Its because your stipend is not taxable income

thanks for the responses - They have actually been very helpful. I've spent most of my PhD working on my own (no other phd students in my building) so its difficult to know what is normal. I understand that this may not seem like a problem - that having your boss wriite your thesis is a pretty good thing really. I would've agrred untill a few weeks ago when i got a phone call from the press office. A paper that i am co-author on (but did not write - or contribute much to apart from a part of the grunt work) is currently in press. The very nice press lady asked me to comment on the summary she had written, which was to appear on the University webpage. I found that i could'nt do it and i felt very sad. I could not comment on the work as i had not written the paper and as a result had not thought deeply about the subject. I don't want to be in that situation with work that appears in my thesis.

I'm in my third year. been writing up for few months now. Its stressful but generally okay. Had a conversation with my supervisor a few hours ago. She told me that she will write up my papers. Authorship is not in dispute - apparently I'll be first author. She said that she has a lot invested in my work and wants to write the "story". I think this is very uncool. Now, I accept that she may write better then me, but its still my work - right. She said that most first authors are not the writers anyway, rather that the lab heads are the ones who write. This really annoys me because part of doing a PhD should be about learning how to write...right? Your thoughts ...