Am I First or Second Author?

[hyrule]

I wrote an abstract and paper for a study last summer as a medical student. Paper is pending publication but the abstract was accepted and presented at a conference.

Today, I randomly googled it online and found that I was listed as second author with my PI (a surgeon) listed as first (I had the superscript "2" on my name, while he was listed first). I collected all the data, performed the analysis on the surgeries performed, and wrote the abstract and paper, and my PI made final adjustments. I generally thought that the PI is listed last because he is the overseer and not primary author. There was also a third author, another student, who helped make corrections to the paper.

I've listed myself as first author on my CV. What's interesting is: on the final version of the paper before submission, I was listed as first author by my PI with him being last. So... am I really the first author? If this is a stupid question, I apologize. I just don't want to get nailed about something like this during an interview/at some point in the future.

(Also another Q, I was able to find the abstract on abstractsonline.com and not PubMed.. why is this?)

Thanks for your help

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[gbwillner]

It's not clear if you are referring to the paper or the abstract when you state you were able to look it up on-line.

You are right in stating the PI's are generally last on their manuscripts. For someone with their own lab, last-authorships are much more important. However, if this is only a clinical project and the PI is still young, then it is possible a first-author position may be more desirable.

You absolutely cannot list yourself as first author in your CV if you are not first author on the publication/abstract. This is pretty much academic fraud. Also, you mention a superscript "2"- this usually is only used to denote academic affiliation and not authorship rank.

Writing an abstract or a paper does not entitle you to jack squat. If you feel you should be the frist author on this paper, you need to raise your concerns to the PI and see what his response is. If you truley came up with the idea on your own and did all that work, then you should be first author. There are means of retribution, and these seldomly do anyone any good, so the best bet is to have your concerns addressed before the paper is accepted. As an author the paper absolutely cannot be accepted without your expressed approval, and this is where you hold some (minor) degree of power.

 

[hyrule]

It's not clear if you are referring to the paper or the abstract when you state you were able to look it up on-line.

You are right in stating the PI's are generally last on their manuscripts. For someone with their own lab, last-authorships are much more important. However, if this is only a clinical project and the PI is still young, then it is possible a first-author position may be more desirable.

You absolutely cannot list yourself as first author in your CV if you are not first author on the publication/abstract. This is pretty much academic fraud. Also, you mention a superscript "2"- this usually is only used to denote academic affiliation and not authorship rank.

Writing an abstract or a paper does not entitle you to jack squat. If you feel you should be the frist author on this paper, you need to raise your concerns to the PI and see what his response is. If you truley came up with the idea on your own and did all that work, then you should be first author. There are means of retribution, and these seldomly do anyone any good, so the best bet is to have your concerns addressed before the paper is accepted. As an author the paper absolutely cannot be accepted without your expressed approval, and this is where you hold some (minor) degree of power.

The PI is pretty young and this is a clinical project, this is true. Right before submission of the paper, I was listed as first author. It has not been accepted yet. I assumed the same would be the case with the abstract. It was just interesting to find that I was listed second when I googled the abstract, which was selected for presentation at a conference. If I had not actually googled it, the assumption was that I was first author on the abstract as well (since that was the case with the paper). I'm not sure why there is even such a discrepancy.

Either way I think I should still address my PI anyways. Is this something worth addressing directly.. or is it better to do it in a more subtle way such as: "Hey I was updating my CV and wanted to know the best way to format it. Should I format it the way it was listed before we submitted the paper?"

 

[delirium81]

The PI is pretty young and this is a clinical project, this is true. Right before submission of the paper, I was listed as first author. It has not been accepted yet. I assumed the same would be the case with the abstract. It was just interesting to find that I was listed second when I googled the abstract, which was selected for presentation at a conference. If I had not actually googled it, the assumption was that I was first author on the abstract as well (since that was the case with the paper). I'm not sure why there is even such a discrepancy.

Either way I think I should still address my PI anyways. Is this something worth addressing directly.. or is it better to do it in a more subtle way such as: "Hey I was updating my CV and wanted to know the best way to format it. Should I format it the way it was listed before we submitted the paper?"

So, just to be clear, your only evidence that you may be second author is that when you googled it, you came up with an abstract for a conference where you're listed second? It hasn't been accepted yet by the journal?

I'm willing to bet that you were still listed as first author for the journal submission. Perhaps the PI just listed himself as first author for the conference because he's the one who will be presenting the data there? Or perhaps that's something the conference submission system automatically does when someone lists himself as "presenting author." It's hard to know. Either way, you should definitely clear things up with the PI before you start listing yourself as first author on your CV.

 

[hyrule]

So, just to be clear, your only evidence that you may be second author is that when you googled it, you came up with an abstract for a conference where you're listed second? It hasn't been accepted yet by the journal?

I'm willing to bet that you were still listed as first author for the journal submission. Perhaps the PI just listed himself as first author for the conference because he's the one who will be presenting the data there? Or perhaps that's something the conference submission system automatically does when someone lists himself as "presenting author." It's hard to know. Either way, you should definitely clear things up with the PI before you start listing yourself as first author on your CV.

I will definitely clear things up. That makes sense. I did not actually attend the conference but an oral presentation was given by him I believe. He told me to list it as a presentation on my CV. For things like oral presentations, is there a need to distinguish between whether you attended/not... or is saying "Presentation" or "Oral Presentation" fine?

 

[delirium81]

I will definitely clear things up. That makes sense. I did not actually attend the conference but an oral presentation was given by him I believe. He told me to list it as a presentation on my CV. For things like oral presentations, is there a need to distinguish between whether you attended/not... or is saying "Presentation" or "Oral Presentation" fine?

Hmm, I think it would be misleading to list it as an oral presentation, because that implies that you were the one who gave it. Maybe if you can just say that your work was accepted at this conference that would be more accurate.

 

[Ombret]

I don't think there is a standard way of clarifying, on a CV, whether a conference paper was given as a poster or talk and who presented it. But that information definitely needs to be in there somewhere. My approach is to have a section in there called "conference abstracts", list the abstracts in a numbered list, and after each say "Platform talk by ___." It's pretty standard to shuffle authorship around for conference presentation since you may be presenting only part of the story, someone other than the eventual first author may be presenting, etc.

 

[atsai3]

I will definitely clear things up. That makes sense. I did not actually attend the conference but an oral presentation was given by him I believe. He told me to list it as a presentation on my CV. For things like oral presentations, is there a need to distinguish between whether you attended/not... or is saying "Presentation" or "Oral Presentation" fine?

In general, a "conference presentation" where you were not the presenter is not worth putting on your CV. It really just smacks of upselling. That being said, I have seen some CVs where the writer has a separate section for "Other scholarly contributions", namely research posters and oral presentations that s/he contributed to as non-presenting (non-first) author. Typically such a section would be placed near the end of the CV as befitting its importance.

It's really hard to know what your PI was thinking, but I would say that your situation does not sound uncommon. For research being presented at a conference, if your PI was not going to fund you to go present it, then it makes sense that he would list himself as first and presenting author. Assuming that he is rewarding your work appropriately, it makes sense that he would list you as first author, and himself as senior author, on the manuscript submission. (Depending on how senior he is, the senior authorship position does matter to him, in terms of promotions.)

The conference presentation (poster? oral?) doesn't really matter anyway -- what matters is that you will be first author on the published article. If you are listed as first author on the manuscript, I wouldn't spend any more time thinking about it.