Sorry Hasnain, can you clarify the context of submission? is this a research/editorial submission to an academic journal?

Thanks -

Laura

From my point of view M, Sc, Students can be trained before finishing their thesis to write a proper paper with the right regulations,especially the plagiarism programs which are available now can trace each part of the paper and shows the similarity report.

It is unclear what the thrust of your question is -- you might want to formulate your question anew. As a double-blind reviewer, let me say this: a research article submitted to a journal will be sent to a reviewer with all indications about the author completely removed, meaning the cover page is removed. I have never seen any indications about whether it is a single-author, dual-author or multiple-author article. So, you can be sure there is no question of minimum educational level. If you dream something and then write a paper, and it is original, it will be published.

Srinivas Ramanujan, from India, considered by many mathematicians as one of the 20th centuries greatest mathematicians said he had been inspired by a Hindu god in dreams to come up with some mathematical theorems which still exercise the minds of researchers today!

Ramanujan had very little education, and was poor and so did not complete his studies; he discovered many of the then known mathematical formulae himself. This is from the book The Man who knew Infinity – A Life of the Genius Ramanujan ( author Rober Kanigel) : “ … out of such a place, from a poor family, came a mathematician so alive with genius the English had practically hand-delivered him to Cambridge, there to share his gifts with the scholars of Trinity College and learn whatever they could teach him.” (op cit, pp1-2).If you are from India, you must have heard of him, if you have done mathematics. Or perhaps mathematicians from India.

Kekule the German scientist came up with the structure of the benzene molecule after seeing a snake touching its tail with its head, during a dream!

So, dreams are not to be scorned at.

Bottom-line: forget minimum education – discover new things, create new ideas and artifacts, formulate new theories and no one will want to know what degrees you have and no one will bat an eyelid if you have no minimum qualifications.

I hope you, after reading this, will have been inspired to do great things and make a contribution that help make  our world a better place.

Good Luck

Thanks a lot for all of your answers. The main part and focus of the question is that; a student who has completed his Masters level education (M.Sc.) and got a degree. Now he wants to submit his research work from his thesis in a suitable journal as being a corresponding author. Now the question is "Is he eligible to be a corresponding author or he needs to get help from a Professor/ supervisor to be a corresponding author and then submit the manuscript in a  journal which publishes the original research work.?

As I explained earlier the M. Sc. Student should learn how to write a  research paper by himself with the right protocols under the eyes of his supervisor (specify the problem clearly - how it solved- results  and discussions, conclusions- proper reference documentation- no plagiarism)  as he completed the job properly he can submit the paper includes the name of the student and the supervisor. It is not eligible at all for the the student to submit a paper includes the supervisor name without his knowledge. Many publishing problems happen for the supervisors for this reason,

Prof. S. EL-Rabaie

Mr Shah, Now that you have provided the context of your question I can give you a forthright response from several viewpoints.

First from the student’s viewpoint:

1) if s(he) proposed the topic of the research, and had a university lecturer as supervisor, s(he) should write up the paper herself / himself – s(he) should decide on the format by checking up on a journal that interests her/him. The paper should be written to conform to the requirements of the journal to which it is to be submitted. Then, s(he) should ask the supervisor if she/he would like to be shown as co-author; in this case the student is the first author if the supervisor wants to be associated with the paper. If the supervisor, for some reason does not want to be included as co-author, the student should go ahead and submit as single author, and show her/his affiliation as the university or institute. If the student is already in employment, s(he) should also show her/his current employer. If, not in employment, s(he) could ask the journal which affiliation is preferred and editors will always give advice, particularly if the paper is original and contributes to the advancement of a subject area.

2) From the supervisor’s point of view – if the supervisor thinks that the student has made an interesting contribution, he/she may suggest to the student to write a paper for submission. In this, it is a matter of courtesy for the student to offer to include the supervisor as first author. Now, if I were the supervisor, I would insist that the student be the first author, as the student has done all the work. That is what I have done in the past.

3) If the supervisor has proposed the topic, and the student undertook the work, I think it is perfectly reasonable that the supervisor is shown as first author. I recall co-writing a paper with my student. I wrote the introduction and the conclusion and I did also help in writing the body of the paper especially in choosing which hypotheses we wanted to save for the next paper to be submitted to a journal – there were many hypotheses in the Master’s degree thesis. The paper, submitted to a business management conference in London, UK, had the student as second author. Unfortunately, both of us never found the time to write a full paper for submission to a journal, which fact I regret deeply as it explored the last mile problem of e-commerce. We anticipated some problems with last-mile deliveries. Since then, e-commerce has grown exponentially so much so that the delivery to the ordering customer has become a serious problem if the customer is not there to receive the delivery of the parcel. Thus, here in The Netherlands, the e-commerce vendors are now proposing to charge for delivery, not that it was totally free before; they have recently proposed to add an extra fee for covering the consequential problems that arise when the customer is not present to receive the parcel. That paper incidentally was: Philip A Barbonis & Jorgen Jelmert (2002): E-Commerce Last-Mile Problem: A European Customers’ Perspective. Proc. British Academy of Management Conference 2002, Fast-Tracking Performance through Partnerships, Sept 2002, London, UK.

I realize I have gone beyond answering your question by also suggesting how the issue of assigning authors could be addressed. I hope it helps. No doubt, others may have other suggestions.