Basically agreeing to the above, and that the order of authors should in principle reflect the amount and quality of contributions, I found another rule, which some organizations still seem to apply (sadly so):

- First author = head of research group

- Second author = the one who had a brilliant idea

- Third author = the one who did all of the writing work

- following authors = hard to tell, usually those who were involved in the related discussion and contributed with a few lines.

Linking this to the original question: you should not judge by the order of authors or pure number of publication in which a single researcher was involved in, because authors' order always has to be judged with care. Still, I would recommend any researches trying to publish a single author paper, and multi-author articles as lead author, it certainly adds to your experiences.

The order of authors name in research paper represents the same order of their contributed work. So one must be very honest regarding to this.

Normally, the student will be the first author, and the supervisor is the last author. As a supervisor to PhD or MSc students, I always have my name last. There are also another school of thought who thinks the other way. Between the first name and the last name, it should be based on extent of contribution to the paper while some prefer to follow alphabetically? Some Universities looks for first author to recognise the contribution of the particular staff. May be there is a need for standardisation worldwide.

I agree with you

I agree with Mr. Vinod, and have a opinion to change this scenario. Our professor and mentors should receive credit according to their credibility, but young scientists should not be neglected, as the case in majority of the institutions in India. Same time, young researchers should know what they actually deserves.

Basically agreeing to the above, and that the order of authors should in principle reflect the amount and quality of contributions, I found another rule, which some organizations still seem to apply (sadly so):

- First author = head of research group

- Second author = the one who had a brilliant idea

- Third author = the one who did all of the writing work

- following authors = hard to tell, usually those who were involved in the related discussion and contributed with a few lines.

Linking this to the original question: you should not judge by the order of authors or pure number of publication in which a single researcher was involved in, because authors' order always has to be judged with care. Still, I would recommend any researches trying to publish a single author paper, and multi-author articles as lead author, it certainly adds to your experiences.

This is a fantastic question !!! there could be a load of reasons way a researcher never pubblished as a first author ... Sven gave a picture which with minor modifications could be also applied quite widely as far as I know... the only modification i owuld suggest to the (sad) picture Sven gives is that usually "following" authors are:

-luckily who did the dirty job to confirm or modify or to "reduce it to practice" the "brilliant idea" of the second author or....

-completely unrelated people that are listed there just to compensate something else (better be vague on this specific topic)

-or because "now it's their turn to go"

Obviously i want to believe the majority of the scientific comunity applies more ethical rules ... best regards

I believe that the person undertaking the work should be the first author always no matter how junior he is. And the last name should be of the supervisor. Any other names should better be avoided and if very necessary due to some collaborations etc., the name of the senior and the person who contributed significantly should be considered. Not like that the name of person editing the manuscript of writing the paper, or those doing a small part like a statistical help can't be given a place in author names. Yes their names can be and should be included in the acknowledgements section of the manuscript. This also justifies that you r grateful to the people who helped you and those contributed significantly have got a name as authors.

So the division should be clear. Who is going to get a place with the authors and who is going to be in the acknowledgements section.....

Regards

In our community it is widely accepted that the 1st author is the one who made the most of the research and finally from this wrote the paper, i.e. the author who made the biggest contribution. The other authors follow in decreasing order of their contributions. The last author is either the least important author or the one who is responsible for the whole research (and paper), e.g. the supervisor of the Ph.D. student, who is the 1st author. In this latter case, all the authors have to agree with this role and write and sign a proper confirmation letter about authorship(s).

I disagree with Sven's description of the order of the authors - see my previous answer. But I strongly agree with Sven in his idea that an author has to try to publish a solo (single) author paper as well as a first author paper to see the difference and gain experience. Due to my present position (senior researcher, tenure full professor) I am not writing any more the papers by myself, but my coworkers and students are - so they are the 1st authors and I am the last.

I could bring here my personal or otherwise personally known experiences to support that unfortunately wrong doing in science is not an exception. It is also obvious to me that Sven is only depicting misbehaviors in science divulgation… what everybody with good sense should do is to support a fairness in granting authorships maybe developing and adopting internal guidelines (some as far as I know does it).

It is also wise, when reading somebody else’s work, not to automatically identify the first author with the major contributor, still in my experience there is often a (sometimes even physical) disjointness between who claims the (first) authorship and who planned, provided, organized and commented experimental data.

best regards ...

Really good discussion,

I have seen in many departments the order of Authors are---

First author - Director/ Head of Institute

Second Author - Guide/ Supervisor

Third Author/ Corresponding Author - The Research Student/ Actual Researcher

Many times--

First Author - Supervisor/Guide

Second Author - Researcher

I don't know why people are not willing to give credit to the researcher. Many times the Director & Head of Dept. neither have any concern with subject nor they are contributor still the Author sequence will be followed as a system. If not the researcher will be in trouble.

There is no morality as stated by Vinod.

Higher level people will follow such practices to increase the list of their publication to earn more credits.

I do agree with Alok & Boris that the person who will do the research shoul have first/sole author.

I don't agree with the sole author concept much, Yes first author should always be the one, who had actually done the research and have major contribution in the work.

But papers with sole authorship can be ethically eligible only when you got funding for that work from some funding agencies and moreover you will only be the principal investigator as well as sole investigator of that work.

But if that work has been done under supervision of any mentor, then I personally feels He/she should also receive credits. I don't prefer to see the CV & list of publications of someone, who had not included the name of his/her mentor of Master's and PhD's thesis. This case also happens oftenly. After getting their degree, students published their papers, without including name of their guides. Moreover, the mentor/supervisor/guide name should be the last, as it reflects their seniority. Being at the first place showed the senior as worker but not as a Team leader.

I think Daniel is bang-on in his question, and very interesting discussion already.

I personally never experienced it but I know some research groups, where, the group leader is always a first and corresponding authors, no matter if they perform any bench-work or not. So sadly, from their group, none of the PhD student have first authorship so far!

Like others, I am also in favor of giving 1st author to one who carries most of the bench-work and writes manuscript, and the group leader and / or the director should be the corresponding as senior authors, and remaining heirarchy should depend on the context of contribution.

Really interesting discussion it has been till now. But the conclusion doesn't seem to be achieved yet. I think there should be a universal rule for publishing the research. The person to whom the work originally belongs i.e. the researcher / the student / the PhD candidate, whoever he/she may be, I mean to say the actual worker should be the first author. For this purpose along with the paper submission to any journal, there should be a provision of submitting a proof as a first author. Just like an identity proof, or a PhD registration certificate etc. This will itself give an idea of the supervisor or guide who will then become the senior author. All others co-authors should be given priority depending on the will of the first and the senior authors. A bit typical solution but I think can be a good solution to the problem.

You need not be a PhD student or a PhD graduate to  publish as the most influential author. I published my first paper as leading author before I enrolled for my masters in physical activity and public health. Then, in just a year after I received my masters from Staffordshire, I authored on my own three other journal papers  -  two of them are on Zumba.

I am also noticing 'honorary authors' featuring in several publications simply because they are heads of branches or respected scholars.