If you write a series of journal articles from your thesis should your supervisors be 2nd and 3rd authors if they didn't contribute to the journal article but contributed to the thesis?

Hey! I suppose it depends on their contribution. If they have contributed to the thesis then I guess it is most likely that they will have contributed to at least some of your journal articles to some extent as well although perhaps indirectly, so I would probably be tempted to put them on. On my papers so far my primary supervisor has gone on as second author, but not my second supervisor as he has had no input on them at all, but on my results papers he will probably be third author as he has helped with recruitment etc. I actually think if your supervisor is quite well known then it's nice to have your name associated with them on your papers! To be honest I wasn't sure of policy on this so I actually asked my primary supervisor about who should go on them as I didn't want to offend anyone! Best, KB

Koturu, what do you mean by your sups having contributed to your thesis? Your supservisors are there to provide comments, guidance etc, but should not be contributing to your thesis - this is your work, not a joint production. There should not be any way whatever in which your supervisors are contributing to your thesis so much that you think they should be co-authors on authors arising from your thesis. If this is just the normal process of supervision, don't give them co-authorship - this is your work, and their comments are supervision, not co-authorship.

haha, I'm just about to publish from my thesis. My 1st sup is going on it - and deserves to, she has obviously helped me with the research and has restructured the writing for the publication. My other sup is also going on it - he has done NOTHING, I don't even think he knew what my research was about! but its political so I have to put up with it. I'm hoping I will be invited to be on any publications he does at some stage, and if not, I tend to live by "don't burn your bridges" in terms of networking!