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I'm currently working in a project that is funded by me and the supervisor doesn't contribute much to my work (he is just directing me slightly if I asked him) and he told me that he doesn't need to publish and I can publish as a sole author if I want. I only have a Master degree, can I publish as a sole author? can some journals accept that? Should I contact a journal to ask? if the journal agrees, so this is will be fine? (By the way my field is Biochemistry)

user76162
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    I'd ask him if he would be willing to revise the manuscript if he was a coauthor. Having at least one experienced coauthor has some benefits. Your first publication is usually a challenge and doing it all alone is even harder. –  Jul 17 '17 at 05:37
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    I only have a Master degree, can I publish as a sole author? -- Sure, why not? I did. My advisor did. Some of my former students did. But you might want to ask your advisor (or another more experienced colleague) to give you some feedback on your manuscript before you submit it. – JeffE Jul 17 '17 at 08:11
  • Note that in biology, the norm is that the head of the lab is the last author on the paper even if the contribution is very small. Putting aside whether this custom is good or bad, I think the fact that the supervisor offers not be an author could be a little suspicious - for example the supervisor might think the work is not very good. – Bitwise Jul 19 '17 at 06:18
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    @Roland I would consider helping learn to publish to be part of the role of supervisor, irrespective of authorship. – Jessica B Jul 19 '17 at 06:19
  • @JessicaB While I agree, I can't imagine a situation where the supervisor wouldn't give some serious input to a review paper, enough to be a co-author. Even our best phd students couldn't write a good review alone. In fact, even I wouldn't do it alone. You need different perspectives to write a balanced review, one-author review papers are extremely rare in my field. –  Jul 19 '17 at 06:46
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    @Roland I can. I do not consider the advice that I give my students about writing (aka "soaking their papers in red ink") a sufficient contribution for coauthorship. It's just part of my job as an advisor. – JeffE Jul 19 '17 at 20:16
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    @JeffE Your field might be different. In my field, no advisor would only help with the writing. I know of maybe two or three one-author reviews (published in reputable journals) and all of these have been written by researchers close to the end of their career. –  Jul 20 '17 at 04:56
  • @Roland Where does it say it's a review paper? – Jessica B Jul 20 '17 at 16:55
  • @JessicaB You are right, I can't know how many papers OP plans to publish as only author. Regardless, for non-review papers I'm also skeptical. OP is not in maths. –  Jul 20 '17 at 17:13

2 Answers2

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Everyone can submit articles to journals, there is no degree requirement. There is nothing negative about single author manuscripts.

Manuscripts should (ideally) be evaluated by its content not by its author list.

workingonit
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    An answer that kind of acknowledges independent researchers without formal degrees. You make me happy, sir :) – Weckar E. Jul 17 '17 at 07:14
  • I had a singe-author manuscript desk-rejected when I was a PhD student. The apparent reason, according to editor, was that they did not like to accept work of student done without supervision. – kfx Jul 18 '17 at 17:44
  • Just to add: in this specific situation, the supervisor needs an acknowledgement. – Jessica B Jul 19 '17 at 06:17
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I am a PhD student in Aerospace engineering and my research is computational mechanics. The first 4 papers of mine are publicized all by myself (IF: 1.9-2.8). It's simply because the work is done only by me and I am a self-motivated researcher. Now, I also have papers with my advisor. You need to talk with your advisor and ask his opinion. My advisor just told me that since he did not contribute to the work, he did need to list his name on my paper. I believe this is the answer for most professors.
However, I have to admit that most grad students' first paper is publicized with their advisors. That is the main reason that you have this question. But journals never care about it. When I publicized my first paper, the journal editor called me prof. Li. At that time, I was just a MS student.

Tianyu Li
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