Should I continue on with my co-author on a questionable project (and with a difficult working relationship)?
April 16, 2011 12:13 PM Subscribe
Should I continue on with my co-author on a questionable project (and with a difficult working relationship)?
Since I'm anonymous - I'll try to provide as much information as I can.
I'm a graduate student in Political Science at a top 20 school. I am in American Politics subfield. I am in the middle of dissertation work. I don't expect to go on the job market for another year (not this fall, but next). I have one publication, with another co-author, on a subfield within American politics only tangentially related to my areas of interest. I have another one with 3 other coauthors working on a revise and resubmit on a closer, but still not exact area.
Last year I was approached to work with a (full) professor outside of political science (soc) on a project where the prof had collected data on a topic very, very close to my dissertation. I worked last summer on the data, finding out the data was a weird mix of an undergrads thesis and some follow up work by another grad student. I had a very difficult working relationship with the prof. Although the paper was promised to be finished over last summer, it wasn't (which I know is typical for papers to be late - but seriously, the prof did no work on it). Nothing much was done on it, until a conference recently. The prof backed out of the conference at the last minute and sent me with a weak draft of a paper (the paper still lacks an overall focus/research question...which is kinda backwards how research should be done, right?). It also has questionable use of stats (chi square tests where multiple squares have less than 5, for example) that I mentioned and was rebuked over. Now the prof wants to know when we should get together to finish the paper.
Should I continue on just to publish for the sake of publishing (assuming any journal will accept it)? The job market is tough..more publications, esp on my own topic, at this point sounds good..but should I back out over the bad working relationship? Or should I back out over the questionable data/results? Will a shoddy paper hurt me later if I ever get a tenure track job? If so, how the heck do I get out of this now?
Since I'm anonymous - I'll try to provide as much information as I can.
I'm a graduate student in Political Science at a top 20 school. I am in American Politics subfield. I am in the middle of dissertation work. I don't expect to go on the job market for another year (not this fall, but next). I have one publication, with another co-author, on a subfield within American politics only tangentially related to my areas of interest. I have another one with 3 other coauthors working on a revise and resubmit on a closer, but still not exact area.
Last year I was approached to work with a (full) professor outside of political science (soc) on a project where the prof had collected data on a topic very, very close to my dissertation. I worked last summer on the data, finding out the data was a weird mix of an undergrads thesis and some follow up work by another grad student. I had a very difficult working relationship with the prof. Although the paper was promised to be finished over last summer, it wasn't (which I know is typical for papers to be late - but seriously, the prof did no work on it). Nothing much was done on it, until a conference recently. The prof backed out of the conference at the last minute and sent me with a weak draft of a paper (the paper still lacks an overall focus/research question...which is kinda backwards how research should be done, right?). It also has questionable use of stats (chi square tests where multiple squares have less than 5, for example) that I mentioned and was rebuked over. Now the prof wants to know when we should get together to finish the paper.
Should I continue on just to publish for the sake of publishing (assuming any journal will accept it)? The job market is tough..more publications, esp on my own topic, at this point sounds good..but should I back out over the bad working relationship? Or should I back out over the questionable data/results? Will a shoddy paper hurt me later if I ever get a tenure track job? If so, how the heck do I get out of this now?
1. Ask your advisor
2. Email soc prof and say "I'm not sure that this data is workable, but I am committed to this project. Can we start with a proposal with hypotheses and recollect the data this summer?
If that sounds daunting to him/her, you all can back out gracefully.
posted by k8t at 1:12 PM on April 16, 2011
2. Email soc prof and say "I'm not sure that this data is workable, but I am committed to this project. Can we start with a proposal with hypotheses and recollect the data this summer?
If that sounds daunting to him/her, you all can back out gracefully.
posted by k8t at 1:12 PM on April 16, 2011
Options:
1. Try to get the paper published as-is and have it rejected.
2. Continue working with someone you don't like, only to drag it out and have it end in (1).
3. Publish work you're not happy with, co-authored with someone you don't like, and have it come up later.
4. Do all the work yourself, really make something nice, but be forced to publish with this prof's name on it, perhaps as first author.
5. Back out on personal reasons ("sorry, overwhelmed at the moment") and invest the same time and effort into your other pubs or a new project.
I think you can guess that #5 is my choice. You've no obligation to finish this work and I'd back out with a reason unrelated to the specific faults of the work to avoid making enemies. You've got other papers to focus on now. Make that the reason.
posted by fake at 4:52 PM on April 16, 2011 [1 favorite]
1. Try to get the paper published as-is and have it rejected.
2. Continue working with someone you don't like, only to drag it out and have it end in (1).
3. Publish work you're not happy with, co-authored with someone you don't like, and have it come up later.
4. Do all the work yourself, really make something nice, but be forced to publish with this prof's name on it, perhaps as first author.
5. Back out on personal reasons ("sorry, overwhelmed at the moment") and invest the same time and effort into your other pubs or a new project.
I think you can guess that #5 is my choice. You've no obligation to finish this work and I'd back out with a reason unrelated to the specific faults of the work to avoid making enemies. You've got other papers to focus on now. Make that the reason.
posted by fake at 4:52 PM on April 16, 2011 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
Bear in mind he'll probably expect to be first author and yet the only way it's going to be any good is if you take charge of the writing. If anything in it is really embarrassing (which sounds probable) he'll pin all that on you.
But what I find most interesting of all is that it's your topic, but he doesn't seem to know anything about it. If he were pumping you for information, what would you do about that? Especially since he has already produced a weak draft in his own name.
posted by tel3path at 12:26 PM on April 16, 2011