Dealing with an advisor who is not interested in publishing

In comments, you say that you have less than a year left until graduation. Given this fact, it would likely not be easy to get more than a couple of quality publications out during this time in any case, particularly with a perfectionist advisor and little experience in publishing yourself.

As such, I think your big goal (besides graduating) should be to get a good postdoc lined up, where you can solidly advance your career and do a lot of publication. Having few publications but a respected advisor can be a totally reasonable combination for moving to a good postdoc. If necessary, you may even do more than one round of postdoc. Once you establish a solid "upward trajectory" and track record of publications, the fact that you published little in grad school will not be a problem, particularly if your one grad school publication is indeed a very good one.


One of the first "guides" to a PhD that I ever read, mentioned the pros and cons of choosing a young advisor versus an old advisor. Certainly it isn't that black and white but your description is exactly what that article talked about.

In response to your points:

  1. The number of publications on your resume is important. It is how you will be evaluated on the job market. Just as importantly though, submitting papers and attending conferences is a great way to get feedback, network, and find collaborators.
  2. Not publishing until the end isn't a death sentence but you definitely need to be getting feedback from other researchers in your community years before that. Again, publishing and attending conferences is an awesome experience and could help you find jobs (it certainly has helped me find great internships!).

My suggestions would be to (A) talk to your advisor about this again, (B) find a co-advisor, or (C) switch advisors entirely. A co-advisor could potentially give you the best of both worlds. But it sounds like your current advisor has very different goals for you than what you want so you have to take some time and contemplate if you want to continue working with him.