Asked to write a paper 4 years after the research ended..who should I ask for help?

[LevelHeaded]

So my undergrad thesis supervisor recently contacted me and asked if I would be interested in publishing the work we did then...It has been 4 years since I graduated and I have done completely different research since then. I thought I was making good progress when I sent her a draft of the paper (- discussion) but the comment I got back was "I trust with your new knowledge, you will write a much better paper". To top it off, the journal had sent an invite which expires soon (or might have expired tbh...). Now I feel stuck, and honestly, slightly incompetent . It has been a long time since I kept up with that literature so trying to write a discussion feels like mission impossible.

Would it be completely wrong of me to ask her to finish it off? 

[TakeruK]

When did you write the draft of the paper that you recently sent to your supervisor? If it was written when you were an undergrad, then the comment sounds like she is asking you to rewrite it. If it was written recently, then it sounds like the comment means that she thinks you will do a better job of it than her?

Here is a point where fields might differ, but in my opinion, if it's a good paper and a paper that's worth your time to write then the journal invite shouldn't matter. Because it's been so long and because your research has moved onto a different area, I think that if it's a paper worth spending your time on, then it shouldn't need a journal invite. It should be a paper that is good enough to get in without an invitation.  (NB: In my field, unless you are writing an invited review for a high impact journal (e.g. Annual Reviews of Astronomy & Astrophysics), there's no extra prestige for an invited paper vs. a contributed paper in a print journal. If your field is different, then this may not apply.)

Another question you want to consider is whether this is worth your time. Where are you in your career now? If you are a graduate student about to finish, there may be other papers close to completion that you would rather work on instead since these papers may actually be relevant to your current and future research interests. 

If I were in your shoes, I would find it hard to just say no to my old supervisor though. It might help to make sure both of you are on the same page in terms of expectations. You don't want to spend a week working on this only to realise that your old supervisor was expecting you to spend months on it (or vice versa). So, I would be honest and upfront with my old supervisor and say something like:

It was nice to revisit this old work but my research interests have changed since undergrad. I'm currently working on X, Y, Z. But, I do have X hours/days/weeks to spare to finish up our paper. I think we need to work on A, B, C, D before we can submit it. Would you be able to call or Skype in order to split up the tasks?

(or something like that). Remember that now, your former supervisor is no longer your boss and if you are going to go into this paper together, it should be as colleagues/collaborators with a shared interest, not supervisor/student. I would suggest the above approach because I find it much easier to say "no" during a discussion where everyone is on the same page. For example, we might discuss what still needs to be done and it turns out to be 250 hours of work but I can only spare 100 hours. Therefore, if the collaborator is not able to put in the other 150 hours, then we can both decide that it's not in our best interests to move forward at this time. Or, it might be easier to come to a conclusion where the collaborator will do most of the work and I'm okay with being second author.

I personally would find it weird/awkward to just outright say "I don't have time, why don't you be first author and finish the paper?" on the initial ask, so I think the best way forward, if I were in your shoes, is to ask to discuss expectations and tasks and then decide how to assign them and how authorship would be settled based on the level of each person's contributions.

 

[LevelHeaded]

You are absolutely right @TakeruK.. I was definitely looking at it like she was still my supervisor and so I was feeling this pressure to deliver... I discussed it with her and now that the pressure is off, I think we are on our way to a good publication! Thanks!

[TakeruK]

Glad to hear it Thanks for updating and good luck!