Hi

Everything has limits

My opinion, generally, there  is no limitation for the number of scientific articles authors.

Journals do not limit the number of authors, so, all people who contributed to the article should be mentioned. Often, writing with co-authors is good but sometimes it can also cause problems (e.g. if they cannot finish their work on time or if they are not fully honest about collected data or if you cannot agree what and how to change in the paper etc.).

Seyed  -

In some areas there is less opportunity for collaboration, but I think it very important to stress cooperation when possible and practical.  Unfortunately, too many people seem to strongly stress competition over cooperation, even when they are in fields where it would be easier to find a good research partner.  I think the world could use more cooperation.

On the other hand, having been in an area with fewer experts, it strikes me oddly when I see that a paper has been written by a dozen people.  How can that many people come up with a coordinated approach?  Perhaps that might work in a laboratory setting??

But yes, I think there are limits.  I think that it is good to have some singly authored papers where you have fewer other people to please, and can stress what you want to stress, and/or present a new idea of your own.  However, I think it also important to collaborate with others, if you have the opportunity, though "Too many cooks in the kitchen can spoil the broth."  :-)

Cheers!  - Jim

In my view, 

Scientist working alone has to work more numbers of hours to get something done. If he or she has no choice or sometime work does not need someone else, that is fine,

For team work led by one person (first author) and given hands from other like co-authors, things can get done faster and done according to the special techniques each co-author has. Otherwise, single author has to acquire all the techniques and become good at them.

No one has any negative point. Co-author means less contribution, first author means more contribution and the leader of the project.

Dear Colleague,

Good Day,

"Physics paper sets record with more than 5,000 authors

A physics paper with 5,154 authors has — as far as anyone knows — broken the record for the largest number of contributors to a single research article.

Only the first nine pages in the 33-page article, published on 14 May in Physical Review Letters1,describe the research itself — including references. The other 24 pages list the authors and their institutions.

The article is the first joint paper from the two teams that operate ATLAS and CMS, two massive detectors at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, Europe’s particle-physics lab near Geneva, Switzerland. Each team is a sprawling collaboration involving researchers from dozens of institutions and countries."....

please, see the links 

http://www.nature.com/news/physics-paper-sets-record-with-more-than-5-000-authors-1.17567

https://www.quora.com/What-academic-paper-has-the-most-co-authors

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S037026931200857X

A paper with 5,154 authors!

Many research projects are now undertaken by large collaborations worldwide who list all collaboration members as co-authors on the resulting publications. For example, thousands of scientists and engineers have worked on the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. They published a physics paper with 5,154 authors has broken the record for the largest number of contributors to a single research article. Only the first nine pages in the 33-page article [1] describe the research itself — including references. The other 24 pages list the authors and their institutions.

[1] Aad, G. et al. (2015). ATLAS Collaboration, CMS Collaboration, Phys. Rev. Lett. 114, 191803.

Dear @ Barbara Sawicka , @ Fateh Mebarek-Oudina, @ Tiia Vissak, @ James R Knaub, @ Subhash C. Juneja , @ George Stoica nd @ Vitaly Voloshin

Your answer is highly appreciated. I would like to know your opinion in this issue. Do you prefer to work on a scientific research alone or you plump for team working?

Dear Seyed Mehdi Mohammadizadeh.

In my opinion for journals 2-3 is ideal whereas up to 6 can be accommodated. More than six to be published as reports in form of book. 

Thanks a lot for your attention and complete answer Dear @ Dr. Hazim Hashim Tahir and @ Dr.Mahmoud Omid.

Dear Dr. Afaq Ahmad

Thank you for your answer. 

Most common practice in my department is between 3 and 5 authors per paper in the following line-up: Student, supervisor (s), and adviser (s).

Nowadays, shared authorship (>+6) is common in most academic disciplines mainly due to multidisciplinary nature of the work being conducted. Of course the criteria for co-authorship differ per field, but some papers have a lot of co-authors (e.g. my previous post). Perhaps due to having an instrument that was used in an inter-comparison /validation study. 

