I do not deny all those who say that corresponding author should be lab director / HOD / senior most scientist or who conceived and planned the experiment. But one thing is for sure, if some one wants to learn the ART of article publishing, he MUST designate himself as corresponding author. Article writing is different thing than article publishing. Supervisors should also let their students as corresponding authors in a few articles so that they can understand art of article publishing too.

I feel it should be the one who understand the analysis of results properly among authors. But unfortunately it used to senior author as corresponding author even they know a little about the analysis part. The corresponding author should be the one who can answer to almost all the queries asked by reviewer. It should not be like, he will forward it to someone who knows the work properly and then just upload it to the editor.

It is the scientist who conceived the idea and planned experiments

Better the core team leader

Ideally, the corresponding author should be the author most familiar with the work. However, the corresponding author not only communicates with the editor of the journal to which the paper is submitted, he/she also responds to queries from the general readership in the time to come. If the author most familiar with the work is likely to stay at the paper-mail/e-mail addresses given in the paper in the foreseeable future, he/she should be the corresponding author. If, as is often the case, the author most familiar with the work is a post-doc or Ph.D. student who is likely to move away soon to another address, it is better to make the senior author, who normally has a permanent position, the corresponding author.

the corresponding author can also the person who hold the funding

Dear Dr. Huda Alkateb, In case where the person X and his team had done a work, which was actually funded for X. Then it is understandable that X should be the corresponding author. But as mentioned by Sudhansu and Ravi above, this is actually not happening. Maximum researchers don't know the importance of corresponding authorship, and their seniors just to maintain their promotions, keeping theirselves as corresponding author. And the young researcher would be in a myth, that the work will only get published if that senior will be the corresponding author. In many cases, where that young researcher will be well aware with the importance of corresponding authorship, he/she would not dare to ask their senior/supervisors to let them have his/her name as corresponding author. Because, the final award of PhD/Post Doc is at the stake. And no body wish to take risk. Ironically, there are few cases around us, where the corresponding author is always the Head of that Institution/Department, because it comes under his rules and regulations. If somebody wish to work in that institution/department and get their research work published, then they have to abide by the rules and regulations set up by HOI/HOD. Kindly share some more light........

Regards,

Rajeev K Singla

I do not deny all those who say that corresponding author should be lab director / HOD / senior most scientist or who conceived and planned the experiment. But one thing is for sure, if some one wants to learn the ART of article publishing, he MUST designate himself as corresponding author. Article writing is different thing than article publishing. Supervisors should also let their students as corresponding authors in a few articles so that they can understand art of article publishing too.

In practise I have for several papers (as first author during PhD and post-doc) done the submission and correspondence with the editor while the groupleader who stayed at the institute was marked as corresponding author to facilitate the response to questions or requests from a future readership. Both groupleaders were very much in touch with the research and not nominal heads of the lab, which I fear is not always the case.

my friends have forgot things like ethics and quality of science. The one who conceived the idea and planned the experiments should be the corresponding author.Now a days all experimentation is outsourced ( characterization and evaluation). The funding agency should be thanked only.It is a pity that group leader should be the corresponding author.

I had the fortune of publishing most of papers with only 3 authors.I was the corresponding author.in case of multiple authors the originator of the idea should be the corresponding author.Dr Gavin phillps case is rare

corresponding authorship is given to the person who is focusing his research entirely to that related area. Even though as above friends said that the corresponding author should be given to the person who has done the work, it is possible and deserves if he himself design the schemes and performing them without any guidance from the HOI/HOD. Once you leave the lab your work is continued by someone else and you join another lab which will unable you to have the grip of the topic and neither shows interest to work further as you are busy with new area of research. So, the seniormost person of the lab that is supervisor is likely to have the corresponding authorship. As the original thoughts are given by him and not who had worked on it. He also continues the same field of research and capable to react accordingly for the progress of designed work.

I agree with Gavin Phillips. With the grace of god, I luckily supervised by Dr. Varadaraj Bhat G Sir, who never ever taught me to take anyone's right. The supervisor/senior member should be the corresponding author only in case where he/she initiated work in that direction and other authors just do a technician job. According to me, corresponding author should be the one who's idea is actually got processed, analyze results and draft manuscript in a perfect manner, and ready to take responsibility for all the future communications with publisher as well as readers. And if this person is the one who did the research work also, then it is just ideal situation.

