Andras reference to the previous RG thread in my opinion answers the question especially with Lars reference to ICMJE. What I think is important to highlight in those rules is that it allows for a person to do the experiment but not do the writing. Nonetheless, he should be involved in the correction of the draft and editing critically the contents of the exposition. A person that does the experiment should be involved since he is the one that did the experiment and knows what it took to get the presented results. On the other hand if the second person just writes the paper and is not involved in the process of experimentation he is not to be considered an author since he did not get involved int he other activities as outlined by the ICMJE (just writing is not conception or designing of the work since it is done after the experiments are done).

Just a thought

Once, in a very similar situation, it happened that a colleague of mine, aspirant co-author for a project/paper of mine, sent me his first review on my work via email. Attached, he had also included a NDA…

—g

Dear Ahmad

A paper, whatever their nature, will have an individual who conceptualizes, which defined its goals, it decided that the material to be studied and which method to be used and that too, in general, is responsible for the final analysis the results obtained. This person does not always technically mastered many or all methods used at work; should, however, be the primary author and his name must appear as the first in the list of authors

As for the co-authors, several criteria may be adopted, for example, the order of importance of their contribution, or alphabetically

I believe there is no problem with that. I always prefer to think that science is best when it is the result of the work of many authors that when it is the result of a lonely job.

And we must also remember that the interaction between the experimenter and the writer can always bring new elements to the work, or identifying possible inconsistencies or bringing light to illuminate the work from new angles.

No.... If all the person is doing is writing up results etc. It cannot be claimed that it is their work hence how can they be a co-author... More a ghost writer. It should be explained what their actual contribution to the research was.

I think collaboration is an essential component in doing research. I should admit that most of us researchers like spending time in the lab doing experiments than writing. However, there is a saying which states " if you haven't write you haven't done it". A research needs to be reported to the audience through writing. Therefore, one may easily see that researchers (first type researchers in the original post) requires good writers in their field to get the results across the community. If we spend our time doing experiments without reporting the results to the audience I think it is not very useful and the research is not complete. It is important to note that audience is the target group to receive the findings and they in fact complete the circle. Conclusively, I recommend that researchers of type one (those who like doing experiments than writing) collaborate with type two researchers to complete the circle.

Today it is impossible... even in maths to work .. in isolation .. and

often many research results are not published .. due to various reasons

including what is stated in the question. Conferences ..are actually a form of consultation.. Most publications do ask if there was contribution by the

authors..and it is left to the team to decide first author.. splitting hairs

on individual contribution does not bring much to the table.....many

research is done by teams .. and they do share the credit.

.IMHO the team building and inspiration is the most important contribution..

and this again is done in many ways,,Even NOBEL laureates I suppose

.. depend on the team nowadays.. and they are usually the alpha of the

team. NOBEL prizes are also seen to be awarded to teams in recent times..Human progress would stumble if we revert to 18th/ 19th/20th century individual heroics..

type of claiming credit...

My simple rule of thumb is the writer of the first draft is the first-author.

Colloborative research is what is most popular these days. But the level of cooperation should be more integrated not merely one generating teh data and other just writing it. This is more liek student teacher relation, usually the professors give guidance to develop experimental design and later tidy up teh writing. But I personally dont feel it is right to sublet writing to a third person who has not contributed in the study in any other respect.

Dear Ahmad.

What you said " I have finished experiments for 3 different papers, but I cannot start writing."

Have you heard the famous Michael Faraday quote."The secret is comprised in three words: work, finish, publish." said Faraday. His advice to a younger scientist to can serve as a useful reminder on the wall of any modern laboratory. In other words, all of your hard works are gone unless you finish the task!

These are few recommendations:

Start writing few papers from your results in your own language in national journals.

Then move to bigger audience by trying to write for some international journals. Maybe "cross-boarders co-authoring" as you phrased it is a good idea to start with.

Once you published few papers you will see that writing is much easier than doing experiments!

I think that it is quite common situation, at least in psychology. Apart of doing good research you need not only technically report the results, but also have the idea how to "sell it". It is not so easy have a deep knowledge about everything what was published before, be talented writer, and good experimentator at once. If your co-author could help you with finding good theroetical context to your results, explaining how it contributes to current knowledge, it is a real partnership, not just "ghost writting". Of course, the best (also ethically) solution is just to start cooperation at the moment of posing research problems, formulating hypotheses, and finally inventing experimental design with your co-author before you will do experiment yourself.

