Authorship of Publications
Eric....@gmail.com
I am a graduate student who is now about to submit my first paper to
be published. I am told that the enforced policy of my department is
to have the student's research supervisor included as a co-author of
the paper if the problem originated from the supervisor. In my
situation, my supervisor gave me the problem to work on. I developed
all the mathematics myself and wrote the article myself. We did talk
about it a little, mostly when I was demonstrating the results of
simulations. I was financially supported as a research assistant under
my supervisor, so it was required that my work satisfies the
expectations of my supervisor. I have no problem with acknowledging my
supervisor with defining the problem and help in defining what
constitutes a suitable result. Without my supervisor the research
would not have been performed and the paper not written. However, I
usually think of "author" as someone who has directly written the
paper. Now, I understand that in large collaborations sometimes there
are many authors. I just wanted to ask some successful professional
mathematicians what they consider "authorship" to mean. My main
concern is that of academic honesty.
Finally, if you have supervised student's research, I would be very
grateful to know who you listed as the author(s) of your student's
papers. In the future (not so distant I hope), I will be in this
situation and I would like to see how others handle it, so I can get a
feel of what options I have. My first impulse would be to try to guide
the student's own research so that it is up to academic standards, and
then give my student's full credit for authorship, unless I had some
of my own unpublished results in the paper as well.
Thanks!
Eric Goold
tommy1729
i understand your frustration.
consider it like this...
author is like batman.
co-author is like robin.
perhaps this makes you feel better. :-)
also math is never a "real" invention; meaning you dont quote gauss or riemann either now do you ?
although they contributed to most papers too (passively)
also you must understand that if the supervisor is not mentioned , it would be unfair to him.
futher i am convinced that if your work is REALLY REALLY BRILLIANT AND BEEN DONE MOSTLY BYE YOU , you will be the one getting all the credit eventually...
look at Andrew Wiles....
did the press say alot about the other people involved ?
dont recall that !!
of course i dont know how "brilliant" your work is...
maybe explain a bit ???
im curious :p
greetz
tommy1729
Rick Decker
> Hello everyone,
>
> I am a graduate student who is now about to submit my first paper to
> be published. I am told that the enforced policy of my department is
> to have the student's research supervisor included as a co-author of
> the paper if the problem originated from the supervisor. In my
> situation, my supervisor gave me the problem to work on. I developed
> all the mathematics myself and wrote the article myself. We did talk
> about it a little, mostly when I was demonstrating the results of
> simulations. I was financially supported as a research assistant under
> my supervisor, so it was required that my work satisfies the
> expectations of my supervisor. I have no problem with acknowledging my
> supervisor with defining the problem and help in defining what
> constitutes a suitable result. Without my supervisor the research
> would not have been performed and the paper not written. However, I
> usually think of "author" as someone who has directly written the
> paper. Now, I understand that in large collaborations sometimes there
> are many authors. I just wanted to ask some successful professional
> mathematicians what they consider "authorship" to mean. My main
> concern is that of academic honesty.
For publishable student research, it's not unusual for the supervisor
to add his/her name to the published article. From the point of view
of the student, the proper response is, "Hey, a publication is a
publication" which is about right. Take what you can--the readers who
matter should understand.
A less-known convention is to put the student's name first in the
citation, if the student did most of the work, though this would only be
obvious in your case if your supervisor's name was, say, "Aarno." [Do a
Google search for "spotlight factor.]" There's a famous case in my
specialty where a student presented a result in a seminar and a
professor published it. Luckily, the student's name was
lexicographically earlier than the professor's, so appeared first
in the author list, making the distinction moot.
>
> Finally, if you have supervised student's research, I would be very
> grateful to know who you listed as the author(s) of your student's
> papers. In the future (not so distant I hope), I will be in this
> situation and I would like to see how others handle it, so I can get a
> feel of what options I have. My first impulse would be to try to guide
> the student's own research so that it is up to academic standards, and
> then give my student's full credit for authorship, unless I had some
> of my own unpublished results in the paper as well.
In our department, the policy is to list the co-authors in lexicographic
order, unless the student actually did most of the work. This varies
among departments. YMMV.
