The authorship awkwardness has ended! In my last post, I mentioned that I was preparing a new report for our dean and one of our state senators. In a not-so-subtle hint that I wanted credit for the preparation of the report, I stuck my name on it...twice. And it seems to have worked. After passing along the final draft to X, he forwarded it to the dean and said that I had written it. Better still, he said that if the senator's office needs more information, they could contact one of *us*.
The question still remains as to whether X realized that he had stolen my thunder regarding the first report to the dean. My guess is that he didn't think of it at the time, but that a very important seed was planted in his mind when he saw my "Prepared by Ivory Shower."
Thanks for your advice and suggestions on my last post :)
Showing posts with label self-worth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label self-worth. Show all posts
Monday, July 9, 2007
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
authorship awkwardness
The academic storybook is full of tales of advisers who mysteriously become first authors on their students' papers at the last minute and students who don't get credit where credit is due. Authorship and attribution are frequent topics of angst on the ScienceCareers forum, and stories like this one and this one are as common as tales of alligators in the sewers of New York City*.
As a grad student, I was lucky in that I never had issues with authorship. Sometimes I included people as co-authors because it seemed like good karma, and sometimes I just needed to do a little groveling. Whether it was out of appreciation or duty, one of my thesis papers ended up having five karma co-authors in total, though 100% of the writing and 100% of the data generation was mine. But I was first author, and I no one disputed that I should be. My adviser never insisted on being first author on my work, and never left me off of papers I'd contributed to.
My current boss, X, and I published two papers together while I was a student. I was first author on one, and second author on another. We collaborated well on those papers, and in each case the issue of first authorship was always clear cut. Because we never even had to discuss authorship before, I'm bewildered to find myself having authorship issues now, when the things I'm writing aren't entering the academic journal circuit.
A few weeks ago, X was asked to provide a report of our Initiative's recent activities to the dean and the president of the university. At this point, I'm more familiar with recent activities than X, so X asked me to write the report. But somehow, X was the one who sent it to Dean, who passed it along to President as X's work. Dean also sent the report to our U.S. Senator, who apparently is curious about what we're doing. So suddenly, I find myself in a position of having a senator (!) reading my work and thinking it's X's.
The senator's office was pleased with this report, and promptly asked Dean who asked X who asked me for a more detailed report. This one is much more work, and I'll be damned if my name isn't on it somewhere.
How should I deal with this? X isn't a power grubbing kind of person, but is clearly fine with attribution on the first report. Since we've dealt with attribution seamlessly in the past, I'd like to believe that this was just an oversight on X's part. But I don't want this to become a pattern, and I sense that it easily could.
I'm trying to figure out a way to bring this up casually, but clearly with X before we send of the latest report. Anyone out there have advice?
* Turns out that there actually was an alligator in the sewers of New York in 1935. If you've got Times Select, the article is worth a read.
As a grad student, I was lucky in that I never had issues with authorship. Sometimes I included people as co-authors because it seemed like good karma, and sometimes I just needed to do a little groveling. Whether it was out of appreciation or duty, one of my thesis papers ended up having five karma co-authors in total, though 100% of the writing and 100% of the data generation was mine. But I was first author, and I no one disputed that I should be. My adviser never insisted on being first author on my work, and never left me off of papers I'd contributed to.
My current boss, X, and I published two papers together while I was a student. I was first author on one, and second author on another. We collaborated well on those papers, and in each case the issue of first authorship was always clear cut. Because we never even had to discuss authorship before, I'm bewildered to find myself having authorship issues now, when the things I'm writing aren't entering the academic journal circuit.
A few weeks ago, X was asked to provide a report of our Initiative's recent activities to the dean and the president of the university. At this point, I'm more familiar with recent activities than X, so X asked me to write the report. But somehow, X was the one who sent it to Dean, who passed it along to President as X's work. Dean also sent the report to our U.S. Senator, who apparently is curious about what we're doing. So suddenly, I find myself in a position of having a senator (!) reading my work and thinking it's X's.
The senator's office was pleased with this report, and promptly asked Dean who asked X who asked me for a more detailed report. This one is much more work, and I'll be damned if my name isn't on it somewhere.
How should I deal with this? X isn't a power grubbing kind of person, but is clearly fine with attribution on the first report. Since we've dealt with attribution seamlessly in the past, I'd like to believe that this was just an oversight on X's part. But I don't want this to become a pattern, and I sense that it easily could.
I'm trying to figure out a way to bring this up casually, but clearly with X before we send of the latest report. Anyone out there have advice?
* Turns out that there actually was an alligator in the sewers of New York in 1935. If you've got Times Select, the article is worth a read.
