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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 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.
In my experience, waiting for a paper to happen is a mistake and this is from someone that LOVES writing and publishing. Lack of publications was not my failure point as an academic.
Papers, from conception to final publication in a journal, have a life of their own and that’s fine. You can’t force it. It will see the light of day when it’s ready.
Chasing a paper can end really badly – I have learned the hard way. Besides, if you wait for the paper – well you might be waiting forever. When your graduation and therefore, career is in the line, waiting cannot be your strategy.
Waiting for anything is tricky – it could never happen!
So, continue with your industry job search regardless of the actual publishing of the paper. You could put a draft of the paper on arXiv – do you guys ever do that?
Like this – meet my children (papers)
Then point to the arXiv version during your interviews.
I think you know that you don’t need more publications to graduate and move on.
What you do need to do is explain the relevant things you have done so far whether they are finally published OR NOT and make them sound like the best thing to happen after sliced bread. (Assuming sliced bread is great?)Don’t bring up anything about a paper needing more work at the interview. If it comes up, don’t lie either. You can say you have a draft and it is pending submission.
Should you stay longer and make sure your paper gets published?
My short answer: NO
If you have trouble graduating due to advisor problems, then read this.
Below is one of my papers on arXiv – it is not finally published yet but you bet it was on my resume with the arXiv link when I applied for an industry job. (And got the job) https://arxiv.org/abs/1807.08892
arXiv is free – no paywall!
In physics, it is common to give out only arXiv links even when the paper is published in a journal because it is free to access.
Confidently speak about the paper at your interviews if it is relevant to the position. Own it. It’s yours even if it is not officially published. At what time it actually gets published is not important. It’s the work you have done and the relevant experience you have obtained that will be of interest to the company. So focus on that.
You might not even be totally ditching the paper by leaving academia. When you start your new job/life, who knows, you might be filled with all this extra energy, and you might still be involved in seeing the paper through. Tell your professor that! Tell him you will work on it for free after you graduate. Academics never can resist free labor… and when making your exit from anything, it is best to burn as few bridges as possible. Good luck to you and welcome to the other side!
If you related to this, do let me know in a comment below! If you have a question you’d like me to address, feel free to share it in the comments below as well. I look forward to meeting you!
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