Professor is not publishing my work. Should I try to publish on my own adding him as a coauthor?

Question

I went to do my postdoc (organic chemistry) in ICCAS Beijing, although I also had offers from other places. As soon as I arrived there, I was informed the professor had many unsubmitted works. After a lot of thought I stayed there because I had a good fellowship and the quality of the work impressed me (probably a wrong decision). I worked really hard for more than 2 years and completed a work (I thought) after which I had to leave for some family reasons. I wrote the manuscript and S.I and sent it to my professor but he is yet to publish the work. He always says he is very busy and some works needed to be done. I also suggested to perform any further experiments in PhD guides lab. However he does not do anything, publishing his PhD students work because he had to. And now he is saying- "very sorry" for the delay but still not doing anything. In the mean time I checked with many senior colleagues, all of them agreed the work is of good quality and should be published as soon as possible. I sent the work to my professor in early 2018 now its 2021. Should I try to publish it on my own keeping him as a coauthor? I was waiting till now because the issue of "recommendation". But, now it seems to me, my career in chemistry is over and want to publish the work for validation only. what should I do?

Answer 1

First, I don't understand why it is the responsibility of your professor to publish your work. Perhaps this is a local requirement, but it seems odd.

Second, you can't just add someone as an author without both their proper participation and their agreement.

Normally, though, if the work is yours then you can submit it. If it is joint work then all authors must agree, but any of them can actually do the submission.

Answer 2

I'm sure a busy prof who has no time to write a paper covering your work would welcome the opportunity to have someone else write it. Doing so isn't simply a matter of writing it and sending it in with the prof's name on it, but handing the prof a manuscript, asking for edits, revising, ...

Answer 3

You are asking them to devote not insignificant effort to what is clearly fairly low on their priority list. Yes, they've agreed to that, yes, it's long past due it goes one way or another... But some people are just terrible at time management (including myself). If that prof is anything like myself, don't read much into it - it's not malice or anything, it's just every time you remember to address that there's something even more urgent and important waiting in the backlog. And working on writing, while can be done quickly by an experienced person, requires a particular state of mind. Getting into that state of mind is valuable.

And honestly, if someone walked up to me and said "here, I've done some research, all you have is to publish it and you can have all the credit" - why'd I accept? It's not helping me further my own research and takes away valuable resources.

If you actually want it published at this point, handle it yourself.

Answer 4

It is important to quantify whether your ex-PI has done enough to justify a coauthorship, or whether they should be placed in the acknowledgements.

To be a coauthor, your ex-PI must fulfil all four of the following criteria by the Vancouver Convention:

1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
2. Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
3. Final approval of the version to be published; AND
4. Agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Some journals and some universities have variations on these.

You will note that, actually, PI's should not qualify for authorships at all much of the time. I would suggest looking at point 1 closely. Did your PI make substantial contributions there? Did they make a substantial contribution to the conception of the study, data acquisition (i.e. lab work), analysis or interpretation? If they did not, then points 2-4 resolve themselves, because they are dependent upon 1.

Answer 5

Publish it on your own. You only have one life to live, so stop worrying about what your professor might think. You're not doing anything wrong. You've worked so hard and that deserves recognition. Don't be ashamed to shine. So go ahead and shine!