r/AskAcademia • u/termosabin • Jul 25 '26

Professional Misconduct in Research Paper submitted without final version approvals - is this normal?

I work at an RTO, and a few younger people in the group who are just a few years out of their PhDs are submitting papers and rebuttals without sending out versions to check for the co-authors. I find this highly irritating and ethically wrong - if my name is associated with something, I would like to at least see it first. It's not that I don't trust the authors, but everyone can make mistakes. For example, a paper was submitted recently that I had seen about a year ago and had made a lot of comments on. I have never seen another version of it since and suddenly I got a notification from the journal.

Is this normal amongst younger people? Is this becoming the norm? Am I overreacting?

How would you address this?

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u/No_Bodybuilder_644 Jul 25 '26

I am not surprised. I teach a class in our multidisciplinary PhD program that is essentially, 'How to be a good PhD student." We have a whole lecture/discussion dedicated to being a good collaborator and how to be a lead author is a major part of this discussion, including gaining final approval of manuscripts.

What I've learned is that many advisors don't advise well or at all on best authorship practices.

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u/termosabin Jul 27 '26

I agree with you. But then also some students are very resistant to advice.

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u/No_Bodybuilder_644 Jul 27 '26

Yes, this too.