Regards,
Rick
G. A. Edgar
<Eric....@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>
> I am a graduate student who is now about to submit my first paper to
> be published. I am told that the enforced policy of my department is
> to have the student's research supervisor included as a co-author of
> the paper if the problem originated from the supervisor. In my
> situation, my supervisor gave me the problem to work on. I developed
> all the mathematics myself and wrote the article myself. We did talk
> about it a little, mostly when I was demonstrating the results of
> simulations. I was financially supported as a research assistant under
> my supervisor, so it was required that my work satisfies the
> expectations of my supervisor. I have no problem with acknowledging my
> supervisor with defining the problem and help in defining what
> constitutes a suitable result. Without my supervisor the research
> would not have been performed and the paper not written. However, I
> usually think of "author" as someone who has directly written the
> paper. Now, I understand that in large collaborations sometimes there
> are many authors. I just wanted to ask some successful professional
> mathematicians what they consider "authorship" to mean. My main
> concern is that of academic honesty.
I guess this is not a department of mathematics?
In some disciplines the custom is: the last-listed author
is the Principal Investigator on the grant that paid for
the lab where the research was done. If you are in such a
department, then all readers will understand what it means.
There was one case I heard of (also not in mathematics),
where the fact that the advisor was NOT listed as a co-author
on the research paper based on the thesis was so
exceptional that everyone understood this as a sign of
the advisor's low opinion of the work.
>
> Finally, if you have supervised student's research, I would be very
> grateful to know who you listed as the author(s) of your student's
> papers. In the future (not so distant I hope), I will be in this
> situation and I would like to see how others handle it, so I can get a
> feel of what options I have. My first impulse would be to try to guide
> the student's own research so that it is up to academic standards, and
> then give my student's full credit for authorship, unless I had some
> of my own unpublished results in the paper as well.
>
> Thanks!
> Eric Goold
>
My advice: follow the custom of the field.
--
G. A. Edgar http://www.math.ohio-state.edu/~edgar/
junoexpress
>
> My advice: follow the custom of the field.
>
you might not have found that agreeable). Usually when you are
financially supported by someone, they will expect to be on the paper.
They have funding they need to maintain, and when you take a paper
from their list, that impacts their perceived productivity which can
affect them (in terms of tenure, further funding, etc).
The best researchers are also very good with people. One key to
"working well with others" is not being petty or stingy with credit.
It is not dishonest to put your advisor on the paper, and issues such
as co-authorship on a paper and even the order of authors (unless you
solved a major theorem) is not as big a deal as you might think. The
real info about how much of the work you did, how proactive and
independent you are ect will get to the right people (i.e. your
prospective future employers) when your supervisor writes your
recommendations out for you. Try to see the bigger picture and think
about how your actions will affect your larger goals rather than
wasting your time and energy winning a Pyrrhic victory over some petty
issue.
Moral of this story: if it doesn't affect the quality of your work,
and it helps keep you and the group of people you work with
successful, suck it up and be a little more of a team player. You may
find *that* problem harder to solve than the one you're publishing.
You may also find that it is the more important problem for you to
solve.
Good Luck!
M
Gerry Myerson
Others have suggested you follow the traditions in your field.
If your field is not mathematics, I'm not sure why you're posting here.
From my experience in mathematics, the supervisor never puts his name
on research carried out by the student.
--
Gerry Myerson (ge...@maths.mq.edi.ai) (i -> u for email)
Glen Wheeler
news:1180214797.9...@g4g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
> Hello everyone,
>
> I am a graduate student who is now about to submit my first paper to
First author is assumed to have done the majority of the work, unless all
authors are known to have collaborated on something like equal terms. For
student projects, this becomes apparent as their publications list grows, or
does not, and of what quality the other publications are.
--
Glen
junoexpress
wrote:
> In article <1180214797.901117.205...@g4g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>,
While I'm on my soap-box, I just wanted to add that I didn't mean to
say you should never make waves and do whatever your advisor tells you
to do. You *should* stand up for your principles. Just make sure
that's what you're really doing here. I think that in your situation,
the issues you raise are really minor.