Generally speaking, the number of co-authors per paper is increasing in the last few decade, e.g. Pubmed provides statics about such questions: The following shows the trend.

Is there any limitation for the number of scientific article's authors?

Think there is no fixed e.g. from 1 to 5,000 authors (see link below). 

http://www.nature.com/news/physics-paper-sets-record-with-more-than-5-000-authors-1.17567

The best approach is to check with each journal as different journals have different authorship policy & they might limit certain no. of authors for certain types of articles e.g. see an extract & link below:

What is the limit on the number of authors for an original research article? A case report? A review article? A Sounding Board article?

There is no limit on the number of authors for most types of manuscripts. We prefer single author Review Articles; however we allow a maximum of three authors. All authors of reviews must be established independent investigators recognized as authorities in their fields.

http://www.nejm.org/page/author-center/frequently-asked-questions

Which one has more point for a researcher?

My personal experience is it doesn't matter an article is written by one author or multiple authors - as long as an author's name is in the published article, this can be counted as an article s/he has published.

Co-authorship aimed at inducing collaboration between authors, increasing their productivity, and improving the researches quality. Is it true?

It can be true.  However, there can be cases one author do all the research works & writing up the article whereas another senior co-author just do the review.  There can be other cases that some "tagged along" authors managed to convince the actual authors to add their names in in the published article without contributing much.

Is there a negative point that a research is performed from working with co-authors/colleagues?

Yes, it can e.g. some authors after collaborating for awhile might not see eye to eye on some issues like how the data should be collected & analyzed, how the findings / results should be interpreted, how the article should be written, formatted, how the author names should be sequenced etc.  Sometimes, the more new authors involved in an article mean the more argument & hence causing the further delay of an article's completion.

Do you prefer to work on a scientific research alone or you plump for team working?

Depends on case by case basis - for some research that I have more domain knowledge, I know what I want to achieve & it is manageable by myself alone in terms of resources & timeliness, I will work alone end to end i.e. from idea inception until the article is published.  Sometimes, I will co-work & co-author with other researchers on research areas that we need each other e.g. in the areas of subject matter knowledge, research methodology, data analysis competency, article proof read / review etc.

 Dear Dr. Abdul aziz Jaafar

Thanks a lot for your answer.

Dear Dr. Han Ping Fung

I appreciate from your attention.Your answer is rich and valuable.

With best regards and merry Christmas

Dear Seyed,

firstly, as mentioned before, interdisciplinary research tends to having more authors than articles dealing with one strictly limited topic.

Secondly, and that's another not so unimportant point in my opinion, working together in a team can simply be nicer, more funny, more interesting due to different people adding different ideas and just more satisfying. And if a paper is accepted, there are people around to share your happiness about this. A former colleague of mine told me about the tradition in another research institute of the "paper sparkling wine" - if a paper is accepted, the group of authors come together and dring a sparkling wine. This is, in my opinion, a wonderful idea - you have worked together on something, and now you can reap the fruit of your labour together. Being able to share the joy of a publication being accepted makes multi-author papers for me much more important than those which I have written alone.

Have a good (Christmas) day,

  Andrea

Dear All,

I completely concur with Dr. Andrea Ehrmann. I prefer to work on a research team rather than working alone.

Dear @ Dr. Andrea Ehrmann and @ Dr. Arman Dahmardeh

Thank you for your answer and sharing your idea.

Seyed -

As noted, there are advantages and disadvantages to both single and multiple authorship, and it depends upon the situation.  You want to be given a number?  There is no ideal number to be universally applied.

Ideally, I'd say it would be good if some of your papers were without coauthors, and some with coauthors.