After reading all above comments of respectable scientists.....I propose that there Must be another term "STUDY SUPERVISOR" which should be used ALONG with the term corresponding author in research articles. Usually corresponding author is marked bay an asterick in the list of authors. I suggest that if study supervisor wishes to do correspondence with journal himself, then he can have asterick with his name in author list..BUT if he wants to designate some young scholar as corresponding author then there should be single asterick with the name of corresponding author and "Double asterick" along with the name of "study supervisor". By doing this simple and single amendment, supervisors / lab directors / HODs / study planners can distinguish them from other authors in the list and at the same time can provide learning opportunity to young scholars regarding Art of article publishing and answering reviewer's comments.

Good idea by Arham Shabbir but it is also a fact that in some Countries the young researchers are not well versed with the publishing art, therefore they give the responsibility of corresponding to co-authors or one of co-author.In my opinion, the credit goes to all authors equally in a paper, indeed more to the supervisor and main researcher(The first author).

thank you Sir Syed Umer

i think for the sake of science let us make the idea originator as the Corresponding one

Respected Murlidharan Sir, I have observed that from starting only you mentioned for the sake of science as well as ethics and quality of science, idea originator should be the corresponding author. What is the definition of idea here. I hope it should be absolutely novel. Though I am still at a very initial stage in research sir, but as far as I knew maximum of the methodologies we are using for our research purpose is actually the optimized form of methodologies provided by someone else from the world. Let say for example, we plan for anticancer activity, then the first method come in our mind is MTT assay method. Idea is actually to design methods like MTT assay and other experimental models etc. We are just using MTT assay method for our research, and cite the reference which give us the protocol for research. It is just like acknowledgement. We are not mentioning the originator of MTT assay as corresponding author for our article, though he is probably the best person to explain our findings. Moreover sir, Maximum of the research work done in any lab is not with strong hypothetical ground. You pick any science segment, people are maximally doing hit and trials, and if at all results came, then claim that we had performed this experiment, because there is XYZ rationale behind it and published a paper. De novo designing is very rare as is the case of Dr Gavin phillps case.

If Idea is absolutely novel, then that person claimed to be inventor and filed a patent.

Sir, Senior supervisor should be the corresponding author when he had not just gave the idea, but had given maximum output, because his/her students is just doing a technician job, and not capable of making out inference out of results. But If student is quite active, then it is the duty of supervisor to give chance to that young fellow to be corresponding author.

I have found some comments above, which says that PhDs and Post docs are usually non-permanent positions, so corresponding author should be the author having permanent position. I found here that definition of corresponding author is changed. To my knowledge, journal ask for corresponding author as the one, who can take responsibility for all the content as well as procedure of publication in that journal, on behalf of all the authors. They don't ask for the address of a person, who would be permanent in that affiliation and can give updates of the research activity in that particular institute.

Moreover, readers usually contact the corresponding author to know more about the work published in that paper, and usually communicate when they find problem in doing research.

In both cases, I suggest the best person to be corresponding author is the one who knew everything about that research and its significance.

The question was very good and the comments are also well presented. In my opinion the corresponding author must be the one who has conceived the topic of the paper say the research supervisor or guide who can take responsibility of the contents of the paper. He is the right person to judge the quality of the work and choose the journal accordingly. If the liberty is given to the students then there is fear of underrating the quality and submitting the article to a low profile journal. The credit of the paper must go to the first author (student who did the experiments) and the corresponding author (supervisor)

I had published more than 20 single author papers; many of the papers had proposed a model and verified with experiments, Now a days it is synthesis, characterization and evaluation Even then the idea originator scores

For me it's the PhD student or the person who leads the project. For the PhD student it opens them to contact with other researchers, and is good for their career. People move around quite a lot so perhaps think of the person that will be at a stable position.

As regards the decision of a journal etc. I always do this in conjunction with the student and advisory team. Then if the phd student is corresponding it simply means they upload everything. But the major decisions are made by a bigger group with lots of experience.

My thought is that the person who can explain the data better in any queries/correspondences than other should be the corresponding author. Generally the main idea comes from the leading author/senior author but the first author conducts the research, prepares the article, analyses and interprets the data, submits the paper and subsequently answers all queries of the reviewers and editor. Therefore, he may be the right person for the correspondence afterwards.

In a team of co-workers, the corresponding Author should be the person who can offer most of the answers to the questions the publication may arise; from the stage of editing and publication, to that of further investigations into the same field by other researchers who may want to get in touch with the originator of the article. In this day and age a stable electronic address is all that is needed. Naturally the supervisors of inquisitive students and young researchers should encourage them to take the lead in a research of their choice and act as corresponding Authors.