You should also realize that with funding the way it is these days, a
lot of people trained in math don't publish in pure math journals, (as
is my case) so you should be aware of this "alternate reality" and be
able to deal with. Anyhow, I don't think it's probably too far off
base to say that these types of objections rarely end up well (esp if
you're on the bottom) *even* in math. The only significant counter-
example I can think of is that of Courant and Robbins, where Robbins
did basically all of the work for the book "What is Mathematics?" and
the Courant left his name off the book altogether (which is different
than your case). Robbins fought for (rightly) and got his name on the
book.
And BTW, many of Courant's friends in the established math community
talked to Robbins privately and told him "that is was tradition" for
the main person to only have his name on the book. So use your head,
learn to think for yourself, and don't always go by "tradition" as a
principle. ;>).
M
Dave L. Renfro
> Others have suggested you follow the traditions in
> your field. If your field is not mathematics, I'm
> not sure why you're posting here. From my experience
> in mathematics, the supervisor never puts his name
> on research carried out by the student.
My experience (not much) and my gut feeling is the same,
namely that a supervisor never puts his/her name on a
student's research. There's a quote I remember reading
once somewhere about a Ph.D. Dissertation being research
(carried out by the major professor) under extreme
duress, or something to this effect. I don't
remember the exact wording, but the point was that,
if anything, advisors bend over backwards to avoid
getting any credit for the work their students do, at
least while they're still students. Other fields may
be different, but this seems to fit with what I've
seen in math.
By the way, I think I know the original poster. If he's
who I think he is, he took three graduate courses under
me, including that infamous topology class I was posting
all those notes from last fall, and he was one of the
best students I've ever had.
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.math/search?q=Renfro+topology+taught+few
Dave L. Renfro
Eric....@gmail.com
Hi Tommy,
No, the work is not brilliant. It is just some applied mathematics
with some simple geometry applied in a new but simple way. It is all
very straightforward. The paper is only a small paper and not a big
deal. However, it is the first paper I am publishing so I wanted to
get the scoop of what is understood by "authorship." I think I'll go
along with the department's way of handling it and pay attention to my
supervisor, who definitely deserves some type of credit for the paper.
I just figured I'd sort it all out on this small fish of a paper
before I get to a big fish that'll be much more work intensive, so I
won't have to worry about it then.
Best regards,
Eric Goold
Eric....@gmail.com
>
> Dave L. Renfro
Hi Dave!
Yes, it is me Eric and I am still at Central Michigan University. I
agree with your attitude regarding to student's authorship. However,
others have a point too, especially junoexpress:
quote:
My advice: don't p-off your supervisors (I almost said "superiors" but
you might not have found that agreeable). Usually when you are
financially supported by someone, they will expect to be on the paper.
They have funding they need to maintain, and when you take a paper
from their list, that impacts their perceived productivity which can
affect them (in terms of tenure, further funding, etc).
unquote.
I am surprised that some other scheme has been developed by the
publishing community like perhaps actually having another category
besides author, like maybe supervisor. That way the supervisor of the
research gets credit for initiating, supporting and maintaining the
accuracy and relevance of the research while not claiming to take
credit for the actual authorship. I feel that the two roles are quite
distinct, and would perhaps make it easier to sort out everyone's
contribution and also support academic integrity.
Best regards,
Eric Goold
Gerry Myerson
"Glen Wheeler" <sp...@gew75.com> wrote:
> <Eric....@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1180214797.9...@g4g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
> > Hello everyone,
> >
> > I am a graduate student who is now about to submit my first paper to
> > be published. [..]
>
> First author is assumed to have done the majority of the work, unless all
> authors are known to have collaborated on something like equal terms.
Unless things changed while I wasn't looking,
in Mathematics authors are listed alphabetically
and are all assumed to have collaborated
on something like equal terms.
--
Gerry Myerson (ge...@maths.mq.edi.ai) (i -> u for email)
drmw...@gmail.com
breakdown of who did how much, and to a small extent the culture and
customs of the institution. I also think other posters made very good
points about the role of cooperating, etc.
