What to do when your PI delays submitting your manuscript?

[gliabiologist]

I'm new to this forum, but I'm wondering if anyone has experience with, or suggestions for how to convince my former PI to submit my manuscript. I finished my MS thesis two years ago, and provided her with a completed manuscript, since then I have left the lab to pursue other endeavors, but always with the goal of going on to a PhD program. I feel I can't apply until my work is published, so it's really stalling my career. Every month I inquire about getting feedback on the paper, or to see if there is anything I can do and she blows me off with some excuse about competing priorities. More often than not, she doesn't even respond to my emails. Meanwhile, other labs are beginning to publish similar work in high impact journals, and I fear that eventually we will get completely scooped. I'm not sure what to do at this point. It seems she has complete disregard for my career and hard work, and is not even motivated to advance her own stature with a relatively high impact paper. It's been a bit of a nightmare.

If anyone has any suggestions, or comments about how they dealt with a similar situation, I'd be very curious to hear.

Thanks! And, have a great data day!

[Usmivka]

I may be overly negative, but there are four scenarios that seem possible here:

1. The manuscript needs a lot of work, and she is prioritizing work that is closer to a finished product (only you can answer this one, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt).

2. The PI doesn't like the work or want her name associated with it. This seems odd if similar work is being published now.

3. The PI is working on an extension of the research that she wants to publish, using your currently unpublished data as part of a larger set. This is fine for her, and you would undoubtedly still get authorship (maybe further down the chain though) but it clearly is hurting your application prospects.

4. The PI really is very busy (3-5 year paper turnarounds aren't unheard of), and there are other things more important to her career (young, untenured?) since similar work has at this point been published. So she sees no benefit to putting in the time, and is not sufficiently motivated to do it solely for your sake. Some people are like that, and when you apply to grad programs you will know to avoid others like her.

My suggestion:

You have a manuscript. Presumably there were others involved besides your PI that you can talk to for feedback, or even former classmates and profs for generic editing. Tell your PI you plan to submit it on your own withing a certain amount of time (long enough she can provide feedback, short enough she can't write up their own version and leave you out entirely). Then submit. Your money, your submission, let peer review do the rest. Of course in this case you'd best choose a cheap journal!

[Spore]

You can not submit the manuscript on your own.

The PI's grant money funded all of the experiments etc.etc.

As for advice....

Apply to PhD schools now.

[Usmivka]

You can not submit the manuscript on your own.

The PI's grant money funded all of the experiments etc.etc.

Absolutely you can submit it! I'm not suggesting that the PI wouldn't be an author (if they actually put any of the work in) or that the grants wouldn't be acknowledged.

I had a very supportive PI in my undergrad program, but I still submitted my first paper, since I was the lead author. All of the correspondence with editors, responses to reviewers, etc, was my responsibility. My PI suggested I do so as part of the learning experience. You don't just abrogate your responsibilities as a scientist and author because the money was awarded to the PI. Your manuscript, you submit it. The only reason the PI need be part of submitting a paper you are first author on (other than the usual authorial contributions bit if they are an author) is that they have money to pay for the submission.

In fact, most NSF funded research has public reporting requirements after a certain period of time (usually 2 years--so the work gliabiologist did should already be in the public domain or close to it, even more reason to publish). See the data management requirement in the general NSF grant instruction packet (http://www.nsf.gov/p...mc_id=USNSF_179). I can go mine data that was collected by another PI for his/her grant and write a paper on it. For another example, NOAA funded work in oceanography tends to end up here (http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/). While it would be courteous to invite the PI who collected the data to collaborate, nothing more than an acknowledgement would be required.

Edited May 19, 2012 by Usmivka

[TakeruK]

You can not submit the manuscript on your own.

The PI's grant money funded all of the experiments etc.etc.

It doesn't matter who paid for the experiments, if you are the first author and you wrote the manuscript yourself, you have full control over the submission process. You can't buy control of a paper with money. Of course, it would be a very bad idea to submit work with other people's names on it without their approval, but if you say, give people 2 months to look over and say that if you hear nothing, you will assume approval, then you can probably go ahead. If they end up objecting and if you really think you have good work, well then they can withdraw their name from the paper and you would have to remove the work that they did (if any). If it's good work, it will pass peer review and be published.

[Spore]

With all do respect, perhaps this is based on field?

I was in biological sciences labs for 12+ years from research technician to graduate student to postdoctoral research fellow.

There is no way I would have could have should have submitted a manuscript without my advisor's/PI's approval. All of the papers I have authored, I shared the banner head with at least 3 other scientists. This is very common due to the collaborative nature of the field. I know of NO student during my tenure at 4 different schools who single-handedly submitted a manuscript.

Most biologcial science papers have more than two authors and even if you did the majority of the work, if you attempt submission without your advisor's go-ahead, bad blood will likely spill.

