This is very important to me and other young researchers. The confusion about the importance of authorship in a paper is high because recently, I have come to understand that it depends on the academic institution, the publishing journal or even the discipline. I would like to have this confusion cleared. Is the order of importance of authors in a published paper dependent on the country, university, journal or discipline?
Is the last author more important than the second author in a paper?
How important is the second author?
I assume, perhaps erroneously, that the first author listed is the most important contributor to the publication. Thereafter, the ordering of authors is less significant.
Hello Vivian Oguadinma
I think the answer to your question about "how important is the order" is that it is VERY important.
To answer your question "is the last author more important than the second", my answer (based on experiences) is yes. A lot of second authors in my projects were not that good.
However, there are also many cases with an alphabetic order of authors - when it was hard to say who contributed more and who did less.
See also these previous discussions:
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Authorship-wise_what_is_the_difference_between_a_second_author_and_a_third_or_last_author_in_a_journal_article
https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_is_the_order_of_authors_in_multi-author_scientific_publications
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Order_of_authors
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Do_you_think_that_in_a_publication_with_several_authors_that_the_first_author_is_the_one_who_worked_the_most_for_the_publication_of_the_article
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Is_it_okay_for_the_first_and_third_author_to_have_equal_contribution_in_a_paper_deep_learning_in_medical_imaging_field
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