A few thoughts:
- The first author on a paper with multiple authors usually implies that he/ she has done the greatest amount of work – including the writing. It is unthinkable that a paper is published where each author contributed a paragraph with his/ her own style. More credit should be given!
- On the other hand, on a paper with multiple authors, by convention, the senior’s name comes last. This often happens where it is custom to add the senior from a department to each paper. Adding a name to a paper does however imply that the contribution of each author is equal. If it was truly equal, the first author is not necessarily entitled to more credit!
- With two authors, the contribution of each may have been equal but the senior may have elected to give the junior the advantage. The first author is not necessarily entitled to more credit!
Also in ResearchGate, a long list of publications with a huge Total Impact figure is often admired but is this always justified?
Dear colleagues, the first author is the first author. He has the biggest responsibility, usually he manages everything necessary, very often he is also a corresponding author. There is a long list of duties for the first author (for an article in journal):
1. He has to chase an idea.
2. He has to organize a method for collecting of data.
3. He has to analyze and interpret them (naturally in cooperation with the others).
4. He has to prepare a draft.
5. He has to manage communication with the rest of the team.
6. He has to write cover letter.
7. He has to submit a manuscript.
8. He has to communicate with editorial office and has to be willing to polish all necessary and requested.
...
I think the biggest credit should go the first author...
The paper is the result of an investigation made by a group of researchers.Each person of this team has a specific function and the credits should be equal for all.The contribution of each author is very important for the conclusion of the paper
I disagree with the statement "The first author on a paper with multiple authors usually implies that he/ she has done the greatest amount of work – including the writing." I agree @Nelson Elias. All authors are considered to have equally contributed to a paper unless it is declared in the paper about the contribution of authors.
Thank you gentlemen - i suppose the real issue here is "equal contribution" - does this really occur? In many multiple authored papers on is left with the impression that the contribution could not have been "equal" - and better use could have been made of the Acknowledgement section. Would not less authors, more Acknowledgements be more appropriate and a truer reflection of the real world than multiple authorship? (Most journals do not print the names of more than 3-5 authors in their References in any way).
Dear Jan
I agree with you. One possibility is less authors and equal credits.
When it comes to publication from an academic institution, in most cases only 3 to 5 persons may be involved. But, a publication from a big research organization or from a R&D unit where different specialized departments carry out portion of the represented work, it is difficult to restrict the number of authors.
In reality, a good research work needs effective collaboration of different departments and hence it is unfair to generalize only 3 to 5 authors is enough or so. It all depends on the totality of the published work from which, one can visualize whether or not the mentioned authors are adequate.
Some journals also indicate who among the co-author is to be contacted for correspondence. Such an author too could be the main author or the who is more accountable for the paper.
Thank you, gentlemen.
@ Nelson - yes, i can live with that: less authors (but all with equal contribution and credit) and more Acknowledgements.
Of course, the first author has more responsibility in doing and writing, therefore, it is fair to have more credit. I think, some estimations indicate that first author has more than 50% of workload.
Thank you all.
@ Fathi & Mohamed: although i was referring to giving credit ' in general' , it may be of interest to know that, for accreditation purposes (a specialist has to re-register every 5 years in the Netherlands), the Dutch continuing medical education (CME) authorities, also known as GAIA, award 10 CME points to the 1st author, 5 CME points to the 2nd author and 2 CME points to every other contributor to the paper.
Yes, The first Author receives more credit that co-authors, generally the first author is said to be the most responsible person in that research.
Even while citing we are using 'first author et.al'
Do not forget about the last (senior) author. Quite often the last author is the main mental power behind research, and the first author is a workhorse.
dear Jan,
the first author did all the foot work, wrote the article, did more than 50% of the work,
the last author is the senior person who directed the research, or in whose unit the research took place, the other authors contributed significant, without their input the publication would not have been possible or would have been significantly watered down. acknowledgements? everybody else who helped but did not scientifically make a contribution.
kind regards, Jan Becker.
