Scientists often discuss (or bicker) about the
order of authorship on papers. “I got a first-author paper published!” or “I
was only second author on the paper.”
What do such phrases mean?
The first author on a paper is supposed to be the
person who worked the most on the paper. Usually, the researcher who did the
research of the paper, not necessarily the person who did the most writing.
(See Lead Author, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_author).
Often, this is the graduate student who worked on the project.
The last author*
is usually the professor, the one who had the vision of the project (and the
money). This author is the researcher who was overseeing the project.
The other authors (second, third, etc) are other
people who have worked on the project. This can include other graduate
students, undergraduates, post-docs, lab techs, etc.
Figure 1: First Author: The happy grad student
who is now closer to graduation.
Second Author: The fuming grad student who
wishes they were first author.
Third author: The happy professor who is closer
to getting tenure.
While you’re in grad school or your post-doc,
you try to accumulate as many first author papers as possible. These papers
prove that you can finish a research project AND write up the results.
However, once you’ve become a professor, then
you want as many last author papers as possible. You’re showing the academic world
that you can manage students and get them to produce results.
Issues:
1) Who do you include as another author:
It’s more impressive to be the first author on
a 2 person paper than on a 3 person paper so sometimes people will try to not
include people who deserve to be on the paper. Ultimately, the professor is
usually the one who gets the final say.
Conversely, sometimes you are forced to include
someone as an author as an honorary gesture.
2) What if two people contributed to a project
equally:
In this case, more than one person might
deserve to be a first author. Sometimes, the journal will allow you to list the
first two names with asterisks near them saying that these two authors
contributed equally.
Unfortunately, many people don’t read the
asterisk so if you’re the second author, you are SOL.
To solve some of these issues, journals require
researchers to list author contributions.
Ex: Author 3 developed the project, Author 1 performed
the experiments, Authors 2 and 3 wrote the paper.
If you’re hanging out with a scientist and she
has just published a first author paper, congratulate her on the great
accomplishment.
And if the scientist has been relegated to
second or third author, buy her drink and help her drown her sorrows in
alcohol.
Links:
Survey of Perceived Authorship (the importance
of being first, second, or last): http://www.nature.com/embor/journal/v8/n11/full/7401095.html
Fun fact:
Even cats have authored papers
(Cats and Publishing Physics Research, http://www.chem.ucla.edu/harding/cats.html)
A Paper with 2900 Authors: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v412/n6846/extref/412565aa.html
*There are very few single author papers nowadays
(http://www.nature.com/nature/history/full/nature06243.html).
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