How many coauthors when you have them?  Again, it depends on what the situation demands.  The 5,154 'author' particle-physics lab paper example is a hugely anomalous situation, and I would guess that most such "authors" had actually little if any direct part in writing the nine page paper. But still, I think it probably important and desirable to list all those authors, in that situation.  (I expect that most or all of those 5154 authors know who the real authors were, and the 'real' authors will probably have more to say later, in papers with far fewer names on them.)   As I said before, lab papers may justify more 'authors.'   In math, as George noted, generally there are few authors. You want to be able to truly provide close cooperation on likely a smaller project. The particle - physics experiment took place over a long period, and was an unusual situation. I'd say that other than lab results papers, it is hard for me to imagine more than three or four authors, and in statistics, there are almost always only one or two authors for a paper (and one to three for a book). 

So, if you are looking for one good number of authors to apply in all situations, then there is no good answer. 

Cheers - Jim 

Dear Dr. James R Knaub

Your answer is highly appreciated. 

Thank you. 

Regarding the low number of authors found in math and statistics papers, as opposed to many other papers - and the somewhat consequently low 'impact factors' I've noted for statistics journals compared, say, to biology and medicine - I have also noticed the following:  If a statistician becomes the statistician for a paper, say for a medical journal, along with perhaps a team of medical subject matter experts, that greatly raises the impact factor 'total' for that statistician, even if what she/he did for that medical journal was likely a minor contribution compared to much of their other (less 'appreciated' work).  That seems a bit insane, but that is just the reality of the situation. 

The trend now for most research institutions to go for research groups and research papers will include many authors in this case. The role and real input of each author in the paper is variable from major to minor and the quality of the paper is higher than other papers

I agree with Dr.Fateh Mebarek-Oudina and Dr. Sobhi Nasir. Furthermore I believe that co-authorship may also lead to overproduction of scientific papers and monographs, and this brings into question the quality of published papers. The quality of published papers is a critical issue which we cannot trade off with the number of researches.

With the participation of more than a researcher at the research relies on the idea of research and its importance in addition to the large number of authors, especially if it exceeds the seven puzzling? Yes I am interested to work with a research team more than I am concerned that I work on my own, but the laws of our promotions at the university researcher that makes it imperative for scoring his research on the degree of Thoroughbred (single) and not with the group and these laws vary from one university to another.

Dear @ Dr. Sobhi Nasir, @ Dr. Armin Keshavarz and @ Dr. Hussein Shareef

Thank you for your answer and sharing your idea.

authoring and coauthoring enhance the paper critical thinking and writing getting people involved is positive aspect  of science

Quality of papers matters, not the number of authors, nor the number of papers. I do suggest this fine thread, link follows.

https://www.researchgate.net/post/How_many_papers_are_people_expected_to_publish_a_year/28

This threads are fine as they are related to this one.

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Many_co-authors-How_to_collaborate_efficiently

https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_number_of_coauthors_on_an_academic_paper_is_to_many_authors

There is no limitation. In recent years, we have seen an increase in multi-authorship.

Th increase in multi-authorship might be a consequence of the way scientists are evaluated. Traditionally, scientists were judged by the number of papers they published, and later by the impact of those papers. The former is an estimate of quantity and the latter of quality. Both methods were adequate when single authorship was the norm, but vastly inflate individual contribution when papers are multi-authored. When each author claims each paper and each citation as his/her own, papers and citations are magically multiplied by the number of authors. Furthermore, there is no cost to giving authorship to individuals who made only minor contribution and there is an incentive to do so. Hence, the system rewards heavily multi-authored papers.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_authorship

 The average number of authors on papers indexed since 1981 by Thomson Reuters has edged steadily upward.

Graph 1 tracks this progression, from 2.48 authors in 1981, through a comparatively gradual phase in which an average of 3 authors in the early 1990s transitioned into 4 by the early 2000s, proceeding in fairly short order to exceed 5 in 2012—a doubling of the 1981 figure.

As the average number of authors rose, the proportion of single-authors was following a decidedly opposite trajectory.