However, I am personally appalled, from the description, that a senior
professor needs to feed off a student in this manner. Moreover, at my
campus three years ago we had a tenured senior full professor fired
for plagiarism, which I bring up because his defense sounded a bit
like what's described here. He worked with students and published
under his own name (I think not mentioning the students, but I can't
recall for sure now), later stating that the students did not mind, or
gave permission, etc.
Sound familiar?
Anyway, not a definitive answer... just giving more food for
thought...
Best, Mike
Dr. Michael W. Ecker
Associate Professor of Mathematics
Dave L. Renfro
>> First author is assumed to have done the majority
>> of the work, unless all authors are known to have
>> collaborated on something like equal terms.
Gerry Myerson wrote:
> Unless things changed while I wasn't looking,
> in Mathematics authors are listed alphabetically
> and are all assumed to have collaborated
> on something like equal terms.
I've occasionally encountered non-alphabetic author
ordering, usually in older papers (before WW II, say)
and sometimes in Indian or Asian journals (the latter
maybe because the ordering in their alphabet is different
than the transliterated names, I don't know). I always
switch the ordering to English-alphabetic when I put the
paper in a bibliography, and this includes several papers
that have appeared in the many lists of references I've
posted in sci.math over the years.
On the other hand, I read somewhere that even though
Richard Courant is listed as the primary author of
the well known book "What is Mathematics?" (meaning I
think he was listed first _not_ because his name comes
first alphabetically), Herbert Robbins is really the person
who wrote the book, with Courant mainly reviewing the
manuscript after it was written.
Dave L. Renfro
Arturo Magidin
<drmw...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Eric: I think it's not cut-and-dry at all. It depends on the exact
>breakdown of who did how much, and to a small extent the culture and
>customs of the institution. I also think other posters made very good
>points about the role of cooperating, etc.
>
>However, I am personally appalled, from the description, that a senior
>professor needs to feed off a student in this manner.
I would not qualify it that way.
This is very much a matter of culture, most often field-related
culture. In some fields it is ->standard practice<- for the advisor to
put his name to the paper if he did any of the following:
(i) Propose the problem;
(ii) Suggest a line of attack;
(iii) Do any nontrivial part of the proof.
It used to be common in mathematics in the US, for example, that the
professor would assign a problem and even tell the student what kind
of approach he thought was most likely to succeed. The student would
then go off and prove the result, usually with those tools. (ASIDE: It
also used to be that about 80% of people who got Ph.D.s never got
anything published beyond their thesis result; this is part of the
reason the approach above has been more or less abandoned in many
large universities, where part of the emphasis is now on teaching the
student ->how<- to do research, in particular encouraging him to come
up with a question in the first place).
In some fields, such as EE, it is ->standard<- practice for the
advisor to put his name to the student's thesis publications. Everyone
does it; this is in part because of the culture of the field, and this
is the way in which the advisors get credit for the advising work they
did. This is not considered "feeding off a student", and in general it
gives a boost to the student: people reading the work will know who he
worked with, and that is one of the ways in which professional
networking occurs.
This is ->not<- the case in mathematics, at least as I am familiar
with; so if this is happening in a mathematics field, then there is
certainly some cause for objection. But if it is in a field where this
is the common culture, then it is the common culture.
--
======================================================================
"It's not denial. I'm just very selective about
what I accept as reality."
--- Calvin ("Calvin and Hobbes" by Bill Watterson)
======================================================================
Arturo Magidin
magidin-at-member-ams-org
Robert Israel
> Glen Wheeler wrote:
>
> >> First author is assumed to have done the majority
> >> of the work, unless all authors are known to have
> >> collaborated on something like equal terms.
>
> Gerry Myerson wrote:
>
> > Unless things changed while I wasn't looking,
> > in Mathematics authors are listed alphabetically
> > and are all assumed to have collaborated
> > on something like equal terms.
>
> I've occasionally encountered non-alphabetic author
> ordering, usually in older papers (before WW II, say)
> and sometimes in Indian or Asian journals (the latter
> maybe because the ordering in their alphabet is different
> than the transliterated names, I don't know). I always
> switch the ordering to English-alphabetic when I put the
> paper in a bibliography, and this includes several papers
> that have appeared in the many lists of references I've
> posted in sci.math over the years.
