author affiliation

[goforit14]

I am writing a journal paper, and I am concerned about my affiliation. I finished my MA last year, and I got accepted into a Ph.D program in a different school. But, I deferred my offer to 2017 fall. In this case, which school do I need to write as my affiliation? The one I did my MA or the one I got accepted for my Ph.D? I thought I need to choose the one I did my MA, but I just found a phrase in the email that I got from my future Ph.D school: "Congratulations on your admission to XXX University's Ph.D. for the Fall 2017 term. We have received your electronic enrollment confirmation submission and are pleased that you have chosen to pursue your graduate studies at XXX."  

 

Thanks in advance!

[TakeruK]

This may depend on the norms of your field so perhaps talk to your advisor.

In my field, I'd say that since you did this work completely while at your MA school (correct me if I'm wrong) so therefore you should just use your MA school affiliation. If you also continued this work while in your PhD program using resources at your PhD school, then students in my field would usually list both affiliations. However, it's not uncommon for students in my field to still only list their former affiliation if they did not use any resources of their PhD school to complete their paper (and especially if they worked on it only on their own time, i.e. not during the working time funded by their PhD school).

I don't think the email from your PhD school makes a difference in the affiliation listed on your paper.

[fuzzylogician]

I think the best course of action is to write the specific journal you want to submit to and ask. There may be different norms in different fields but I'm sure the editor will be able to tell you what they'd want you to do in this particular case. And I agree that the email from your PhD school doesn't matter. 

[goforit14]

On June 8, 2016 at 2:24 PM, TakeruK said:

This may depend on the norms of your field so perhaps talk to your advisor.

In my field, I'd say that since you did this work completely while at your MA school (correct me if I'm wrong) so therefore you should just use your MA school affiliation. If you also continued this work while in your PhD program using resources at your PhD school, then students in my field would usually list both affiliations. However, it's not uncommon for students in my field to still only list their former affiliation if they did not use any resources of their PhD school to complete their paper (and especially if they worked on it only on their own time, i.e. not during the working time funded by their PhD school).

I don't think the email from your PhD school makes a difference in the affiliation listed on your paper.

 

On June 10, 2016 at 2:53 PM, fuzzylogician said:

I think the best course of action is to write the specific journal you want to submit to and ask. There may be different norms in different fields but I'm sure the editor will be able to tell you what they'd want you to do in this particular case. And I agree that the email from your PhD school doesn't matter. 

 

Thank you for the advice! As you said, I contacted the journal I will submit to and asked them. They said in my case, I can choose either one. It's up to me. 

Personally, I would like to choose my PhD school. But, I feel kind of weird..because even though I deferred my offer, technically, I am not currently their student.. So, will there be any problem if I use my PhD schtick affiliation?

[TakeruK]

Since the journal gave you the choice, then it's really just your choice  

Also, keep in mind that despite our best intentions, the whole paper writing process might be slower than expected and by the time the paper is actually published, you would have started your PhD so when readers see your affiliation, it would be the correct one.

Personally, in your shoes, for now, I would just put the MA institution and if/when I become affiliated with the PhD school and use PhD school's resources to complete the manuscript, I would add the PhD institution as well. But again, this may be a field specific thing, where my field is not at all shy about having multiple affiliations per person. For amusement, here is a recent paper in my field, showing an extreme case (probably the highest density of affiliations to authors I've seen): http://arxiv.org/pdf/1604.03107v1.pdf

 

[shadowclaw]

Just to add an additional comment in case anyone else is wondering about the same thing - in ecological journals, I often see the affiliation where the work was done listed first, and then a "current address" listed second, where you can put your current institution. That's what I did for the manuscripts for my undergrad senior project and masters thesis.

[AP]

My first thought is that since you won't be enrolled anywhere, you don't have any affiliation. Then I read the responses and thought I about my own experience. 

After I graduated from college I published an article. It took a year to get accepted and then published so by the time it went out to the world I had been accepted to grad school. I was not enrolled in my previous university and yet my affiliation was with them. So my own experience beats my first thought about this issue. 

I agree with you it would be awkward to write your affiliation with a PhD you haven't begun. I would go with your MA institution as the safest option. And by the way, congrats on publishing!