Graph 2 below records the percentage of single-author papers, out of all Thomson Reuters-indexed papers, from 1981 to 2012. In 1981, more than 30% of papers listed a single author. By 2012, the percentage had shrunk to 11.

http://sciencewatch.com/articles/single-author-papers-waning-share-output-still-providing-tools-progress

Dear @ Dr. Napoleon Ono Imaah, @ Dr. Mohamed A Yassin, @ Dr. Ljubomir Jacić, @ Dr. Artur Braun and @ Dr.Barbara Sawicka

Many thanks for your attention, time and prolific answers and links.

Sincerely,

S.M. Mohammadizadeh

Dear Dr. Behrouz Ahmadi-Nedushan

I'm glad to to see your answers. Thanks a million for your perfect answers and useful links.

Best regards,

S.M. Mohammadizadeh

 To add my personal view: The number of authors of papers I participated in ranges from 1 to 22 and in any case I can justify the list of authors, maybe with a few exceptions. In some cases there were technicians included who didn't contribute any word but without whom the experiments would have been impossible. So I don't see a fundamental upper limit. 

Dear Dr. Erik Strub

I appreciate your honestly manner to tell the answer of my question. Many thanks for sharing your beneficial experience.

Regards,

S.M. Mohammadizadeh

Dear Seyed,

I think it is highly dependent on the domain. I guess in maths there are less co-authors then in cognitive sciences.

I am impressed by the number of 5,154 authors in physics that Hazim points out! That makes me thinking about a wonderful and very funny russian book "The physicists go on joking".

Dear Napoleon

It' depend on the domain and on teh evaluators of the publications. In social sciences this problem does not exist as, in the majority of times, we have a maximum of 4 authors.

single and multiple authored articles are both important and valuable. A Single authored article demonstrates the competence of a researcher. Multiple authored articles demonstrates teamwork.

The articles that I wrote during my post-doc has 5 or 6 authors. I also have two articles which  I have written alone

The attached article are interesting as they discuss citation rates of single and multiple authored articles:

The acceptance rate of articles which are collaboratively authored tends to be higher than that for single-authored papers, thereby suggesting a generally positive relationship between collaboration and quality. The analysis of ten-year citation rates of 270 randomly selected articles in three applied fields likewise shows a similar relationship, with somewhat higher citation frequencies for multi-authored papers than for single-authored ones. The relationships persist whether self-citations are included or excluded. However, these differences are not statistically significant for articles in clinical psychology or in educational measurement. Only multi-authored articles in management science show a statistically significant higher citation rate. Other aspects of the collaborative process and effects are discussed.(http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF02016776)

Exceptions do exist.the following article (published 8 years ago) is cited 55958 times! as of today (Dec 26, 2015)

Sheldrick, G. M. (2007). A short history of SHELX. Acta Crystallographica Section A: Foundations of Crystallography, 64(1), 112-122.

https://uhdspace.uhasselt.be/dspace/bitstream/1942/822/1/Berlin.PDF

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF02016776

Are you aware of publishing patterns after death of prominent scientist, a star?

Study: Elite scientists can hold back science!

"The NBER team identified 12,935 "elite" scientists — based on the amount of funding they receive, how many times they've published, how many patents they invented, or whether they were members of the National Academies of Sciences or the Institute of Medicine. Searching through obituaries, they found 452 of these elite researchers died before retirement. Because science leaves a dense paper trail of citations, publish dates, and author bylines, it's (relatively) easy to track changes in publishing patterns after a prominent death...

Here's the pattern: After the unexpected death of a rock-star scientist, their frequent collaborators — the junior researchers who authored papers with them — suddenly see a drop in publication. At the same time, there is a marked increase in published work by other newcomers to the field...