Try to read this book.

Day, R.A. (1979), How to write and publish a scientific paper, ISI Press, Philadelphia.

Dr. Ho, If possible, please provide a soft copy of this book. I will be highly obliged.

Regards

Rajeev K Singla

Dr. Singla,

I have only hard copy but any soft copy. I am so sorry about it. “Who should ideally be the corresponding author?” is interested and important topic to be discussed especially gift authorships are getting more in research world.

Best regards.

Yuh-Shan Ho

http://dns2.asia.edu.tw/~ysho/

Dear Dr. Ho,

Thanks for the information, but hard copy would be costly for us.

And yes you are absolutely right Dr. Ho, there is enormous amount of guest author, ghost author who received gift authorship. Many a times, this is because of the pressure on the research team to include many other non-deserving candidates, but there are many cases where research team itself include many such authors to get their papers published in journals of high impact factors.

And I have seen this trend more in very high impact factor journals like that above 3 impact factors and even science, nature, plos, cell publications.

Even many a times, Head of the department and director of any organzations will be there in all the papers published from that organization.

Regards

Rajeev k Singla

1) A publication is a part of Intellectual Property. For a paper supported by a project, the IP is usually belonged to the PI, the institute or funding body. For example, if a company supports a project with a condition that the research results would not be published in specific years after the project completes (This is very normal in engineering field). This may disclose the commercial secret and affect some industrial partners if applicable.

2) For a paper supported by funding body, it is normal that the one who conceived the original idea and planned the experiments should be the PI. The idea is usually a spirit of a paper which was conceived by the PI before the trainee was appointed. A trainee would contribute to some technical details along the original idea. Therefore, this is to recognize the PI contribution and the PI should be the corresponding author.

3) The readers need to know more where the job is done. What is a background and future work in this area? It is most convenient to search the PI who is in charge of the group researches in this lab. Therefore, it is an international practice that the PI or the group leader is the corresponding author.

4)  It may be possible to cause outrageous issue for the contributions and authorship for multidisciplinary project. Some collaborators should be included but the trainee may not know the collaborators’ contributions well. Only the PI is a coordinator who should be in charge of the authorship.

5) For some collaborated projects, this may be complex to rank authorship or  identify any fraud because this may be hard to say which part is the most important, such as data, experiment, and modelling. The first author may write and draft a paper but may not be main contributor. Or two experts contribute the similar contributions. Who should take main responsibility?  Could a trainee take such a complex responsibility or coordinate the complex relationship? Thus, the PI should take such a responsibility as well.

6) Finally, the corresponding author means where the job is done. This represents where appreciate facilities, equipment and researchers are to do this research. Only the PI holds these resources. If a trainee becomes a corresponding author, any readers who are interested in the project will contact the trainee researchers according to the contact details. However, after two or three years, the trainee will leave from his/her position and thus, the trainee will have no equipment and facilities to continue the research. The new opportunities will be losing.

Thanks a lot Dr. Wang for such a descriptive and significant information. But Sir, I have few questions about it.

1. Like we have concept of sharing main authorship in many journals with a different symbols which mentioned that these authors have contributed equally.  Why is it not possible in case of corresponding authorship, where we can keep the PI/group leader as well as the main contributor as the corresponding authors and given details of all. This will ensure that readers will get the correct information if they want.

2. I totally agree with you Dr. Wang that PI/Group leader  needs to hold all responsibilities about the project when it comes to correspondence/communication of that work because PI would be the idea originator. But why the same is not implicable when the same work was found to be plagiarized. Why the trainee or the actually scientists are only treated culprit that time. If we blame the trainee for all that, then credit should also rest with him/her.

 Dr. Singla

1. Of course, this is possible to have two corresponding authors if both of two author could service all the communications in the past, current and future. Normally it is the responsibility of the corresponding author  to forward the readers' questions to the appreciate author if the corresponding author could not answer. Most of trainees will keep contact  with their supervisors. On the other hand, it will be hard for a trainee who has left to contact other collaboration author. Therefore, this is not good practice for multiple corresponding author.   

2. All the authors will take responsibility for any fraud. Therefore, your question may change to who will take main responsibility if any plagiarizing? This will be depending on who made the fraud for the content of this paper. For example, if an author fabricated modelling results against the experimental data, the experimentalist did not know that. The modeller will take main responsibility although other authors have responsibility as well. The supervisor, who has not check the correction of the results, will take responsibility of careless. Of course, if the supervisor was a joint fabrication, he/she will take same responsibility.  

