them an opportunity to integrate knowledge they have acquired during the course of their majors. About 40-45 percent of individualized majors do so by completing a thesis. (The rest complete our capstone course or an approved alternative.)

Thesis projects usually take the form of a traditional research study, but other formats, such as a photo essay, film, website, or piece of creative writing are also possible. Thesis projects, whatever their form, should contribute to the development of knowledge or practice in new ways, involve significant background research, and require sustained attention in the implementation of the project. If the final product takes a less traditional form, it should include a piece of writing that describes the student’s learning process.

Thesis Courses

Some thesis projects will comprise six credits completed over the course of two semesters. This is mandatory for students completing Honors Scholar requirements in their individualized major. Non-honors students may complete a one-semester, three-credit thesis project. Students intending to complete a thesis project must submit a thesis proposal  which they have discussed with their thesis supervisor no later than the last day of classes of the semester before they begin their thesis.

In the social sciences and humanities : In the Fall semester of the senior year, students will typically begin their research by enrolling in a thesis-related research seminar, graduate course, or independent study in their thesis supervisor’s department. During the Spring semester, students will enroll in UNIV 4697W Senior Thesis (for which the thesis supervisor serves as instructor) in which they will complete the research and write the thesis. During this process, the student meets regularly with the thesis supervisor for feedback on data collection, evidence gathering, analysis, and writing.

In the sciences , students may follow a more extended sequence, perhaps two to three semesters of data collection and laboratory work (independent studies or research courses) followed by thesis writing (UNIV 4697W) in the final semester.

Learning Outcomes

Individual faculty will differ in expectations regarding research methodology, theoretical approaches, and presentation of findings. Nonetheless, there are some general criteria and intended learning outcomes for all individualized major thesis projects.

• The student’s research, analysis, and writing on the thesis project should be relevant to their individualized major and represent an opportunity for them to integrate and deepen at least several aspects of study in the major.
• A thesis should do more than summarize the existing literature on a particular topic. It should make an original contribution to the field of study, present new findings in the form of new data, or new, critical interpretations of existing material. It should reflect a good command of the research methodologies in the relevant discipline(s).

Upon completion of the thesis project the student should be able to:

• Define a research question and design a substantial research project.
• Select a methodological approach to address the research question.
• Identify appropriate sources and collect relevant and reliable data that addresses the research question.
• Analyze the strengths and limitations of different scholarly approaches to the question, and recognize the resulting interpretative conflicts.
• Develop an argument that is sustained by the available evidence
• Present that argument in a clear, well-organized manner.

Requirements for Honors Students

As noted above, all Honors students are expected to complete at least six credits of thesis-relevant coursework. In addition, all Honors students are expected to have a second reader and make a public presentation of their thesis project.

Public Presentation

Honors students are required to make a public presentation of their thesis research in a format negotiated with the thesis supervisor. Existing departmental exhibitions or “Frontiers in Undergraduate Research” make excellent venues for student presentations. If a student cannot find a venue for his or her presentation, please consult with IISP and we will help to coordinate one.

Note: Although non-Honors students who are completing a thesis are not required to have a second reader or make a public presentation, we would certainly welcome them to do so.

Honors Advising

An IISP staff member serves as Honors Advisor to each individualized major following an Honors Scholar plan of study. The staff member’s role as an Honors advisor is to coordinate and facilitate students’ plans for completing Honors Scholar requirements, including the thesis, and to monitor progress toward completion.

Thesis Course Registration

Specific instructions for registering for UNIV 4697W are available on the Capstone page .

We very much appreciate your willingness to supervise an individualized major’s senior thesis. If you have any questions about the Individualized Major Program or about supervising an individualized major thesis, please contact IISP staff .

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Publishing a Master’s Thesis: A Guide for Novice Authors

Robert g. resta.

1 Swedish Cancer Institute, Swedish Medical Center, Seattle, WA USA

Patricia McCarthy Veach

2 Department of Educational Psychology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN USA

Sarah Charles

3 Jefferson Kimmel Cancer Center, Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, Philadelphia, PA USA

Kristen Vogel

4 Center for Medical Genetics, NorthShore University HealthSystem, Evanston, IL USA

Terri Blase

5 Department of Maternal Fetal Medicine, Advocate Christ Medical Center, Oak Lawn, IL USA

Christina G. S. Palmer

6 Department of Psychiatry & Biobehavioral Sciences, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA USA

7 Department of Human Genetics, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA USA

8 UCLA Semel Institute, 760 Westwood Plaza, Room 47-422, Los Angeles, CA 90095 USA

Publication of original research, clinical experiences, and critical reviews of literature are vital to the growth of the genetic counseling field, delivery of genetic counseling services, and professional development of genetic counselors. Busy clinical schedules, lack of time and funding, and training that emphasizes clinical skills over research skills may make it difficult for new genetic counselors to turn their thesis projects into publications. This paper summarizes and elaborates upon a presentation aimed at de-mystifying the publishing process given at the 2008 National Society of Genetic Counselors Annual Education Conference. Specific topics include familiarizing prospective authors, particularly genetic counseling students, with the basics of the publication process and related ethical considerations. Former students’ experiences with publishing master’s theses also are described in hopes of encouraging new genetic counselors to submit for publication papers based on their thesis projects.

Introduction

Scholarship is important for growth of a profession and for clinical care. For these reasons, the American Board of Genetic Counseling (ABGC) endorses scholarly activities through Practice Based Competency IV.5 (American Board of Genetic Counseling 2009 ). Boyer ( 1990 ) describes four types of scholarship (Scholarship of Discovery, Scholarship of Integration, Scholarship of Application, and Scholarship of Teaching), all of which are endorsed by ABGC and required of accredited genetic counseling training programs. The first three types of scholarship, which involve generating new knowledge or applying existing knowledge to an important problem, are the basis of the ABGC’s requirement that students in accredited programs engage in scholarship and complete a scholarly product. The ABGC defines a scholarly product to include: a master’s thesis, an independent research project, a literature review/case report, a formal needs assessment, design and implementation of an innovative patient, professional, or community educational program, and/or preparation of a grant proposal.

The purpose of this article is to encourage students to disseminate their scholarly work (except grant proposals) through a journal publication. This article was developed from an Educational Breakout Session (EBS) at the 2008 National Society of Genetic Counselors (NSGC) Annual Education Conference and draws upon the experiences of a past editor and current assistant editor of the Journal of Genetic Counseling ( JOGC ), a student mentor, and recent genetic counseling graduates who successfully turned their student thesis projects into peer-reviewed publications.

Engaging in scholarship is important for increasing genetic counselors’ self-knowledge, but dissemination of scholarship is essential for the growth of the genetic counseling field. McGaghie and Webster ( 2009 ) identify a wide range of types of scholarly products that promote broad dissemination of information, including peer-reviewed journal articles (e.g., original research, case reports, review articles), book chapters, books or monographs, edited books, essays, editorials, book reviews, letters, conference reports, educational materials, reports of teaching practices, curriculum description, videos, simulations, simulators, and web-based tutorials. As evidence of the importance of disseminating scholarship to the field of genetic counseling, dissemination of scholarly products is actively promoted by the NSGC, the major professional organization for the genetic counseling profession. A prominent example of NSGC’s commitment to dissemination is the JOGC , a professional journal devoted to disseminating peer-reviewed information relevant to the practice of genetic counseling. The success of this journal over nearly two decades is a strong indicator of the value genetic counselors place on publishing journal articles as an essential product of scholarship.

Individuals who have completed a master’s thesis or equivalent should consider publication. This “call to publish” student work is based on evidence that a large proportion of students engage in a scholarly activity with publication potential. A recent survey of 531 genetic counselors suggests that 75% of respondents fulfilled their scholarly activity requirement via a master’s thesis (Clark et al. 2006 ). Among this group, 21% classified their thesis as “hypothesis driven” and 20% classified it as a “descriptive study.” Although the research may be relatively small scale given the time and resource constraints of short training programs (≤2 years), it nonetheless offers a rich and varied source of information about the practice of genetic counseling that could be shared with the broader community through publication. Yet Clark et al. ( 2006 ) found that only 21.6% of respondents who completed a master’s thesis had submitted a manuscript for publication in a peer-reviewed journal. It appears that many students do not submit their research for professional publication, perhaps due to a combination of time constraints, lack of mentoring and support, unfamiliarity with the publication process, lack of professional confidence, and fear of rejection (Clark et al. 2006 ; Cohen et al. 2008 ; Driscoll and Driscoll 2002 ; Keen 2006 ). Because this is one aspect of scholarship that has received limited attention, guidance regarding the details and vicissitudes of the publication process, and acknowledgement that master’s theses can be successfully published, are needed.

Of course, one might question why students should or would publish the results of their graduate work. The answer is complex, without a “one size fits all,” because scholarship can be intrinsically and/or extrinsically motivated. McGaghie and Webster ( 2009 ) describe intrinsic motives as including sharing knowledge, career advancement, status improvement, collegial approval, personal pleasure, and response to challenge; extrinsic motives include academic pressure, commitment to patient care, practice improvement, and promoting the use of new technologies. Although the reasons genetic counselors publish articles have not been empirically evaluated, Clark et al. ( 2006 ) (i) concluded that a substantial number of genetic counselors consider active involvement in research (a form of scholarship and precursor to publication) to be a core role, and (ii) found that respondents endorsed a range of intrinsic and extrinsic motives for their involvement in research. These reasons included interest in the subject, contributing to the field, personal development/satisfaction, diversifying job responsibilities, job requirements, lack of existing research on a particular topic, and career advancement. It is reasonable to infer that these reasons would extend to publication as well.

The work that culminates in a master’s thesis provides the basis for a professional journal article. However, writing a professional journal article differs from writing a master’s thesis. This article, therefore, provides practical ideas and considerations about the process for developing a master’s thesis into a peer-reviewed journal article and describes successful case examples. Research and publication occur in stages and include many important topics. Previous genetic counseling professional development articles have partially or comprehensively addressed the topics of developing and conducting a research project (Beeson 1997 ), writing a manuscript (Bowen 2003 ), and the peer-review process (Weil 2004 ). This paper expands on previous articles by describing the publication process and discussing publication ethics, with emphasis on aspects pertinent to publishing a master’s thesis. It is hoped that this article will encourage genetic counselors to publish their research.

The primary audience for this article is genetic counselors who are conducting a master’s thesis or equivalent or who completed a thesis in the last few years which remains unpublished. The secondary audience is other novice authors and affiliated faculty of genetic counseling training programs. Although the focus of this paper is on journal publications which are subject to a peer-review process (e.g., original research, clinical reports, and reviews), some of the basic information applies to a variety of publishing forms.

The Publication Process

Publish before it perishes.

Like produce and dairy products, data have a limited shelf life. Research results may be rendered marginal by new research, social changes, and shifts in research trends. For example, a study of patient reluctance to undergo genetic testing due to concerns about health insurance discrimination conducted in December 2007 would have been obsolete when the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (Pub.L. 110–233, 122 Stat. 881, enacted May 21, 2008) was enacted 5 months later. Or studies of whether patients think they might undergo testing if a gene for a particular condition were identified become less relevant once the gene is actually mapped and sequenced.

The hardest part about writing is actually writing. Making the time to sit down and compose a report of research findings is a very difficult first step. As noted in the three case examples, this is particularly true for a recent graduate whose time is occupied with searching for a new job, moving to a new city, and learning the details of a new job. However, the longer you wait, the more difficult it becomes, and the greater the risk that your data will grow stale. If you do not write it, the paper will likely not get written. The three case examples identify strong mentorship, ongoing communication with co-authors, constructive criticism, and commitment to publication by every author as key elements for successfully preparing a manuscript. The following sections describe basic processes for preparing a paper. See also Table  1 for helpful references about technical aspects of manuscript preparation.

Table 1

Selected Resources For Manuscript Preparation

Choosing a Journal

Research delivered to an inappropriate audience is ignored. Many journals publish genetic counseling research—as demonstrated by the three case examples—and therefore, choosing the right journal is critical (Thompson 2007 ). The first step is to decide who the audience should be. Is it important to reach genetic counselors? Medical geneticists? Or is the audience outside of the genetic counseling community? Some genetic counseling research is of interest to researchers in patient education, decision-making, or the social sciences. Clinicians such as surgeons, radiology technicians, psychologists, and family practice physicians might benefit from a greater understanding of genetic counseling and how it interfaces with their specialties.

The next step is to decide whether the journal is interested in the type of research conducted. For example, does the journal publish articles mostly on medical and clinical issues? Does it publish qualitative research? A description of the scope, aims, and types of research that are published is located in the “Instructions to Contributors” section on the web page of most journals. A look at the journal’s editorial board might also provide a good idea of a journal’s theoretical approaches, philosophical orientation, and research interests. Another strategy is to contact the journal’s editor or a member of the editorial board prior to submitting a manuscript to discuss the appropriateness of the manuscript for the journal. Many editors welcome such pre-submission contact since it reduces their workload of reading inappropriate manuscripts.

A journal’s “impact factor” may be important to some authors when considering where to publish a manuscript. The impact factor is a—perhaps imperfect—statistical measure of a journal’s importance. The impact factor was developed in the early 1960s by Eugene Garfield and Irving Sher and is technically defined as A/B, where A = the number of times articles published in that journal were cited and B = the number of citable articles published by the journal (letters and editorials are not usually citable articles) (Garfield 1994 ). An impact factor of one indicates that on average, articles published in the journal were cited once by other authors.

A journal’s impact factor can vary greatly from year to year, and its practical utility is widely debated (Andersen et al. 2006 ; Chew et al. 2006 ; Greenwood 2007 ; Ha et al. 2006 ; The PLoS Medicine Editors 2006 ). Genetic counselors often publish small studies and case reports. The journals that might publish such papers usually have impact factors of ten or less. Thus the impact factor may be a less important consideration for many genetic counselors when deciding where to publish.

A publisher’s copyright policy may also influence the choice of where to publish. The majority of publishers own the copyright (United States Copyright Office 2008 ) and authors do not have the right to copy, re-use, or distribute their own publications without buying reprints, which can be a significant source of income for publishers. Some journals, like the Public Library of Science (PLoS), are completely Open Access and make all articles fully available online. Other journals have Delayed Open Access, which makes articles publicly available after a specified period of time, often a year or two. Many journals, such as the JOGC , promote Hybrid Open Access in which authors, for a fee, can make their articles publicly available. Some journals will make select articles publicly available, usually those that attract media attention. For grant-funded research, consider the requirements of the funding source; some granting agencies require that the research results be made publicly available at some point.

Peer Review

Peer review is the process in which two or three experts evaluate a manuscript to determine whether it is worthy of publication. Peer review is the backbone of scholarly publishing; no research manuscript gets published until a team of reviewers and journal editors vets it. Ideally, reviewers are objective, constructively critical, open-minded, fair, and insightful. Some journals blind the reviewer to the author’s identity, in hopes that the authors’ reputations or professional relationships will not influence the review. Some journals will let authors suggest reviewers or request that certain people not review a manuscript. A journal’s peer review policies may be another important consideration in choosing where to submit a manuscript.

In practice, peer review is not always ideal (Benose et al. 2007 ; Curfman et al. 2008 ; Hames 2007 ; Wager et al. 2006 ). Nonetheless, no better or viable alternative has been proposed. Reviews may sometimes appear to be arbitrary, unfair, and poorly performed. Reading such reviews can be very difficult and frustrating, even for experienced authors. However, it is a reviewer’s job to be critical, and there may be elements of truth in even the most negative reviews. Some editors may be willing to send a manuscript to another reviewer if an original reviewer produces a harshly critical or poorly thought out critique. Some journals have a formal appeals process if a manuscript is rejected or an author feels a review is inaccurate, inappropriate, or biased. However, sometimes it is simply easier to submit the manuscript to a different journal. Case # 2 describes a successful example where submitting a manuscript to a different journal led to publication.