Friday, May 4, 2007
why we stay
Over the years, I've had countless conversations with friends about leaving academia. We'd have long talks over too many glasses of wine detailing our fantasies of becoming pastry chefs or farmers. The next morning, hungover, we'd schlep back into the lab and into reality again.
Despite our earnest and frequent musings, academia had a steely grip on all of us. I know a couple of people who left graduate school to pursue other avenues, and a couple who were asked to leave. But most everyone I started school with did finish, and did go on to do postdoctoral work. Yet many still toy with the idea of leaving their research behind. Why is it so difficult to leave? Why are there online forums for people considering leaving? Why am I blogging about it?
One word: Tweed. We stay because we want the tweed jackets as badly as medical students want white coats. Professors are admired, respected (though this generally has nothing to do with the tweed jacket itself or any other item in the professorial spring line). That respect is deeply ingrained in communities, families, and individuals, who regard academic work as pure and, therefore, somehow noble. Money? Pah! They don't do their jobs for the money, they do it for the love of knowledge, for the raw intellectual challenge.
A number of people have also echoed a thought I've had myself --one that always makes me cringe -- that they stuck it out through their Ph.D. to prove that they could do it. As a student, math was always my worst subject. So when I got to college -- freshman flagellant that I was -- I signed up for Honors Calculus I&II, taught as a one semester course for math majors. This sort of attitude stayed with me through college and graduate school, through my first months as a postdoc. Some part of me hung onto the idea that if I could be successful at something that was both challenging and highly regarded by society, then I'd be happy.
About five months into my postdoc, my parents came to visit. I wanted so badly to convey that I was doing well despite being so far from home. But I also wanted to talk to them about my plans to leave my postdoc. Until that point, the conversations I'd had about leaving were mostly sardonic, mostly with friends. I needed new sounding boards, fresh ears who could hear me out and provide support. The subject came up over dinner one night during their visit. I resolutely presented my case to the judges who had been assigned to me for life. And as I described how unhappy I had been with research, I watched their faces stiffen. It was a blow to their bragging rights.
Over the next few months, as I went through the motions of being a postdoc and began to translate my CV into a resume, I thought a lot about failure. My gut told me that I had somehow failed. My parents' faces had seemed to confirm that. I obsessively read horror stories online of people whose advisers labeled them failures when they announced that they were not interested in the tenure track. But after some serious wallowing and visits to a couple of shrinks, I realized that I'd be failing myself if I stayed. Sometimes it takes a lot more faith in yourself to leave than it does to stay.
Despite our earnest and frequent musings, academia had a steely grip on all of us. I know a couple of people who left graduate school to pursue other avenues, and a couple who were asked to leave. But most everyone I started school with did finish, and did go on to do postdoctoral work. Yet many still toy with the idea of leaving their research behind. Why is it so difficult to leave? Why are there online forums for people considering leaving? Why am I blogging about it?
One word: Tweed. We stay because we want the tweed jackets as badly as medical students want white coats. Professors are admired, respected (though this generally has nothing to do with the tweed jacket itself or any other item in the professorial spring line). That respect is deeply ingrained in communities, families, and individuals, who regard academic work as pure and, therefore, somehow noble. Money? Pah! They don't do their jobs for the money, they do it for the love of knowledge, for the raw intellectual challenge.
A number of people have also echoed a thought I've had myself --one that always makes me cringe -- that they stuck it out through their Ph.D. to prove that they could do it. As a student, math was always my worst subject. So when I got to college -- freshman flagellant that I was -- I signed up for Honors Calculus I&II, taught as a one semester course for math majors. This sort of attitude stayed with me through college and graduate school, through my first months as a postdoc. Some part of me hung onto the idea that if I could be successful at something that was both challenging and highly regarded by society, then I'd be happy.
About five months into my postdoc, my parents came to visit. I wanted so badly to convey that I was doing well despite being so far from home. But I also wanted to talk to them about my plans to leave my postdoc. Until that point, the conversations I'd had about leaving were mostly sardonic, mostly with friends. I needed new sounding boards, fresh ears who could hear me out and provide support. The subject came up over dinner one night during their visit. I resolutely presented my case to the judges who had been assigned to me for life. And as I described how unhappy I had been with research, I watched their faces stiffen. It was a blow to their bragging rights.
Over the next few months, as I went through the motions of being a postdoc and began to translate my CV into a resume, I thought a lot about failure. My gut told me that I had somehow failed. My parents' faces had seemed to confirm that. I obsessively read horror stories online of people whose advisers labeled them failures when they announced that they were not interested in the tenure track. But after some serious wallowing and visits to a couple of shrinks, I realized that I'd be failing myself if I stayed. Sometimes it takes a lot more faith in yourself to leave than it does to stay.
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