Unlike the collaborators, presumably, these newcomers are less beholden to the dead luminaries. They were "less likely to cite the deceased star’s work at all," the report states. And they seemed to be making novel advances in science:

The new articles represent substantial contributions, at least as measured by long-run citation impact. Together, these results paint a picture of scientific fields as scholarly guilds to which elite scientists can regulate access, providing them with outsized opportunities to shape the direction of scientific advance in that space...

http://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2015/12/15/10219330/elite-scientists-hold-back-progress

Dear @ Dr. Velina Slavova, @ Dr. Paula Remoaldo , @ Dr. Napoleon Ono Imaah, @ Dr. Behrouz Ahmadi-Nedushan and @ Dr. Ljubomir Jacić

Many thanks for your attention and worthwhile answers and links.

Sincerely,

S.M. Mohammadizeh

it is very common to find papers with many co-authors nowadays to improve the quality of the research done. That doesn't mean all of them contributed equally. Ideally, the main contributing authors on a paper should be lined-up by the order the names are listed in. This means the first listed author is likely to have done most of the work and the initial drafting, while the others contributing to an almost complete draft.  Just remember, authorship can encompass activities other than merely writing the manuscript.

For the definition and meaning attached to "Academic Authorship" in different fields please see the following Wiki:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_authorship

Hi

Everything has limits

Dear @ Dr. Mahmoud Omid, @ Dr. Harshvardhan Singh, and @ Dr. Napoleon Ono Imaah, 

Many thanks for your answers.

Dear Dr. Mostafa Eidiani, at first I should appreciate you for your attention, afterward if it is possible, I'd like to see an obvious answer from you. Please explain more about your idea.

Regards,

S.M. Mohammadizeh

There is no limit, provided authors contribute in developing the scientific paper. It is an moral and ethical issue also.

As always in science what is the most important is the result itself - not who wrote it or how many they were.

Equally important - and timely in this age of pressure to publish a lot, with the possibly detrimental effect on the quality of each individual article - is it that each article is complete, correct, and does not include any exaggerations of the consequences of its findings.

Dear Seyed Mehdi,

The good example provided by dear Prof @Hazim Indicates that there is no limit. 5154 can be considered an infinity when the set is number of authors:).  .However, a great majority of articles have less than 5-6 authors.

Both single authored and multiple authored articles are important and demonstrate different capabilities of a researcher. It is important and ethical that everyone who substantially contributes to the study is listed as an author

We should also note that Co-authorship may increase the research productivity assuming that team members are all knowledgeable, competent, flexible and trustworthy:

• With discussion with co-authors may result in new ideas
• With competent and trustworthy co-authors the quality can be improved
• Nowadays, many projects are Multidisciplinary and these projects require experts in different fields
• Working in a team motivates all members and acts as an external pressure!

Dear Seyed Mehdi Mohammadizadeh, 

The number of authors in a single article must not exceed 5 people.

It depends on the journal, too.

Regards, Shafagat

Dear Colleagues,

Good Day,

Thank you so much, my dear down-voters for your opinions and for your great efforts!!!

Dear Seyed,

I think most published papers are collaborative and have more than one co-author. Usually single author papers are either review articles or letters to the editor or short papers. Trend in research is increasingly towards collaborative research, as the financial and technical demands/pressures in a way pushing people into collaboration to produce more comprehensive and detailed studies. I am pro-collaboration myself, however I personally believe that only people who really contribute and deserve should be included, otherwise listed in acknowledgements. There should also be an upper limit to how many people can co-author a paper. I find it a bit ridicilous that how can 5000 authors (see other comments above) can all read and contribute to a paper. Having too many authors can be counterproductive, as it may take far too long to publish the paper, for all authors to read-comment and OK the paper.

best wishes,

Refik

Dear @ Dr. Subhash C. Kundu, @ Dr. Michael Patriksson, @ Dear Dr. Shafagat Mahmudova, @ Dear Dr. Arno Gorgels, @ Dear Dr. Harshvardhan Singh and @ Dr. Refik Kanjhan, 

Many thanks for your answers.