A researcher or scholar who is doing his work under any supervision then that supervisor will be a correspondent author. Corresponding author will guide the scholar based on his own field of knowledge.

The corresponding author is the point of contact with outside researchers who have questions about the paper contents. So, selecting the corresponding author depends on personal agreements and preferences.

The corresponding author not only acts as a single point of contact during the publication process, but is also for the integrity of the research findings post publication. Thus a senior member of staff is required to handle research governance issues such as data falsification, data integrity, data retention, plagiarism or guest authorship. Some journals allow more than one corresponding author where the multidisciplinary nature of the work makes it difficult or  impossible to act as guarantor for all the data.

http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/Publications/policy/perConcordat/

I wouldn't call the first author the mastermind. Usually the senior (last) author conceived of the research project and obtained funding for the research to be carried out. When issues of plagiarism or data falsification arise, it is the senior author who is responsible for addressing any queries.

Corresponding authors shouldn't be chosen depending on their status or the amount they know about the research.  Corresponding authors (as distinct from 'authors for correspondence') are responsible for the relationship of the authors collectively with the journal editor - and, through the editor, with the referees.  It's a huge responsibility and corresponding authors need to have appropriate abilities.  They need to be good diplomats, have negotiating skills and, also, language abilities that allow them to communicate effectively between authors and with the journal editor.  Choose the corresponding author for these reasons and not according to how much of the research work they've done or what their status in the research team is.  The corresponding author should be chosen for these abilities by the coauthors collectively.  It's not something that can be delegated by any one coauthor.    If you're the corresponding author, and are doing your work properly, you'll be spending around 5% of your work time on that task - if things go wrong (such as disagreements between authors) you'll be spending much more than 5% of your time on being corresponding author.  It's not something you can do well just because you did most of the research or because you're the Prof.

I agree with Zareen. I am sad to learn that Grey hair syndrome exists in science and we have such answers in above thread (Mr Alan's Answer).

With grey hair comes wisdom. Many of the younger first authors, who wrote the first draft of the paper and usually did the bulk of the research work, think they should also be corresponding author. However, as other discussion themes on Research Gate have mentioned, there is the issue of who is responsible for providing reagents, answering queries and guaranteeing the veracity of the data 10 or more years after publication.

The ICJME defines corresponding author as: "The corresponding author is the one individual who takes primary responsibility for communication with the journal during the manuscript submission, peer review, and publication process, and typically ensures that all the journal’s administrative requirements, such as providing details of authorship, ethics committee approval, clinical trial registration documentation, and gathering conflict of interest forms and statements, are properly completed, although these duties may be delegated to one or more coauthors. The corresponding author should be available throughout the submission and peer review process to respond to editorial queries in a timely way, and should be available after publication to respond to critiques of the work and cooperate with any requests from the journal for data or additional information should questions about the paper arise after publication. " (my emphasis).

I agree with Alan.

The author who guides all authors in planning a research work and who may provide his/ her lab, lab facilities and other requirements, or guiding in review writing  is the Corresponding author.

However, first author is the author involved mainly in carrying out research work, and it is not necessary that original idea of doing that work is also from him/ her.

Sometimes first two authors are considered equal in carrying out the research. In some articles all except corresponding authors, or even all authors are involved in carrying out the research work in lab.

I agree with Alan.

I agree with Dear Saman

It will be good, if the corresponding author himself is the worker of all works instead of the senior one, because worker will easily answer the all quarries ask by reviewer but sometimes due to respect or some other factors peoples recommend senior one as corresponding author.

The corresponding author should be one who is able to answer to the editor and carry out corrections advised by the reviewers.

Indeed - exactly so Ashique Ali.

Who should be corresponding author and their responsibilities is laid down in the international guidelines for publishing (e.g. icjme) - and that is the question put. Who currently is the corresponding author is a different question the answer to which is usually a mixture of local tradition, local power structures, and lack of clarity about the corresponding author's role.

Corresponding author is sometimes used to indicate the senior author(s) of a paper. A senior author is typically the professor, which may have a central role in the project but will usually not do any of the actual experimental work.

For me the corresponding author should be the person who has all the knowledge and the time to send the documents to the magazines. It is too cumbersome for the first author (the first of the list) to be dealing with every formality of each journal. I'd expect the corresponding author to do that job. For me, I'm usually the main author in my research I consider that the corresponding author should be just that, is an administrative position within the team, but now it turns out that they have elevated to the highest and most popular level of researchers and It's the author with the highest rank, the highest value. I don't agree with that.

