My research supervisor has asked if he can submit a paper on my work to a journal, should I be named as an author?

Question

My research supervisor has asked me if he can submit a paper on my work to a journal.

I just want to know how that works. Do I get authorship if he is the sole writer of the paper, even though it is my research?

As my supervisor, I would include him as a co-author on any paper I published as I have relied a lot on his guidance and used his intellectual property to form my paper, but does it work the other way around? We have worked together throughout my degree to come up with the idea and brainstorm directions to take the research. We also co-wrote one paper together, based on my research. But I have done the literature review and primary research (interviews) myself and I have completed some analyses and still working on the rest, so my thesis is a work-in-progress.

So how does it work if he submits the paper to the journal based on the research for my thesis? When I have tried to read about this online, it mostly says authorship depends on who has contributed the most. But if he writes the whole paper himself based on my work, but I don't actually contribute any writing to the paper he submits, should I expect to get credited as an author? And if so, should I be first author as it is my research?

Also is this normal practice?

Edit* when we discuss this, should I request to be first author? I don't want to ask to be first-named author if that isn't normal practice or if it is unreasonable of me to expect to be. Is it normal to be second author if someone else writes the whole thing, even if it is based on my work? Or should I expect to be first author still?

Answer 1

Yes, if it is your work, you are an author and should be acknowledged as such. But you probably want to stay in the loop in the writing, or at least in the editing. Whether you are first author or not depends on some things, including your field and on the content of the paper.

It would be an ethical lapse to exclude you if your intellectual contributions are the subject of the paper.

Offer to contribute to the production of the actual paper. Ideas, outlines, editing, writing sections, ...

Authors are not, primarily, the people who have their hands on the keyboard. It is the people whose ideas are discussed. So, a proper answer to his question is "Sure, with my assistance."

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You didn't mention the possibility, but I'm wondering if he wants to write a summary paper of the work of several people, including yourself. If that is the case then it might work a bit differently than if it is only your work. But in that case the bunch of you should get together with the supervisor and work out authorship issues.

Answer 2

I just want to know how that works. Do I get authorship [...]

Discuss it explicitly with your supervisor.

If you browse this SE for authorship disputes (and phrases like "should I be the author..."), you will find how many people got burnt by trying to sidestep this. There is no good reason not to ask.

Answer 3

Probably we are missing an important piece of information in the question. In general, supervisors write papers together with their students. The students are the experts on their field, why exclude them? Then they are naturally authors.

This might be different, if the supervisor writes a chapter for a book or some broader article, where your work is only a tiny fraction of what he is writing. Then he should cite your published work (or cite you with personal communication or add you to the acknowledge section).