Timeline for Credit with helping to write a PhD thesis
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
18 events
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| Jun 30, 2014 at 15:12 | comment | added | jwg | @NateEldredge there is a big difference between perfectly fine and not inherently impermissible :) | |
| Jun 30, 2014 at 7:18 | history | edited | 410 gone | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Jun 29, 2014 at 20:02 | comment | added | Nate Eldredge | No, I do not know a non-stapler example off the top of my head. But my PhD institution's thesis guidelines contain procedures for how to include co-authored material in a thesis, whether or not it has been (or will be) published. See page 43 of this document; despite the heading "Using Published Material", the rules in that section are described as applying to coauthored material, even if unpublished. It certainly requires extra scrutiny, but is not inherently impermissible. | |
| Jun 29, 2014 at 19:52 | comment | added | Pete L. Clark | I wouldn't call the OP "complicit", because he and the student are not at all in the same situation. Is there any written rule that says "Undergraduates cannot contribute to PhD theses"? No: all the rules are from the perspective of the thesis. Someone who is more academically sophisticated would know that he has been asked to do something strange, but that's not the same thing and I don't see why the OP would be expected to know this. But I think this is kind of moot: I think the OP should talk or write to the candidate's thesis committee with their concern. Once he does that, he's fine. | |
| Jun 29, 2014 at 19:50 | history | edited | 410 gone | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Jun 29, 2014 at 19:44 | comment | added | 410 gone | @PeteL.Clark I see what you're saying. But if it's against the rules, the OP is complicit with the PhD student in breaking those rules. I think ignorance of the rules is unlikely to be taken as innocence in any ensuing disciplinary proceedings. At best the OP might make a case of being led astray by trusted colleagues. | |
| Jun 29, 2014 at 19:40 | comment | added | Pete L. Clark | On the other hand, I mildly disagree with "This is now your responsibility to put right, for your own sake." Owning responsibility is never a bad thing, but it is really not any undergraduate's job to know the rules and customs of what constitutes an acceptable PhD thesis in some academic department. That responsibility is that of the student, the advisor, and the committee. The OP should not in any way hide his participation, and I think that a conversation with the student and/or the advisor addressing this issue would be a very good idea. But this is really not the OP's problem to fix. | |
| Jun 29, 2014 at 19:39 | history | edited | 410 gone | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Jun 29, 2014 at 19:36 | comment | added | Pete L. Clark | As EnergyNumbers points out, I think one should also make a distinction between including already published work on which the candidate is a first author (so in some sense they did write the paper, or are acknowledged as having that level of oversight of it) and simply having someone else do work and/or write text which will appear for the first time in a student's PhD thesis. Indeed I agree that that would be problematic in many circles. | |
| Jun 29, 2014 at 19:34 | history | edited | 410 gone | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Jun 29, 2014 at 19:33 | comment | added | 410 gone | @NateEldredge This isn't a stapler thesis though, is it: the OP hasn't co-authored a paper that is being included. So can you find a non-stapler example? | |
| Jun 29, 2014 at 19:32 | comment | added | Pete L. Clark | @Nate: What you say is true, but there are all kinds of rules about it. ("Even in mathematics" this comes up now and again: I have been on thesis committees where everyone has to check the rules and make sure they are being followed.) One important rule at my university is that the PhD candidate must be at least a "co-first author" on any papers included in the thesis. Another rule is that any published materials that are being included must be acknowledged and documented in a very particular way (which I think amounts to advanced vetting by some university officials). | |
| Jun 29, 2014 at 19:26 | comment | added | Nate Eldredge | As a simple example, I could cite "stapler theses" consisting of several papers, some or all of which had coauthors. In such cases, it would be surprising if some parts of the coauthored papers had not been written by the other authors. Would you like me to find examples? | |
| Jun 29, 2014 at 19:22 | comment | added | 410 gone | @NateEldredge the OP has written bits of another student's PhD thesis - have you seen that happen before? Can you say which departments, which universities? | |
| Jun 29, 2014 at 19:21 | history | edited | 410 gone | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Jun 29, 2014 at 19:20 | comment | added | Nate Eldredge | We must have experience of very different universities, then, because at all the ones I know, it is perfectly fine for a thesis to contain collaborative work, provided that the collaborations are appropriately disclosed, and the committee is satisfied that the student's contributions demonstrate their research ability. | |
| Jun 29, 2014 at 19:11 | history | edited | 410 gone | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Jun 29, 2014 at 19:00 | history | answered | 410 gone | CC BY-SA 3.0 |