Non-alphabetic author ordering is unusual, but not unheard of.
Looking in "Proofs from the Book" which happens to be at hand,
I see
R.E. Jamison & D. Hill
K. Xing & B. Hu
Y. Yang, J. Lin, C. Wang & V. Li
--
Robert Israel isr...@math.MyUniversitysInitials.ca
Department of Mathematics http://www.math.ubc.ca/~israel
University of British Columbia Vancouver, BC, Canada
G. A. Edgar
> ordering, usually in older papers (before WW II, say)
> and sometimes in Indian or Asian journals (the latter
> maybe because the ordering in their alphabet is different
> than the transliterated names, I don't know). I always
> switch the ordering to English-alphabetic when I put the
> paper in a bibliography,
I think that is a bad idea. Authors should be listed in a bibliography
the same way as in the actual paper.
> and this includes several papers
> that have appeared in the many lists of references I've
> posted in sci.math over the years.
>
> On the other hand, I read somewhere that even though
> Richard Courant is listed as the primary author of
> the well known book "What is Mathematics?" (meaning I
> think he was listed first _not_ because his name comes
> first alphabetically), Herbert Robbins is really the person
> who wrote the book, with Courant mainly reviewing the
> manuscript after it was written.
>
> Dave L. Renfro
>
Whitehead & Russel, written by Russel.
Seminal algebra textbook, Birkhoff & MacLane.
40(?) years later they wrote another algebra textbook, and this time
listed the names as MacLane & Birkhoff.
Eric....@gmail.com
> In article <1180408994.284143.243...@h2g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>,
>
> <drmwec...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >Eric: I think it's not cut-and-dry at all. It depends on the exact
> >breakdown of who did how much, and to a small extent the culture and
> >customs of the institution. I also think other posters made very good
> >points about the role of cooperating, etc.
>
> >However, I am personally appalled, from the description, that a senior
> >professor needs to feed off a student in this manner.
>
> I would not qualify it that way.
>
> This is very much a matter of culture, most often field-related
> culture. In some fields it is ->standard practice<- for the advisor to
> put his name to the paper if he did any of the following:
>
> (i) Propose the problem;
> (ii) Suggest a line of attack;
> (iii) Do any nontrivial part of the proof.
>
> It used to be common in mathematics in the US, for example, that the
> professor would assign a problem and even tell the student what kind
> of approach he thought was most likely to succeed. The student would
> then go off and prove the result, usually with those tools. (ASIDE: It
> also used to be that about 80% of people who got Ph.D.s never got
> anything published beyond their thesis result; this is part of the
> reason the approach above has been more or less abandoned in many
> large universities, where part of the emphasis is now on teaching the
> student ->how<- to do research, in particular encouraging him to come
> up with a question in the first place).
OK, I haven't spoken with my supervisor since last week. But here is
some more information I have found on the net. According to the AMS
(http://www.ams.org/secretary/ethics.html): "All the authors listed
for a paper, however, must have made a significant contribution to its
content, and all who have made such a contribution must be offered the
opportunity to be listed as an author." However, I think "significant
contribution" may be up for debate.
Also, I have found policies for Harvard and Michigan State University
at http://www.hms.harvard.edu/integrity/authorship.html and
http://uiio.msu.edu/authorshipguidelines.htm, respectively.
Unfortunately, I have not been able to find such policies on-line for
my university.
In my case, my supervisor agrees that I should be listed first. My
only uncertainty is whether my supervisor should be listed as an
acknowledgment or given joint authorship. But it seems that at many
places it is standard practice for the supervisor to be listed as an
author if they are providing the original problem, so I think it is
possible that this action is ethically ok.
However, I think the plot may thicken. It seems that concerning this
original problem, my supervisor in the past has spoken with other
professors. My supervisor has sent these a copy of my paper, and now I
need to wait and see if any of these may want to claim authorship. I
feel that these professors fall in the category of "honorary
authorship" of the MSU guidelines and thus should not be included as
authors, and that it would be unethical to do so. Well, I'll have to
wait and see what time will tell.