I believe that there is no universal rule arrangement of co-authors of paper. Some journals require that the first author was the corresponding author. Many years we used arrangement in alphabetical order. Only the authors know whose contribution is crucial.We can only guess. As concerns the contribution of the authors, the question arises: how quantitatively determine the contribution of each author? Since there is no answer to this question, if necessary, authors indicate equal contributions.
Thank you all for your interesting input. Let me attempt to summarize the more recent comments:
1. Alphabetical order of the authors (Yuriy): not/ seldom done; value questionable.
2. Convention (still) is to put the name of the senior author last on all (multiple & 2-authored-) papers. 3 comments:
- in 2-authored papers this gives the benefit to the junior author. What happens when both authors are academically equal? (i suppose this is what you are referring to, Larisa) Do you switch first author with each alternating paper? To what conclusion (as related to this topic) did you come in your new preface?
3. Many institutions insist that the head of the department's name is added to each paper. Not necessary the "mental power" (Vladimir), the Head is often the facilitator or, in some cases the "tolerator" ;-) In some occasions however, the department is so large that it would be impossible for the Head to contribute to each detail of a study. I think this is the essence of what you are saying Yuriy: " what is equal contribution?" how do you define it?
All good points here everyone. One would like to think that the first author is the one who has contributed most. In some cases, unscrupulous 'established' authors may have taken far more credit than they deserve - but that is difficult to know. I agree that the last author is likely to be more of an established academic 'figurehead' than anything else. Where there is equal contribution - I think that the originator of the initial idea or question should benefit. Then there is the issue of the et al. convention. If the first author deserves all the accolades within a multiple author article then, with some citation conventions, they are the only named author - at least in text.
It depends, sometimes the last name indicates Senior Author...... How do you take that????
Dear colleagues, the first author is the first author. He has the biggest responsibility, usually he manages everything necessary, very often he is also a corresponding author. There is a long list of duties for the first author (for an article in journal):
1. He has to chase an idea.
2. He has to organize a method for collecting of data.
3. He has to analyze and interpret them (naturally in cooperation with the others).
4. He has to prepare a draft.
5. He has to manage communication with the rest of the team.
6. He has to write cover letter.
7. He has to submit a manuscript.
8. He has to communicate with editorial office and has to be willing to polish all necessary and requested.
...
I think the biggest credit should go the first author...
Petr,
Too often positions 1 and 2 from your list are responsibility of a senior author (the last one in the list of authors).
Thank you all for your interesting contributions.
Clearly there are 2 takes on this:
(i) those who clearly believe that the 1st author should receive more recognition, and
(ii) those that feel recognition should neither be more, nor less than the last (frequently the senior) author.
There is an alternative way of looking at this:
@ those supporting (i): although being the 1st name on a paper is already a substantial reward, there is no problem in giving the 1st author more recognition (the question then is ‘how’) because,
every author will eventually be judged by his/ her H- index (or g-index) which, does not take author sequence into consideration.
@ those supporting (ii): any senior author is/ should be more concerned about the impact he/ she has in his/ her academic field which, once again will be reflected (to an extend) in his/ her H-index therefore,
it does not matter whether his/ her name is last.
Did i leave out anything?
Well for me, my perosnal comment mybe acceptable or not, as far as the paper is published with contribution of all the authors listed in the paper (of course the first one is more responsible) but without others can not be appeared in the form of published paper. So, order of authors is not very important for the scientist as far as there is contribution of each of them.
All good points here. Petr - I like your list and I think that, in most cases, this is the likely scenario. Jan - your summary points are useful. With regard to (i) - I take your valied point that everyone gets a citation - regardless of author. The flip-side of that though is, if the last author is the most senior, they probably already have an established h-index and are already heavily cited - so it may not be that important to them and one more citation probably wouldn't make much more difference. Plus - if, say they had a h-index of 50, the article that they had contributed (or not) to would have to be cited more than 50 times for it to mean anything to them.