Warm regards,

S.M. Mohammadizeh

There is no limit on the number of authors for journal articles. However, most articles have less than 5 articles.. The attached graph shows that the most frequent numbers are 2 and 3. The mode (the most frequent number) for journal articles in 2.

see: http://dblp.uni-trier.de/statistics/numberofauthorsperpublication

I have seen limitations only for review articles. for example the new England journal of medicine has this limitation. here is the related text from their website:

"We prefer single author Review Articles; however we allow a maximum of three authors. All authors of reviews must be established independent investigators recognized as authorities in their fields"

http://www.nejm.org/page/author-center/frequently-asked-questions

More statistics from Nature

The Articles, Perspectives and Reviews that appeared in the first 60 issues of the journal of Nature Chemistry have roughly 3,300 different authors. Our most prolific author has published 7 papers, closely followed by two authors who each have 6 papers and five authors each with 5.

We have published 7 single-author contributions (3 research papers and 4 review-type articles) and the most authors we have had on a paper is 28.

The average number of authors per paper for these article types is very close to 6 (the median is 5, the mode is 4).

http://www.nature.com/nchem/journal/v6/n4/full/nchem.1911.html

The importance of "Collaborative Research"

Conducting high-quality, scientifically-based research is a demanding task. As a result, research has become more interdisciplinary and international, and is often carried out as collaboration experiments with many participants. As the cooperation projects has grown, the number of co-authors on each paper increased too. Consequently, accurate measurement of research productivity should take account of both the number of co-authors and the amount of contributions made by the individuals. 

In a recent paper, Giovanni et al. (2013) discussed the importance of accounting for the number of co-authors and their order when assessing research performance at the individual level in the life sciences [1]. They too believe that research activity is a production process in which the inputs consist of human, tangible (scientific instruments, materials, etc.) and intangible (accumulated knowledge, social networks, etc.) resources, and where outputs have a complex character of both tangible nature (publications, patents, conference presentations, databases, protocols, etc.) and intangible nature (tacit knowledge, consulting activity, etc.). The new-knowledge production function therefore has a multi-input and multi-output character.

[1] Giovanni Abramoa, Ciriaco Andrea D’Angelob, and Francesco Rosati (2013). The importance of accounting for the number of co-authors and their order when assessing research performance at the individual level in the life sciences. Journal of Informetrics 7(1): 198–208.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1751157712000934

Seyed:

As pointed out in the above responses, you can produce more in-depth quality research articles with a team; the studies are usually smaller when working alone, so you may want to strive for doing both depending on the size of the population.

Best regards,

Debra

Dear @ Dr. Manuel Alberto M. Ferreira, @ Dr. Behrouz Ahmadi-Nedushan, @ Dr. Mahmoud Omid and @ Dr. Debra Sharon Ferdinand

Thank you very much for your utterly answers. Your opinions are highly appreciated.

Yours sincerely,

S. M. Mohammadizadeh

There is general consensus that the observed growth in multiple-authorship is evidence of an increase in collaboration [2-4,7,16,40].

Previous authors have proposed a great many factors to account for the increase in multiple-author papers. These include the following:

• changing patterns or levels of funding [8,21,57];
• the desire of researchers to increase their scientific popularity [49], visibility and recognition [2-4,10];
• escalating demands for the rationalization of scientific manpower [2-4,58];
• the requirements of ever more complex (and often large-scale) instrumentation [40,41];
• increasing specialization in science [6,25,57];
• the advancement of scientific disciplines which means that a researcher requires more and more knowledge in order to make significant advances, a demand which often can only be met by pooling one's knowledge with others [17,35];
•  the growing professionalization of science, a factor which was probably more important in earlier years than now [2-4];
•  the need to gain experience or to train apprentice researchers in the most effective way possible [2-4];

Please see the source and references within for more info:

Katz, J. S., & Martin, B. R. (1997). What is research collaboration?. Research policy, 26(1), 1-18.

http://users.sussex.ac.uk/~sylvank/pubs/Res_col9.pdf

interesting question and answers

In my opinion a research paper will be under collective authorship in contrast to review paper written by one expert in the field.

Hi Seyed!

Well, what I have seen many times is that some papers have many co-authors, which is not true.