Oh, and I would like to thank everyone with their views and experience
of this matter. I agree that having collaborative work with multiple
authors helps establish networks which can be a necessity to academic
success. However, that being said, there can be healthy and unhealthy
networks, and any network that "feeds off" (to use Arturo's words) the
work of students (or any member) I would understand as unhealthy and
unethically established.
I'll keep you posted.
Best regards,
Eric Goold
Arturo Magidin
<Eric....@gmail.com> wrote:
[...]
>OK, I haven't spoken with my supervisor since last week. But here is
>some more information I have found on the net. According to the AMS
>(http://www.ams.org/secretary/ethics.html): "All the authors listed
>for a paper, however, must have made a significant contribution to its
>content, and all who have made such a contribution must be offered the
>opportunity to be listed as an author." However, I think "significant
>contribution" may be up for debate.
Indeed.
[...]
>In my case, my supervisor agrees that I should be listed first. My
>only uncertainty is whether my supervisor should be listed as an
>acknowledgment or given joint authorship. But it seems that at many
>places it is standard practice for the supervisor to be listed as an
>author if they are providing the original problem, so I think it is
>possible that this action is ethically ok.
If your advisor proposed the problem and put you on the right track,
then I would say that it is ethically permissible (though not
mandated) that he be listed as an author.
>Oh, and I would like to thank everyone with their views and experience
>of this matter. I agree that having collaborative work with multiple
>authors helps establish networks which can be a necessity to academic
>success. However, that being said, there can be healthy and unhealthy
>networks, and any network that "feeds off" (to use Arturo's words) the
>work of students (or any member) I would understand as unhealthy and
>unethically established.
Please don't put words in my mouth, and be careful with your
attributions (hmmm... perhaps you shold double check the references in
your thesis? (-; ). I was not the one who introduced the term "feeds
off", and in fact my contribution to this thread begins by saying "I
would not qualify it that way." The words were introduced by Dr Ecker.
You began by saying that it is the "enforced policy" of your
department to include the advisor IF he proposed the original problem
your paper deals with. Personally, I think that if it was just the
problem then the policy is marginal (it is arguably ethically valid,
though perhaps unsavory). But if it is the standard practice of your
department, and your advisor did indeed fulfill his part relating to
that practice, then omitting him as an author would necessarily imply
to the department and university that your advisor was not involved in
formulating the problem you deal with. Do your feelings that the
policy is unsavory extend so far as to wish to cause such prejudice to
your advisor's profile within the department and university?
Let me clear: I personally feel the policy goes too far, but does not
clearly cross the line (I do not think there ->is<- a bright line to
be crossed, but a rather wide stretch of grey; I think this is closer
to the black than the white, but still within the grey). I also don't
know (only you know) how much help the advisor gave beyond simply
formulating the problem. Even directing you away from unfruitful lines
of attacks may betray a lot of work on his or other people's part
(having gone down those lines and finding they don't lead anywhere)
that you would not have noticed. Try to make an earnest an honest
(perhaps even generous) evaluation of this.
I would say that if he does not start piling on other co-authors,
particularly people with whom you have not ever spoken or heard about,
then you should follow your Department's as it is marginally
ethical, distasteful though you may find it. Be sure to state in the
body that the results are part of the first author's work done towards
a Ph.D. under the direction of the second author, and that will put
things in context for any reader.
quasi
The fact that your professor suggested the problem to you is
important. Very often, a professor may give a student a problem that
he or she actually knows how to solve. That way, guidance can be
provided to you if you get stuck. In other words, the professor could
potentially have solved the problem without you and published it.
Instead, the problem was "stored" so as to be given as a project to a
suitable grad student.
I'm not saying that the fact that your advisor proposed the problem
automatically warrants co-authorship. It depends. Here are some
questions which are perhaps relevant ...
Was the problem originated by your advisor or was it a well known one?
Were there any suggestions given to you at the outset as to how to
attack the problem? If so, was that the strategy you followed to solve
it?