Dear All,

Authority is a popular subject. It is because of easy opportunities for exploitation, the hierarchical system of universities and institutes and mainly because of the weakness of ethical backgrounds. In many cases the more powerful person decides on the actual rules. This can be seen clearly on the comments here:

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Who_should_be_among_co-authors_of_the_scientific_paper

where efforts were made to find the objective determinants of (co) authority.

The trouble is that scientific ethics became so deformed that often the exploited young colleagues are satisfied with it. Some journals have good working rules for authority. Certainly, outputs of the deformed hierarchical systems cannot be corrected a posteriori.

If the manuscript drafting is done by someone who was involved in the research I think there is no problem. But if the person is an "ALIEN" with the whole project I don't think it is good to go. Your co-author(s) must fulfill the "Authorship criteria".

Andras reference to the previous RG thread in my opinion answers the question especially with Lars reference to ICMJE. What I think is important to highlight in those rules is that it allows for a person to do the experiment but not do the writing. Nonetheless, he should be involved in the correction of the draft and editing critically the contents of the exposition. A person that does the experiment should be involved since he is the one that did the experiment and knows what it took to get the presented results. On the other hand if the second person just writes the paper and is not involved in the process of experimentation he is not to be considered an author since he did not get involved int he other activities as outlined by the ICMJE (just writing is not conception or designing of the work since it is done after the experiments are done).

Just a thought

I agree with others. Cross-boarders co - authoring is good - but you may want to draft the manuscript first, especially since you have done the experiments and you'll probably be the first co - author.

Arturo Geigel explained nicely.

It would be the best idea to start drafting yourself! But some one with good expertise in your research field, even from abroad, could significantly contribute to preparing manuscript, and analyzing and interpreting data; if then, I think the expert may ethically be involved as a co-author?, and in future a good collaboration may be established what is necessarily good for your research network.

I agree with the idea that certain protocol that is either already established for this type of situation, or one that the researcher elucidates, ought to guide this process as it seems to be a situation where collaboration would be ideal.

Personally, I write and edit articles for others but do not expect attribution since the ideas were not mine; I simply polish what they have written already. I think that this is different from what you are asking as it seems that you would like someone to write up what you have done. This would necessitate close collaboration of different kind, since the writer would need to have an intimate knowledge of what you are doing, and how you came to your conclusions. I don't know if notes alone would be sufficient enough for a writer to convey the fulness of your efforts; hence a close collaboration seems to be ideal...

Even when an experiment has been finished, depending on the type of content, someone who was not necessarily involved in the experiment can still significantly shape the presentation of that data. In my recent articles whoever ends up doing the most analysis and writing has been the first author, but in some sense each collaborative team has to work out the different allocation of responsibilities and the corresponding attribution in authorship. I think anyone who ends up having a substantial involvement in drafting or revision (and you want their approval of the final draft) should be listed as a co-author.

The closer you get to Humanities in your field of research, the better you need to verbalize it. Discovery and naming the discovery (as well as describing it) go hand in hand in humanistic areas. As to the sciences, I have given a course on bioscientific Greek and Latin, teaching future physicians and pharmacists how to name their pharmaceutical and medical discoveries by combining the correct Greek or Latin prefixes and suffixes. So I really do think that discovery and writing are inseparable. Without conceptual tools to grasp a phenomenon newly discovered, in my judgment, the discovery stands incomplete. You ask if it is ethical to pass the write-up to another researcher. I think that ethics does not enter. The problem is strictly cognitive, having to do with knowledge as such.

I definitely appreciate Nelson's point above although I think it is just as applicable in science. I agree that discovery and writing are inseparable, and I would in fact say that the writing can be key in clarifying the nature of the discovery. If writing is difficult for you (whether due to temperament or facility of language) you should at least write an outline (of a scientific report) corresponding to each publishable dataset to clarify for yourself "What does this experiment/dataset add to the current knowledge?" Does it support a prior finding that needed to be strengthened, does it appropriately question an accepted finding, or pose a new question? Hopefully you can either develop the skills to write yourself and/or find someone who will help you articulate your thoughts well. Good luck!

Well said Nelson Orringer and Rachel Y Lei

Ahmad,

I think I can teach you to write so that you find it fun and not boring: put one word about your discovery after another until you are satisfied that all your words fully cover your discovery. Most of these words should be nouns and many should be action verbs

so that your readers do not get bored. Choose words for their precision and for their picture-forming power. The greater the expressivity and the fewer the number of words used, the more exciting your discovery appears.