Really, the only way, a student can submit independently is if they received funding on their own (NSF) and even then the PI would have to agree to such a submission.

If you go behind your PI's back, how in the world can you expect a possitive recommendation which you will surely need to get into PhD school?

[TakeruK]

It could depend on field, but what you said applies to physical sciences as well.

I'm not saying that it's generally a good idea to go behind your PI's back at all -- submitting a paper without your PI's support means breaking up a working relationship between you and your PI. You definitely won't get a good recommendation from that person either! But sometimes it is the right thing to do, especially if the PI in question is actually a bad person and trying to sabotage your career because they don't like you (so even if you didn't go behind their back, you wouldn't get a good letter anyways).

Also I don't mean to say that papers get written in a non-collaborative way -- I was thinking of a situation where the PI is one of X authors (including a few other researchers and students).

I am saying this from seeing a friend (a student who was the first author) go through a similar thing. One person on the collaboration refused to give the go-ahead, personally insulted others on the collaboration and dragged on the internal revision process for months (asking for an extension then only comment was "rewrite the whole thing" basically).

It's never a good idea to do anything without PI support. What I meant to say is that there is nothing within the rules that requires a person to be on a paper because they paid for the work. In almost all cases though, the PI does more than just pay the student -- they provide the necessary support. But in the rare cases where the relationship is dysfunctional, it could be useful to remember that the first author is in fact in charge of the paper and suggestions from co-authors are just suggestions -- you don't have to use everything they say and in the end, they can either approve it or take their name (and their contributions) out of the paper. Again, the latter method is very damaging and it's likely that a paper solely authored by a student would not be as well received as one with an "endorsement" from the PI, but sometimes thats the way things have to go. It is in everyone's best interest if the first author worked collaboratively with everyone else of course.

[Usmivka]

Really, the only way, a student can submit independently is if they received funding on their own (NSF) and even then the PI would have to agree to such a submission.

This is still incorrect, regardless of field, see the links I posted above for NSF data reporting and authorship guidlines. Or your favorite journal's guide for authors.

Edited May 20, 2012 by Usmivka

[Spore]

This is still incorrect, regardless of field, see the links I posted above for NSF data reporting and authorship guidlines. Or your favorite journal's guide for authors.

Well...at least this is the way it worked for Microbiology, Molecular Genetics and Immunology departments at 3 very well known NY academic institutions and one in Chicago that I had the good forturne to attend or to be employed at.

Heck, I don't know of any postdoctoral fellows who published an article with their names only on the banner head.

Science (in my experience) just does not work that way....experiments and research demand collaboration. And this means multiple authorship. In this case, the PI must agree to publication. And, based on the post, the PI has no intention of giving the go-ahead.

I don't recall reading any research articles published by an individual student, ever. Sure, a famous researcher often independently authors a review article but when a student writes a review article it is almost always with a dual authorship.

Spore, PhD

Molecular Genetics and Microbiolgy

[TakeruK]

Science (in my experience) just does not work that way....experiments and research demand collaboration. And this means multiple authorship. In this case, the PI must agree to publication. And, based on the post, the PI has no intention of giving the go-ahead.

I agree -- however, that doesn't mean it's not permitted/allowed for a student to try to submit a manuscript on their own and omit the PI's contributions. Not every contribution requires co-authorship. For example, I see many papers that acknowledge discussions and work from other people at the end of the article.

I do agree that it's practically not possible for a student who originally intended to submit a manuscript with 2 authors (PI and student) to instead submit just their own work. Not practical, but not impossible -- they can still submit and the peer review process will take it from there.

However, I recently saw an example (in science) where a student was trying to submit a manuscript based on their thesis work at their former institution. There are multiple people on a paper and one faculty member (who was the first author's former supervisor) was not "cooperating". That is, they refused to read drafts and kept saying "more work needs to be done" even though there was clearly enough done already. In the end, with advice from other faculty members from the new school, the student exercised their first authorship responsibility and privileges and wrote a final draft ready for submission based on the suggestions from the other collaborators who did respond. They gave an ultimatum -- this was the version to be submitted and those who disagree can withdraw their names. The paper was submitted without the PI (but it was not a single authorship of course).

In another example, there was a large collaboration where some members of the team did not agree on an aspect of the analysis. The end result was that those who did not agree withdrew their names from the paper (even though they did work on the project) and instead wrote another paper presenting an alternative method. The result of the analysis was within error bars of each other though, but the people involved felt really strongly about the method used. The paper was led by a PDF, by the way.

I'm not saying that students should or do publish single author paper regularly. I am just saying that there has been cases where faculty members who refused to participate in a manuscript end up withdrawing from the author list and reinforcing the fact that the first author has full control over the manuscript.