Dear Buffy,
I completed a draft of a manuscript for publication and sent it to my faculty supervisor, Lee King, who is a co-author. That was four months ago. After the first month, I checked with Lee to make sure the manuscript was received. Lee said, “yes,” and nothing more. After the second month, I asked if I could get suggestions for revision and was told that Lee would get to it. After the third month, I asked when I could expect suggestions or revisions, and Lee said that it was a really busy time and would get to it soon. Now it’s the fourth month and still no response. I think Lee is just brushing me off and hoping I’ll go away or forget about it. What do I do?
Dear Dealing with No Feedback,
Let’s start with figuring out what you really want. What is the result you want for yourself? I’m presuming you may have a goal to get published so you can strengthen your CV for future employment. How about your relationship with Lee? How important is it to you to keep a strong, respectful working relationship? You clearly need to talk with Lee to get a better sense of what is going on. Here is an example of how the conversation might go if you had the twin goals of getting published and keeping a good relationship with Lee.
“Lee, we are co-authors on this manuscript. I am excited to get it completed so we can submit it for publication. I’ve asked several times for feedback and you’ve told me you’d get to it soon. Several months have gone by, and I still don’t have any feedback for improvement. I am wondering if you have forgotten about it, or if it’s the case that you just don’t want to deal with it. Can you help me understand?”
Depending upon Lee’s response, you would be in a better place to generate a good next response. It may be that Lee has a serious doubt about the paper and is avoiding putting time into feedback because of that. If that’s the case, and you have confidence in the project, perhaps Lee would be open to you becoming the sole author of the manuscript and moving it ahead yourself. On the other hand, it is not unusual for senior faculty to get overwhelmed with multiple commitments and drop a commitment about which they really care. If this is the case with Lee and your co-authored paper, the issue may be simply how to make Lee’s giving of feedback less work. There might be a task you could take on that would enable Lee to get you feedback soon, or you could suggest that no written feedback is needed—that the two of you could simply talk about the paper and you would take notes.
