Ultimate social

 

The ultimate social is co-authorship.

I have somewhat avoided talking about co-authorship because you can only control your own writing habits, and that is what this course is about. Your behaviour. Your PhD (which is clearly not for co-publishing, ever, as this must be solely your work for examination purposes). I am focusing on your emotions. Your craft of writing. Owning it.

But one way to engage in social writing more generally, outside the PhD is to co-author. For some of you this will be utterly routine in your discipline and you may have already discussed this prospect with your supervisor.

The benefits of co-authorship are:

  • Double the output for half the work;

  • Someone else is invested in the idea and production of the output which provides accountability and discipline;

  • Someone will read and comment in detail on the work in a timely fashion;

  • You can have extensive discussion about an intellectual idea with someone with equal knowledge and investment.

But this co-authorship lark is not for everyone. The downsides are:

  • Co-authors doing no, or less work than you, and expecting equal or greater credit;

  • Co-authors abandoning the paper halfway through because something better has come along;

  • Co-authors stealing your ideas and publishing it in their own name;

  • Co-authors promising and promising to engage but never do.

Working out who to co-author with, and how you will co-author, is very important. Whether it be split responsibilities (my section, your section) or writing together through various drafting stages, there are many perils and positives associated with each of these types of co-authorship. Experienced co-authors can sit in a room and write the text in situ together, but this is not for amateurs. If and however you decide to do it, get the rules decided first, preferably in an email you can quote back.

I would encourage you to think who you might co-author with and see if you can make this part of your social writing experience. If you are thinking about co-authoring with a supervisor, be very clear about the authorship rules and revisit your learning contract before you commit to writing a paper. Ask former students who co-authored with them how that experience went. Your supervisor will not be offended - this clarity works for everyone and it is only professional to agree it upfront. As a PhD student, you should only co-author with someone with experience and who will not exploit you. Importantly, the person you are co-authoring should be someone who regularly publishes (a few papers per year, every year). You cannot be responsible for dragging someone else along.

Today I will…

  • Reflect on opportunities for co-authorship: is there a project in my pipeline suitable for this, outside my PhD?

  • Write for 2 hours working my way down my task list.