Supervisors are morally obliged to publish with their PhD students

Dear Drs Hayter and Watson, You may not use my child as part of your production line. Here are the reasons why. 1) The issues are not moral or ethical but legal in nature. 2) My child has paid a fee to the university to be trained ( contributed towards your salary & this takes care of your opportunity costs). 3) I expect the 3-5 years my child spends on your premises and under your guidance to be fruitful ones. May I suggest the following methods to fulfil your obligations as supervisors? 1) Teach my child how to ask answerable questions (and perhaps some unanswerable ones too! 2) Teach them all about designing good studies and the limitations of their studies 3) Teach them good data management practises 4) Teach them statistical analytical skills. 5) Teach them good writing skills, and please ensure they understand the sometimes unclear rules and guidelines with regard to plaigiarism. 6) Teach them how to submit for a Grant application or Ethics Committee application 7) Teach them how to defend their scientific arguments. 8) Supervise their project closely- this used to be known as "continuous assessment" or "marking" many years ago. 9) Teach them the process of journal submission (PS: Don't forget to tell them that not all journal editors or peer reviewers are qualified to assess their submissions). 10) Teach them to deal with revisions, re-submission and rejection. So, as you can see, I only expect you to teach and supervise for the fee paid. I don't expect you to "contribute" in any way to their project. The reason for that is I don't want there to be any confusion as to who did the project and wrote it up. If you "contribute substantially" to my child's project, how will the external examiner get their marking done? Who will the marks be awarded to- 25% to you and 75% to my child? You are free to do your own research using non-fee paying collaborators such as post-docs, research assistants etc. If you still want your name on the paper, then please ensure that it is clearly identified as "Supervisor" Best Wishes Mrs P

I didn't publish any of my PhD because I didn't want to include my 'supervisors'. I liked them as people but didn't rate them highly as supervisors and was horrified by the actions of one during the corrections process. Moreover, in my opinion, I've given much more feedback in a single essay than they provided on my whole PhD! I'd have preferred to do the PhD without 'supervision'.