Good question.. Please share me the best answer might you trust...

Regards…

Corresponding author is the author who guide the all other authors.

Simply, the author who conduct the experiments and wrote the manuscript should be 1st author, the group leader (prof) who revised and discussed the findings might be corresponding author, the reset are those contributed somehow to the work.

The one who has done the bulk of the work

corresponding author should be one who has done most of the work and is able to carry out corrections advised by the reviewers.

Or some times the supervisor who understands and know every thing

Corresponding author is the person who has complete knowledge about the study and provides the intellectual supervision as well as liable to reply the queries of readers.

What i have experienced so far, i understand that the corresponding author is the one who is the initiator of a study and has complete background knowledge about it. He has command to reply to all the queries and provide the supervision and intellect support for the reviewers and the readers.

The question is "who ideally should be the corresponding author" and not 'who is usually or who is in some subjects or localities'.

So, to answer this question, first, the role of corresponding author has to be defined - this is done in the international guidelines for publication (e.g. ICJME). The role is to navigate the manuscript through the publication process.

Given this defined role, the person who should ideally be the corresponding authors is a) a person who can diplomatically negotiate with coauthors and with the journal editor (and through them with the referees) and b) has the necessary language ability to do so (I experience too many cases where this is not the case).

These qualities are different from those required by the different role of "author for correspondence". Although it's clear that there is confusion between this role and that of the "corresponding author" - the two roles being neither well understood or clearly separated by journals. But we're working to ensure that they will be.

I think It will be better to give this position to who have most contribution.

Hallo Phuong Nguyen-Tri,

Could you perhaps expand on your answer ? Why do you think that the person making the greatest contribution is ideally the corresponding author ?

It'd be interesting to know the reason.

best, Andrew

A coautor who is always in contact with the indformation

The author who is most capable of answering questions related to work, or who has contact with all other authors who can answer the questions when the corresponding author can't

"Article writing is different thing than article publishing". Can I understand this? @Arham Shabbir

I also have heard that giving the name of professor in corresponding author has more chances of paper acceptance?

@ Asif Nawaz : Provided s/he is a renowned professor in that field. Otherwise, a more reputable Ph.D. holder may be preferred.

Ideally the corresponding author should be the person those whom the idea came, who designed the entire work and who manage the entire work flow. He or she should have taken the responsibility from A to Z for the project. It doesn't mean that he or she should perform experiment in lab. But should communicate with the other researchers and guide them what they have to do. First author should be the person those who perform most of the experiment, data analysis, writing of manuscript and other tasks. First author should be contributed in concept and hypothesis generation in consultation with the corresponding author. Corresponding author should not be just like manager of a company or the first author should not be just like a technician. A good supervisor allow his or her PhD students or postdocs to be the corresponding author in case they are able to independently design, perform, manage and research work and publish.

@Robin, I agree. That is the reason I think corresponding authors should share same value/mark with the first author.

First, hello! I am a medical writer with 15 years' experience and was first published in 2009 in Clinical Pediatrics. My most recent publication is in press. As a member of the American Medical Writers Association (Pres-Elect of the SE Chapter), I am very versed in practices of journals, publication ethics, and other relevant recommendations and guidelines regarding authorship. I have a small business, US Medical Research Services (www.usmedresearch.com).

Criteria for Authorship (4)

First, let me review what four criteria one need meet ALL of to be an author on a scientific publication to meet ethical guidelines.

The ICMJE recommends that authorship be based on the following 4 criteria:

• Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
• Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
• Final approval of the version to be published; AND
• Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

This is not meant to deny anyone who contributed authorship, it is made to allow anyone who SUBSTANTIALLY contributed to continue the process and have the ability and requirement to participate in steps 2-4 to be an author. If this is done, the authors are accountable for their work and can not take the "I did not know this was being published" approach should data be in error.

Medical Writers and Biostaticians as Authors

Medical writers can certainly be authors, so can biostaticians. They should have participated in all steps, however. If they did not, the Acknowledgements section must have their name listed should you wish to remain within ethical bounds.

Corresponding Author

The Corresponding Author is something every researcher dreams of. Seeing that little email icon next to your name in publication can be a goal for many, I am sure. However, there is some weight and responsibility. The corresponding author need not be the first author, nor the PI or department head. The do, however, need to be someone ALL authors trust to 1) disseminate information to them each time a revision or question or new draft is available, 2) will be available to quickly answer ALL correspondence and do it professionally (while doing #1, above).

Please let me know should you have any questions.

-Madison