The manuscript rejection rate varies widely across journals, but about half of all manuscripts are rejected or require significant revisions (Armstrong et al. 2008 ; Hall and Wilcox 2007 ; Liesegang et al. 2007 ). About half of rejected manuscripts are published in other journals (Armstrong et al. 2008 ; Hall and Wilcox 2007 ; Liesegang et al. 2007 ). Even among articles that are accepted for publication, the vast majority will require significant revisions. All three case examples describe manuscripts that underwent significant revision. Thus, prospective authors should not be disheartened if a manuscript is rejected or needs extensive re-writing; this is the rule rather than the exception . Many editors are willing to work with authors who have questions about specific comments or how best to incorporate the reviewers’ suggestions. Busy journal editors would rather answer questions up front than have to laboriously edit a revised manuscript and send it back for further revisions.

Peer review, and the subsequent manuscript revisions, along with the number of manuscripts submitted to the journal, are probably the most critical bottlenecks in determining how long it takes before a manuscript appears in print. Typically, a year or more may pass from the time of submission to the publication date. The three case examples include their timeframes to highlight the need for perseverance and patience with the publication process.

The clearest way for authors to respond to editors’ and reviewers’ comments is to prepare a table that lists each comment and how the authors addressed them, item by item. Some reviewers’ comments may be inaccurate or simply unrealistic (e.g. “The authors should re-do the entire research study...”); these can be discussed in the table or in the cover letter that accompanies the table. Additional information about the peer-review process can be found in Weil ( 2004 ).

Acceptance!

Once a manuscript is accepted for publication, the publisher or the journal editor will send a copyright transfer statement that spells out ownership of the article. This statement must be signed and returned in short order before the manuscript will be published. The corresponding author will receive page proofs, usually electronically, which must be read by the author for accuracy and returned fairly quickly (usually 2–3 days). Many publishers are reluctant to make significant changes in the page proofs, and they may charge for substantial revisions. Thus, the version of the manuscript that is submitted to the journal before the page proofs are generated should be very close to what the author wishes to see in print. Usually at this time publishers will offer the author the option to purchase reprints to allow the author to share the publication with other researchers, co-authors, and colleagues. Some journals will provide a limited number of free reprints or a complimentary copy of the issue of the journal in which the paper appears. The steps in the publication process are summarized in Table  2 .

Table 2

Steps in the Publication Process

a ∼50% of manuscripts are rejected or require significant revision before being accepted for publication

Ethics of Publishing

“Scholarship (like life) is not always fair or precise.” (Thompson 1994 )

Manuscript preparation and submission for publication can be complicated by ethical issues. Many authors may not be aware of these ethical conundrums, let alone have a plan for addressing them. Ethics is not a stagnant concept. As research methodologies and research questions evolve, new ethical issues in publishing arise. This section contains a description of several issues broadly relevant to the publishing practice of genetic counselors, particularly as students or recent graduates. However, it is important for genetic counselors-as-authors to keep abreast of ethical issues relevant to their own work.

“Ethics” are principles that govern the behavior of individuals or groups (Merriam-Webster 1974 ). Ethical codes of conduct exist in order to preserve the integrity of a profession, ensure the public’s welfare, and protect scholars. Ethical issues particularly relevant to writing for publication, include: (1) authorship determination, (2) disclosure and conflicts of interest, (3) plagiarism, (4) subject confidentiality, (5) accuracy of information, and (6) publishing in multiple sources.

Authorship Determination

Consider the following situation: A student conducted an excellent study for her master’s thesis project. At the beginning of the project, her supervisor promised her that she would have first authorship on any manuscripts based on the project. However, when the time came to write the paper, the student procrastinated. Finally, after the supervisor repeatedly “nagged” her, she submitted a draft to her, but it was very poorly written. The supervisor decided the only way to salvage the paper was to totally rewrite it herself. Now the supervisor thinks that she deserves to be the first author. Is this ethical? Does it matter if the project was the student’s master’s thesis rather than a project in which she was voluntarily involved? Are there guidelines that might be implemented in advance to handle this kind of situation?

This complex situation may be all too familiar for many supervisors and students. It raises issues about valuing contributions to the publication process, the power differential between supervisors and students, determining when renegotiation of authorship is warranted, and setting expectations and priorities up front. Whenever manuscripts are authored by more than one individual, order of authorship should be negotiated as early in the process as possible. Only individuals who have actually contributed to the work should be listed as authors. Their order should indicate “...the relative scientific or professional contributions of the individuals involved, regardless of their status” (Shadish 1994 ) (p. 1096). In the sciences, the first and last authors typically are the individuals that made the greatest contributions to the project (Laflin et al. 2005 ). Many journals require a listing of each author’s contribution to the manuscript in order to make sure each person meets the journal’s requirements to be listed as an author.

Student authors pose a special situation. Doctoral students usually are the first authors of papers based on their dissertation research (Nguyen and Nguyen 2006 ). Authorship order is less clear for masters’ projects because masters’ students may lack sufficient knowledge and skills to conduct a project and prepare a manuscript of publishable quality without considerable input from their supervisor (Shadish 1994 ). Thompson ( 1994 ) recommends that when there is any question as to who made the primary contribution, the student should receive higher authorship. His recommendation helps to protect the person who has less power in the situation. Often students are involved in studies that are not based on their own master’s or doctoral research, but rather are connected to an existing research program, such as case examples 1 and 2. In those situations, some authors contend that their involvement should be creative and intellectual in order to warrant authorship; otherwise, student input can be credited in an acknowledgement section (Fine and Kurdek 1993 ; Holaday and Yost 1995 ; Thompson 1994 ).

Negotiating authorship is an important step that should begin in the initial stages of a project. This step usually involves assessing and agreeing upon each person’s tasks, contributions, and efforts. The amount of supervision required for an individual’s contributions is usually considered as well (Fine and Kurdek 1993 ). Sometimes renegotiation of authorship order is necessary due to unexpected changes and/or substantial revision of the manuscript. The key is to remember that authorship is negotiated. Questions to consider throughout this negotiation process include: Who had the original idea for the basis of the publication? Who designed and conducted the study that generated the data? Who will write most of the first draft of the paper? Is the study part of someone’s research lab? Students should maintain early and on-going communication with their co-authors about their investment of time and efforts and the outcomes of those efforts (Sandler and Russell 2005 ). However, scholarly contribution is more important than actual time and effort expended when determining authorship. For more information regarding authorship determination, it may be useful to review guidelines for discussing and clarifying authorship order (Gibelman and Gelman 1999 ) or developing individualized contracts for research collaboration (Stith et al. 1992 ). These guidelines also may be useful for initiating discussion of authorship as part of the curriculum in genetic counseling training programs.

Take another look at the authorship scenario. At the time of the original negotiation of authorship, it is likely that the supervisor (and other parties) believed the student warranted first authorship due to her creative contributions and time allotted to the study. In most authors’ minds, first authorship is equated with substantial contribution to writing the manuscript, usually the first draft, so it is important the student understand this is part of the responsibilities of being first author. Typically students have no experience writing a journal article, and so some procrastination is likely. In this scenario, the authorship dilemma may have been averted by having in place a plan to mentor the student, providing support, and delineating a specific process for writing the first draft of the manuscript.

Manuscripts invariably undergo substantial revision as co-authors and reviewers weigh in, so it is not unusual that the supervisor would revise the student’s first draft. This activity does not prima facie warrant a change in authorship order. However, by developing a specific plan to support the student’s writing, it may minimize the extent of the supervisor’s revisions. It is possible, though, that the student’s procrastination and poor writing should initiate a renegotiation of authorship order because the level and nature of her contributions to the work may be changing. The supervisor and student should discuss the reasons for changing authorship order; the supervisor should not unilaterally make this change without discussion. Keep in mind that the bar for changing authorship should be much higher if the paper is based on the student’s master’s thesis than if it is based on a project in which she was voluntarily involved. It is also important to inform students early in the process that most research is a collaborative effort, requiring time, energy, and sometimes funding, and therefore their collaborators have expectations that their contributions will be rewarded through publication. Developing an a priori policy for renegotiation may often reduce misunderstandings and minimize conflict.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest

Consider the following situation: A student conducted a study to evaluate a new program that her clinic is offering to its patients. She interviewed ten patients who participated in the program about their experience. Nine of these patients were in general agreement about the value of the program, while the 10th patient was quite negative about her experience. The student’s impression of this patient is that she is a generally negative person. The student believes that the patient came into the program expecting not to like it. Furthermore, the student is concerned her clinic will lose funding for this program if she reports this patient’s responses. The student decides to exclude her data from the paper. Is this decision ethical? Why or why not?

One ethical issue raised in this scenario involves determining when it is appropriate to exclude data points. Data collected from research can be messy, and it is not unusual for some data points to be excluded from analyses. However, there must be an explicit methodology for excluding data points or subjects, and this information usually is reported in the manuscript. Examples for exclusions include: missing data (e.g., a participant did not complete a majority of the items on a questionnaire); measurement error (e.g., the recorded measurement of a biological process or part of the anatomy is simply impossible); small sample sizes (e.g., an insufficient number of individuals from a minority group participated in the research resulting in numbers too small for meaningful analysis). In the scenario described above, the rationale provided for excluding the 10th patient’s experience is not sufficient to warrant exclusion. Instead, it appears that exclusion of this individual is based on a desire to promote the new program in the student’s clinic. In order to eliminate this form of conflict of interest, one could consider involving a clinic outsider in the analysis and interpretation of the data. By including a clinic outsider in the project, editor and reviewer concerns about the integrity of the data, analyses, and conclusions will be allayed.

Most journals provide another “safeguard,” by requiring a statement about possible conflicts of interest. A conflict of interest statement requires the author to acknowledge in writing the nature of any circumstances that might bias the process and/or outcome of their work. For example, any project and published report that might result in direct financial gains for an author(s) should be disclosed to a journal’s editor and to the readership. Examples of possible conflicts of interest include conducting a study of the effectiveness of a genetic test funded by the company that developed and is marketing the test, or a program evaluation study whose outcome would determine the continuation of the investigators/authors’ jobs.

Plagiarism is a familiar concept to most people. Everyone generally understands the importance of “giving credit where credit is due.” Yet, the National Science Foundation estimates that the prevalence of plagiarism may be as high as 50% (Roig 2001 ). Probably many of these incidents are unintentional and/or occur because the authors were unaware of some of the nuances regarding plagiarism. Although there is some variability within and across disciplines about the specific behaviors that constitute plagiarism, there is general agreement about two broad types (Roig 2001 ): cryptamnesia -an individual thinks their idea is original when it actually was presented by someone else previously; and inappropriate paraphrasing —an individual uses another person’s published text without properly citing that use, and/or using their statements with little or no modification. Specific examples of inappropriate paraphrasing include: (1) publishing another person’s work as one’s own; (2) copying part of another author’s paper and claiming it as one’s own; (3) copying text from another source without using quotations marks and without citing that source in the text; (4) paraphrasing text from another source without providing an in-text citation; (5) summarizing material from another source without clearly connecting the summary to that source; and (6) using copyrighted materials without author/publisher permission (East 2006 ; Lester and Lester Jr. 1992 ).

Additional types of plagiarism include ambiguous use of citations. For instance, an individual includes a citation in a paragraph but does not clearly indicate which content in the paragraph is from the cited work. Another type of plagiarism is self-plagiarism . Self-plagiarism occurs when an individual includes published work of their own for which they do not own the copyright (e.g., reprinting a table from one of their previously published papers); repeating verbatim text from a previously published article. Permission to reprint material from the publisher must be obtained.

Plagiarism is a serious ethical breach which can result in a legal penalty. Strategies for avoiding plagiarism include limiting the use of direct quotes; avoiding the use of secondary sources—it is always better to read and cite an original source when available; and restating ideas in one’s own words while providing in-text citation of the work that contains the original ideas (East 2006 ; Lambie et al. 2008 ; Lester and Lester Jr. 1992 ). When in doubt regarding the originality of one’s words, it is best to cite the source(s) on which they are based. In this regard, it may help to bear in mind that readers will assume all words in the paper are the author’s unless the source(s) are cited.

Subject Confidentiality

Published papers must be written in a way that no subjects can be recognized by others without their written consent (Gavey and Braun 1997 ). Given the unique nature of genetics, family members may also need to provide written consent (McCarthy Veach et al. 2001 ). When possible, identifying information should be removed or disguised (e.g., use of pseudonyms) and data based on multiple subjects should be reported in aggregate (group) form. Institutional review boards (IRBs) play a critical role in assuring protection of subject confidentiality. Many journals require authors to indicate either in the paper or a cover letter that they have obtained institutional review board approval to conduct their animal or human subjects study. In some cases, an ethics board may have been consulted regarding ethical dilemmas reported in a clinical paper and this should be acknowledged in the paper.

Accuracy of Information

Authors are responsible for rigorously checking the accuracy of their facts, data, and conclusions. However, despite one’s best efforts, substantial errors sometimes are not discovered until after a paper is published. In that case, the corresponding author should contact the journal immediately and ask that an erratum be published. On a related note, authors have a professional responsibility to make data sets reported in published papers available to other professionals. This practice allows for verification of the findings and conclusions, and it also makes possible research replications and extensions of the original study. The length of time for retaining research records depends on institutional policy and sponsor policy, so it is important to be aware of how these policies apply to the research generated by a master’s thesis. Often institutional review boards require researchers to state how long they will maintain a data set, and the researchers must adhere to that time frame.

Another accuracy issue concerns modifying and reporting the use of published material (e.g., an interview protocol, psychological instrument, curriculum) without clearly describing the precise nature of the modifications. Interpretation of findings and their comparison to other studies using the “same” instrumentation may be severely compromised when an author fails to report modifications. Further, professional courtesy suggests that permission be sought from the author before changing her or his material. Also, use of published material requires crediting the author(s) of that material by including relevant citations.

Publishing in Multiple Sources

In the sciences, a manuscript should not be under review by more than one journal at a time. It is, however, acceptable to submit material for presentation at a conference prior to its actual publication in a journal, as the authors in case examples 1 and 3 did. Some conferences publish proceedings , and some journals will not publish work that is already published in a Proceedings unless the two papers differ substantially. When in doubt, it is good practice to contact a journal’s editor to determine the journal’s policy. Journals typically only publish original work, but on occasion there may be interest in reprinting an article. Reprinting a previously published paper requires written permission from the owner of the publication copyright. As a matter of courtesy, one should also seek the corresponding author’s permission, even if the author does not own the copyright.

Examples of Success

The benefits of sharing knowledge within the medical community and with the public via publication have been delineated. The publication of original work contributes to the advancement of the genetic counseling field overall, and at the individual level, authorship establishes a level of professional credibility, enhancing opportunities for future employability, funding and job satisfaction. The opportunity to develop a genetic counseling master’s thesis into a manuscript should therefore not be overlooked. Below are the personal accounts of three recent graduates who successfully transformed their individual master’s theses into published manuscripts. These examples were not systematically ascertained, and as such, do not necessarily represent all experiences with trying to publish a master’s thesis. These stories provide “first-hand accounts” of the authors’ experiences and, while acknowledging the challenges, demonstrate commitment to publishing their own projects throughout their careers. Table  3 contains a list of helpful hints gleaned from these cases.

