I just received an invitation to review a manuscript from BMC Medical series. They allow split correspondence.

Dear Birgid,

Kindle see:

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Is_it_possible_to_add_more_than_one_corresponding_author_to_an_article/1

However, I have personally not seen such a case.

Best wishes,

Subir.

Dear Subir,

Thanks for your answer. I found this discussion - but no example yet.

 Birgid, one of my recent paper (to be published), there are two corresponding authors. I don't see any problem with it. In fact, if you have 100s of papers, these things matter nothing, until otherwise, it was a break through finding and intend to submit to Nature, Science, JAMA, or Lancet. These are high profile journals. It is customary to put the 'money man' (aka. who received funding) as the senior and corresponding author. However, if he is two busy to submit, he might delegate such authority to someone else (e.g. both first and last authors can be corresponding). Journals wouldn't resist it.

In fact, lately, I try not to be the corresponding authors. It comes with its own perks and problems. Perks is, everyone send you an email request to you for the paper. You feel good about it that your work is attracting the masses. The problem is, until it get published, you have much works to do. There may be lot of changes required (if it was a major revision), reformatting, responding to reviewers, etc. etc. These things take considerable time. Especially if you're not familiar with bibliographic software, doesn't know the subject very well as oppose to your boss, etc. it is not a good idea to be a corresponding author. By default, more work comes to the corresponding authors. That said, if you're a PhD student, and you're the first author and your boss is the corresponding author - he will receive all the communication. In any case, you will see in many cases, the boss will forward you the email and ask you to prepare the necessary changes and defense. So, you end up working on it. 

I hope you understand how things work!

For two books that I have recently co-edited I was the last named co-editor but did all the grunt work, i.e. was corresponding and contact editor. The point is that I got paid, through special contracts, to do that work whereas my colleagues took on the editing over and above their regular duties. I think that it is most important that everyone named and working on the publication feels comfortable with their roles and nominations. Where there are two corresponding authors/editors, the main problem is delegation of who answers and responds to what and when. Otherwise there is duplication of work. Where both want to see and respond, okay, but journal and book editors want reliable people to deal with and sometimes have tight timelines so tend to ask for just one responsible delegate. That way they don't have to deal with different answers from the same team.

@ Anitra, Having two corresponding author doesn't mean that the editorial office will communicate with two authors directly. They will communicate with only one, whoever available to respond quickly. If you're on sabbatical, if you're traveling, etc. you will delegate someone else. If one of the corresponding author respond, by default, it means that, all authors have seen the edits and approved the corrections. It is also the responsibility of the corresponding author to clarify things with all the authors and submit the changes. There won't be any duplication.

It is a red flag to the editorial office, if two authors are responding to the same question differently - that means, they are not communicating themselves. 

When the manuscript is published, occasionally, you will see it has two corresponding authors. It has various meaning to it: a. may be it is a serious stuff, two senior authors wants to be the corresponding authors (similar way in some manuscripts two authors could be considered as first authors - 'these two authors contributed equally to the work'. they could be first and second author); b. different geographical location of the co-authors (e.g. Asia vs. North America); c. Perhaps the senior author approved and delegated another party to take care of the submission of manuscript.

My emphasis was that, in the case of two (or more) corresponding authors, they need to be clear about who is doing what and when. I have had editorial communications in which more than one corresponding author was addressed by a publisher. In the kind of research and writing I do, I have always pushed for a transparent and responsible process in which one delegate is the contact point. I don't think it has to be that way, but in my experience it is generally easier for the collaborating team and the editorial office. As the corresponding author I always cc the other authors in. This saves time and optimises knowledge sharing. There might be distinctions in approaches across disciplines.

@Anitra, I think we deal with things in a different way. 

