Advisor asks me to do his referee job

[Marvin_Renteria]

Hi,

 

I am Ph.D students in life sciences in U.S, and my advisor asks me to referee the papers the journals send him to referee. Is not that illegal? He sends me about one per week, but sometimes up to 3-4, and sometimes it takes me time to read, check,etc. I think he should be doing his job, since this does not help me at all. I can not even add it to my CV/resume. 

 

What should I do? I do not want to keep doing his job of reading, evaluating, refereeing research papers other researches submit to life sciences journals. Any advice?

 

Thanks in advance!

[Taeyers]

Are you sure he's actually taking your work and putting his name on it? It seems likely that he might just be giving you the papers for practice, just to give you the experience in a low-pressure learning environment. I know in my field it's considered fairly normal for PIs to share papers they're peer-reviewing with their students to give the students the opportunity to practice, but the student's review is not the one submitted. 

[Marvin_Renteria]

Are you sure he's actually taking your work and putting his name on it? It seems likely that he might just be giving you the papers for practice, just to give you the experience in a low-pressure learning environment. I know in my field it's considered fairly normal for PIs to share papers they're peer-reviewing with their students to give the students the opportunity to practice, but the student's review is not the one submitted. 

 

Hi,

 

Yes he may edit something and the submit that version. He is very lazy to do it himself, and has done that several times even with postdocs. He tends to disappear for weeks and do not do anything at all related to his job (paper writing, refereeing, grant writing). And then he shows up and wants to do all very fast and then disappear again, that is why he does that. He already has tenure, so I guess he thinks he does not have to worry about anything anymore. Thanks for your response

[TakeruK]

This is a really tricky topic. The prof should not be asking you to do this. The journal asked the prof to review the article because they want the opinion of the professor, not the graduate student! 

 

However, in reality, although it does not seem to happen very often in my field, I know it does happen in others. I've heard grad students talk about it and I've heard new professors talk about doing this when they were grad students just a few years ago.

 

I think having to do one every single week (or even 3-4 per week) is pretty bad. You are not benefiting from this (no pay, no recognition, and no real training really, after the first few). If it were only one or two papers in total, so that you can learn / be mentored in the review process, then it would be a different story. In my opinion, this is one example of a professor exploiting his/her grad students because it does not sound like the professor has any intention of training/mentoring here--just getting free work out of you. In your shoes, I would talk to someone else I trust in the department about this.

[St Andrews Lynx]

It isn't unheard of in my field. In some ways I think exposure to the process of peer reviewing is a good thing for grad students: you get exposure to the latest findings in your field, and you learn how to evaluate other people's work (does their data fully support their conclusion? is this research original enough to be published?), which will help improve your own research trajectory. Honestly, I think that a grad student without any of the grudges/alliances, ego issues and heightened sense of self-worth that a lot of academic PIs have would do a better, more objective job of the peer review.

 

However, what I'm thinking about is maybe 1 or 2 articles per week, possibly less. If your advisor is doing this because he is flaky with his responsibilities then I would consider that a problem. There isn't any effective cure for a flaky, tenured academic - you might want to think about if you're willing to remain in his group or go elsewhere. 

[Eigen]

Honestly, in my field it's considered something nice to do for your graduate students. It gets you experience refereeing papers, and a chance to get familiar with the publishing field from the other side. 

[ss2player]

If they sat down with you and guided you through the review process, that's one thing and actually pretty useful to your career.

However, it sounds like he's putting his work on you to do. I'd send him a curt email:

"Dear Prof. X,

 

I appreciate your giving me the opportunity to review papers, but without guidance from you it becomes extra work for me that is really your responsibility. 

Unless we can review these papers together in the future, do not include me anymore.

 

Cheers"

[lyonessrampant]

While I would agree that you need to communicate with your adviser, I think the above email is worded too strongly.  I would recommend changing the tone to be more respectful and explain that you are experiencing a tradeoff in time spent reviewing these articles and your own work.  

[Eigen]

I would strongly advise against telling the person who is paying your salary that they are giving you "extra work" that they should be doing themselves. 

 

Part of an RA (assuming you're an RA) or working for a PI, is that you work for them. Having them delegate papers for review to you isn't against some unwritten code of ethics, it's pretty common, and it's generally assumed to be a good thing for the grad student. If you, as one of the junior grad students in my group (or department) came to me with something like this, I'd tell you that it's part of grad school, it's great experience, and the fact that you're so upset about it might indicate you should think a bit about why you're in grad school, and what you want your PhD to look like. 

