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I conducted my MSc research entirely on my own and I wrote and analysed everything from start to finish. I told my supervisor that I wanted to publish, so they got in touch with a journal. However, because I had already graduated, all journal emails were sent to my university email address, which had been deactivated. As a result, I never saw those emails. When my supervisor forwarded reviewer emails to me, I still couldn’t access the documents because I no longer had an active account. When I told them I couldn’t access the files and asked them to send me the documents so I could make edits, I was told, “It’s fine, we’ll handle it.” In the end, my thesis was published as a journal article without my approval. The dataset and analyses were handled incorrectly, and the published results are wrong and substantially different from my original findings. On top of that, in the “Writing – original draft” section, it doesn’t list only my name; it also includes my supervisor’s name and a colleague my supervisor added. I feel deeply disappointed, because I was eager to share the most striking results of my work. I wanted the paper published mainly so I could share a link when talking about it.

I genuinely don’t know what to do right now, and I’m not even sure what is considered right or wrong in this situation. I’m also considering applying for a PhD, and I need my supervisor as a referee, so I’m afraid of damaging the relationship. But I honestly don’t understand why they took my original work, changed it, and published it in the way they wanted, as if it were theirs.

When I pointed out that the participant number was wrong, my supervisor apologised and agreed that I was right — but at that point it no longer felt like my work. What should I do now? Also, for PhD applications, if I say that my thesis project was entirely mine and that I led the full research process, the paper lists “Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Writing – original draft” as shared among multiple authors.

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    "In the end, my thesis was published as a journal article without my approval." What does this mean precisely? Does this mean that in response to “It’s fine, we’ll handle it” you told them that it's not fine and that they should not proceed until you've had the chance to review the manuscript, but they ignored you? Commented 2 days ago
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    It doesn't sound like it's your thesis that was published, but an article based on your thesis? Commented 2 days ago
  • academia.stackexchange.com/questions/216940/… related/duplicate Commented 2 days ago
  • academia.stackexchange.com/questions/122742/… related Commented 2 days ago
  • academia.stackexchange.com/questions/206172/… related Commented 2 days ago

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I’m not even sure what is considered right or wrong in this situation.

Your supervisor has done the wrong thing here. When you publish a paper jointly, the submitting author who is dealing with the journal has a responsibility to ensure that all authors consent to the publication and are okay with the final form of the published work. Exceptions to this should be raised with the journal editor and dealt with appropriately. That is a standard expectation in academic publishing and journals typically (always?) require the submitting author to confirm this as part of the submission and/or publication agreement.

The wrong done here is mitigated (but not entirely) by the fact that you were put on notice that they were proceeding without you and you apparently raised no objection to this. It is not great to bypass an author with an “It’s fine, we’ll handle it”, but if you didn't raise any objection to this then your supervisor may have thought that you were okay with this.

So, the wrong thing has happened here. It is not how academic submissions are supposed to be conducted and it is likely that your supervisor is in breach of their agreement with the journal, and possibly in breach of academic research rules of their institution. On the scale of academic wrongs, this is not the worst infraction ever and is probably only a mild breach, but it is poor practice and it has led to an outcome where one of the authors of the paper is unhappy with the published work, which is a great shame. It has also evidently caused some incorrect data/results to be published, which will require an erratum to the paper.

I honestly don’t understand why they took my original work, changed it, and published it in the way they wanted, as if it were theirs.

When supervisors do academic work with students, it is typically the case that the supervisor is experienced in academic publication and the student is not (as is probably the case here). Academic supervisors are typically very skilled in revising work to make it ready for publication and then dealing with submissions systems. Academics also have a lot of experience in judging what level of contribution warrants credit for a relevant section and/or co-authorship of the paper.

Your supervisor probably thought that taking on these tasks without requiring further input from you was a favour to you, and would give you a joint academic publication without you having to do further work. (They probably also did it to save the time/hassle of coordinating with multiple authors.) Since you are a masters student, they probably figured that having a joint publication would be a boon for you and would help to kickstart your publishing career.

I’m also considering applying for a PhD, and I need my supervisor as a referee, so I’m afraid of damaging the relationship. ... [F]or PhD applications, if I say that my thesis project was entirely mine and that I led the full research process, the paper lists “Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Writing – original draft” as shared among multiple authors.

Whilst there are possible avenues of complaint open to you (through the university or journal), this might be one of those cases where you are better off taking this on the chin. Your supervisor has not done the right thing here, but it is a low-level infraction, and you still have a joint publication to your credit (which will be valuable to you in your PhD application). It is unfortunate that you are not happy with the final product, but you might take some consolation in knowing that most experienced academic researchers look back on their thesis work and resulting publications as being of lower quality than what they do later.

For a PhD application, irrespective of this event, it would be wrong to say that your thesis work was entirely yours anyway, since supervision and review by a supervisor is typically considered to be a genuine academic contribution to the work. You are better off just saying that you performed research under the supervision of your supervisor and this manifested in a joint paper published in a journal. Having completed your MSc thesis successfully, plus having a published paper with your supervisor, puts you in a good position for your application.

Finally, if there are indeed serious errors in the published paper then you and your supervisor should work on an erratum to correct this, or retract the paper if necessary.

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    I think this is mostly a good answer from a practical perspective, but OP also says "The dataset and analyses were handled incorrectly, and the published results are wrong and substantially different from my original findings". That seems to go a bit beyond a supervisor just polishing up some work for publication. Obviously more detailed info would be necessary to draw further judgment. Commented 2 days ago
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    @BryanKrause: Good point - I've edited to note that it may be necessary to add an erratum. Commented 2 days ago
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I think this comment actually has some good meat to it, and also your supervisor did the best they could to publish your work at all, while leaving the door open plenty for you

It doesn't sound like it's your thesis that was published, but an article based on your thesis?

Especially if you would be open to the idea that

  • the dataset and analyses were handled incorrectly differently
  • the published results are wrong and substantially different

Then you still actually have a different and novel paper, which it might make sense to either try and still publish with your former supervisor (casually this seems unlikely and especially consider they know better about the politics of publishing) or put out through some other means (arxiv, self-published blog, etc. even marking it as draft/preprint/whatever) such that you can still easily reference it (I would especially try to meet with them and follow their advice here rather than rushing ahead with something)

That said, I wouldn't be too concerned about the paper as you plan to do a PhD and publish more advanced works very soon - I think (as you suggest) letting this cause strife with your former supervisor (or worse attempting to retract the paper) would be a mistake

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