I think that any paper should be signed by the people that really worked it out. Some times people are included by compromise and it is not fair in my honest opinion (i.e. boss, managers or popular people).

Single-authored papers are nice because they show better the efforts, interests of every single people.

On the other hand, everybody knows that a team sums up much more than its members alone (supposed that the team is well skilled and coordinated).

Regards from Spain

This varies across institutions, journals, publishers, IRBs and research types.

For instance, it is generally said that papers with multiple authors are highly regarded in healthcare services. However, some journals accepts only papers with less or equal to six authors while some universities accept only papers with less or equal to four authors.

It all depends!!!

In my opinion, if the number of authors exceeds (3), then this will open the door for questioning. A colleague, once, has shown me a relatively short published research paper in math which contained nearly 100 names!! Obviously, there was fraud and that most of the co-authors knew nothing about the contents of the paper itself. The "dishonest" deed of including names, of those who did not contribute anything to an article, is non-scientific & has to be punished by those who employed the perpetrator.

Dear @ Dr. Marianne Levon Shahsuvaryan, @ Dr. Antonio Francos, @ Dr. Ibrahim Taiwo Adeleke, and @ Dr. Nizar Matar

Your answers are rich and valuable. Thanks a lot.

With best regards and Merry Christmas

S. Mehdi Mohammadizadeh

To add what others said, team-authored papers often receive more than twice the citations that a single-authored.

I  prefer to work on a scientific research in ateam this make the article scientifically and in my logical view more accepted

I prefer team works. Specially with my supervisor because I believe he has more experience than me and it would be useful for my paper. But I do not like the paper with more than 5 author and coauthors!

Regards,

Maryam Akbari 

Dear Seyed Medhi / all,

Collaboration does not always result in maximizing research output

The results of the attached article suggest that universities and granting agencies which preferentially reward research collaboration may be undermining their goal of maximizing research output.

First, greater collaboration leads to higher academic productivity even after discounting by the number of authors working on an article. The positive relationship between intellectual collaboration and intellectual output is in contrast with Medo (2003) and Hollis(2001), who found a negative relationship between co-authorship and academic output.

Second, co-authorship selection is endogenous { i.e. authors choose with whom to work depending on the quality and difficulty of their projects, which shows that previous results might be spurious. Specifically, the results turn from a significant negative effect of co-authorship on individual academic productivity in the baseline model to a significant positive effect in the specification after controlling for the endogenous team formation.

Third, over-specialization is detrimental to an authors' productivity. I also found evidence about the presence of peer effects and congestion externalities in academic research.

Finally, the effect of co-authorship on economists' productivity varies significantly between the different types of individuals. More able authors obtain more benefits from teamwork.

For example, authors whose first publication productivity is below the median do not obtain statistically significant benefit from co-authorship.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0927537101000410

Dear @ Barkat Ali Khana, @ Dr. Behrouz Ahmadi-Nedushan , @ Maryam Akbari, @ Fatima Mohammed Hussen and @ Sarah Saadati

Many thanks for your attention and worthwhile answers and links.

Best regards,

S. Mehdi. Mohammadizeh

It’s beneficial to demonstrate an ability to work with others and to demonstrate an ability to work independently. I think all researchers should balance opportunities and expertise. 

Dear S. Mehdi.

I totally agree with nice but true answer by Mostafa Eidiani.

Thank you for sharing your question with me.

Regards!

Hi,

Thanks for asking me... I believe that balance is important. You should publish with others both as first author or co-author. A lonely researcher is possible but I believe being part of a research team and publishing as a team is more appreciated. Just my thoughts.

Greetings from Ecuador!

You can publish some papers alone but publishing with others is very important as well. You have those under your mentor-ship, you can carry them along. Else, people might tag you to be selfish.