There are two issues that you have addressed:

a. Internal communication between the authors. The corresponding author takes the precedence. Of course, there should be a clear communication between the authors and the final draft needs to be approved by all the authors. Even someone didn't see the final submitted draft, by default, when the manuscript is submitted - that means, everyone has seen and approved it! Because the corresponding author need to check mark that the manuscript has been approved and it has not been submitted elsewhere for publication/consideration.

b. With regards to the communication with the editorial office: This is different issue. The editorial office will communicate with only assigned individuals. So, you don't have to copy your correspondence with your co-authors. You simply forward your communication to the co-authors. The fact that they all have seen and approved, they would know what you would be submitting to the editorial office. So, you don't need to copy to them. 

For me, copying to them might elicit unnecessary issues. There may be an author, who will identify a typo, or missing initial in his/her name, someone's affiliation changed or want to cite another department in their affiliation, etc. They will ask the editorial office to fix it. All such minor issues can be fixed when we receive the galley proof.

Hi,

In case of two coreesponding authors, they both have to get the password to the authors' domain in the submission system of the publisher, and they have to inform each other constantly on changes or steps taken in the system. This does not seem very convenient to either the authors or the editors.

Liebe Birgid,

Habe mir das Beispiel angesehen, aber verstehe das mit dem split authorship nicht :-o

Some interesting answers above - I am in the US and have written, co-authored research papers, book chapters, Books and trade journal articles.  The general rule of thumb is that if all authors contributed equally then they are cited alphabetically; but in other cases a certain person might be cited first for academic reasons such as going up for tenure (first example); second example demonstrates that when one has Seniority in the system, their name is frequently cited first; and lastly can be simply that one individual made the loudest claim for first authorship.  This can be a very dicey subject with some work groups..... but there are many variations that I have seen over the years... and the one I enjoyed most was when we jointly decided in the Michigan article on Integration to make Rolland the first author to help him climb the Academic Ladder.... we made the decision early, and that encouraged him to put his own spin on the article & results which made for a wonderful piece and a very different lens to a subject that had been researched quite a bit.... Good Luck with the process... sometimes sticky!

Some journals might not allow two corresponding authors: http://www.editage.com/insights/does-your-target-journal-allow-more-than-one-corresponding-author-a-case-study

Generally, journals don't mention anything about having more than one corresponding author in their instructions to authors. Thus, it would be best to write to the journal editor and clarify this before submission.

I just received an invitation to review a manuscript from BMC Medical series. They allow split correspondence.

I have read the opinions of the colleagues above who have really answered well the question and I am wondering on what basis there would be 2 corresponding authors in a single publication. I guess that in most cases this has to do more with politics than science.

Of course it is well known that once there are more than one names in a paper  .... politics kick in .. In most laboratories the author-name order, implies degrees of contribution to the manuscript. Theoretically the corresponding author is usually the most experienced member of the team,  who can handle the reviewer requests. And to make things even easier  .. usually the corresponding author has a group of collaborators who can still do the job under his / her name. 

If we assume that the paper is really complex (a multicentric study .. lets say) , then it might be plausible that more than one person is needed to  communicate with the journal. Another example I can think of, is when we have patents (described in the paper) from an external source, in which case one corresponding author can handle requests regarding the manuscript  and the other regarding the patent.

I believe that the trend of multiple corresponding authors have started with Open Access journals which define new rules in the research publishing arena.

My personal Bottom Line : Multiple corresponding authors can raise questions .. about the integrity of the paper. An easy solution around it,  is to provide the email addresses of all co-authors , so interested readers can contact them. 

Good Point Chalamalia

There can be many scenarios. For Instance, in Europe , China, Russia etc. there are many authors not able to understand/speak English. They know there regional languages. In this case the need to handle after publication inquiries in regional language and English could be primary cause for split correspondence authorship. The other instance is, in the case of two or more sponsoring organizations can demand for their own corresponding authorship credits. As far as main correspondence with the journal is concerned, there would be only single author. But in final publication, different circumstance may ask for split authorship on final published article. Journals should consider these cases politely and must not refuse, because, if authors are agreed, journals should not have any problem with it.