Was any guidance provided along the way as you progressed towards the
solution?
quasi
jmor...@idirect.com
For an extreme example of how this sort of situation should NOT be
handled, Google on Valery Fabrikant ...
junoexpress
wrote:
I don't recall all of the details, but Fabrikant didn't kill the other
faculty members due to a row over authorship. It was such info about
other faculty members that he tried to use as a tool for leverage
against people in univ system he felt were mistreating him.
Unfortunately for him, the fact that he had this knowledge and might
use it only seemed to exacerbate his situation. I don't claim to
understand the case very well, but my impression was that he was one
of those "silent, quiet types" who probably was in a somewhat abusive
work environment and then cracked.
M
Robert Israel
Well, your recollection and your impression are not quite right. See
e.g. <http://www.grubstreetbooks.ca/essays/fabrikant.html>. Fabrikant
was about as far from "silent, quiet" as you can get. Among his many
grievances [none of which justify his actions in any way, of course]
were some that turned out to be real, including the fact that the
department chair was listed as a co-author on many of his papers
without having made any scientific contribution to them.
junoexpress
<isr...@math.MyUniversitysInitials.ca> wrote:
Thanks for the link. I went back and read more of the articles from
the Wiki stub too. I have some interest in the case because I once had
an office mate once who was eerily similar to the way Fabrikant was
described. Dealing with an unstable person is like trying to walk with
100 yds balancing an egg on a spoon you're holding in your mouth: it's
quite a juggling act. These days with the "PC" police at most univ in
full force, this is probably true more now than ever. (I don't think
you could hire outside security people the way Fabrikant claims they
did at many univs without there being some type of harassment charges
filed) Such individuals do have rights by the univ's policies that
permit them to have a degree of proximity to you that you know at some
point can be dangerous for you. In such a case, whatever you do, you
lose: if you go into the office, you could risk being harmed, while if
you don't go in, the unstable person unfavorably interprets your
actions, and *that* could convince them that you were conspiring
against them. (In my case, we were both in an office, this person
liked the door shut, and the way our desks were arranged, my back was
towards this person. Talk about waiting for the other shoe to drop...)
Maybe in light of the VT shootings, we need to consider policies on
how to deal with unstable staff and faculty members too (but then
again, such a policy might wipe out half of the theoreticians ;>))
Anyhow, his case *was* more complicated then I knew, although I still
got the impression that the shootings themselves were not over
authorship issues. It seemed like the authorship issue was a factor
that escalated a situation in Fabrikant's mind where he felt his life
"was in danger", as he put it. It seems that there is little doubt
that he was paranoid and perhaps somewhat delusional (it would be
somewhat interesting to read the psychiatrist's evaluation on him). I
have a feeling though that his dept probably also did a poor job of
handling his case. Knowing that he was not going to get tenure anyhow,
knowing that the matter would probably have resolved itself, and
having to have had *some* clue that he was not totally stable, they
probably did do some dumb things that helped put him into the state he
got into. Whatever the case, I agree with you that he was definitely
*not* justified by any reasonable defense in doing what he did.
M
Tim Smith
mag...@math.berkeley.edu (Arturo Magidin) wrote:
> This is very much a matter of culture, most often field-related
> culture. In some fields it is ->standard practice<- for the advisor to
> put his name to the paper if he did any of the following:
>
> (i) Propose the problem;
> (ii) Suggest a line of attack;
> (iii) Do any nontrivial part of the proof.
I think that is they key: whether it is common practice in the field.
If it is common practice, then
(1) People who read the paper are going to know this, and know that the
advisors name is on there for customary reasons, not scientific reasons,
and
(2) If the advisor's name is NOT on the paper, people are going to think
that this means the advisor had a problem with the work, or doesn't
think the student is very good, or something like that. The advisor's
name on a first paper, in other words, would basically be serving as a
professional introduction for the student, letting people in the
profession know that the advisor thinks the student has something
worthwhile to say.
Didn't some arts or crafts work this way? The Master would sign
everything that came out of his studio or workshop, even if the item was
actually produced entirely by an apprentice. The Master's signature
said that he stood behind the work of his shop, no matter what hands in
the shop at wielded the tools.
--
--Tim Smith