Contribution of the supervisors in publishing paper from thesis

Question

I did my M.Sc. recently and we have agreed to publish it in a journal with my supervisors. I have got once comments from the first supervisor but it is almost two months I couldn't got the final comments. I have followed up it and the supervisor mentioned he would give comments shortly. I am worry he may want to refuse from contributing, and he couldn't mention it, directly. He may have any convincing reason for him self for refusing from authorship but I am pretty sure the quality is good enough and it can be published in a journal.

How can I politely ask his decision?

Should those papers that are derived from thesis include supervisors name?

Answer 1

Authorship: Strictly speaking authorships should be determined by the academic intellectiual contribution. It is rare that a thesis topic is solely invented by a student on their own so it is most likely that an advisor regardless of input during, say, writing stages will be an obvious co-author (if that is how authorships are determined in the specific field). There may of course be more co-authors and the order is not necessarily clear due to differences in traditions and cultures.

Response: Not getting response is unfortunately quite common and very unfortunate. I think you have to keep asking for a response but also add that you are interested in submitting the paper soon. If you are through with your education, you might be moving and it seems reasonable to get a paper in before leaving for other work/equivalent. So the answer is to simply politely ask and maybe massage your advisors ego by saying how much you would appreciate/need his/her comments to complete the joint paper. Just keep your cool and avoid nagging. At some point you will simnply have to provide a firm deadline due to whatever circumstances may exist. If you have some other faculty to whom you can confide then asking for advice may be a good point as well.