The correspondent author and the first author of a paper has equal points. The corresponding author is responsible for the correspondence during the process of submission
The first author is often the corresponding author as well, but apparently there can be variations. I have personally never heard any special importance for PhD studies of being the corresponding author, but more on being the first author of at least a couple of the papers in a thesis by publication.
The ICJME recommendations ( http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/ - widely accepted rules on scientific authorship) defines a correspondent author like this:
"The corresponding author is the one individual who takes primary responsibility for communication with the journal during the manuscript submission, peer review, and publication process. The corresponding author typically ensures that all the journal’s administrative requirements, such as providing details of authorship, ethics committee approval, clinical trial registration documentation, and disclosures of relationships and activities are properly completed and reported, although these duties may be delegated to one or more coauthors. The corresponding author should be available throughout the submission and peer review process to respond to editorial queries in a timely way, and should be available after publication to respond to critiques of the work and cooperate with any requests from the journal for data or additional information should questions about the paper arise after publication. Although the corresponding author has primary responsibility for correspondence with the journal, the ICMJE recommends that editors send copies of all correspondence to all listed authors."
I think the corresponding author serves as a single point of contact for the publisher. He or she just needs to be capable and willing to correspond with the publisher.
Corresponding author is the mediator and way of connection between authors and the journal. He/she may/may not be the first author. However, plays an important role in the publication process.
I think the supervisor should act as the corresponding author to get first hand information on the manuscript under review. Unless he delegates that due to his busy schedule.
Hi Tewodros Ayalew, we published over 400 papers in the field of inorganic chemistry. We normally handle it in the way that the co-worker who did the most work (normally a graduate student or post-doc) is named as first author. I am named in the last place as the corresponding author and the person who devised the research and wrote the paper.
The correspondent author and the first author of a paper has equal points. The corresponding author is responsible for the correspondence during the process of submission
Dear Tewodros Ayalew for some additional clarification of the different types of authors in research articles please see this instructive YouTube video entitled
Authorship in the Publication (First Author, Second Author, Co-author, and Corresponding Author)