Journal article - Should faculty supervisor get second authorship?

[Averroes MD]

Hey guys,

 

If your faculty supervisor does some editing to your article, should you place the faculty supervisor as a second author?  Or is an acknowledgement enough?

Additionally, would it be better to list them as a second author, i.e. name recognition, easier to get published in a big journal, etc.?
 

Does being the sole author have any benefit over being a first author only?  What if your article is very "ground-breaking," etc.  I am asking from the standpoint of getting accepted to a PhD program or obtaining a faculty position after a PhD?  Or, would it always look better to have a big name in your field attached to your article?

 

Thanks.

Edited January 28, 2014 by Averroes MD

[MBIGrad]

Any good journal should have a blind review process. Their name would probably do little for you, and they may not want it on there. I know that at least for certain of the top doctoral programs, master's level publications are not something over which admissions committees necessarily swoon; in fact, in some cases they frown upon it. I think that getting published is easier than making sure that everything you publish is super-top-notch research. I am not speaking from experience, because I've opted not to try anything other than regional journals until well along in my doctoral studies and then at the behest of a trusted advisor. In my undergrad a nationally recognized leading scholar at any ivy told me over the phone, basically, "I would wait as long as you can before publishing. It is better not to publish than to publish something you might not want your name on in twenty years." I have opted out of having my name on several books/articles.

 

This having been said, different subject areas (mine is Ancient Mediterranean Religions) have different modi operandi. Grain of salt, I'm not expert.

[coffeekid]

"Some editing" definitely does not constitute second authorship for your advisor. An acknowledgement or footnote with the title offering thanks to your advisor will be more than enough.

For one, if you're submitting to blind peer review (as most reputable journals do), then a name is not going to do anything for you. In fact, if you are submitting to bling peer review, I would hold off on the acknowledgement until it is potentially accepted, so as to keep things anonymous; you will most surely have the opportunity to revise after your initial submission.

Second, a good advisor will want her or his students to get momentum with their own scholarship. If you genuinely did research/writing/editing (e.g. - a volume) together, then they will likely want the credit, because they have their own publication expectations and will have spent substantial time toward it. But for something like this, your advisor should be excited that you have original research of your own to put forward.

Third, regarding the "big name in your field attached to your article," my vote is that a recommendation from them will grab more attention than a line on your CV, which you'll be lucky if an adcom examines carefully.

Lastly, professors grade, edit, and make recommendations for pay, as their job. They are not copyeditors, but they are there (among many reasons) to invest in the quality of their students' work. Sadly this isn't always common, but it is to be expected.

That said, best of luck on your work and (eventual) applications!

[marXian]

Professors edit each other's potential journal articles and book chapters all the time. It's part of doing diligent academic work and trying to get a variety of perspectives to hone one's ideas. That type of "editing" is not copy editing; it's making suggestions for the conceptual flow of the paper, for clarity in certain sections, etc. These are very substantive suggestions sometimes. In no way do those people expect to even be mentioned--especially for a chapter or article. Sometimes authors will include a very short list of thank yous in the first footnote (footnoting the title of the article/chapter usually.) If one is writing a whole book, and a colleague reads very large sections of it and makes major suggestions, then a "thank you" in the acknowledgements/preface/introduction is obviously standard. 

 

From your post, it doesn't sound like you've had a conversation with this faculty member about this. It would be a bad idea to list his/her name on the article in any capacity without a conversation.

 

In my experience, co-written articles, chapters, books, etc. are rare in our general field (religious studies) except for some special circumstances (e.g. two scholars co-edit a collection of essays and write the introduction together.)