Should it be alphabetically, seniority wise or by amount of contribution? Where should the research supervisor's name come - first or last?
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To my knowledge, it is based on the amount of contribution, definitely not by seniority. Typically research supervisor's name comes last and typically he/she is the corresponding author.
Yes, I agree it shall be based on the amount of contribution. But in practice, it is often not followed. There are quite a few dummy authors. Adding the name of well known and powerful person as one of the authors, helps in getting paper accepted for publication.
Adding the name of a well known and powerful person may help to get papers accepted. But I believe, all the authors should actually contibute.
Therefore, if that well known and powerful person also contribute to the paper, then the quality of paper will be improved, because he can advise with his knowledge & experience. Then it would be a good solution.
I would like to note that alphabetical principle is widely used in Russian scientific literature. I guess this fact reflects some very deep national cultural and social traditions.
The first author is the main author that contributed most. In medicine the last author is the senior author. Problem is that usually only the first author and last author are given true credit. As a result you see also constructions like "equally contributing first authors". because often there are multiple people that did the work. Unfortually politics can play a role when it comes to an author list. A guiding principle should be that everyone contributed.
It depends on the field of study. When it comes to natural science and Engineering, I agree with Sreerup.
I feel name of supervisor should be after the candidate. After all it is work of candidate under our guidance. The sequence expected is as per contribution in the work.
We had so many discussions on that subject recently. I feel there is no rule except for the first author being the main contributor. The other authors definitely must contribute, but translating their individual contributions into an order of appearance is something close to impossible.
My view on this question is that it would according to the contribution of authors. Main contributor must be first author and if there is a tie in the contribution e.g. for 2nd and 3rd authors then tie can be broken alphabetical preference. It is rather very difficult to assess the contribution of different authors in terms of numbers(%). This rule would be applicable to supervisors as well.
The main researcher should be the first author followed by the guide author and the contributors based on the % will follow accordingly. this could be the right judgement.
For normal research group, the main contributor should be the first author.
For student and supervisors, normally student is the first author, followed by supv and co-supv.
Some opinion said the first author is the main researchers that stay in the lab doing the experimental work and writing papers and the last author is professor that too busy to go to the lab.
The student who did the work and writes up the paper should be the first author. The corresponding author is the one who supervises and contributes intellectually advising the student on the work. I believe only the corresponding author(s) and first author(s) should get full credit, the rest are all part of the work to a certain extent. The weight-age can be decreasing 2nd, 3rd.. and so on. But as suggested by some, if the ordering is alphabetically done then it is altogether different, not seen any in "Engineering" discipline.
I agree with the most of you that the author order should be based on the degree of contribution whether he/she is a student or a full professor.
If happened that all the authors did the same amount of effort, then their order to be arranged alphabetically.
I think there is no common rule that is followed by all researchers. However, it is fair to adopt the rule; the first author being the main contributor. Other authors have their names according to their contributions in the paper. The innovative idea should have higher weight in estimating the contribution of each author.
The order of author names may be an important question, depending on the institution that examines the researchers CVs. As other colleagues say, the usual way is that the authors who have most contributed appear in the first places, and those who provide the intellectual guide (usually phd advisors and research principal investigators) appear in last places. However, in some cases different criteria are used if for example a publication that is a result of a collaboration between two research groups. We have sometimes put all the authors of a research group before the authors of the other group. So, its up to the authors, but I would suggest yo to design a long term strategy for the authors order. Otherwise, it can lead to problems in the future.
Well Sreerup, that depends on the supervisor. I know some and have had some supervisors who did not contribute at all but are always still on the papers. I witnessed a recent discussion of a PhD student with his supervisor about the draft manuscript. This is what happened. First the supervisor took 3 month to read it. Then his comment was: nice paper but difficult to read. Student asked, what should I do differently? Supervisor replied, just write it nicely. Student again: But how exactly? Supervisor: Just different! Student had puzzled look on his face…
To cut a long story short. Most of the students need a good supervision to write their first paper. And if the paper was a common effort and supervision was good, then I fully agree with you Sreerup that the supervisor should be second. But only then…
According to PhD comics: http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=562
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An excellent reply Dr. Olivier Minazzoli. Many thanks. All researchers should visit the above web-site.
Recently we submitted paper to propose author categorization. The Editor in Chief of a Journal suggested to incorporate a number of improvements including an opinion survey on the issue. He wrote, "If you could make the above improvements, I believe your manuscript could become an authoritative work on authorship." That encouraging note from the Editor in Chief prompted us to conduct the survey. However, for a stronger and comprehensive conclusion, a wider participation from around the globe is necessary. I sincerely hope that you will spend 3-4 minutes to express your opinion using the survey form given in the following link. I shall also appreciate your kind effort to share the link among your colleagues. Following is the link for the survey form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc9JVJfDPjfOzeIM5ghSrfEi5fGbFjOLkLPaGGc5sdLktQe4Q/viewform?c=0&w=1
Regardless of the discipline, if it's a student-supervisor paper, then the student must always come first. When collaborating with colleagues (in my case, geographers, development studies, economists, sociologists), then either alphabetical order, or an agreed order among the (co)authors based on the weight of contribution (per author) to the actual research and the workload in the writing of the paper.
Alphabetical always. If you are not alphabetical, you in a bad field filled with horrible politics and worse.
https://mathoverflow.net/questions/19987/math-paper-authors-order
Students would be first author and the supervisor will be the last on the list
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