Table 3

Helpful Hints for First Time Authors

Case 1: Consider Writing Your Thesis and Journal Article Concurrently

As a result of personal determination, and above all, strong mentorship, I was able to turn my master’s thesis work into a manuscript published in Patient Education and Counseling , titled “Satisfaction with genetic counseling for BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations among African American women” (Charles et al. 2006 ). My work was a small component of an existing research project being conducted within a university academically affiliated with my genetic counseling training program. The project was an evaluation of the overall effects of “Culturally Tailored vs. Standard Genetic Counseling Protocol” among African American women.

I started by reviewing previous publications this group of researchers had produced and using these as a guide for my first draft, followed by multiple revisions. Approximately 17 months elapsed between first submission and publication. We submitted the manuscript in its original form in May 2005. We received the reviewers’ comments later that summer, and submitted revisions five months later. The article was accepted in that same month, published online five months later and in print seven months after the online version appeared. Shortly after graduating from my program I submitted an abstract of the work to NSGC for presentation at the 2005 Annual Education Conference, and subsequently learned that it was selected for the NSGC Beth Fine Student Abstract award.

My experience may be unusual because I worked on the manuscript and thesis project concurrently. Composing separate but related documents while still juggling second year genetic counseling student responsibilities was certainly a challenge. Preparing a comprehensive thesis project is a very different task than manuscript composition, the latter of which is more focused and narrow in scope. Challenges posed by this concurrent approach included ensuring that text requirements and deadlines specific to each document were met, as well as incorporating and addressing the reviews of both the training program and peer-reviewers. The main benefits of this approach were that I was still in school and therefore geographically close to my mentors, which facilitated ongoing communication throughout the process, and that the manuscript was under review by a journal before I started my new job.

Factors contributing to the successful publication of this project include mentorship, accountability, and commitment to publication by every author. Supportive, constructively critical, and well published, my mentors had high standards and knew the process. Frankly, I did not want to disappoint them. I found setting deadlines and meeting them, along with the accountability of in-person meetings (as opposed to email), to be effective approaches. Finally, publishing the project was a stated goal of the authors at the initiation of the project. I will not claim that the process was easy, but the goal is certainly attainable and worthwhile.

Case 2: You Need Not Publish Every Thesis Finding—Pick The Most Interesting and Relevant

As is the case for many graduate students, the first time I attempted to publish was after I completed my thesis. My thesis concerned the development of a minority research recruitment database and was the result of my graduate research on underserved populations.

Following graduation, I started my first job as a genetic counselor in a new city. During the overwhelming process of adjusting to “my new life,” my thesis advisor asked me to submit a manuscript to the American Journal of Public Health in response to a call for abstracts on genetics topics. Unfortunately, the deadline was only one week away. I scrambled to cut down my lengthy thesis to a reasonable length and submitted it, knowing that it was not my best work given the time constraint. Needless to say, it was rejected.

I decided that before resubmitting the manuscript to a different journal, I would need to take a different approach to the paper, more or less starting over. While my research results were interesting, they were limited in their application. I decided to publish instead on the success of our research initiative, as other researchers could learn from our process. Since I was changing the focus of the manuscript, I had to do an additional literature search and produce much of the writing from scratch. Most of this work had to be completed in my free time. While it was difficult to stay motivated, working on my manuscript when first starting a job was manageable as my caseload was lightest in the beginning. After several weeks of hard work, I submitted the manuscript to Health Promotion Practice .

About one month later, the editor contacted me and asked me to resubmit my manuscript with revisions. Three different reviewers provided feedback. Initially, it was overwhelming to read through their comments and frustrating, particularly when the reviewers contradicted each other. Despite my frustration, with my co-authors’ guidance I forged ahead and resubmitted, only to have the editor and reviewers ask for additional revisions. There were comments from the same three reviewers, however, far fewer in number. Still, I was beginning to think they would never accept the manuscript. I once again called upon my co-authors for guidance and was able to address the reviewers’ comments and resubmit the manuscript once again.

This time when I heard from the editor, the manuscript was finally accepted. What started out as a 120 page thesis ended up being published as an eight page paper (Vogel et al. 2007 ). It took approximately 8 months of writing and revising before the manuscript was finally accepted and an additional year before it came out in print. While the entire process was a true test of patience and determination, it was ultimately worth it. The experience gave me the foundation to carry on my research career and continue to publish successfully.

Case 3: Expectations and Mentorship are Crucial

I defended my thesis, received my Master’s degree, and was about to move back to the Midwest to start my new job as a genetic counselor, but my long “To-Do” list had one remaining item: Publish master’s thesis. I started the initial master’s thesis process with the expectation from one of my thesis advisors, and now a co-author, that research is not “put down and set aside” until published. I never questioned the process; if I was going to work with this advisor, I would be publishing. I was excited to undertake this challenge and impressed by my thesis advisor’s dedication, mentorship, and desire to see our hard work recognized. Nearly two years later, I could proudly say that this expectation, held by all of my thesis advisors and me, was accomplished. The manuscript, published in the JOGC , describes qualitative research regarding communication of genetic test results within a family (Blase et al. 2007 ).

In the beginning, I was unfamiliar with the publication process, but because of the support and guidance of my advisors, I began to learn the process, and so the frustrations and uncertainties were minimal. I also had a great working relationship with my co-authors that included communicating regularly and setting and meeting deadlines. After deciding the JOGC was the most appropriate venue for my research, I spent a good deal of time reducing and reformatting the 80 page thesis to a 20–25 page manuscript to meet the journal’s guidelines. Given the page constraints, this process necessitated determining which data to focus on and re-framing some information to appropriately fit the readers of my selected journal. Conversations with my advisors were instrumental in this phase.

There was nothing quick about publishing my master’s thesis. I graduated in June 2005, received an email shortly thereafter from one of my advisors about how to begin constructing a first draft of a manuscript, and began working on the manuscript in July 2005. I submitted the manuscript to JOGC in May 2006 and subsequently was informed by the editor that based on the reviews, revisions were required before the manuscript could be considered for publication. In September 2006, after two rounds of revisions, my manuscript was accepted, and by June 2007 it was published in the journal.

Although ultimately I was successful in publishing my master’s thesis, the process had its moments of frustration. I remember getting my first round of comments from the reviewers; I thought I was never going to get to the point of publication. My co-authors supported and encouraged me by explaining that revisions are truly part of the process. I was overwhelmed by the reviewers’ list of questions and changes after my initial submission, followed by additional reviews and revisions. Not only did I have to figure out how to keep the manuscript a priority in light of my new job, but I had to weed through and address the reviewers’ comments, and the suggestions of each co-author. The guidance of my thesis advisors, now co-authors, helped me navigate this process.

I have gained much through this experience. The process has opened doors for me including opportunities to work with other professionals with impressive publishing experiences, as well as speaking and poster presentation opportunities at national conferences. I also have greater confidence about the publishing process. What seemed like such a daunting and impossible task is now an attainable outcome. Although my master’s thesis was my most recent publication, the thought of taking on the publication process again is not nearly as intimidating as I once thought.

Publication of original research, clinical experience, and literature reviews are vital to the growth of the genetic counseling field and to the delivery of genetic counseling services. Publishing also promotes personal growth by counting toward maintenance of ABGC-certification as well as establishing the author as a credible and respected authority both within and outside the genetic counseling field. This professional recognition in turn can lead to employment opportunities, speaking engagements, research funding, and career advancement.

Submitting a manuscript for publication also can be an intellectually challenging, emotionally trying, and time-consuming task. But similar to life’s other difficult tasks, the rewards and satisfaction are commensurately great—to see your name in print, have your work cited by other authors, and know that you have contributed in a meaningful way to the practice and understanding of genetic counseling. Transforming a master’s thesis into a journal article is an obvious first step in developing and sustaining a commitment to publishing for our genetic counseling profession. Common themes in the three success experiences include the importance of mentorship and clear expectations for publishing, recognition of the length of the process and concomitant need for perseverance in the face of revisions, awareness of personal and professional benefits in terms of presentations at national meetings, awards, and motivation to continue publishing. Hopefully the information provided in this article will help to de-mystify the publishing process, promote consideration of ethical issues in publishing, and stimulate genetic counseling students and new graduates to embrace a “Publish for Success” philosophy.

Acknowledgments

This paper was developed from an Educational Breakout Session (EBS) sponsored by the Jane Engelberg Memorial Fellowship Advisory Group at the 2008 NSGC Annual Education Conference.

Open Access

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.

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When should a supervisor be a co-author?

What are people's views on this? To be specific: suppose a PhD student has produced a piece of original mathematical research. Suppose that student's supervisor suggested the problem, and gave a few helpful comments, but otherwise did not contribute to the work. Should that supervisor still be named as a co-author, or would an acknowledgment suffice?

I am interested in two aspects of this. Firstly the moral/etiquette aspect: do you consider it bad form for a student not to name their supervisor? Or does it depend on that supervisor's input? And secondly, the practical, career-advancing aspect: which is better, for a student to have a well-known name on his or her paper (and hence more chance of it being noticed/published), or to have a sole-authored piece of work under their belt to hopefully increase their chances of being offered a good post-doc position?

[To clarify: original question asked by MrB ]

• gm.general-mathematics
• 29 $\begingroup$ Why did this get closed? Please consider this comment a vote to reopen. Any advice or career question will be subjective, and possible argumentative. Nevertheless, this is an important question on which it would be very helpful if the mathematics community should have a standard etiquette. There are already several replies that (while ocf course none for them can be authoritative) all give a worthwhile viewpoint that anyone who has to consider this question may find helpful. $\endgroup$ –  Arend Bayer Commented Mar 4, 2011 at 13:22
• 12 $\begingroup$ I think this is an important ethical issue pertaining scientific community that deserves to be discussed openly. If this forum is not appropriate place, please indicate a better solution. $\endgroup$ –  Tomaž Pisanski Commented Mar 4, 2011 at 15:18
• 25 $\begingroup$ This a much better quesion that "What is your favorite..." because one can imagine the answers to this question being useful to somebody. $\endgroup$ –  Mark Meckes Commented Mar 4, 2011 at 19:38
• 24 $\begingroup$ When in doubt, please leave questions open. I voted to reopen because I can see this as useful in many situations, including for students, their advisors, and those evaluating papers to try to judge how much was done by the student versus the advisor. It is useful to see what expectations others have for the meaning of authorship, the ordering of the authors, etc. since these do not follow from first principles. $\endgroup$ –  Douglas Zare Commented Mar 4, 2011 at 22:14
• 17 $\begingroup$ When the adviser is the dual of an author. $\endgroup$ –  Spice the Bird Commented Oct 10, 2012 at 4:17

21 Answers 21

In my opinion, as a rule the supervisor should not be a co-author in the main paper taken from a student's thesis, even if he has contributed substantially to it, and even more so in the circumstances you suggest. The student needs to publish much more than the advisor does.

If the advisor him/herself is a junior person and has given a lot of help and a very good idea to the student, then I suppose that an exception might be reasonable. Also, a thesis project might spawn more than one paper, of course, in which case it's fine if the advisor is a co-author in some of them (always assuming that he has done much more than suggesting the initial idea).

Of course, it may happen that the student is weak, is given a good project, and needs to be guided step by step, so that at the end the advisor has contributed much more to the thesis than the student. Then a joint publication is in order. Such a student will most likely not pursue an academic career, so it does not really matter.

[Edit] Let me try to clarify my thought, and perhaps be less radical. What I am going to say applies to pure mathematics; I am very much aware that in other fields things may be completely different.

A good thesis project is one that is both interesting and feasible. Devising such a project in pure mathematics is hard; most beginning students, even very bright one, need guidance, particularly in countries, like Italy, where the PhD program is 3 years. A student has a lot to learn before getting to a level to understand and appreciate a research project; it is clear that a student in a short program does not have a lot a time for trying and failing (which is, of course, very educational, but also time-consuming). Now, some students come up with their own problems and solve them, but in my experience they are exceptions.

I consider it part of my job as an advisor to suggest a problem, or an area of investigation that can be profitably mined from the student. After that, I follow the student, teaching her (let's say she's a woman, purely to avoid the "him or her") whatever I can, trying to dissuade to pursue lines of work that seem barren, uninteresting or risky to me, and also giving ideas. Sometimes she will get stuck; and then I'll think about the problem, to see if there is a difficulty that seems unsurmountable, or if there is an approach that she can try. After some time of this, if she is good she will take off on her own, and understand the problem better than I do; then I will consider that I have done my job. When she writes the paper, I will not be a co-author, even if I have obviously contributed a lot to the project.

Of course, different students require very different levels of involvement; but in my experience, it is not necessary true that the best student are the ones needing less help. Also, a lot depends on the problem.

Now, some people tend to give students substantial parts of their research agenda; in this case the advisor is directly interested in making progress, gets more involved, and is more likely to be a co-author. This is another case in which joint authorship is perfectly reasonable. I would not want to conclude anything about a student from the fact that have published the main paper from their thesis with their advisor.

• 51 $\begingroup$ This is almost identical to my own opinion. On the other hand, in Croatia the council of chancelors of the Croatian universities has adopted the rules for professor promotions and one of the criteria is the mentorship work; according to the rector's rules, the success of mentorship imust be proved by a joint publication with a student. This is a barbaric rule which only academically retarded rectors can accept as a criterium. A success in mentorship is, on the contrary, developing a student who is an independent researcher in the end of the story. $\endgroup$ –  Zoran Skoda Commented Mar 4, 2011 at 20:03
• 30 $\begingroup$ Angelo's suggested rule certainly expresses the most nobel intentions but it is not a good rule. If adopted we will be able to infer from a joint publication that the student is likely to be weak and that the supervisor contributed much more to the thesis than the student, and even in a case of a solo publication by a student we will have reasons to think that the supervisor contributed substantially to the research. $\endgroup$ –  Gil Kalai Commented Mar 5, 2011 at 12:20
• 8 $\begingroup$ Gil, this is not a legal scene to have "adopted" rules. It is about a feeling of proportions; it is very wrong to judge anything according just to the titles of publications, names of authors and journal in which it is published. Only detailed descriptions in recommendations, CVs, interviews, acknowledgments, research proposals and so on make sense and the formality of counting predominantly only the list of authors, impact factors and titles of officially published papers and journals is a plague which should be opposed by math community. $\endgroup$ –  Zoran Skoda Commented Mar 5, 2011 at 18:22
• 9 $\begingroup$ Zoran, the purpose of my remark was to point out that a rule (formal or informal) may lead to undesired consequences. Let me add that a major question arising here is "how to supervise a student." There are many styles and many possibilities. There are cases, for example, that students came to graduate school already as mature strong mathematicians, collaborated with their supervisors as equals, and together solved major open problems. A famous example from theoretical phusics is the QCD prediction and I am sure there are analogous examples in mathematics. $\endgroup$ –  Gil Kalai Commented Mar 6, 2011 at 10:44
• 5 $\begingroup$ There is a different interesting question about incentives. Compare, for example, the tradition in mathematics and it TCS. In TCS it is more common and might even be the default that works of a graduate student and a supervisor is usually joint while in pure math the default may be that the student writes on his own. Our system may look more just and noble. Indeed it is more noble if the amount of involvement of a supervisor is the same in the two disciplines. However,is it really the case? Perhaps supervisors are more involved in areas where the presumption is that the work is joint. $\endgroup$ –  Gil Kalai Commented Mar 6, 2011 at 15:17

This thread should be community wiki.

The AMS has adopted ethical guidelines regarding co-authorship; see

http://www.ams.org/about-us/governance/policy-statements/sec-ethics

The most relevant paragraph says

"A claim of independence may not be based on ignorance of widely disseminated results. On appropriate occasions, it may be desirable to offer or accept joint authorship when independent researchers find that they have produced identical results. All the authors listed for a paper, however, must have made a significant contribution to its content, and all who have made such a contribution must be offered the opportunity to be listed as an author. Because the free exchange of ideas necessary to promote research is possible only when every individual's contribution is properly recognized, the Society will not knowingly publish anything that violates this principle, and it will seek to expose egregious violations anywhere in the mathematical community."

