A team led by Marcia McNutt - American geophysicist, former editor-in-chief of Science magazine, and the current (and 22nd) president of the National Academies of Science of the USA - wrote:
"Each author is expected to have made substantial contributions to the conception OR design of the work; OR the acquisition, analysis, OR interpretation of data; or the creation of new software used in the work; or have drafted the work or substantively revised it
AND to have approved the submitted version (and any substantially modified version that involves the author's contribution to the study);
AND to have agreed both to be personally accountable for the author's own contributions and to ensure that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work, even ones in which the author was not personally involved, are appropriately investigated, resolved, and the resolution documented in the literature."
From Transparency in authors’ contributions and responsibilities to promote integrity in scientific publication, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Nature Research journals' editorial policies add: "Nature Research journals encourage collaboration with colleagues in the locations where the research is conducted, and expect their inclusion as co‑authors when they fulfill all authorship criteria described above. Contributors who do not meet all criteria for authorship should be listed in the Acknowledgements section."
Practically implementing these policies, I look at each author's contribution and see where they fit in the following categories:
1) Conceptualizing the study
2) Designing the study
3) Performing the study - taking data
4) Analyzing data
5) Interpreting the data
6) Writing the manuscript
If someone contributed to the manuscript but does not qualify for authorship, the authors must name them in the Acknowledgements section, which can also include funding sources, people who gave helpful advice, participated in collecting data, and/or helped improve the manuscript, e.g. structural and copyediting.
Many journals now require the authors to name the contributions of each author in a section of the manuscript. For example, Elsevier requires the ‘CRedIT author statement’ – the recent example with my former colleagues reads like this:
The manuscript was written through contributions of all authors. All authors have given approval to the final version of the manuscript.
- Ryan H.P. Siu: Investigation, Methodology, Writing – Original draft.
- Yang A. Liu: Investigation, Methodology, Formal analysis, Writing – Original draft.
- Kaitlin H.Y. Chan: Investigation, Methodology, Writing – Original draft, Visualization.
- Clara Ridzewski: Investigation, Methodology, Visualization.
- Liane Siu Slaughter: Conceptualization, Funding Acquisition, Supervision, Project Administration, Investigation, Methodology, Writing – Reviewing and Editing
- Angela Wu: Conceptualization, Funding Acquisition, Supervision, Writing – Reviewing and Editing.
Author order
The order of authors usually conveys the perceived significance of each person's contributions and their roles as corresponding authors. In the fields I came from, the authors at the ends of the list – first and corresponding – contributed the most and/or are seen as the most responsible for the work.
The first author(s) is(are) those individuals who contributed most to making the work happen. They usually have a hand in all of those steps, but among all authors, they contribute the most to activities 3), 4), and 6) from the list above. Without them, the ideas and plans for the study would remain ideas and plans. There would be no results, conclusions, or evidence.
Corresponding authors are usually the principal investigators (PI), i.e. group leaders (e.g. professors) and are usually at the end of the list. Their contributions are mostly 1), 2) 5), and 6). Sometimes, the idea for a study lives through generations of researchers among one group. That credit goes to the PI.
Corresponding authors are those individual(s) who directly correspond with the editor of the journal during submission and publication AND serve as the first point of contact for queries about the work from anyone once published. You'll see email addresses of corresponding authors printed on the manuscript but not the email addresses of the other authors, including the first authors.
Editors of GigaScience make an excellent case for judiciously choosing corresponding authors:
"The corresponding author must be available and responsive throughout the submission and peer review process to respond to editorial queries in a timely way. These individuals 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.
If an author is too senior, and thus busy, for this role then ensure the corresponding author chosen is someone able to respond in a timely manner. Significant publication delays occur due to lack of response from busy researchers who travel extensively, have heavy institutional responsibility, or receive a large volume of emails resulting in missing communication."
Issues
Authorship issues and disputes arise all the time. "Inaccurately conveying contributions to a study is an unethical practice" wrote American Journal Experts in a white paper detailing issues like gift authorship, honorary authorship, crediting medical writers, authors from sponsoring organizations, ghost authorship, and authors who did very little for a manuscript.
Author order itself can be reason for retraction.
The perceived importance of author order is also an issue. As Gretchen Kisler, executive director of the Research Development Office at the University of California, San Francisco, wrote in an editorial for Nature, “If we really want transdisciplinary research, we must ditch the ordered listing of authors that stalls collaborative science.” Too much emphasis on attribution, especially underappreciation of authors and consortia who are not listed first, “it creates a negative feedback loop that hinders research” by disincentivizing researchers to collaborate.
Personal experiences, i.e. inner conflicts
I’ll list them for now. Message me if you would like to hear more details.
- As a graduate student, I was asked by my PI to describe the contribution of another author to decide whether that individual should become a co-first author.
- As a graduate student, discontented middle authors asked me, the first author, about the contributions of authors listed higher than them.
- As a postdoc, I researched and defended my stance to list external collaborators in from of other contributors in my own research group. After sharing data and email exchanges from the collaborators with those in my research group, everyone agreed to the order.
- On the same paper, one professor who provided equipment and whose graduate student helped me take data asked not to be listed as an author. I was fine with his request, however one of my postdoc PIs convinced said professor to be an author anyway in an exchange that I was not privy to.
- As a postdoc, a graduate student in my group listed me as an author on their manuscript for contributing data. The PIs moved my name to acknowledgments.
- In the most puzzling instance, my postdoc PIs and an alumnus of the group described my work in a publication but included no data. I was unaware of the piece until it was published.
- As a research assistant professor and co-corresponding author of a study led by undergraduates, I asked the PI to grant co-first authorship to someone who joined the study after the first authors had left and whose contributions were essential to finishing the study. The PI asked that I ask the other co-first-authors. They enthusiastically agreed. In hindsight though, whose say should it be? What would I have done next if one of them did not agree?
- Pre-publication experiences I can share offline to anyone who’s interested.
Friends, especially those who are PI’s:
Have I missed or misrepresented anything here ? Feel free to share your experiences too!
Are you having an issue with authorship or author order? Message me if you’d like to chat about it.