Why you should ditch the paper and just be done with your PhD

Should you stay longer and make sure your paper gets published? I address this question from a Ph.D. student. Here are the details of the question:

I want to transition to the industry as a research scientist.

I have one protocol paper accepted, one second-author paper, and one first-author paper that is not yet submitted.

I am worried as my advisor wants to add more data to the first-author paper before submitting it, and it keeps getting delayed.

Now he wants me to stay as a postdoc to finish it.

My advisor knows I want to transition to the industry.

Should I stay longer and make sure the first-author paper gets published?

My agony aunt response:

Your situation sounds to me like your advisor wants to keep you forever. Because you are good!

It is a tricky business to be good at your job.

You usually end up doing other people’s jobs as well… maybe he needs to employ more people who can help to finish the paper if he wants a LOT more changes.

Sadly (or not, if you don’t care,) you might have to step down from the first-author status in that case, but I come from a field that has embraced the alphabet for better or for worse, so that’s up to you. I bet you could still claim a lot of ownership for the parts that you have done already. It won’t matter in the industry, not like in academia.

Keep in mind that your advisor knows you are going to the industry – HE has nothing to lose if you give more of your time to this paper. If you lined up an academic job, I bet he would be much less inclined to keep you longer. Because then it would matter to him. If you are in a field where producing postdocs/academics is important to the CV of an academic (which is true for many fields) your professor would care about this. On the other hand, if you are going to industry, YOU are the only one in a position to lose from staying longer.

In this situation, do what you need to do to graduate with your degree. And, ONLY that. Your advisor could want many things – but YOU need to do what will get you out ASAP. That is likely NOT working more and more on the paper. Write your thesis, finish up whatever is going into your thesis.

The document that will get you out with your degree is your thesis, not the paper.

Sometimes getting a paper accepted by a journal is a requirement to graduate but that is clearly not the case here as he wants you to stay as a postdoc to finish the paper. So, don’t let anyone emotionally blackmail you into staying longer. That’s toxic, and all the more reason to leave.

Full blog post:

https://howtophd.org/2018/08/should-you-stay-longer-and-make-sure-your-paper-gets-published.html

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