The questions remain: when has an advisor made a "significant contribution" to the contents of the paper, and when should an advisor agree to be an author on the paper? My rule of thumb is that if I suggest a problem and react to discussions with a student by giving suggestions and helping with background and helping with proofs, then I will not be a co-author. If I do work by myself on the paper, doing important technical work, then I must be a co-author. There is of course a large gray area...

The tradition of advisors as co-authors differs a lot by discipline. In experimental sciences, the advisor is essentially always a co-author. I think that Angelo and I reflect common practice in pure mathematics, while the practice in applied mathematics is between that in pure mathematics and the experimental sciences.

• 24 $\begingroup$ True, JBL, but when my students are funded by my grant I don't co-author their papers. I $\endgroup$ –  Bill Johnson Commented Mar 5, 2011 at 4:48
• 2 $\begingroup$ The other difference in the experimental sciences is that the order in which authors are listed matters. As long as the student is first author, they will be given almost as much credit as if they were the only author. $\endgroup$ –  Oliver Commented Mar 5, 2011 at 5:18
• 5 $\begingroup$ @Bill Johnson, I'm not particularly interested in defending the norms of a culture I'm not completely familiar with, but the research your students do would presumably be possible whether or not they were funded by you; this is not true in fields that require routine access to million-dollar pieces of equipment, expensive reagents, etc. $\endgroup$ –  JBL Commented Mar 5, 2011 at 15:13
• 2 $\begingroup$ @JBL. Are you claiming that time to do research is less important than equipment? Anyway, students (and faculty) in experimental science at many universities have access to equipment even if they are not funded by grants. The big difference is, I think, in the cultures. $\endgroup$ –  Bill Johnson Commented Mar 5, 2011 at 20:30
• 3 $\begingroup$ @Bill Johnson, well, as long as you're asking, yes, I happily endorse that claim. For example, I personally come home from work in the evening and often put in a couple of hours of mathematics research on one side or the other of dinner, or over the weekend; this is something I would still be able to do if my work didn't also involve mathematics research. Of course, my research would be slower and more difficult if my job were unrelated. (continued below) $\endgroup$ –  JBL Commented Mar 7, 2011 at 14:37

"When should a supervisor be a co-author?" One situation is when the paper wouldn't get published otherwise. For example, yesterday (literally) I submitted for publication a paper that I coauthored a paper with my Ph.D. student, which we contributed to equally. I asked him a few months ago if he was going to publish this section of his thesis, and he said he wasn't since he was too busy with his current job as a software engineer at Google (he left academia). I then suggested that we coauthor the paper, and I would do all the (substantial) work of getting it into shape for publication.

• 19 $\begingroup$ Thank you for doing this! It's so frustrating when students obtain good results but don't write them up. $\endgroup$ –  Thierry Zell Commented Mar 8, 2011 at 21:48

My suggested rule is:

1) A supervisor should be a co-author in a paper taken from a student's thesis if she has contributed substantially to the research

2) A supervisor should not be a co-author in a paper taken from a student's thesis if she has not contributed substantially to the research

There are different styles of supervisions among different people. (And also for the same supervisor in case of different students.) A style where the supervisor and the student conduct joint research is certainly legitimate and it has various advantages. In such a case it is more likely that there will be a joint paper written. (But also in such cases, if the supervisor's contribution to the actual research is not substantial then the supervisor should not be a coauthor.)

• 1 $\begingroup$ @André Henriques: Gil probably expressed it better than I did, but there is still the matter of defining "substantially". $\endgroup$ –  Bill Johnson Commented Mar 5, 2011 at 20:45
• 4 $\begingroup$ Dear Bill, If I knew how to define "substantially" I would deserve to be a coauthor as well! $\endgroup$ –  Gil Kalai Commented Mar 5, 2011 at 21:10
• 2 $\begingroup$ @Gil: Interesting, in a non-mathematical way, is the fact you treat the supervisor as a female... :-) $\endgroup$ –  Asaf Karagila ♦ Commented Mar 5, 2011 at 21:39
• 11 $\begingroup$ Well, it is a bit ackward to write he/she, or she/he, or he (or she), or she (or he), so I think both he and she can represent all genders. $\endgroup$ –  Gil Kalai Commented Mar 7, 2011 at 8:30
• 6 $\begingroup$ The "substantially" takes on additional complexities when you're an adviser. As I noted in another answer, the work that falls under the "educational" role of the adviser should not be considered a substantial contribution, but where does one draw the line? $\endgroup$ –  Thierry Zell Commented Mar 8, 2011 at 22:00

As a non-mathematician, I am somewhat mystified by the prevailing norms of the mathematics community as I understand them from this thread. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like:

Supervisors make important intellectual contributions to the thesis work of their students.

Typically, the name of the supervisor does not appear on the work.

For example, the most upvoted comment at the moment says "as a rule the supervisor should not be a co-author in the main paper taken from a student's thesis, even if he has contributed substantially to it ." (emphasis is mine) Other comments echo the sentiment.

This seems problematic, both morally and practically. In other scientific communities, the author list is supposed to reflect the people who contributed intellectually to the paper. Manipulating it is an ethical offense. For example, the practices described in this thread appear to violate IEEE policies on authorship which state (Section 8.2.1)

Authorship and co-authorship should be based on a substantial intellectual contribution ... the list of authors on an article serves multiple purposes; it indicates who is responsible for the work and to whom questions regarding the work should be addressed.

Finally, I would just like to add that as a student, I would feel horrible submitting a paper authored only by me if the paper was based in large part on the insights of someone else.

• 33 $\begingroup$ -1: The ethical implications of authorship depend heavily on community standards. Our obligations are to communicate ethically--and how we communicate depends on to whom we speak. So what might be unethical in zoology might be perfectly acceptable in mathematics. $\endgroup$ –  Daniel Litt Commented Mar 4, 2011 at 19:47
• 25 $\begingroup$ Bill Johnson's answer to some extent address the issues you raise. (Also his answer strikes me as less extreme than Angelo's, which you quote.) Here's another situation to think about: if Prof. A writes a paper which makes a conjecture and proves partial results, and then I write a paper which builds on A's techniques to finally prove the conjecture, few people would suggest that I offer A to be a coauthor. This is not such a different situation from a rather independent grad student, whose advisor suggests the problem and provides some key insights. $\endgroup$ –  Mark Meckes Commented Mar 4, 2011 at 19:51
• 25 $\begingroup$ I think it is standard that when a student publishes a paper based on their thesis, that they will say early in the introduction that the paper is based on their thesis, and state the name of their supervisor. This does mean that the information is clearly visible, although presented differently from the way that is usual in other fields. $\endgroup$ –  Neil Strickland Commented Mar 4, 2011 at 19:52
• 24 $\begingroup$ @angela: Another practice in mathematics that you might find unfamiliar is that of always listing authors alphabetically. There is no notion of "first author" in mathematics. $\endgroup$ –  André Henriques Commented Mar 4, 2011 at 19:53
• 17 $\begingroup$ @angela: Mathematics has a long and glorious tradition of misattributions and rediscoveries, and one must get used to it. Who would guess, for instance that the Picard–Lindelöf theorem and the Cauchy–Lipschitz theorem are one and the same? (A theorem, which, funnily enough, will never be referred to as, say, Picard-Lipschitz, or by all four names). So when you write: If I want to justly attribute the proof of conjecture X , mathematicians tend to shrug and know that the story is more complicated. $\endgroup$ –  Thierry Zell Commented Mar 4, 2011 at 20:58

I actually wouldn't worry too much about coauthorship affecting a student's chances at a postdoc. For that, the advisor should just write in their letter that it's really all the student's work; I would say people don't tend to pay a lot of attention to whether graduating students even have publications, unless there are many of them or they are in very good journals. What matters is what the letters say about the person's research.

Where I have seen this hurt job candidates severely is if they are still coauthoring all their papers with their advisor a couple of years after they graduate and are applying for tenure-track positions. I think people see that and they wonder if the candidate is ever going to be independent.

• 32 $\begingroup$ The second paragraph is absolutely correct. About the first, maybe you are right, but my experience is that people always remember the name of the senior and better established author; so if you publish with your advisor you may have an easier time getting your paper accepted, but might not get full credit for it. $\endgroup$ –  Angelo Commented Mar 4, 2011 at 19:39
• 14 $\begingroup$ On the other hand, if you publish a paper with a senior author, people are more likely to look at it when it comes out than if you publish it by yourself. $\endgroup$ –  Peter Shor Commented Mar 4, 2011 at 23:32
• 14 $\begingroup$ Yes, it's great to publish with a famous coauthor. "Just" don't have it be your advisor. $\endgroup$ –  Allen Knutson Commented Mar 6, 2011 at 20:34
• 5 $\begingroup$ Well, it's fine to coauthor some papers with your famous advisor (if you happen to have one); just have some solo papers (and maybe some with a famous person who isn't your advisor for good measure). $\endgroup$ –  Ben Webster ♦ Commented Mar 7, 2011 at 19:46
• 7 $\begingroup$ "I would say people don't tend to pay a lot of attention to whether graduating students even have publications, unless there are many of them or they are in very good journals." I think this used to be quite true not so terribly long ago: e.g. when I got my PhD in 2003. In the current job market I think it is much less true: people pay attention to everything now. In particular having a publication coauthored with one's advisor and then having a rec letter from the advisor say "It was all student X" is a bit of a mixed message. Mixed messages are not competitive in the current market! $\endgroup$ –  Pete L. Clark Commented Jul 16, 2013 at 7:33

I guess my viewpoint is rather parochial, but when I saw the question, I wondered where OP got such ideas of politeness. Reading the previous answers, though, I realized that different practices may be current, depending on the national culture, or even the culture of the university in question. Speaking strictly for myself, I would have considered it quite improper to have my name on a student's thesis, in effect robbing the student of the credit that was deserved.

I fail to see the difference between a supervisor and anyone else. To decide whether a supervisor should be a co-author, you should apply the same rules you would have applied in any other case.

I generally prefer to be inclusive and if someone was involved in the project, then I think they should be offered to be co-author (unless it is obvious that their contribution is very minor). It is up to them to decide whether to accept or reject the offer. If you do not like their answer, next time do not talk to them about your work.

Also we are moving to a world where academic work in measured and rewarded very precisely by criteria which are very narrow. For example, in the UK the REF, which measure the performance of departments, in the individual level looks mainly on the quality of papers. So there is little incentive to individuals to supervise students (department as a whole do have some incentive). Now, in most cases supervisors put a lot of work into the supervision. So morally and to encourage people to keep supervising students I see no justification not to give supervisors credit when they deserve it.

• 32 $\begingroup$ You fail to see the difference between the supervisor and anyone else??? $\endgroup$ –  André Henriques Commented Mar 5, 2011 at 14:28
• 9 $\begingroup$ Dear Yiftach, there are various differences. One of the differences is that there is no symmetry between the supervisor and the student. In my opinion, if the supervisor was involved and the supervisor's contribution was not substantial then he or she should refrain from being a coauthor. You can have more relaxed policies when it comes to academics who are roughly of the same stature and can have equal involvment in setting uo the rules of engagement and coauthership between them. $\endgroup$ –  Gil Kalai Commented Mar 5, 2011 at 14:31
• 7 $\begingroup$ Andre, in terms of being given credit for contributation, I see no difference. $\endgroup$ –  Yiftach Barnea Commented Mar 5, 2011 at 14:34
• 14 $\begingroup$ "If you do not like their answer, next time do not talk to them about your work." This, for example, is not really an option in a supervisor/supervisee relation. (Just to demonstrate the difference.) $\endgroup$ –  Gil Kalai Commented Mar 5, 2011 at 14:38
• 12 $\begingroup$ Yiftach, yes, in my opinion supervisors should be more careful not to be coauthors in a paper representing a student's thesis when they did not make significant contribution to the research compared to other situations of collaboration. $\endgroup$ –  Gil Kalai Commented Mar 5, 2011 at 16:10

One anecdote ... Serving on a university-wide committee, I found that in one field (I think zoology?) the norm is having the advisor as co-author; and when the advisor does not appear as co-author it is taken as a sign that the advisor has a low opinion of the thesis.

During my career, there are only two Ph.D. theses that were published with me as co-author.

One case (Yuri Dimitrov): After the degree was completed, the thesis had to be abridged for publication. Dr Dimitrov would come to my office once or twice a week and show me his progress (much as he had done before the degree was completed). In the end he suggested joint authorship for the paper. Subsequently, we wrote another joint paper extending the work.

Another case (Jeff Golds): This guy, upon completion of his degree, was raring to begin his career in the software industry. It was clear he would never publish the work, but I thought it deserved publication. So I wrote it up for publication, and it appeared as a joint paper.

It really depends: I had two doctoral advisors, I wrote papers under the direction of both (separately): my first supervisor did not have her name on the paper; one of the papers I worked on with my second supervisor is joint, another has just my name (and yet a third has both our names plus a co-author).

The details are boring and not very enlightening, so I won't go into them, but the important thing in that in every case, there was a different, rational and very good reason why the supervisor name did or did not appear. It had to do with the cultural differences between France and the US, publication medium, and how the work was conducted.

In that respect, the etiquette question is similar as what happens when a colleague chats with you about your current research, or even better when they provide a crucial lemma or idea for your research. You should definitely acknowledge, but when do you offer co-author credit? In that case also, hierarchical considerations can easily come to the fore (if a person is clearly higher then the other in the pecking order, they can easily pass for a bully if they're not careful).

Even the area of math you work with is relevant (I've heard stories of people solving a problem in a group and the paper being published under a single name simply because the culture in that specific field does not give rise to many joint papers).

• $\begingroup$ Another hierarchical consideration could be coattails. $\endgroup$ –  Spice the Bird Commented Oct 10, 2012 at 4:21

well, that depends :)

For my own students I usually do not insist on being a coauthor. However, in most cases it just happens that one works together on a project which, by accident, is the thesis of one of the persons. In my experience, I had students who worked very much on their own and then they published their stuff alone. Perfectly fair to me. On the other hand, I had students which did not just ask some questions but we really worked together as I would do it with a collegue. So in this case, there was no question that we all are on the paper, sometimes even with a third person. In these cases, the student gets already some flavour of (partially international) collaborations which I believe to be worthy.

For a diploma student (that is a sort of master thing in Germany...) I'm happy if there is a good enough outcome leading to a little paper. Usually, these students are quite happy if they don't have to do it all by themselves.

For PhD students, I have the "rule" that there is a big global project for the thesis which is worked on, essentially in a collaboration. But I strongly encourage the students to tell me that there is some aspect, where s/he wants to work more alone and publish also alone. In fact, for a student aiming at a very good mark in the thesis, I almost expect that s/he has a paper published alone before the thesis is finished.

So, as I said, it depends very much on the situation. I think both ways have advantages and disadvantages. Important to me is that all involved persons feel good about the policy and that things are said in the beginning. Supervising students is always a matter of trust, and this aspect is certainly one of the most delicate ones...

The meaning of your question depends very much on who YOU are: a student or a supervisor:-) My guess is that you are a student.

In which case, my advise would be: just do what your supervisor suggests. Just trust him/her.

Various supervisors have various policies. Some never co-author papers with their students, even in the case when the supervisor did all work. Others sometimes do, sometimes not. But my advise is: just do what your supervisor tells you.