For the first author, and a point that I raised earlier, with multiple author citation, using the most popular citation conventions i.e. APA, Harvard etc - when the et al. convention is applied (at least in the main text) they are the only mentioned name. That's quite good for kudos as well - I think
First author is definitely the most important author and rightly so in my opinion. As many others have stated, they are the ones who are doing most of the work. Personally, I tend to only pay attention to the first author and the last author of the paper...Other authors are often just people who have provided data or help with part of the project or happen to find themselves in a research group that shares credit. I personally think sharing of authorship among coauthors and adding people to authors lists when they should just be acknowledged is insidious and damaging to authorship. I have seen people who have simply been members of a good research groups getting co-authorship credit in good papers when they have probably had little involvement with the paper and produce few first author papers themselves. Is that fair for people in labs where this does not happen when we are all competing against one another for jobs and money...
Sometimes senior authors who do much of the work let junior authors be listed first, in order to help them jump-start their academic careers, or as a gesture of courtesy, as Dean pointed out last August on this thread. There are many possible scenarios, so I tend to give equal credit to all authors listed, unless I have reliable information to the contrary. In fact, I avoid the formula "et al." unless editorial policy insists on it, since I don't want to eliminate any coauthors from the bibliography, even when there are a lot of them.
There might be several reasons why people are first author. As you know, not only senior researchers are first author, but very often also students learning to conduct research. For instance, PhD students are often first author but they have often also been significantly guided by the co-authors in all aspects of the research chain (e.g. ideas, field work, data analysis, discussion, writing....). In addition, if students do not master English, they should obviously be guided by others to write the paper in English....
May have, but last and corresponding authors also have high weightage, though paper is a team effort and finally all need to be given due credit
Thank you Fathi, Dean, Craig, David, Marcel and Kuldeep for your interesting contributions
First author of course carries the highest weightage because research organization, analysis and interpretation depends on him. But the last author also gets high weightage and above all a research activity is a team effort for which all the authors must be credited.
I think the first and last authors should have some higher percentage in the RG score. I also think that this percentage should be maintained when the article has one or two authors.
I believe that ithe first author did most of data colection, normally a graduate student. The last one did most of the intelectual work.
I agree with Jose Zamudio that first author was the person that do more work that all and in generala graduate student
I think every author except the last author (who has a Higher credit for the work) has an equal credit. If i'm wrong let me know the rankings of the persons on the journal.
I think every author except the last author (who has a Higher credit for the work) has an equal credit. If I am wrong let me know the rankings of the persons on the journal.
Depende del grado de participación que efectivamente haya tenido. De toda maneras el autor normalmente es el que dirige el trabajo, muchas veces el la persona a la que se le ocurrió la idea y la que utiliza el trabajo para formar a un discípulo también. El tema tiene muchas aristas, pero se supone que el autor es el que más trabajo (Intelectual y de laboratorio y/o campo) ha realizado. Hay revistas que permiten aclaraciones tales como que el orden de los autores es alfabético para indicar que TODOS son autores y otras que permite aclaraciones como que todos los firmantes son autores. Creo que en un grupo de trabajo esto debe acordarse según la participación real que cada uno tuvo en la investigación. Un cordial abrazo amigo!
I think the first author should have the biggest credit if he/she is a corresponding author and have higher percentage in the RG score. In this case, it must mean that he/she meets the requirements set out in points 1-8 presented by Petr Hejna.
Jan : Equal contribution means that it is not possible determine the contributions of each authors. For example, one author obtained unique experimental results and other author offered a unique and very important explanation of these results. Who done more contribution ?
Of course, I agree with most of you that the first author has more activity regarding both methodology and writing the manuscript. However, others have also some contribution. It is a team work and it can not be appear in the final form without others. So, we can not say that the first author has more credit. If the first author is a PhD student and others are professors so, what will be the situation?
Only the authors know whose contribution is determinative. We can only guess.
It is not an iron rule that the first author is the most important, there are many different situations. As an example, in social sciences it is quite common that authors are situated in alphabetical order.
The author who make great efforts in the realization of the study, and also motivates other authors for the conduction of further researches.
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