Publishing

It is expected that your research or special project work will lead to publication in refereed journals. Even though Master’s Theses and Doctoral Dissertations may be copyrighted, you and your major professor have a responsibility to make sure your work is indeed published and made accessible to the broader scientific community.

Typically, you should write the articles stemming from your work. It is expected that your major professor will be included in the author list even if you have done most of the writing. If a year passes after your final defense and the appropriate rough draft(s) is still not written, your major professor is entitled to write the article and assume the first authorship even though you have the copyright to the dissertation or thesis. Determining who should be included and in what order in the author list is sometimes a problem. R. H. Schmidt (Bull. Ecol. Soc. 68:8-10, 1987) gives a worksheet approach to help determine the relative contributions to the five areas of "conception, design, data collection, data analysis, and manuscript preparation." R. A. Day (see reading list) asks "And what do these colleagues do when everything suddenly falls into place as a result of a searching question by the traditional 'guy in the next lab' who had nothing whatever to do with the research?" J. G. Dickson et al. (Wildl. Soc. Bull. 6:260-261, 1978) suggest "if the professor conceives and designs a project and is instrumental in other areas, he should be the first author."

In short, authorship is a tricky business, one that should be discussed at length with your major professor. The best time to discuss authorship is before the start of a project to avoid any misunderstanding and conflicts down the road. Also, Weltzin et al. (Front Ecol. Environ 4(8): 435–441, 2006) recommend communication between coauthors throughout the research process. It is highly recommended to follow the guidelines on publication and research ethics listed by the Ecological Society of America (ESA): https://www.esa.org/about/code-of-ethics.

All oral and poster presentations and publications should acknowledge sources of funding and other support for the research.

For thesis/dissertation degree students, the department expects a digital copy of your thesis/dissertation in pdf format. Your paperwork may be held up by the GPD or Department Head if you don't provide one. Also, you should provide your major advisor a copy of your thesis/dissertation and all research data on a computer disk before graduation.