 

I'm not really sure why you're so frustrated with it- you'd normally be reading 10-20 papers a week anyway, in your area, to keep up with your field, now you're just adding another 1 or 2 that have not yet been printed?

 

It takes about an hour to read and review most manuscripts in Chemistry, and that's assuming you need to check up on their references and re-analyze some of their data to see if it fits. 

 

And since you haven't seen what your professor is actually submitting, it's just a hunch on your part that he's copying your work without any attribution or modifications. There's also just as much of a chance that he's getting you to comment on the paper because it's good practice for you, then comparing your comments with his to see if you noted anything he missed. 

 

If you feel strongly enough that you would send that PI an e-mail asking him to stop, I would suggest looking for another group, as I would consider that email to deteriorate the relationship past recovery if it's not there already.

[dr. t]

If they sat down with you and guided you through the review process, that's one thing and actually pretty useful to your career.

However, it sounds like he's putting his work on you to do. I'd send him a curt email:

"Dear Prof. X,

 

I appreciate your giving me the opportunity to review papers, but without guidance from you it becomes extra work for me that is really your responsibility. 

Unless we can review these papers together in the future, do not include me anymore.

 

Cheers"

 

 

This is not so much burning your bridges as it is nuking the entire planet on which the bridges reside from orbit.

[ss2player]

This is not so much burning your bridges as it is nuking the entire planet on which the bridges reside from orbit.

 

Don't tolerate disrespect just because they're the PI.

 

[Eigen]

Your boss, the person who pays you, asking you to do a task related to that job, has nothing to do with disrespect.

[ss2player]

Your boss, the person who pays you, asking you to do a task related to that job, has nothing to do with disrespect.

 

*shrug* 

 

Real talk for OP: sit down with your PI, have a civil discussion like professional adults, ask them to explain their reasoning. It's possible they didn't see it the same way you do and you need to help them orient their thinking to see your side of it. If they scoff at attempting even that, that says more about your relationship than anything else.

[bsharpe269]

I think it is perfectly fine for him to ask this of you and great experience for you. I think Eigens response was perfect.

[Sigaba]

Don't tolerate disrespect just because they're the PI.

Based upon the way you are flip flopping on your position, shrugging off well reasoned counterpoints, and still managing to advocate a self destructive approach, I wonder if you have actually navigated successfully a situation like the one the OP describes.

[ss2player]

Based upon the way you are flip flopping on your position, shrugging off well reasoned counterpoints, and still managing to advocate a self destructive approach, I wonder if you have actually navigated successfully a situation like the one the OP describes.

 

I have! Guess I'm just that good, brah.

[Tall Chai Latte]

I've reviewed unpublished manuscripts for my PI before because she had too much on her plate. It's common around here, and nice training to see how to read critically of other people's work. As long as you follow ethics (keeping confidential information confidential, etc), it's actually fine. 

[juilletmercredi]

The alternative is that one day a journal will contact you out of the blue and ask you to review something.  That's how I started reviewing journal articles - after I published I would get emails.  I have one on my desk right now.

 

There's not a whole lot of "guidance" your PI can give you on this; forming a meeting and sitting down with you for an hour is not necessary.  You know enough about the field to give your honest review on a paper and whether it's good or bad, and if you have submitted your own papers you've gotten some feedback on those.  3-4 a week is a lot, though.

 

It's pretty common in my field for PIs to ask their graduate students to do some journal reviews that they can't get to, and some PIs even ask for help reviewing grants (HELP, not doing it yourself)  It's a mutually beneficial process.  They get help getting through some of the work that's pretty low-reward in the field, and you get experience doing something you're going to have to do for the rest of your career and yes, can put it on your CV.  I would not advise approaching your PI and telling him to stop giving you work, because that can backfire in a big way - and he may hesitate to ask you to do anything that could be potentially beneficial and yet extra work.  If you have too many and you find that it's interfering with your work, you can meet with your advisor and explain that - and ask that perhaps he give you a few less.

[Sigaba]

I have! Guess I'd ust that good, brah.

Did you send an email like the one you suggested in post #7?

[ss2player]

Did you send an email like the one you suggested in post #7?

 

Yes.