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I am a (hopefully) soon-to-be PhD graduate, and by the time I graduate I should have 4 papers, 3 of them with only me as the only author and another one in collaboration with other people. I recently had an idea that I want to turn in a paper, and I am quite confident that I can do that on my own, maybe with some advice from the supervisor but I already have a quite clear idea of what I need to do in mind. My question is: can this be counterproductive?

I'll try to explain myself. If I end up with 4 out of 5 papers with me as the single author, I fear I'll be seen as someone who cannot collaborate with people, while in truth it just happened that I managed to prove most of the results I was interested in essentially by myself. Is this fear reasonable or am I worrying too much? How do you suggest me to proceed?

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    $\begingroup$ Don't worry. I'm the sole author on most of my papers and I am doing fine. I have never received a warning along the lines you have suggested. Concentrate on your work, collaborate when that make sense and do the best work you can do. $\endgroup$
    – Liviu Nicolaescu
    Commented yesterday
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    $\begingroup$ The current culture is this. If $8$ people write a joint annals paper, then they each get an annals paper (for jobs, awards, etc.). I think this is stupid. $\endgroup$
    – mathworker21
    Commented yesterday
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    $\begingroup$ I've actually heard varied opinions about how to count papers (or whether to count them!). Without opening this can of worms, the two options seem to be "divide by the number of coauthors" or "just count the number". Besides metrics, it can also be quite rewarding to share your ideas with others, because of the supposed "80/20 rule" that 80% of your time is spent on 20% of the details. A coauthor may exactly cover your weaknesses and allow you to finish the project a lot faster. (P.S. This is also advice to myself, as I also predominantly write single-authored papers.) $\endgroup$
    – R. van Dobben de Bruyn
    Commented yesterday
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    $\begingroup$ As someone with a fairly varied profile between single-author and collaborated works, and also having served on a hiring committee recently, I will say that a balance is quite favourable. Too many collaborated papers and it seems like you can't work on your own, and too many solo papers seem like you might not get along with others. Neither are fatal, and if your work is good then this will be a non-issue. $\endgroup$
    – Stanley Yao Xiao
    Commented yesterday
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    $\begingroup$ Here's a different angle. You generally shouldn't publish everything you can prove. It takes a lot of time and resources to publish something, so there's a huge opportunity cost to pay. If your new idea will result in a genuinely good paper, great, go for it. A virtue of coauthors is that they ensure other people care about the results. $\endgroup$
    – Joshua P. Swanson
    Commented yesterday

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According to my experience (50 years in academia) it works in just the opposite way. A PhD whose all papers are joint with her adviser raises a suspicion that she cannot work independently. It is good for your career to have single-authored papers.

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    $\begingroup$ I think the question is about co-authorship with other people, not the advisor. Perhaps the OP can clarify. $\endgroup$
    – R. van Dobben de Bruyn
    Commented yesterday
  • $\begingroup$ I would think it works, though not as pronouncedly, for other co-authors, too: some collaboration record is surely a good thing, but very few single-author papers leaves a hiring committee in less of a position to judge the applicant's individual mathematical contributions (beyond the non-negligible ability to find/create, and work productively with, good teams). $\endgroup$
    – LSpice
    Commented yesterday
  • $\begingroup$ Yeah, I meant with other people! $\endgroup$
    – tommy1996q
    Commented 9 hours ago

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