Both the ethical and practical sides of the question rely on conventions, and that is the first thing to be aware of. The tricky point is that not all people involved have the same conventions: for example, mixing other answers and comments, an Iranian student and PhD advisor submitting to a French mathematical journal, whose article is read by Gil Kalai will have the authorship question interpreted in three different ways.

I do not have a good way of solving this (except math could start following the path of some journals in other fields, and have a description of each author's contribution mentioned in the paper), and my answer below will be an account of the situation around me. However, as far as hiring is concerned (be it postdoc or tenured or tenure track), it is tremendously important for everyone that an advisor who co-authored with his or her student writes a precise, honest letter stating what are the student's contributions and his or her contributions. I have witnessed recently that the lack of such letter can leave hiring committees in too much doubt to actually consider the applicant strongly. I should add that this advice also applies to famous co-authors who publish with younger colleagues .

In France, in pure mathematics, the convention is exactly as another answer (which is currently the highest-voted one) states: the advisor is supposed not to co-author the main papers of a PhD thesis, except when he had to contribute more than what is expected (which leaves some room for interpretation, but usually suggesting the question, a rough possible angle of attack and relevant literature and having weekly mathematical discussions where the advisor listens and guides not too closely is part of what is expected).

In term of rewards, the PhD student is rewarded by authorship and the advisor by mentioning a advised a (publishing) student in his or her CV (which is sometimes a very important line of CV to have, an unfortunate state of affairs in my opinion, but that is another matter).

One of the points which might explain this convention is that in France it is not exceptionally rare to hire young colleague for a tenured position the year after PhD defense (I can see at least 5 of theses cases this last round of hiring, among 25 new positions attributed). We thus need to have a good confidence in the independence acquired during the PhD, and the co-authorship convention above contributes to that purpose.

To answer Gil Kalai's objection that this convention have unintended consequences, I would say it is true whenever conventions varies or are not uniformly understood. If one wants more precise and reliable information, recommendation letters and talks about the work should give some.

In my situation (in Iran), it is obligatory for a PhD student to publish one or two papers to graduate. Thus, I have a personal and strict rule: I won't be a co-author since I'm getting paid to help my PhD student to graduate. For that reason, I am not looking for any other excuses and/or reasonss (e.g. weakness of student, my substantial work, and so on) to be a co-author. To put it simply, that is my job to help! Obviously, I try to do my job well!

I'd like to ask a related question that I think as a separate MO question has a great chance to get closed: Do you know any other country (or institution) with such obligation for PhD students?

• 8 $\begingroup$ I do not think it is a good idea to use the answer to ask a separate question, but it is true it might get closed (it is however not certain), since it asks for facts. A still better question could be to generalize it to requirements for graduation regarding publications (formal and informal ones) as opposed to a direct comparison. Moreover, there is also a site specifically dedicated to such questions academia.stackexchange.com It is not just for mathematics, but there are quite a few mathematicians there; also people from related fields (eg, theoretical CS). $\endgroup$ –  user9072 Commented Apr 19, 2013 at 17:03
• $\begingroup$ Sorry. It might be obvious, but still: the parenthesis in my above comment is of course misplaced. What I meant to say is that since the question would just asks for facts one main objection, it being subjective or likely to cause dicussion, would not apply; so that it is not certain it will be closed. (In particular if you phrase it in a neutral way.) Still the risk is high, and in my opinion the site I mention would be a much betetr fit. $\endgroup$ –  user9072 Commented Apr 19, 2013 at 17:15
• $\begingroup$ quid/ Thanks for your advice. I'll try the site you mentioned $\endgroup$ –  Amir Asghari Commented Apr 19, 2013 at 20:24
• 1 $\begingroup$ "To put it simply, that is my job to help!" This expresses in a nutshell my feeling. $\endgroup$ –  Denis Serre Commented Dec 26, 2014 at 21:41
• $\begingroup$ @AmirAsghari Dear Amir what is a good and reasonable alternative for such obligation(obligation of publishing paper for PHD students). $\endgroup$ –  Ali Taghavi Commented Jun 15, 2016 at 6:27

First of all, this question must be decided by the adviser, not by the student. The student must accept any decision if his/her adviser.

Most advisers that I know (mathematicians) will not co-author a paper with a student, if the contribution of a student is substantial. But this depends on a person of course, in particular on the adviser's own experience when s/he was a student.

For example, the first paper of Ahlfors was not written by himself (though the main idea was his). As a result, Ahlfors established a rule to never co-author his PhD student paper. (He mentions this is his comments to his first paper in his Collected papers).

Myself, I try to follow this rule, but exceptions are possible.

• 1 $\begingroup$ Do I understand correctly that you’re talking only about coauthoring a paper involving the student’s thesis research? $\endgroup$ –  Lubin Commented Dec 27, 2014 at 3:17

I think that we should apply the same common sense rules as for any other collaboration (essential contribution - yes; inessential - no).

However , the question is whether a supervisor should contribute substantially to a thesis. I think that normally they should not. Again, there is a bit of a grey area here.

• 1 $\begingroup$ I think things may have changed a bit over my career. When I was young, I felt and I think a few others did too, that it was part of a supervisor's job to guide the research of their students, and naturally this would involve suggesting ideas and directions- at the same time, it being necessary to give the student freedom to develop independently and pursue ideas to conclusion. It was generally my view ( and still is) that the supervisor would not expect credit in the form of co-authorship of papers. Nowadays, I think many supervisors consider the normal expectation to be coauthors. $\endgroup$ –  Geoff Robinson Commented Jun 16, 2016 at 15:09
• 2 $\begingroup$ Geoff, I think a few things changed: Firstly in the UK there is a strict time limit on the length of a PhD, so supervisors might have to be more involved to accelerate the natural process. Secondly, there is more pressure on supervisors to publish (REF etc.). Finally, joint publications are just much more common and there is a lot less expectation that anyone will work on their own. $\endgroup$ –  Yiftach Barnea Commented Jun 16, 2016 at 17:21
• $\begingroup$ @YiftachBarnea : Yes, I have observed all those phenomena, and I understand the reasons to some extent. $\endgroup$ –  Geoff Robinson Commented Jun 24, 2016 at 20:52

I believe it to be in bad taste for advisors to co-author a paper with their current student, no matter what their relative contributions. Of course, I am in pure mathematics, and understand that they do things differently in other parts of mathematics, and in other disciplines. Otherwise, there is the possibility of an advisor exploiting their position. This strict policy also obviates any soul-searching about how much contribution is required to be a co-author.

Of course, it is expected that the student will acknowledge in the paper, the help (if any) received from their advisor.

I agree with the answers to the post which state that, as a general rule, the advisor should not be a co-author in the main papers which come from a students' doctoral thesis - for the simple reason that a student's Ph.D. thesis should be the student's original work and not the advisor's work, and authorship should reflect that - but I'd like to add an additional reason which I don't see much represented here, which is the potential for exploitation by the advisor. I've seen cases where a person has become a 'rising star', or even has passed quickly through their promotions and becomes slightly famous, by publishing a ton of papers, even when most (and in some cases as much as 80-90%) of them were from the Ph.D. theses of their students. I've heard anecdotes of advisors holding back deserving students from graduating until they wrote a few more (joint) papers. Both situations I think are exploitative, and departments and the community at large should do more to prevent this from happening.

At a minimum, I think we need to make sure that there aren't incentives for an advisor to gather a large collection of students and then stamp their names onto their papers, and, for that matter, we should really ensure that such practices are disincentivized. In particular, hiring, promotion, and grant evaluation committees should see a disproportionate percentage of papers co-authored with Ph.D. students as a red flag, instead of rewarding it with promotions, fellowships, grants, and awards. Also, scientific committees of conferences should make an effort to invite the (former) students to present their work, and not the advisor, even if the latter may be more famous.

When he can honestly claimed that he's substantially contributed in the research undertaking; not merely in the conceptualization, and design but in sharing worthwhile literature, and intelligent suggestions in the analyses of data. In the case of a "serious" supervisor or adviser, I think he would not allow himself to be deprived of such credit. For a beginning thesis-writer, he would really need someone who can assist and provide him proper guidance, and assurance that his work within the University or institutional standards.

In my opinion, from the purely ethical point of view, within the framework of mathematical research, the authorship is of a secondary importance. The issue of the position of the potential authors, e.g. a student versus a supervisor, is, in my opinion, irrelevant. What counts is only that the contributions of everybody, including the potential authors, as well as bystanders (writing/authorship wise), are adequately presented.

If needed, I can say in more detail what I mean by adequate .

REMARK There is, of course, the other question under what circumstances a student, i.e. the student's contribution, should be awarded their degree.

• $\begingroup$ I would appreciate if you elaborate "adequate". $\endgroup$ –  Ali Taghavi Commented Aug 27, 2017 at 4:10

I am just a self-taught amateur matematician that has published most of his works alone, but my personal point of view is that a supervisor of a PhD dissertation is worth to be added as a coauthor of a paper related to the aforementioned work, if and only if he has given a substantial contribute to the ideas/concept/proofs of that original research. Now, some PhD candidates are unable to write a preprint with a proper form (a fact), but this is not sufficient (IMHO) to let a supervisor take the coauthorship of their original work if his contribute has merely been helping the candidate to arrange its own results in a more strict form, in order to let it pass easier the peer-review process.

Just my two cents.

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• Research article
• Open access
• Published: 22 August 2019

The journey of thesis supervisors from novice to expert: a grounded theory study

• Leila Bazrafkan 1 ,
• Alireza Yousefy 2 ,
• Mitra Amini 1 &
• Nikoo Yamani 2  

BMC Medical Education volume  19 , Article number:  320 ( 2019 ) Cite this article

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Supervision is a well-defined interpersonal relationship between the thesis supervisors and their students. The purpose of this study was to identify the patterns which can explain the process of expertise attainment by thesis supervisors. We aimed at developing a conceptual framework/model to explain this development based on the experience of both students and supervisors.

We have conducted a qualitative grounded theory study in 20 universities of medical sciences in Iran since 2017 by using purposive, snowball sampling, and theoretical sampling and enrolled 84 participants. The data were gathered through semi-structured interviews. Based on the encoding approach of Strauss and Corbin (1998), the data underwent open, axial, and selective coding by constant comparative analysis. Then, the core variables were selected, and a model was developed.

We could obtain three themes and seven related subthemes, the central variable, which explains the process of expertise as the phenomenon of concentration and makes an association among the subthemes, was interactive accountability. The key dimensions during expertise process which generated the supervisors’ competence development in research supervision consisted maturation; also, seven subthemes as curious observation, evaluation of the reality, poorly structured rules, lack of time, reflection in action, reflection on action, and interactive accountability emerged which explain the process of expertise attainment by thesis supervisors.

Conclusions

As the core variable in the expertise process, accountability must be considered in expertise development program planning and decision- making. In other words, efforts must be made to improve responsibility and responsiveness.

Peer Review reports

Supervision is a well-defined term in the interpersonal relationship between thesis supervisors and students. A supervisor is designated to assist the student’s development in terms of their research project [ 1 , 2 , 3 ]. Faculty members supervise the students because qualified supervision leads to success on the part of the student, and it has moral, reputational, and financial outcomes for the institution. Supervisors are expected to train students to gain competence in areas such as specialist skills, generalist skills, self-reliance skills, and group/team skills [ 4 ]. Expertise is derived from the three essential elements of knowledge, experience, and the ability to solve problems in society [ 5 , 6 , 7 ]. .According to Dreyfus, acquisition of expertise or practical wisdom represents a higher level of “self-actualization.” At this point, one reaches a level in which they can flourish in their talents and abilities. This enables the teachers to function in scientific communities and multicultural environments [ 7 ].

Wiscer has identified three stages in the thesis supervision process and describes the duties of the supervisors in each of them [ 8 ]. Pearson and Brew state that maturation in specialist skills, generalist skills, self-reliance skills, and group/team skills are the major areas that need to be promoted in the student. Moreover, these are the generic processes in which the supervisors should be involved for efficacious supervision if they aim to help the students develop in various institutional, disciplinary and professional settings; acquire appropriate expertise and features needed for employment; and make an outline of what might form a flexible professional development program for supervisors in this setting [ 3 ]. Vereijken et al. emphasized novice supervisors’ approaches to reach expertise in supervision and explained the relationship between practice and dilemmas among novice supervisors [ 9 ].

.Despite the importance of expertise in higher education and particularly research supervision, research abilities are not considered as one of the priorities in the employment of the academic staff. Furthermore, the newly employed faculty members are often involved in teaching, administrative tasks, and services in health care; this inhibits them from expertise attainment in other aspects such as research supervision [ 10 , 11 , 12 ]. In this regard, Malekafzali believes that in the area of research activities, the faculty members have serious weaknesses in defining the problem, choosing the appropriate method for research, analyzing the data, interpreting the results, and publishing scientific articles. Besides, there is a lack of coherent and compiled training programs which can enhance their research capabilities [ 13 ].

One of the most important factors contributing to the thesis and research quality is the process of developing expertise in supervisors’ research supervision. Most studies in our country have focused on research abilities during the research, and fewer studies have focused on the process of expertise acquisition in thesis supervision, and no actual model has been proposed for this [ 11 , 12 , 13 ]. The quantitative researches could not explain exactly how and through which process the faculty members, as thesis supervisors, become experts in thesis supervision since the expertise process is multi-factorial and has many unknown aspects. Considering the effective role of qualitative research in clarifying ambiguous and unknown aspects, we chose the grounded theory approach for this study [ 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 ]. This theory will be used when the investigator intends to determine the patterns of actions and social interactions needed for the development of expertise by specific groups of people in a specific setting [ 17 , 18 ].

In this study, we aimed to identify the themes that explain the expertise development process among thesis supervisors in Iran, and also to develop a conceptual framework/model to explain this development based on the experience of both students and supervisors.

This study was carried out in 20 universities of medical sciences with different ranks in Iran because universities are the places where supervisors and students interact purposefully to discourse the needs of experts on specific occasions and in specific conditions. In these universities, different students study with various disciplines. There are three types of universities in Iran. Type 1 universities are the ones with the most facilities, faculties, research presentations, international collaborations, and scientific outcomes. The second rank belongs to type 2, and the one with the least mentioned qualities is type 3 universities. All three types of universities were included in this study. In all these courses, writing a thesis is one of the requirements with the same role and regulation. The majority of the students in this research project were in the late stages of both undergraduate and postgraduate educational programs within the same function and regulation.

Study design

We conducted this qualitative study based on a grounded theory approach in a systematic form [ 17 , 18 ]. Grounded theory is a symbolic interaction which is derived from systematic data collection during the research process. In this strategy, collecting and analyzing data and the theory derived from the data have a close association [ 17 , 19 ]. The investigator’s purpose in using grounded theory is to describe and clarify a phenomenon in the social condition and to identify the essential processes working within [ 17 ].

Participants

In this study, 84 subjects including 56 faculty members of medical sciences, 20 undergraduate and postgraduate students (medical students, MS of Science, Ph.D. and residents), and eight managers in the field of research supervision participated. Using purposive sampling, snowball sampling with maximum variation, we selected the participants from a variety of academic ranks with different work experiences, as the key informants in thesis supervisors. Then, to continue the sampling, we used theoretical sampling and data saturation. The inclusion criterion was 5 years of work experience in thesis supervision, and the exclusion criterion was the unwillingness to participate in the study. Firstly, we collected data in Shiraz University with the help of a research supervisor who is known for his high quality of supervision and then data gathering was initiated in the university of Isfahan. There were 34 key informants from the two universities and 22 individuals from other universities. Students were selected based on their willingness to participate.