Dear Seyed! The short answer to your question - it depends on the Scientist. There are Scientists who need solitude to create hypotheses and theories. The situation is different when necessary pilot studies. In this case, the co-authorship is always justified in terms of scientific ethics. We are well aware how significant professional Experimenter to correctly test the hypothesis. Of course the Experimenter should be a co-author of the article. We do not need Sponsors who take no part in the experiments and the conclusion of the article.

Dear @ Dr. Jeanette Novakovich, @ Dr. Montserrat Hernández-López, @ Dr. Sandra Sanchez-Gordon, @ Dr. Pelumi Oguntunde and @ Dr. Vladimir A. Kulchitsky

Many thanks for your attention, time and prolific answers.

Best regards,

S.Mehdi Mohammadizadeh

It depends on the journal some will limit the number of the authors and some will keep it open

i agree with Mohamed

Promotion committees give higher scores to the first authors and a single –authored article gets the maximum point.

Both single-authored articles and articles with several authors have advantages. The multi-authored articles demonstrate that the author can collaborate and cooperate. Single authored article shows that the author can stand on its own. If opportunities for collaborations are available, a good balance between single and multi-authored is probably the best.

In my opinion, although writing in a collaborative way with other involves a bigger effort (as you have to agree several points), it is also more rewarding, as the articule would incorporate several perspectives.

Dear @ Mohamed A Yassin, @ Oluwafemi Samson Balogun, @ Hero Mohammad Ismael, @ Behrouz Ahmadi-Nedushan and @ Maria Esteban

I truly appreciate you taking the time to share your perspectives on this issue.

Obviously first author gain more points than others and large number of co-authors cant reduce first authors points. Number of the co-authors dosnt have any limitation but It has to be said that some journals has a limitation on that matter.

Generally best articles and all of the hot papers are an achievement of team-work, so team-work it is.

hope it helps.

Sincerely 

it depends on the kind of research, there is research that doesn't interest many of your colleagues and you go alone

Dear @ Dr. Milad Taleb Hesami Azar and @ Dr. Dimis Poulos

Many thanks for your attention, time and worthwhile answers.

Yours sincerely,

S. Mehdi. Mohammadizeh

Usually, an original scientific contribution requires a team work. I think that all the components of the "team" needs to be present in the Author's list. Infiltrations must be avoided.

Your answer is highly appreciated dear Dr. Ierardi Enzo. I and a lot of new researchers in RG should utilize your idea in this issue, because I believe that you are protagonist in this way.

Best regards,

S. Mehdi Mohammadizadeh

I believe that team work is very good, but this may by more common and practicable in some fields. I discovered that this is more common in STEM science than in say humanities. I will be glad to be corrected though.

Dear Seyed Mehdi Mohammadizadeh,

Again emphasizing, make clear demarcation between contribution (authorship) and direct or indirect help (Acknowledgement). 

Dear Seyed Mehdi Mohammadizadeh Saheb

Thanks for inviting to the discussion.

I do not find anything new to say after having noticed such a long and informed discussion on this page of RG. I can play my part just repeating a few things.

Naturally, there can neither be and nor be imposed any limit on the number of researchers doing a project or writing a paper. It depends on the contingencies and needs as well as on the availability of resources like time, intellectual manpower, network, money etc...

On the basis of what I have obsereved from my personal experience, I can say that the first author seems to get more attention and notice. But that does not mean that the others are not recognised. But there is a limitation, as someone has already said above in this page, I think a natural limitation, that suggests not making the number of authors a real joke.

As far as points are concerned, it may depend on the individual organisations how do they see it. Generally, the the dice is loaded in favour of the first author.

Co-authorship or co-workmanship - I mean a genuine one - can do wonders by defeating individual limitations and can well produce good results. But a joint effort needs many points of co-ordination and any type of egoist or non-reconciliable conflicts has a myriad of risks. 

As to the last part of your question, I would like to work in a team when the situation and conditions demand or permit that. Otherwise, I will work alone. Yes, of course, there are some areas where I would like only to work alone!

I am sorry for anything that does not suit or that hurts anybody.

With best regards

Israr