Picture a scenario in which one student in a lab designs and carries out a set of experiments while another does the data analysis, and the two write up a manuscript together for publication. When the manuscript is finished, both students feel strongly that they should be the first author on the paper. Things get heated, and it reaches the point where neither will agree to publication of the manuscript until the issue is settled. Who is right? And how do you decide? Or if you are one of the students in this scenario, what are your first steps toward resolution? Who do you turn to for guidance?
If you’ve never been involved in a dispute with your co-authors about whose name should or shouldn’t appear on a manuscript and in what order, consider yourself lucky. These disagreements can quickly become very intense, pitting colleagues against each other and damaging working relationships, not to mention causing big publication holdups. When they happen, it’s often because two people put in large amounts of work in different areas of the project and both want top billing.
In some research fields, articles regularly have huge author lists and authors are simply listed alphabetically regardless of the size of their contribution, but in biology there tends to be a fairly rigid ranking structure. The principal investigator (PI) or most senior scientist is listed last, while the grad student, post-doc, or junior researcher who did most of the hands-on work is listed first. The middle positions are ambiguous, with no indication of how much or how little those authors contributed. What’s more, when the publication has more than two authors—as most do nowadays—we simply refer to it as First Author et al. This leads to a high value being placed on first authorship.
Another source of dispute is the question of whether someone should be included in the author list at all. An individual may be included, not because they made significant contributions to the research, but as a show of respect, a tit for tat arrangement to include one another on publications as a way of padding CVs, or as an effort to have a “big name” among the authors in an effort to better the chances of publication. These are called “gift authorships” and are considered to be unethical. The dispute arises when there is disagreement over whether someone is being given a gift authorship or has in fact done sufficient work to be included.
Stop Disputes Before They Start
When everyone starts out on friendly terms, it’s tempting to make assumptions about how authorship will work and to just figure that everyone will be on the same page when it’s time to write everything up. But forethought is your friend here. At the outset of the project, write up an agreement detailing everyone’s planned contributions and the order in which they’ll be listed as authors, based on those contributions. Have everyone read and sign it. And make very sure that if something changes—if someone needs to take on more or less responsibility or if a new person joins the project—that all parties revisit the agreement, revise, and re-sign the new version. That way everyone’s expectations are aligned. Try to attend to the written document before the pertinent work is done. New authors being added partway through a project should be discussed with everyone before they are brought onboard, since they’ll need to be slotted into the order and will potentially bump someone else down the list.
A common metric for deciding whether someone has done enough to justify being included as an author, and one recommended by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, is that they must have met all three of the following criteria: (i) substantial contributions to conception and experimental design, data acquisition, or analysis/interpretation of data; (ii) preparation of the manuscript; and (iii) approval of the manuscript as submitted for publication. The recommendation goes on to say that providing funding, collecting data, or supervising students does not by itself justify authorship. For more help with this, COPE (the Committee on Publication Ethics) has a number of resources on their website designed to help authors avoid and deal with authorship disputes, including a guide for new researchers and a discussion of what constitutes authorship.
What to Do If It Happens Anyway
If despite best efforts to avoid it, an authorship dispute does arise, the first step is to talk it out amicably. There may be information or points of view you don’t have, so try to get a sense of everyone’s positions. Sometimes, there is a good compromise position available. For disputes over first authorship, for example, some journals will allow multiple authors to share equal credit, indicated by an asterisk next to their names and a corresponding note on the front page of the article. Some journals will also allow, or even require, that the contributions of each listed author are noted at the end of the text. This can solve the problem of someone feeling that their work hasn’t been sufficiently acknowledged. One person may be made the first author while another is made the corresponding author, which is also seen by some as recognition of senior status, since dealing with correspondence will require a deep understanding of the material covered in the manuscript.
If none of these strategies is deemed acceptable and talking it over isn’t making any headway, the next step is to consider a third-party arbitrator. Universities sometimes have ombudsmen who can serve this function, or a trusted colleague who is familiar with, but not directly involved in, the research may be asked to step in. Whenever an arbitrator gets involved, it’s necessary to have all parties discuss the move and agree to abide by their decision beforehand. No one should be blindsided by having a third-party involved in the dispute.
Conflict over authorship is stressful and, with sufficient forethought, mostly unnecessary. The damage it can do to collegial relationships can be permanent and have major negative effects on the working environment within a lab or department. Laying out something that feels a lot like a contract before any work is done on a project will feel much too cold and transactional for many people, but the problems it can prevent down the road make it worthwhile.
