Question for fellow researchers

I stopped doing research with my professor about a year ago and he just emailed me essentially asking me to write a short article on a method I sort of invented, properly formatted to the scientific journal's standards. Without being paid. How common is it for your research professor to keep bugging you when you no longer work for them?

I'll write your email for you, since you're too much of a pussy

Dear Pr. XYZ

I no longer work at .... .
There must be a postdoc that is qualified enough to write about this topic there currently in a lab as good as yours.

Best of luck,

sign here.

You're not supposed to abbreviate in salutations.

So tell him that he can read your lab notebook, which every researcher leaves in every professional lab for this exact purpose.

or what? Everyone does it, time to adapt.

By your title and your namefield entry I'm assuming that you're still in the research game so why exactly would you not want to write the article when it would boost your career?

It sounds to me like he's willing to help you with it, if you don't want him as a co-author just read up on your old university's policies (you probably signed some sort of contract) to make sure there won't be any consequences when you fuck him over.

In any case it's probably worth sacrificing a few weekends to finsish it.

I am about to be a senior (undergraduate, Biology major), and the research I did with him was on chemical ecology. I started it before I realized that I want to study microbiology instead. The article has literally nothing to do with microbiology, but I will probably need my professor to write a recommendation for grad school in the future. Should I do it?

You've already done the work. Why not write the article? Getting an article published is always a good thing.

Talk with the professor, get the recommendation first. Look out for yourself or get trampled on, your choice.

write it up as a journal article, then make him last author, get mad pubs. He'll be happy, you'll be happy. He also won't be able to fuck you in the ass and claim it as his method

This is some hardcore paranoia.

He's trying to help your career, user.

This is like the most normal thing ever.

If you're too busy tell him. Was the guy a dick?

>hi I'm fresh out of my mother's womb. The sun is warm and the air is fresh, nothing bad can happen to me

Do you really believe a professor would refuse to write a recommendation for someone because he didn't want to write an article? Professors are happy to write recommendations for good students, and doing more good work only gives a recommender more to write about.

I know you think it makes you look smart and experienced when you talk about everyone being out to get you, but you need to understand that cynicism and wisdom are different things.

"Get it in writing".

It's a piece of advice.

If OP thinks it's bad advice, then so be it. I couldn't give two shits.

It's not about being paranoid, it's about keeping control of things instead of letting everything just "happen to you". Good things happen to you, but bad things happen as well. For all he knows, the professor could die in a car accident and he wouldn't get his recommendation.

The professor isn't going to give a copy of his recommendation to the OP anyways, so this dying in a car crash argument is ridiculous. Any recommender could die in a car crash in the months between being asked to write a letter and actually submitting it, and there's nothing that could ever be done about that. I don't know why you think you have any control over that by refusing to do any work until he agrees to write a letter.

it's going to be published. publications are good for you, so i'm not seeing the downside...especially since it's something you created?

> "research" preformed at universities is real research
> giving a shit about your meaningless "invention"

A tiny minority of ground-breaking research has ever been the result of an academia cuck, so who gives a shit. Tell the twat to fuck off, if he is a professor he is washed up idiot anyway. You need to realise that Feynman was a very special case.

We are not worthy, we are not worthy....

>Do you really believe a professor would refuse to write a recommendation for someone because he didn't want to write an article? Professors are happy to write recommendations
Lol dude, you are so naive it hurts

you got paid to work in undergrad research? paid in a fucking ecology project?

you should be stroking his shaft and licking his boots. every project in my undergrad was voluntary.

What kind of poorfag department doesn't pay its undergrad researchers?

Pretty much all of them. We did get perdium and expenses paid when we had to go far off campus though.

We get 2k per month for undergrad ChemE research.

It's not much, but it's better than
>doing it for free

Let me guess: you don't study for free.

You're not my real dad

As long as I keep my GPA above my bursar's requirements I get paid to study.