My (ex-)advisor is holding our paper hostage I left a PhD program in statistics last August after nearly four years in the program. The department graciously allowed me to finish out my Masters, so I graduated in December and have since started a new job in a related but unusual field for my degree. One of my reasons for leaving the program was my relationship with my advisor, which was causing me daily stress that I decided was no longer worth enduring.
About a month before I decided to leave the program, I submitted what was to be the first paper of my dissertation to a well-regarded journal in our subfield. I was first author and my advisor was listed as second author. In December (right as I was about to graduate with a Masters), the paper returned as an acceptance with minor revisions. There were only a half dozen or so reviewer comments, mostly minor.
I got to work addressing the reviewers' concerns, which didn't take long. My advisor, however, raised a major concern. He insisted that one part of the algorithm described in our paper was incorrect and that I should fix it. I asked him why he thought it was wrong and his reply essentially boiled down to &quot;I'm convinced it is wrong&quot;. I stubbornly refused to do the additional work of another proof until he could identify where the original error was. This led to a very contentious Zoom call where my advisor told me that we should re-check essentially every part of the algorithm - because if one part was wrong, then perhaps everything was.
I eventually did the proof he had asked for and showed that I had been right all along. I sent the proof to my advisor and asked him to read it so that we could submit the paper. He said he would, but now almost two months have gone by and I have not heard from him. My previous experience with him leads me to believe that this radio silence is intentional and that he has not just forgotten about the whole project.
My options are:
A) Do nothing and (presumably) let the paper go unpublished. Given my career trajectory, it is not hugely important to me that the paper be published, although it would be nice to see my name as first author.
B) Nudge my advisor for a response, potentially provoking a demand for more work that I consider superfluous. Dealing with my advisor any further will almost certainly cause me a great deal of stress (or relationship is very strained).
If you think I should take option B, how can I be clear that I do not wish to put much additional work into the project and believe it should be submitted now that I have answered every reviewer comment? Should I make an ultimatum, or try to offer some sort of compromise?
If you really don't care about the paper then A seems ok as long as the paper isn't published without you.
But you could nudge the professor and then decide what you want to do. If you get unreasonable demands then you can back away which should prevent the paper being published (ethically, at least). But it is possible that your worst fears won't be realized and you have a simple way forward.
But I would save any ultimatum for a later round after you hear a response to a request to submit. You want to be the &quot;reasonable party&quot; in any conversation.