There is a trend going on where PhD graduates and post docs coming out from big labs have numerous publications (not necessarily as a first author). Upon questioning them one finds out that they might have just did a small section of the experiments or did analyse a data (may be XRD or TEM etc.), not necessarily have written up the manuscript or contributed in deep discussion in the manuscript. Is it ethical?
Dear Mahabubur Rahman Chowdhury,
The answer to your question is YES, this is ethical. As far as you are contributing to the research, you have the right to be included in the publication of that research. The co-authors does not need to the person who has done in the write-up only. Co-authors can have contributions in experiments, data collection, write-up or any stage of research process.
Best wishes,
A paper in physics had 24 pages out of the total 33 listing co-authors - more than 5,000. Another paper on a drosophila genome had about 1,500. Ethics in mega-author journals is questionable. I think most of the so-called authors are best technicians who only need to be acknowledged in the Acknowledgement.
It might not always be so in a way you are thinking. Kindly see the PDF of the attached publication. There are 97 authors. There is no so called first author and co-authors. All the names are alphabetically arranged giving equal credit to all of them and I know well that everyone has contributed something in the paper.
On my opinion, it all depends on the specific publication. I think it's ethical if the publication is very voluminous, contains the results of numerous studies, and each author has indeed made his big contribution.
I think the term contribution is misleading. What level of contribution warrants authorship in a manuscript? If somebody just types all the names and their affiliations in a manuscript, does that persons contirbution counts? Is there any universal set of guidelines for this or is it institution specific?
Dear Mahabubur Rahman Chowdhury,
The answer to your question is YES, this is ethical. As far as you are contributing to the research, you have the right to be included in the publication of that research. The co-authors does not need to the person who has done in the write-up only. Co-authors can have contributions in experiments, data collection, write-up or any stage of research process.
Best wishes,
In my opinion, this is ethical. A research should be named after its contributors.
As per ethical guidelines the contribution of authorship may includes experimental bench work, instrumental facility - data interpretation, drafting, corrections, motivation, etc.
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