Ethics in scientific publishing: Authorship

For faculty, scientists, and researchers, one of the key metrics of success is the quantity and quality of published papers in reputable, peer-reviewed journals. Because publications are such a big deal for academic promotion, tenure, awards, and other rewards, you can bet that quantifying publication number and quality is a never-ending topic of debate.  Now this article is not about different publication metrics, a topic that deserves its own column. Readers interested in such arcane issues are encouraged to search the following keywords: “journal impact factor,” “h-index,” “bean counting,” and “misplaced egos.” Let’s simply agree that publishing is important, nay crucial, and that being an author or co-author in an ISI journal is a big deal. (Seriously, scientific publishing is not just to garner “points” for rewards, but necessary to document priority and originality of scientific discovery. But you already knew that.)

So what I want to discuss is this issue of authorship. There are two main things that need to be decided when a paper is submitted for publication in a scientific journal: who’s included, and the order in which the names appear. Normally, this is not a big issue: most researchers know if they are included, and have a good idea if they are first, second or last author. However, because of the aforementioned high stakes, the prevalence of collaboration (so that most papers are the product of work from more than one lab), and the differences in publishing culture, authorship questions sometimes arise. These specific questions of “inclusion” and “order” are the subject of this article.

So my take on this is based on my own experience, and reflects mainstream US practice. Sigma Xi, the scientific research society, has published a guidebook “Ethics in Science” that contains a chapter on “Authorship diplomacy” by Anderson et al. (http://www.sigmaxi.org/programs/ethics/Honor-in-Science.pdf). The entire guidebook is good reading, and young investigators should download the free pdf. In addition to the issues raised by Anderson et al., I would like to comment on “inclusion” and “order” of authors. Simply put, one should be considered an author if one has done enough work to merit authorship. But what is enough work? Here is where the rubber meets the road. Is the technician or assistant who helped in an experiment a co-author? What about the professor who was a member of the thesis committee? What about the head of the department who brought in the grant money? 

My own rules for co-authorship are as follows: to be considered a co-author, one must have participated meaningfully in at least two out of four activities: (1) bringing in the funding; (2) generating the original ideas for the research; (3) doing the actual scientific work; and (4) writing the manuscript. In addition, I have a necessary rule: a co-author must be able to present the study to a general audience. 

Bringing in funding is obviously important. Typically, the head of the lab or the principal investigator wrote the research proposal that led to the grant, and that crucial contribution should count. The ideas in the research are also important — typically research happens not just because of a single idea, but as results come in, the ideas and experimental plans are refined. This criterion ensures that intellectual input is valued. “Doing the work” includes not just the actual experimental lab, field or computational work, but also includes analysis and data interpretation. Finally, writing and rewriting the manuscript is a crucial task, and meaningful engagement in this process is another criterion. Co-authorship requires that at the minimum a co-author has reviewed the manuscript prior to submission. Finally, in my mind, there is a necessary (but not sufficient) criterion: a true co-author must be able to explain in general terms what the study is about, even if the specifics of methodology or results are not fully grasped. 

In my experience, these criteria are quite stringent. However, having these criteria does remove the issues of ghost authorship (using a ghostwriter), honorary and gift authorships (undeserved authorships given) or legitimizing authorship (when a co-author is added to lend credibility to the manuscript). More importantly, the criteria, if transparent and known beforehand, protect junior scientists and graduate students. The junior scientists know what is expected, and therefore are motivated to contribute in all phases of scholarly publishing. In addition, the junior scientists are protected from co-authorships that dilute their contribution to the study.

With respect to order of appearance, normal practice is to have the graduate student or postdoc who worked on the project as the first author. Typically, the manuscript is a product of their work as part of their thesis or dissertation. In some cases, I have heard of professors who eschew this rule when the grad student leaves the lab without a viable first draft of the manuscript. While I am sure this is truly motivational, it is standard to see the grad student as the first author. The second author is also important, and is typically given to the person who has contributed to the work the most (after the first author, of course). The other place of importance is the last author. The last author is typically the Principal Investigator, usually the head of the laboratory under whose supervision and guidance the work was performed. What about all the authors in between? Well, here it becomes customary to list them in order of contribution to the work (with perhaps a tacit agreement that the second-to-the-last author is a co-PI). In other words, the most important authors are the ones listed first and the ones listed last.

If, however, it is a humongous list of co-authors (e.g., see the Human Genome Sequencing Project paper at http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v409/n6822/abs/409860a0.html, then perhaps the middle authors can be listed in alphabetical order. Note that some journals specifically ask about the contributions of each co-author to the study. Clearly this is to discourage unethical authorship issues.

Publishing in a scientific journal is important, and seeing one’s name in a journal publication is one of the joys of the researcher’s life. To prevent co-authorship issues, communicating clearly everyone’s roles and expectations is important. At the end of the day, publishing, just as anything in science, should be done with honesty and transparency.

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Francis L. de los Reyes III is a professor of Environmental Engineering at North Carolina State University. His research and teaching interests include environmental biotechnology, biological waste treatment, molecular microbial ecology, and water and sanitation in developing countries. He is on the editorial boards of ASCE Journal of Environmental Engineering, and Philippine Science Letters. He is a TED fellow and was a Balik-Scientist of the DOST. He is a member of the Philippine-American Academy of Scientists and Engineers. E-mail at [email protected].