Theoretical sampling was used next to develop the tentative theory. The basis for theoretical sampling was the queries that emerged during data analysis. At this stage, the researcher interviewed the supervisor, administrators, and students. Theoretical sampling facilitated in verifying the supervisors’ responses and credibility of categories and resulted in more conceptual density. Data saturation was obtained when no new data emerged in the last five interviews. Therefore, data gathering by interviews was terminated.

Data collection

We collected the data primarily by semi-structured interviews from September 2017 to September 2018. The participants were recognized with unknown codes based on their field of work and setting, and each participant was interviewed in one or two sessions. Having obtained the participants’ informed consent, we recorded the interviews and they were transcribed verbatim immediately. The interviews began with open-ended general questions such as, “What did you experience during research supervision?” and then the participants were asked to describe their perceptions regarding their expertise process. Leading questions were also used to deeply explore the conditions, processes, and other factors that participants recognized as significant issues. The interview was based mostly on the questions which came up during the interview. On average, each interview lasted for an hour, during which field notes and memos were taken. At the end of each session, the participants were asked to give an opinion on other important topics which did not come up during the interview, followed by data collection and analysis which are simultaneously done in grounded theory; analytic thought and queries that arose from one interview were carried to the next one [ 20 ].

The data were also collected by unstructured observations of the educational atmosphere in the laboratory, and the faculty member and students’ counseling offices. These observations lasted 5 weeks, during which the faculties and students’ interactions and the manner of supervision were closely monitored. The observation was arranged to sample the maximum variety of research supervisor activity for some faculty member who is known to be a good or poor supervisor and detailed organized field notes were kept.

Also, we used the field notes to reflect emergent analytic concepts as a source of three angulations of data, frequently reconsidering the data, and referring to field notes in the context of each participant’s explanation. Analysis of the field notes facilitated in shaping contextual conditions and clarifying variations in the supervisors’ responses in each context. This led to the arrangement of several assumptions in the effect of contexts.

Data analysis

We simultaneously performed data collection and analysis. We read the scripts carefully several times and then entered them into MAXQDA (version10). We collected and analyzed the data practically and simultaneously by using a constant comparative method. Data were analyzed based on the 3-stage coding approach, including open, axial, and selective coding by Strauss and Corbin In the open coding stage, we extracted the basic concepts or meaning units from the gathered information. Then, more general concepts were formed by grouping similar concepts into one theme. The themes became clearer throughout the interviews. Then, the constructs of them were compared with each other to form tentative categories. After that, we conducted axial coding by using the guidelines given in Corbin and Strauss’s (2008) Paradigm Model [ 21 ]. The extracted themes (codes) in the previous (open coding) stage were summarized in 3 main themes during the axial coding stage, and then the core variables were selected in the selective coding stage [ 20 ]. To generate a reasonable theory to the community, a grounded theorist needs to condense the studied happenings a the precise sequence. To check the data against categories, the researcher asks questions related to certain categories and returns to the data to seek evidence. After developing a theory, the researcher is required to confirm the theory by comparing it with existing theories found in the recently available research [ 21 ]. We finalized the model after 5 days; during this time, we explained the relations between subcategories and the core category for realizing theoretical saturation and clarifying the theoretical power of the analysis explained about work as narration.

In terms of accuracy improvement, we used the Lincoln and Guba’s criteria, including credibility, dependability, conformability, and transferability [ 22 , 23 ].

To increase credibility, we collected data from different universities in Iran, and their credibility was also confirmed by three reviewers and experts in qualitative research. Also, some of the participants rechecked the data and the investigators’ description and interpretation of their experiences carefully. Prolonged engagement and tenacious observation facilitated the data credibility. In this way, the process of data collection and analysis took 12 months. Data triangulation and method triangulation also confirmed credibility [ 20 ]. The use of the maximum variation sampling method contributed to the dependability and conformability of data. Furthermore, once the explanation of the phenomenon was full, it was returned for confirmation to 3 participants of each university, and they validated the descriptions. Finally, to attain transferability, we adequately described the data in this article, so that a judgment of transferability can be made by readers.

Ethical considerations

This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences (92–6746). The participants were informed about the research aim and interviews. Informed consent for conducting and recording the interview was obtained. The confidentiality of the participants’ information was maintained throughout the study.

In this study, the mean age of the faculty members and students was 44.34 ± 14.60 and 28.54 ± 2.38 years, respectively. All the faculty members and most of the students were married. Only three students were single. Three themes and seven interrelated sub-themes emerged from the data (Table  1 ). The main variable, which explains the process of expertise as the phenomenon of concentration and makes an association among the categories, was interactive accountability. The key dimensions of the expertise process are displayed in a model (Fig.  1 ).

The process of expertise attainment in research supervisor model

Theme 1: engagement

In this theme, the initial phase of expertise, the supervisor starts to observe the others’ behavior in the students’ supervision and guidance based on the practical and cognitive skills previously acquired. They attempt to recognize the different needs based on the amount of their motivation and previous competence so that the models become important for them, and they recognize the scope of the needs based on their importance. Then, they try to understand the needs and values of real thesis supervision in this context. In this theme, two sub-themes, curious observation, and evaluation with reality emerged.

Curious observation

In this sub-theme, several concepts such as personal interest, self-awareness, ability to meet the students’ needs, ability to detect weaknesses in research skills, and observation of role models in this area act as the impellent factors in expertise attainment in research supervision.

Regarding personal interest, a successful faculty member in the area of research supervision said:

“…In my experience, faculties must be selected from those who have curious personalities as well as being good observers, first of all. In this way, they will have the appropriate intrinsic character to acquire knowledge in guidance and supervision)…” (Faculty member N0.3)

According to our participants, the most important intrinsic motivation is the desire to update the content knowledge and skills in research supervision. An experienced professor said:

“ … The knowledge gap between the new and old generations of faculty members is what forced me to update my knowledge...and it has been detected by myself…” (Faculty member N0.3).

Another important intrinsic motivation is the ability to meet the educational and research needs of students. However, usually these needs are combined; one of the faculty members put it:

“…I would like to be an expert in this process (thesis supervision) to meet my students’ needs. Because I have seen and felt this need many times before…” (Faculty member N0.12).

Since the publication of research directly affects the promotion of a faculty, some professors seek skills that are practical in article publication such as several statistical and basic skills for thesis writing. The participants considered the self-awareness and consciousness elements as very important. Through consciousness, one can better understand their needs.

Evaluation with reality

In this sub-theme, in the initial phase maintaining academic dignity and competition motivates the faculty members to obtain expertise in research supervision. At this point, the supervisor evaluates themself and their potentialities considering more precise features and acquired information (or data), so that they can find the distance between the optimal state and the existing conditions. They also evaluate the others’ potentialities in this field realistically and compete. Good supervision is then highlighted for them. Based on the supervisors’ experience, at this stage, they are seriously engaged in evaluation and competition.

Another motivation was obtaining academic and social promotion. Although the number of theses supervised by them can affect the academic promotion of supervisors, this effect is insignificant. The real motivation is maintaining academic dignity and competition amongst peers. A member of the clinical faculties stated:

“ … To enhance academic dignity, a faculty member should master various skills such as patient care, teaching, educational skills, and last but not least, research supervision. I got involved in research and thesis supervision because I felt I should not be left behind…” ( Faculty member N0.17).

At this stage, the junior supervisor tries to increase the cognitive knowledge in research supervision such as increasing specific knowledge of the discipline, planning, directing of a project effectively, and developing good interpersonal skills presented in research supervision.

Theme 2: supervision climate

In this theme, we describe the contextual factor which changes the process of expertise attainment in thesis supervisors. The result of the study reflects some concerns about the relationship between individuals in the context in that they interact purposefully but with barriers. The supervision climate in the thesis supervision process in this theme led to the emergence of two sub-themes, challenging shortcomings and role ambiguity. These challenges include poorly structured rules and regulations which, in turn, can cause confusion and role ambiguity.

Challenging shortcomings

This report shows that contextual factor plays a significant role in promoting the quality of a thesis in a university, but the process is faced with altered challenges such as inadequate resources, inadequate time, and ineffective evaluation and rule and regulation deficit. These challenges include the following. Most faculty members and students have experienced these shortcomings.

Various inadequate resources, such as access to new and online journals, laboratory equipment were one of the challenges for supervisors in certain aspects which required more competency, and the constraints on communication with the other academic centers worldwide undermine the sense of competition and hinder the effort put in to become an expert. One of the students said: “… I see how difficult it is to gain access to a good article or laboratory materials in this situation …we try, but it just isn’t possible...” (Faculty member N0.17).

Based on our results, the sudden changes in personal life, work position, and organizational change can affect the path to expertise. These changes such as marriage, work overload, admission of students over the capacity, new rules and regulation of scholar citizenship, promotion and so on can have both positive and negative impacts, depending on whether they facilitate or restrict the professional development of faculties as supervisors. For instance, an increase in student admission causes work overload, which results in neglecting self-improvement.

“…As you know, we are over- loaded with students (they have increased the number of admissions), which is beyond our capacity. This means that most of our time will be dedicated to teaching. Self-improvement is difficult due to lack of time…” (Faculty member N0.6).

Role ambiguity

Poorly structured supervision can occur where there is an ambiguous context of supervision structure, supervisors and students’ roles. Most participants, as faculty members, managers, and students have experienced some difficulties in this regard, due to poorly structured rules(EDITORS NOTE; do you mean ‘rules and regulations ‘here) and regulations and its impact on the thesis supervision. It is not only the rules themselves but also the way they are implemented. One of the faculty members expressed confusion over the rules related to the dissertation as follows:

“…It should be made clear what I must do exactly. It is obvious regarding supervision on the work of students; there are not the same expectations from an Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, and a professor. Most problems occur as a result of the gap in legislation; For example, the rules imply a full Professor does not need a statistical consult, while many supervisors like me do not have enough knowledge and skills in statistical analysis...” (Faculty member N0.1).

Failure to implement the rules also increases the sense of this ambiguity, and there are no specific rules for verifying capability and audits to determine inadequate experts in thesis supervision. The role ambiguity or unclear roles and responsibilities of the supervisor and student in the thesis process were other limitations that were emphasized by the majority of participants. A faculty member stated:

“… Supervisors have different roles during the thesis process. To enhance this process, one must exactly know one’s responsibilities. For instance, in the beginning, the supervisor should guide the students through the process of finding a suitable research topic, but if the teacher's role is unclear, then instead of guiding they may actually choose the topic, and if so, the students will be prevented from exploring, using their creative thinking, and improving their problem-solving abilities…” (Faculty member N0.1).

Various performance

Based on the participants’ experiences, in this situation in which there are inadequate resources and organizational and social problems, some faculty members are well-trained in the field of supervision. One of the senior faculty members said: “It is my honor to mention that despite the existence of many obstacles, I have been able to train well-educated students, who have become researchers and contribute to the development of science in my country.”

One of the most important causes of poor performance is ineffective evaluation. Based on the participants experiences, two main problems can result in ineffective evaluation. First of all is the inadequate feedback from the supervisor which leads to unmotivated learners and the second one is lack of feedback from the stakeholders and educational institutes which in turn diminishes the supervisor’s efforts toward self-improvement. These can lead to poor performance both in students and supervisors.

In one of the Ph.D. student’s words:

“…In this system, there is no supervision on the supervisors; there is no control or evaluation of their work. Also, the supervisors don't get feedback from their students during the research process, and there is no third person who investigates whether the report is real or not…” (student N0. 7).

Evidence from data suggests that an unfair judgment and evaluation of academic theses are other problems in the process of acquiring the merit of teachers. If there isn’t proper evaluation, students and supervisors would not have the right standards to correct their performance.

The professors do not always consider the lack of expertise to be the only cause of poor performance. Many believe that inadequate monitoring can also reduce the motivation for quality performance. This means that supervisors may obtain the necessary expertise, but they are not motivated to enhance their performance since they are not expected to do this. One student had experienced:

“…I was so thrilled that my thesis supervisor was an experienced, older and well-known professor, but unfortunately, I soon found out that not only was his scientific knowledge outdated, but also he lacked the necessary supervision skills, so he let the students do all the work unsupervised. He did not take any responsibility during the process…” (Student N0.4).

Another point which leads to poor performance is the fact that some faculty members do not comprehend the main purpose of the thesis writing process; actually, they do not know the difference between teaching and guiding in the project or thesis supervision. One of the basic science supervisors said: “… Some faculties consider a thesis as research work and not a lesson in which research methodology should be taught...” (Faculty member N0.5).

Performing poorly along with ignoring professional ethics can also lead to increased tension and stress in student-teacher relationships. This can result in despondency and frustration in both students and teachers and create a vicious cycle of inefficient supervisors who will train inefficient students or future supervisors.

One of the students put it this way:

“...I feel the absence of a supervisor in my research; I would have been more successful, and my results would have been better if I had had more guidance.” (Student N0.6).

Theme 3: maturation

In this theme, the secondary phase of expertise, the individual is emotionally involved and feels that success or failure is important. This is a stage in which the learner needs an integrated schedule to be competent, and as a result, success or failure will follow. The supervisors frequently think about personal promotion and takes action in this way. They try out different approaches, and sometimes due to disappointment and embarrassment they fail. Some individuals quit at this stage and never reach competence, or they have what may be called an artificial competence. And this does not mean that they are not considered to be well-known supervisors; rather, they know, as do the students, that they are not competent. At this stage, the supervisor attempts to acquire the identity of a researcher and tries to enhance his availability, and be dutiful, knowledgeable, and enthusiastic in research supervision. Along the lines of this theme, three sub-themes of Reflection in action, Reflection on action, and Interactive accountability emerged.

Reflection in action

In this sub-theme, the patterns of expertise development begin, and self-directed learning, participatory teaching and learning strategies through a hidden curriculum are considered. At this stage, the supervisor tries to follow self-directed learning, and the amount of time allocated to expertise acquirement seems to be one of the most important factors. In this regard, one stated:

“…My success in this case (research supervision) is, first of all, due to self-evaluation and self-effort. For instance, to be in control and take full responsibility, I think about everything related to the guidance of the students, and I felt the need to master every aspect of research, even the statistical skills needed for analysis…” (Faculty member N0.8).

The supervisors’ activities were divided into two groups: self-directed –learning strategy and gaining experience through individual effort. Expertise requires continuous interaction and experience. They evaluate their learning, and by this, they experience the manner of managing and allocating time for effective supervision. According to participants, the amount of time allocation for expertise seems to be one of the most important factors for self-directed learning and expertise acquirement.

The formal training workshops provided an opportunity for supervisors with similar terms and the same problems in terms of learning experiences, environmental features, students, and educational problems to come together in one place. Participants also considered the formal participatory teaching necessary since it can provide an opportunity for the peers to get together and exchange their experiences. As a clinical faculty member put it:

“…Collaborative strategies can be beneficial in many ways. One of them is the facilitation of experience exchanges amongst teachers, peers, and colleagues and modeling the behavior of teachers and teaching workshops that emphasize the importance of their expertise in research supervision…” (Faculty member N0.1).

In our participants’ experience, this self-directed learning is effective if, and only if, it is done accompanied by proper training and participatory teaching. Otherwise, it is a waste of time. As an example, one of the students in this field said:

“…my supervisor was a great teacher and put in a lot of time and effort on my thesis supervision; however, due to his lack of research skills, I had to change my thesis proposal three times. However, after he participated in a training course at the University of Oxford, his progress was unbelievable and impressive…and I saw his expertise…” (Student N0.11).

One of the faculty members also quoted:

“…When the teachers feel a gap in their knowledge or skill, the university must provide a comfortable, appropriate, and easy way for learning them …” (Faculty member N0.10).

Regarding this subject, one of the Managers in this field stated:

“…Another improvement strategy is the use of interpersonal interactions among faculty members, these instructive interpersonal interactions among the faculty members in similar conditions make it possible to benefit from peers’ feedback …” (Manager N0.1).

