Dear Andreas,

When I was younger, I was most of times both the first and the corresponding author. Getting older, and having a growing number of collaborations, I was more often neither the first nor the corresponding author. After becoming the head of my own research team, I was (almost) always the last author and, most of times, the corresponding author as well, at least for papers whose major part was carried out in our lab. But involving younger researchers is very important, and especially they have to test out being corresponding authors. Therefore now, more often than before, I am the last author but not necessarily the corresponding author. The amount of work didn't really change for me, as I continue correcting all papers before they are submitted, but this short story explains how from 1st author I became the last one. I believe that most senior researchers did the same in their research career.

Alain

Thanks, I think most people consider the last author to be a stronger contributor than the coauthors "in the middle", even is the last author is not the corresponding author. I agree that it is good to let young independent researchers become the corresponding author when they have led the project forward.

Yes, indeed, as a last author, I am certainly not the main contributor, but the leading researcher (most of times, again they can be some exceptions). The main contributor always deserves the 1st place in the authors list, this is my point of view.

Try to read this book.

Day, R.A. (1979), How to write and publish a scientific paper, ISI Press, Philadelphia.