"Procrastinator I think its a bit tenuous to compare a PhD student adding her supervisor as a co-author with a guy who added his toddler. I doubt the toddler would have given his dad guidance and advice throughout the PhD process like a supervisor does!"

I was using that as an extreme example of why it was a bad thing to do. However, my underlying point still remains that you shouldn't add someone's name to a paper without their say so.

jouri: "Besides, the problem is, I wanted to add his name because it is COMMON PRACTICE that supervisor's get credit, despite having no input. So, in fact, I wanted to play to the ridiculous rules of universities. Although I don't support them."

As I said in my previous post. Don't like the rules? Don't want to play by them? Then feel free to leave. I'm sure you will not be missed.

A couple of years ago there was a Greek academic who did the same thing by adding the name of his toddler son to a few of his papers. It was his intention to give the kid a head start in case he wanted a career in academia in the future. I'm not sure what became of him, but suffice to say it was a big enough scandal to reach the international news channels.

jouri: "Second, I didn't get into trouble because of adding his name, but mainly because of submitting a paper without his approval and approval from my school's dean."

Again, you are a member of a university so you have to abide by their rules. You broke them, so you paid the price - very clear and simple. Your university has a standard to uphold; obviously one of the ways they maintain that standard is by requiring some sort of official authorisation over work that gets published in their name. Don't like the rules? Feel free to go it alone independently. To be honest I feel sympathy for your supervisor, because you appear to me to be an arrogant jobsworth.

jouri you do not "do people favours" by adding their names to articles of which they took no part in! It contravenes the rules of every peer reviewed journal out there as well as the rules of every worthwhile university. It's as simple as that. You were 100% in the wrong here, so just accept it.

jouri: "Sorry, but that's not true, Procrastinator. First of all, the paper got accepted in a well respected journal, peer-reviewed and one of the better ones. So the work wasn't "total tripe"."

I never said it was tripe, I said WHAT IF it was tripe. Have you never read a questionable peer-reviewed paper before? I have, in fact I see them on a daily basis. With that in mind can you not see that it might be damaging to someone's academic career if their name was used without their consent? That is why the standards are in place.

How long have you been a PhD student? If it's against the school's policy to have only one supervisor, why were you not assigned two at the very start?

jouri:

"What Shani said reminded me of the episode where I submitted a journal article without telling my supervisor. He wasn't involved or contributed to it anyway. Once it finally got accepted I asked the editors to add him as a second author. When I told him, I expected respect or gratefulness. Instead I nearly got kicked out of my programme and had to explain myself in front of a committee. Shows that, unfortunately, they dont always honour independent thought, although they should, really."

LOL! What an utterly ridiculous thing to do! You say that your supervisor wasn't involved or contributed to the work in the paper, so why on Earth did you add his name?!? No wonder he was livid. What if the work was total tripe? I wouldn't want my name added to something of which I took no part in and gave no authorisation for, would you? That's not independent thought, it's misrepresentation.

This is a strange post, and I think to comprehend it fully we need to know a bit about the background. So, what was the motivation for getting a second supervisor? Secondly, why didn't the person you approached to be your second supervisor not automatically tell you that all three of you needed to take part in the discussion? Are these two people in competition or something? This is a very important decision and not one that can be made on the spur of a moment.

I've known PhD students who've had two supervisors and often it's no walk in the park. You inherit two people's agendas and two people's way of thinking. You WILL experience conflicting pressure from either side, assuming they both have equal say in your progress, so please be aware of this and prepared for it.

But it's not her supervisor, it's her EX-supervisor. This changes things.

I don't know your situation, but if she's your ex-supervisor could she be displaying a hint of animosity? How much of a say does she have over your progress in your PhD? If it is little or none at all, then I'd say just ignore her and move on.

Unless you made your trips here pre-1974 (when the first McDonalds opened in the UK!!), I'm surprised you failed to notice all the US chains on the UK high street nowadays.

Well it all depends on what you want to end up doing. If your ultimate intention is to enter the business world, which your MBA qualification would lead me to suspect, then I'd forget the PhD and start job hunting. A PhD is a lot of work and at the end there's no guarantee that you'll be in a better position for employment than you are already.

If on the other hand you want to start a career in research (microbiology?) then a PhD is almost a necessity. With that in mind, you could either search for current PhD projects with funding attached or approach a university department directly, if you have a clear research proposal. You will probably have more success applying for an existing project as forming a research proposal is tough and requires a leap of faith from the point of view of your supervisor, that he/she may not be willing to take.

"when i started i was told, he was not interested in answering peoples questions, unless they have got answers"

Didn't this set alarm bells going when you heard this? He sounds like a right loon to me. Why would anyone ask a question if they had the answer already?

This sorry tale really underlines how important it is to be on good terms with your supervisor. He should be your ally not your enemy! If I was in your position I'd be tempted to cut my losses and find something else. You state that you have a good first degree and even produced a publication before you started, so I think the ball is in your court.

Apologies for misunderstanding your first post. Are these results key to your whole thesis? If so, what does your supervisor suggest you do?

Ultimately though, if you're confident with your results and can defend them when it comes to the viva, it doesn't really matter whether your supervisor agrees with you or not.

With all due respect this is your first set of results, so you're unlikely to be in a position to overturn an accepted theory in the literature. That's why your supervisor is playing it safe and questioning whether you've conducted the experiments correctly. I agree that it can be demoralising if your supervisor criticises your work, but all new PhD students are apt to make mistakes, it's part of the learning process, so his scepticism is understandable.

If after several sets of results you're still finding differences then you'll be in a much stronger position to challenge the accepted wisdom. That's when the science starts because you'll have to come up with a reason to explain the differences. Good luck