A hidden curriculum strategy, like learning through trial and error can also affect the expertise process. One of the professors expressed:

“… Learning through trial and error is very effective; through the supervision of each thesis, we learn some of our mistakes and try not to remake them in the next one …” (Faculty member N0.3).

The professors do not always consider the lack of expertise to be the only cause of poor performance. Many believe that inadequate monitoring can also reduce the motivation for quality performance. This means that supervisors may obtain the necessary expertise, but they are not motivated to enhance their performance since they are not expected to do this. One student’s experience:

Reflection on action

The learner provides an integrated schedule for their competence and uses all the facilitators and facilities around them for further efficiency and promotion. This stage is named Conditional Self-efficacy by expertise experience. At this stage, the supervisor is considered a competent individual who can guide the students based on the experiences of specialized and non-specialized faculty members.

In this regard, one of the students said:

“…I can acknowledge that my supervisor functioned very impressively in this thesis, but guidance and supervision are not static; rather, it is an active process. To be a good supervisor, the faculty members should try to keep up to date and revise their attitudes, duties, and their specialty and knowledge. …” (Student N0.3).

According to the participants, at this stage the supervisors have achieved meta-competence and general characteristics or professional value; are able to guide the students and others; and develop characteristics such as acquiring specific knowledge of the discipline, especially well-organized knowledge, planning, directing of a project effectively, having good interpersonal skills, and being dutiful, knowledgeable and enthusiastic in research.

One of the PhD students states: “… My supervisor is typical of an expert. His ingenious inquiries, extraordinary attention to science and his personality have always been admired and he has been a role model for me…” (Student N0.6).

For example, the supervisors attend educational programs on scientific writing and thesis evaluation as well as ethics in research and apply them in team work. Gradually, their competency can enable them to function as a good supervisor for their students. At this stage, the supervisor develops so that they can respond due to discovery and intuition. These responses replace their dubious and unskilled reactions. The supervisor now reflects various stages of supervision and guidance. They take action, and in fact, a part of their reactions are achieved through observation and recognition. In this stage, they not only recognize what should be done but also distinguish how to achieve it with more precise discretion. A competent person does the appropriate task in the most appropriate time using the right platform.

The time period required for training or acquiring expertise varies from one person to another. Some individuals become experts very soon, whilst it takes others longer.. As one of the professors said:

“…In the beginning, I was too concerned with my responsibility as a thesis supervisor and was not sure what I should do. However, after ten years of experience, I have gained a sense of awareness which makes supervision easier for me. Of course, up to date knowledge and skill as to managing a thesis are always necessary. It took me about 12 years to reach where I am today. Furthermore, an individual who is expert at present, will not be so in two years, so I want to say that the expertise in thesis supervision in a continuum, which depends on the supervisor’s reflections on work and activity …” (Faculty member N0.15).

The continuous path of expertise in supervision can be affected by various factors. This has resulted in a range of expertise and performance in supervisors. This range and continuum is a theme that most of our participants agreed with. One of the managers revealed:

“…There is surely a continuum of expertise. We cannot deny the expert supervisors; however, the existence of those with poor supervising skills must also be acknowledged (in thesis supervision). There are those on whose ethics, honesty, and knowledge we can rely on. On the other hand, there are a few who are not as trustworthy as needed.” (Manager N0.1).

The core variable: interactive accountability

As shown in Fig. 1 , through this survey, we found that the core variable in thesis supervision process is the interactive accountability shaped by interactions of supervisors and students in an academic setting, so to enhance the accountability, each group must take responsibility and do his or her job. In this regard, one of the managers claimed:

“…When supervisors find themselves responsible, and the university officials recognize this responsibility, the supervisors are motivated to seek expertise and try to enhance their competencies and acquire learning strategies because of being accountable…” (Manager N0.2)

This means that teachers must be responsive to the needs of students, university and community. Accountability is a mutual interaction between the students and their supervisor, in other words, if the student is responsive to his duties, he creates motivation in his supervisor. One of the participants commented;

“…I've always tried to be a competent thesis supervisor, so that I have the ability to meet the needs of the community and university as well as students. I say to myself when I accept the supervision of a thesis, I should be well accountable for its results…” (Faculty member N0.32)

This study aimed at exploring the processes of expertise among thesis supervisors based on the experience of faculty members, students, and managers of Iranian universities of medical sciences. The section concludes with an explanation of how these themes are a cohesive relationship, which enables the expertise development of supervisors. It seems that the core variable in the expertise process is the concept of interactive accountability and efforts to acquire the capacity to respond to the students and academic needs. This will help them to promote their professional behavior in research supervision. The importance of accountability and various types of ability in thesis supervision has also been emphasized by other studies [ 24 , 25 , 26 ]. It was also mentioned as the major feature of the supervisor in other studies [ 26 , 27 ].

In this study, “accountability” emerged as the behavioral pattern through which the supervisors resolved their main concern of being an expert in being responsive to academic and students’ needs. Supervision training is complex since academic choices in the real world can depend on supervisor characteristics. The results of this study revealed that in the initial phase of supervision, observation, evaluation, and reflection in action and maturation stage in the secondary phase were the major themes that emerged. This result compared with Bandura’s social learning and self-efficacy theory was significant in similarity and difference. Bandura believes that achieving self-efficacy is one of the most important contributors to competence. In his model, he suggested four sources of self-efficacy, including previous accomplishments, vicarious experiences such as having a role model, verbal persuasion such as coaching and evaluative feedback, and emotional arousal [ 28 , 29 ]. Likewise, in this study, we found that the emotional arousals such as personal interest in cooperative learning, peer competition, meeting the needs of students, self-awareness and the need for upgrading are the significant factors for the faculties’ expertise. Also, our participants found that the utilization of previous experiences is the most effective method of achieving personal competence. However, this study indicates conditional expertise, which means if an expert’s information is not up to date and they do not make any effort in this regard, being an expert and having expertise is not a permanent condition.

This study also revealed that self-effort, workshops, and role models, as part of a hidden curriculum, are influential methods of teacher empowerment which agrees with the results of some studies such as those of Britzman et al. and Patel et al. Patel et al. have also suggested the importance of role modeling; they believe that modeling and observing other faculty members behavior is an effective tool for promoting and strengthening the sense of efficacy in learners [ 30 , 31 ].

Based on our study results, among the learning methods used in Iran, the collaborative education and problem-based learning is the widely accepted method which is preferred by most faculties. Therefore, cooperative and collaborative learning strategies can be used in educating the faculty members towards expertise in supervision, as revealed in other studies [ 32 , 33 ].

Lack of time is reported by supervisors to be one of the most common barriers in trying to become an expert and carry out respectable worthy supervision, and taking one’s time is acknowledged as a motivating factor for putting in more effort in thesis supervision [ 34 , 35 , 36 ].

The effect of contextual factors is studied in several surveys [ 36 , 37 , 38 ]. Gillet et al. state that contextual and organizational factors play a key role in the competence of teachers in research supervision [ 36 ]. This study also showed that faculty expertise in thesis supervision was significantly affected by the impact of contextual interventional factors such as sudden changes, structural shortcomings, and educational environment. Based on our and other studies’ results, among the sudden changes, increased workload due to the increase in the student population has greatly affected expertise. Moreover, while an increase in the workload can lead to more experienced faculty members, it is very time-consuming and, therefore, reduces the chance to obtain new information and skills in thesis supervision [ 33 , 37 ].

Similar to our study, other studies such as those of Al-Naggar et al. and Yousefi et al. have also found insufficient monitoring and lack of formative evaluations to be one of the main obstacles in the thesis supervision process. Studies have indicated that to improve the supervision process, careful planning and incentive rules must be applied [ 5 , 34 ]. Similarly, our participants mentioned that rules and regulations which have resulted in the positive effect of research on scholarship and promotion had truly motivated them. Like our study, other studies in Iran have also found that the amount of time allocated to learning is one of the influential factors affecting the faculty members’ expertise [ 13 , 38 ]. A malfunctioning relationship between the student and supervisors can affect both of them negatively; that is, it can compel the students to misbehave and also reduce the teachers’ motivation to develop better skills. This malfunction may be due to the lack of constructive interactions or paternalism leadership in research supervision [ 39 , 40 ]. As shown in Fig. 1 , this study provided a conceptual framework that can be used in policy making and studies of expertise development in research supervision. This framework is based on the perception and experience of the majority of those involved in the thesis process. It also provides teachers with an opportunity to compare and share their experiences.

This model has three fields of experience, which yields a comprehensive gradient of the factors used for the development and progress of thesis supervision quality. In other words, it is a rational structure that makes an effort to cover a comprehensible number of stages, of concept, achievement, and impact or consequence. In other words, this model is a combination of a great number of items that help to recognize the present and future processes of expertise in thesis supervision, and future challenges in this area which predict results and impacts of supervisor’s knowledge, attitude and research supervision. Table one offers the categories and clarifications [ 17 ].

This study is based on our overall model of expertise attainment. This model reveals that specific personal efforts such as observation of prior knowledge, evaluation or self-assessments alongside the university contextual dynamics help to figure out how supervisors select their approaches and engagements, and respond carefully to their task, which in turn impacts the supervisors’ level of expertise and, finally, outcomes such as work and perseverance, which then help them to become an expert. Similar to the social learning theory of Bandura, this model also states that there is a mutual relationship between different parts that can mutually affect one another. For instance, faculty members have shown in various studies how one’s previous academic success and failure can affect the future levels of involvement and motivation. Based on the study aims, we focused on only three of the components of the model: observation, evaluation, and self-efficacy; in terms of motivational processes, we focused on four motivational components. The first is self-efficacy, defined as students’ judgments of supervisor abilities to carry out a task, and their beliefs about their ability to do so show the highest levels of academic achievement and also engagement in academic behaviors promoting learning.

Through the use of this grounded theory, we can begin to understand the supervisors’ challenges and why it may be difficult to become an expert in research supervision in practice. The junior supervisors curiously observe and evaluate their environment by reflection and in action and do their best to attain knowledge and skills in the supervision of the theses, so that they can reach maturation. They are mainly supported by prior knowledge of the research supervision, which they had acquired when they were students. The concept of “interactive accountability” refers to the fact that if the supervisor is responsive to the students’ needs, they can be an expert in supervision. If they cannot overcome the barriers and shortcomings such as lack of time, they will not attain expertise in thesis supervision.

Strengths and limitations of the study

This grounded theory study describes the main dimensions of expertise in research supervision from straight reports of a large qualitative sample ( n  = 84) which consists of thesis supervisors, from all Iranian universities in three different data collection phases. Like other qualitative research, the results of this study cannot be generalized; therefore, it is recommended that the researchers conduct further qualitative research in other contexts to support these findings.

Despite the above limitations, we believe that this model can be useful for supervisors in the thesis supervision area, not only in analyzing the supervisors’ experience of supervision and being an expert but also in recognizing the areas of intervention or development of teacher training.

Implications of the study

The findings of the present study will help administrators to choose the supervisor with definite criteria in medical sciences institutes and facilitate the expertise in the supervision process through elimination of the shortcomings and improvement of the educational climate. The supervisor’s interest, talent, and capabilities should be assessed at the beginning of their employment as academic staff. Supervisors should attend educational workshops for updating their knowledge about supervision. It is recommended that collaborative strategies and methods should be used, so that we can contribute to the process of becoming an expert. The assessment of supervisors’ functioning in supervising and provision of feedback can contribute to the process of expertise. Feedback received from students about their supervisors will improve the supervisor’s further expertise and capabilities. For future studies survey on the impact of successful models in thesis supervision, disclosure analysis studies about student and supervisor are recommended.

In this study, we aimed to find out how thesis supervisors achieve expertise in supervision. The results of our study indicated that thesis supervisors achieve expertise in supervision in two stages of engagement and maturation. The emotional need to be responsive towards peers and students is the main motivation for the acquisition of competency at observation and evaluation phase of engagement. Through the evaluation and observation phase, the supervisors reach cognitive competence, such as research skills. Also, in the maturation phases, they reach meta-competence in research supervision such as problem-solving and resolving dilemmas by reflection in and when exposed to dilemmas. Meanwhile, the effects of supervision climate include shortcomings and role ambiguities which should be taken into account. According to this model, when supervisors are exposed to such problems, they apply multiple strategies, such as self-directed and collaborative learning; and learning by trial and error and from the role models. This will help them to promote their professional behavior in research supervision. This study indicated that interactive accountability, as the core variable, can be guaranteed in thesis supervisors by making the role clear, creating a supportive context, and improving the academic competencies of staff in an ongoing fashion. Therefore, this can promote constructive expertise in supervisors and foster a deeper understanding of the supervisor’s expertise in thesis supervision.

Availability of data and materials

The datasets produced and analyzed during the present study are not publicly accessible due to participant confidentiality, but are obtainable from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgments

The researchers would like to thank all research participants of Medical Sciences Universities (faculty, student, and managers) who contributed to the study. The authors would also like to thank the Education Development Center of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences for cooperation in this study and special thanks to Professor Shokrpoour for her editing.

The present article was extracted from the thesis written by Leila Bazrafkan. The design and implementation of the project was financially supported by Esfahan University of Medical Sciences (Grant No. 92–6746).

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LB developed the study design, conducted the interviews and analysis, ensured trustworthiness, and drafted the manuscript. AY, as the supervisor participated in the study design, supervised the codes and data analysis process, and revised the manuscripts. NY as research advisor participated in the study and provided guidance during the study and MA revised the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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LB is an assistant professor of medical education in Medical Education Research Center, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences,

AY is Professor of Medical Education Dept., Medical Education Research Center, University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan

MA is Professor of Medical Education in the Medical Education Research Center, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences,

NY Associate Professor of Medical Education Dept., Medical Education Research Center, University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran

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Correspondence to Nikoo Yamani .

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Bazrafkan, L., Yousefy, A., Amini, M. et al. The journey of thesis supervisors from novice to expert: a grounded theory study. BMC Med Educ 19 , 320 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-019-1739-z

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co–writing with your supervisor – the authorship question

A doctoral researcher recently told me, and several others who were in the room at the same time, that he wanted to write a journal article. Good eh. No. Not really. The trouble was that his supervisor insisted on being named as co–author even though they weren’t contributing anything. The response from those listening was immediate, and negative. “No” came a chorus almost in unison, together with a few audible intakes of breath.

This is far from the first time I’ve heard of this. And in fact, I do know of some disciplines where it is automatically assumed that a supervisor’s name will go on whatever a doctoral researcher publishes, regardless of whether they have even looked at the paper. This default authorship practice seems to have its roots in the view that: (a)the conversations held in supervision inevitably mean that some of the supervisor’s knowledge is taken up by the supervisee, and (b) the supervisor’s intellectual contribution to the doctoral researcher’s project needs to be acknowledged through being named as co-author. But I’ve also heard some of my colleagues put exactly the opposite view – that the supervisor shouldn’t ‘interfere’ with their PhDer’s publications and should never co-write and shouldn’t ever appear as co-author.

So the question of writing with your supervisor is contentious territory. There aren’t clear cut policies and actually precious little discussion. Yet, as the pressure to publish during the PhD ramps up, and as more and more people undertake PhD by publication, it seems pretty urgent that the question of supervisor-supervisee co-writing becomes something more than a corridor conversation and a question at conferences.

My own view, for what it’s worth, is this.

Teaching –  and supervision is a teaching relationship of a very particular kind –  always involves the teacher offering the gift of their views and expertise to the ‘learner’. This offer can be coercive, as in “you must think this way and woe betide you if you don’t.” Or it can be much more light touch and generous, as in “how about this point of view”, or “how about reading this next” or “this makes me think about” or this would be more readable if you put this here not there.” 

