Supervisor as coauthor in writing for publication: Evidence from a cohort of non-native English-speaking Master of Education students

Abstract

Existing studies on writing for publication have focused on doctoral students and junior scholars, leaving those non-native English-speaking (NNES) Master’s students understudied. This article presents a case study of the challenges and coping strategies shared by the six purposively selected NNES Master’s students, who have each successfully published in an international academic journal with their supervisor. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the students and their supervisor, and their research proposals, manuscripts and publications were collected and analysed. The results indicated that: (1) the topics co-constructed by the students and their supervisor laid a solid foundation for their success in journal publication; (2) all the case students demonstrated a long-term commitment to academia and proactively coped with numerous challenges during their writing-for-publication processes; and (3) ‘supervisor as coauthor’ was found to be a successful strategy, with co-revision at its core.