Hello,

Recently I have an accepted publication in an international journal. One of the figures in the manuscript presents an hypothesis that is practicaly the same as one published in a paper of my advisor two years ago. That paper does not have many citations, and I dont fully agree with that hypothesis, but my advisor suggested (mandatory suggestion) that I included the figure and an explanation of his hypothesis in the text.

I am finishing my PhD and we had a lot of discussions about this disagreement.
I am very glad that I finally got my first paper published, but I feel kinda frustrated about being forced to publish things that I am not totally agree only because he is my advisor and he is one of the co-authors of the paper.

Have you ever been in a similar situation? Is this a normal practice among Doctoral Advisors?

Yes, it is common practice. The manuscript for my paper will be submitted with the data presented in a way I don't agree with. I managed to get my supervisor to tone down their opinion a bit by stating I would refuse my name on the paper which meant he couldn't publish but other than that their isn't much you can do.

Reviewers butchered my paper to focus on an aspect that I think is trivial. I proposed using a different fields' assessment criteria to demonstrate the novelty of the work. However the reviewers believe that I cannot mix assessment criteria, so I must ignore a significant chunk of my work. However, I see that an imperfect published paper is better than an unpublished "perfect" paper.

Do you disagree with your supervisor's hypothesis or just the forced inclusion? I wouldn't worry about referencing your supervisor, as the reviewers will make you include some random articles as well.

Sorry for the delay in the response.

I am in general disagree with my supervisor´s hypothesis but I was forced to include this interpretation of my data in a published paper and in my Phd. It was frustrating. I chose to study science because of the freedom for developing my own ideas and I realyze that reality it´s a little sadder.

Is it just really frustrating because it isn't your way of seeing it completely - or is it something you profoundly / fundamentally disagree with and do not want your name to (e.g., do you think it is a false conclusion is being drawn / inferences will be drawn and implications made that you disagree with?). To me, there is a difference. If it's the former, then perhaps you might as well just get on with it if there is no easy way out - these things happen and when you aren't the senior person sometimes you have to just go with the flow. More freedom will come later.

I agree with Tudor:Queen. If you think there is some kind of misleading or false claim, there is a big problem. If you partially disagree with the hypothesis and the way it is presented, it is not ideal but it happens. Of course freedom is proportional to seniority. The situation is worse outside academia where seniors can even "think" for you.
Think of it in a different way. He is proud of his former work and does not accept it might not be 100% correct. Secondly, he is a senior academic who knows better than you how to "sell" the paper. This might have helped your paper to go through. Reviewers usually think different than authors and he might know how they think in general.