In supervision, it is almost inevitable that at least some of the supervisor’s perspectives will be influential on the doctoral candidate’s thinking. But not always. Regardless of the take-up, a supervision ‘gift’ is built into the pedagogical exchange. Supervisors don’t put their names as co-writers on the thesis because supervising is gift giving – the thesis is seen as the candidate’s own original work and the supervisor is thanked for their contribution in the acknowledgements. And of course, the ideal supervision relationship is one where the supervisor learns too. Giving is reciprocal.

Writing for publication is now part of the supervision process. This is formalised in the UK for instance, where the annual review process usually includes reporting on how the supervisor is supporting the doctoral researcher to publish. These days, a doctoral researcher can reasonably assume that, as with their thesis, they can discuss writing and publishing with their supervisor. They can talk over the purposes of writing a paper, get some direction in writing, and some feedback. The supervisor offers this conversation as part of their pedagogical process. Support for publishing is not a supervision addition, an extra. It is, like the production of the thesis, integral to the doctoral process. And the same rules that apply to the thesis ought to apply to writing for publication, the supervisor offers a gift. They don’t expect to be automatically named.

However, it may be that the supervisor does more than offer advice and a bit of feedback. They actually write part of the manuscript. They contribute something over and on top of what the doctoral researcher is able to do themselves – this might be by way of writing about relevant literatures or methods, some refinements of analysis, a theoretical framing, the development of the mandate and contribution… There is an actual contribution. These are circumstances where it seems not unreasonable for the supervisor to claim some degree of co-writing.  But because the substantive research is the doctoral candidate’s, the supervisor really ought to think quite hard about why they wouldn’t want to be anything but the second author.

It may be that the supervisor does more than simply make a contribution to the doctoral researcher’s paper. The supervisor might write something where the doctoral researcher is offered the contributing role, perhaps they provide some data to a larger supervisor-produced corpus, write specifically about research methods, offer some literatures, do some of the analysis. This scenario is often the case when the doctoral researcher is working in a research team, or on the same project as their supervisor. In this case, authorship credit and order needs to be carefully negotiated. Disciplinary conventions, supervisor generosity and calculations about percentage contributions all come into play at this point.

Writing with your supervisor is tricky. But not impossible to manage. Authorship negotiation can be difficult and sometimes unduly hard, and I will say even more about this in another upcoming post.

If you have helpful experiences or advice to offer to others about writing with your supervisor, do let me know. I’m keen to keep the conversation going.

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About pat thomson

12 responses to co–writing with your supervisor – the authorship question.

Hi Pat. Thanks for your always interesting blog. I have an excellent relationship with what I can only term an amazing supervisor. He freely gives of his insight, be it into the methodology, structure of my writing, historical knowledge and so on, even though he is not an expert is my field of Holocaust education. He has a very light touch, but goes through my thesis thoroughly. As far as writing papers is concerned, if he makes a direct contribution, such as writing a portion, or editing, be it a small amount or a lot, his name is on the paper. However, he is insistent that my name always goes first as we are using my data. His generosity of spirit is indeed a gift. Brenda

The (well-known in his discipline) supervisor of one of my colleagues insisted on being first author on a paper that he had barely even contributed to. Unsurprisingly the said paper soon became the main bulk of a chapter in the professor’s latest book without even a mention (other than the occasional citation from the paper) of my colleague.

I am really glad you have addressed this as my supervisors insisted on being co-authors even though they haven’t written any of it or contributed anything substantial. For some of my papers, they didn’t even read the manuscript but were authors (!). It was made worse when I submitted my thesis and was accused of plaigarism with my own papers because the papers were not single authored by me. It just doesn’t make any sense, as most of my thesis has been published in journals with co-authors but my thesis is of course published as a single author. It is bizzare and baffling, and it seems institutions are just ignoring this mal practice. Tom

Thank you Professor. Personally, I try to follow the ethical principles of the International Committee for Medical Journal Editors (even though I am not one, of course). The “Vancouver Protocol” is cited at: at http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/roles-and-responsibilities/defining-the-role-of-authors-and-contributors.html

Who is an Author?

The Protocol states:

The ICMJE recommends that authorship be based on the following 4 criteria:

Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND Final approval of the version to be published; AND Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Best wishes, David

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Hi Pat, this is an interesting, and I understand contentious topic. I’m currently doing my PhD by/with publication. I am also employed as an academic and a co-researcher on other competitively funded projects, including some with my supervisors. I understand that this puts me in a different position to the majority of PhD students. It also changed how I approached my PhD, my choice of supervisors, and my thoughts on authorship. At the start of the PhD we discussed the issue of authorship of the papers for my PhD and are following the COPE guidelines as we do for the other research we do together. Whilst my topic was my idea, I feel my supervisors have contributed in terms of their guidance and input to meet the requirement for contribution to the conception and design. We have had productive discussions about the interpretation of findings and they have challenged my thinking to improve those areas. Whilst they don’t write the draft of the papers they do critically revise them for important intellectual content, beyond just minor editing and moving commas or full stops. As such I am entirely comfortable that their input should be recognised with authorship. I am the lead author, but their names are on the papers. For me personally, this is important not only in terms of recognising their input but respecting their time and investment in my project. In terms of academic workloads, RHD students don’t count for a lot, certainly a lot less than invested by engaged supervisors. The publication provides another outcome indicator for their time. When supervisors (especially associate supervisors who may be ECRs themselves) are dependent on those indicators for their own progression, this is more important. There will be papers from the PhD that I will be single author for. This is something they have stated from the earliest conversations about doing the PhD by/with publication. On those they will be included in the acknowledgements. I think like all things with a PhD this comes down to the early discussions around expectations, mutual respect, and the quality of supervisors. Kind regards, Erika

While I know some people who have had problems, I had a great experience writing with my supervisor in 2012. We really shared a dialogue about what we wanted to say, and after the article was underway, she offered to have it single authored (by me) if I wished. When I said I really wanted it to be co-authored (because it was!), she insisted on my name going first. It was the kind of collaboration that I wish all PhD students were able to experience – it convinced me of the efficacy of co-authorship, which I’ve been passionate about ever since, and really built up my confidence in academic writing. And as a bonus, we are still writing together with another article coming out soon.

This is so helpful, thank you! As a mature student and writer I’m keen to get as much journal writing done as possible before I graduate. One of my profs has been incredibly supportive in so many ways. She will often say ‘have you thought about this?’ Or ‘oh, read so-and-so’ and I would absolutely name her as co-author of anything I wrote in the next year or two even if she didn’t write a word. Our conversations have enriched my learning and writing.

I co-wrote papers with one of my supervisors. It was a very worthwhile process in which I learned a lot about how to write for publication. She was an experienced journal editor so was well aware of the pitfalls that authors could avoid. It continues to be a good working relationship post PhD. We have developed a good rapport and I continue to benefit from her experience and advice.

Where I work the vast majority do PhDs by publication. The Vancouver guidelines are important for how the relationship between the candidate and the supervisor is understood, and another general principle that people adhere to is that if you haven’t contributed with actual text, you shouldn’t be listed as an author (PhD students are expected to have conducted the analyses themselves). There is also an institutional policy that PhD candidates should be the first author on all the published papers in the thesis. What I think is probably most important, though, is that there have been some (ir)regular meetings where these things have been discussed, both in supervisor only groups, and in mixed groups with supervisors and candidates. Formal guidelines don’t necessary help if they aren’t being kept “alive” though the institutional culture.

When I did my PhD I wrote the first article with my supervisor and it was an invaluable learning experience.

Pingback: co-writing with your supervisor – do we need a code of good practice? | patter

In my opinion, it depends on the Institution, programme and country. Many times, this issue is not optional; this is considered compulsory, even if the advisors and co-advisors did not help in the study, in writing and/or reviewing the papers. In addiction, to manage bureaucratic issues and get the financing for article, sometimes, it is necessary the advisor publish as first author, although he/she was not the author.

This is a great topic to address!

I have had a troubling relationship with my main supervisor which ended in my decision to end the supervision with her and I got a new and great supervisor as a replacement. In the end, it turned out that they are both co-authors on all my articles for my PhD. I have felt this unfair at times and thought of them both as free-riders, particularly because I have collected all data by myself and worked very independently. But then I have come to terms with this because:

– It is within the Vancouver-rules (they have both given feedback during the time and collected and analyzed my data) – I have an interdisciplinary background and associated with the medical field where there is a long tradition of have many co-authors. As such, I might not be dependent on being single-author for future jobs. – I show that I can collaberate despite a non-working supervision-relationship.Even if the relationship had worked well, co-authorship shows that you can do teamwork. – There is was no salary for the new supervisor and I was in need of her

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Should I include my master's thesis supervisor as coauthor of a conference paper even if their contribution was marginal?

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Guide, Co-guide, Supervisors as Author in Publication on Student Thesis

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Adding supervisor to thesis

I am writing some thesis in Latex and I use some template. At the first page I would like to add my supervisor. In one file there is possibility to add it. There is macro like: \college{}; \author{}; \title{}, but there are no for supervisor something like: "\supervisor{}". Do you know what macro I can use to add supervisor? Thanks.

I am using this template:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwyOySLlDTB_a3R5aFZQNzVFRG8/edit?usp=sharing

There is the file "thesis-info.tex", where I can define \college{}; \author{}; \title{}, etc., but I don't know how to add supervisor...?

• 10 Unfortunately we aren't able to read minds ;) Which template do you use? Please provide us with an minimal working example , so that we can help you. –  Hackbard_C Commented Aug 16, 2014 at 11:09
• I added link to latex template. –  Dawid Commented Aug 16, 2014 at 12:12
• 1 Thank you! It would be good, if you could also provide a minimal working example as this leaves still a lot of effort to the community. Have a look into your PhDThesisPSnPDF.cls whithin the Macro Definitions and Title Page ( \renewcommand{\maketitle} ), there you should be able to define your \supervisor{} via copy&paste&rename. –  Hackbard_C Commented Aug 16, 2014 at 12:55
• Please, edit the question or close it because the link to drive is broken. –  gvgramazio Commented May 13, 2018 at 17:42

This is an attempt and works. Please follow the following steps to establish a working directory.

• Download all the template into a directory and save the testfile.tex shown below into the same directory.
• Open up the class file PhDThesisPSnPDF.cls (a new *.cls name is preferred.)

Add the following lines to line 500 (right after the macro degree ) in the -- macro definition section.

\newcommand{\@supervisor}{} \newcommand{\supervisor}[1]{\renewcommand{\@supervisor}{#1}}

Also insert following lines to line 575 (right after the author position) in the -- title page section (maketitle).

{\Large \bfseries{\@supervisor} \par} \vspace*{1ex}

Compile textfile.tex

Code: testfile.tex

• Thanks, could you please explain why there are \@supervisor and \supervisor ? What do both definitions do? –  PlasmaBinturong Commented Apr 21, 2020 at 14:48

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Ask thesis supervisor for permission to include his name as co-author of a journal paper and risk being denied?

I did my Masters Thesis at a reputed organization, under a supervisor who is an expert in the field. The organization is notoriously protective about the data I acquired from there which I need in my calculations in my thesis. I would like to publish a paper with his name too, though he had very little to do with my actual work. But I am afraid that if I ask him, he will say no, owing to the over-protective nature of the organization (though it was I who took the readings and collected the values myself). I have the option to publish it without naming my supervisor or the organization. What would be the right approach here?

• publications
• paper-submission

• 1 Why are they notoriously protective about the data [you] acquired ? –  user2768 Commented Sep 24, 2020 at 7:42
• @user2768 Their materials, their measuring instruments and a (minute) part of an ongoing project. Also organization policy it seems. –  schizoid_man Commented Sep 24, 2020 at 8:08
• I'm confused: They're secretive about their materials and measuring instruments? Perhaps don't answer this question: Is the organization government or military? If not, why are they secretive? Protecting work-in-progress makes sense, but universities typically want research published. Understanding the rationale for the organization policy may help you navigate a route to publication. Speaking to your supervisor is probably the easiest way forwards. –  user2768 Commented Sep 24, 2020 at 8:33
• 1 Most likely, if your supervisor says no, it would be for a reason that precludes you from publishing with or without him. –  chepner Commented Sep 24, 2020 at 17:03

2 Answers 2

It sounds like you need to consider three distinct issues:

• Trade secrets / copyright: Is the data truly yours to publish? I am not a lawyer, but depending on location, type of employment and contracts / NDAs you may have signed, the simple fact that you took the readings and acquired the data might not make you legal copyright holder. What you may need - given that the organization in question is notoriously protective or even over-protective of their data - is permission to publish by the head of that institution, even if you do not intend to publish the entire data set but merely results derived from it. Formulations like notoriously protective make it seem highly advisable to look through any formal papers you may have signed prior to starting there.
• Academic integrity: Even if advisors seem to have very little to do with a project, they still may have provided guidance or maybe even just the opportunity to acquire data (as in, they did the work of putting together equipment necessary to acquire the data). In those cases, it is still necessary to put the supervisor in the author list.
• Affiliation: Putting the organization in the affiliations is - as far as I understand the situation - necessary, because without their equipment / setup, you could not have collected the data. Think of the CERN or DESY: Sure it's you spending the night on site when you have beam time, but you'd still put that organization in the affiliations.

I may be mistaken, but your question sounds like you feel that academic integrity warrants putting your advisor as co-author, but if you do that, people might notice that you publish work based on data acquired at that institute. And that institute might object to you publishing that data, hence you'd rather avoid "waking sleeping dogs". If that's the case, i.e. if people at the institute could object to you publishing the data, you should ask before publishing.

If it turns out they'd rather not have you publish but have no legal way to keep you from publishing, there's no harm in asking and you can always publish anyways. But if they have legal means to keep you from publishing, just publishing anyways could be a very bad idea with potentially serious consequences for your reputation and your career (plus perhaps penalties to be paid, but again, I'm not a lawyer).

Email your supervisor, ask them how to proceed. It is very likely you're not the first who wishes to publish somthing based on research done there.

• 2 Having used an organizations facilities, does not automatically make you affiliated to that organization, and those not necessarily imply that that organization should appear as an affiliation on a paper. More typically the use of facilities is acknowledged in the "acknowledgements" section. E.g. having used the Hubble space telescope for observations does not make you affiliated to NASA. –  TimRias Commented Sep 24, 2020 at 8:55
• 1 @mmeent True, just using their equipment only requires acknowledgements, so my example was off, thanks for pointing that out. But the OP states they did their Masters Thesis there. That makes an affiliation, in my opinion. –  user129707 Commented Sep 24, 2020 at 9:12
• Excellent answer, but a nitpick re “In those cases, it is still necessary to put the supervisor in the author list.” — at least in my field, that’s not quite the case. OP should certainly offer the supervisor co-authorship, in such cases, but the supervisor may well decline the offer (in my field, this is very usual), in which case it’s fine to publish without them as author. It’s of course good to then include thanks for their support/guidance in the paper acknowledgements. –  PLL Commented Sep 24, 2020 at 20:29

Email your supervisor: Ask them whether they'd like to co-author a paper derived from your thesis. Move forwards from there. You needn't write the paper before getting your supervisors input. You should ask for guidance whilst writing the paper.

I have the option to publish it without naming my supervisor or the organization.

Actually, you don't.

Publishing without naming your supervisor could be considered plagiarism, because they had an input. You say, he had very little to do with my actual work , but you should question whether you could have completed your thesis without him or whether he guided you, if so, that's his input.

Although you might be able to publish without being affiliated with the organization, you should acknowledge their support. (They provided resources for you to conduct your research.)

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