Authorship question

[ubuntu]

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Okay, my attending wants to be the first author in a publication. That leaves me with no choice but to be the second author. We are the only two authors. Am I now also the senior author?! 🙄

 

[edmadison]

Okay, my attending wants to be the first author in a publication. That leaves me with no choice but to be the second author. We are the only two authors. Am I now also the senior author?! 🙄

I believe the technical term for this is "hosed"

Sorry man,

Ed

 

[mmed]

Okay, my attending wants to be the first author in a publication. That leaves me with no choice but to be the second author. We are the only two authors. Am I now also the senior author?! 🙄

One of you should be the corresponding author. I believe the attending will be the first and corresponding!! This happens, good luck in the next paper.

 

[pillu]

I believe the technical term for this is "hosed"
Ed

Why can't he/she be considered the senior author?

 

[mmed]

Why can't he/she be considered the senior author?

Because the attending will not agree with that

 

[NinerNiner999]

Look at it this way - at least your attending told you they were going to be the first author. Consider that a pat on the back and a big "thank you for designing, collecting, tabulating, and printing all of the data and typing everything up for me to publish. It's nice to have residents like you continue to support my career."

 

[gutonc]

Just for the record, the first author and senior author are two different people. The first author is (usually) the grad student/resident/post-doc who did all the work and the senior author is the last person listed, who is generally the person whose lab or clinic the work was done in. In general, if papers are important enough in a certain field to be referred to as the "Jones Paper," Jones will be the senior author.

As an example, the paper I've heard quoted the most in the past year, the early goal-directed sepsis study is referred to as the "Manny Rivers Study." Emanuel Rivers is the last/senior author on that paper. Nobody talks abou the "Otero Study."

So, the upside of this is that, if this paper is really important and you're the last/senior author, it will be referred to as the "Ubuntu Study." In any case, as one of 2 authors on a paper, your name can not be in a bad place. If your attending is insisting on being first author, let it go...that makes you the senior author and it's clear that s/he has no idea what's what in the academic publishing biz.

 

[ubuntu]

Set me straight please. Isn't the last author, by default, the senior author? If not, just who is the senior author?

 

[Bertelman]

Set me straight please. Isn't the last author, by default, the senior author? If not, just who is the senior author?

I think those rules may not apply when only two authors are listed.

 

[mmed]

Set me straight please. Isn't the last author, by default, the senior author? If not, just who is the senior author?

I and my colleagues were in the same situation. The PI wants to be the first author and he did and the paper gets published. He should mention to the journal frankly who is the corresponding or senior author (this is required information by almost all journals to the best of my knowledge and not by default) and he puts his name as the corresponding too. So, he was in that publication the first and corresponding. The only difference is that; we are many authors. The good aspect of only two authors is that both names should be mentioned if the paper cited anywhere. I see quite good number of papers with 2 authors mentioned as equally contributed to the work as this may be an option for you. I have one publication like that (me and the second) but again we are in that paper more than two.

 

[IndyXRT]

If you are looking to get your name recognized in the scientific community, then being first author matters. However, it looks good on a CV (so I am told by several faculty at my institution) to be first, second, or last author. It is less good to be lost in the middle of a long list of names (but still better than no publication at all).

 

[ubuntu]

I and my colleagues were in the same situation. The PI wants to be the first author and he did and the paper gets published. He should mention to the journal frankly who is the corresponding or senior author (this is required information by almost all journals to the best of my knowledge and not by default) and he puts his name as the corresponding too. So, he was in that publication the first and corresponding. The only difference is that; we are many authors. The good aspect of only two authors is that both names should be mentioned if the paper cited anywhere. I see quite good number of papers with 2 authors mentioned as equally contributed to the work as this may be an option for you. I have one publication like that (me and the second) but again we are in that paper more than two.

I dont believe there is any importance to being the corresponding author. For e.g. I was the first author in one of the publications, where I chose not to be the corresponding author, since the journal was asking for close to a thousand dollars for the colored images we had in the manuscript. The senior author in that manuscript was willing to foot that bill and I was happy to list him as the corresponding author.

 

[RxnMan]

I think those rules may not apply when only two authors are listed.

I have written papers with one other person listed as an author, and the idea was that both my PI and I did ~50% of the work. A bonus is that some reference conventions list both names on two-author papers. When there's >2 authors, 1st-2nd are about equivalent (often a grad student or resident), last is senior (often the PI of the lab,) and everyone else is generally a consult (e.g. statisticians). It's better to be first author earlier in your career - you're learning the ropes - and better to be senior as you become a PI, but any other "authorship" doesn't add much.

If the OP did all of the work and the attending jumped on last-minute, then yeah, they got hosed (the "ubuntu study" possibility notwithstanding!)

 

[Bertelman]

Rxn,

I understand everything you mentioned, but the question was more about perceived seniority of the final author. If I see a paper with 5 authors, I presume the first did most of the work, and the final was the dept. chair, or whatever qualifies them to be senior. If there are only two authors listed, I can see scenarios where much of the work may have been done by the second author, but the PI/dept. chair wanted some face time, and threw there name on the top. Two authors. First author was PI, corresponding and senior.

I just think that when only two authors are listed, it is not necessarily true that the last (second) is the senior. Kind of like an only child. They are the oldest, but also the youngest. Kind of a purgatory, if you will.

 

[RxnMan]

...I just think that when only two authors are listed, it is not necessarily true that the last (second) is the senior. Kind of like an only child. They are the oldest, but also the youngest. Kind of a purgatory, if you will.

I agree with you - the first of those papers I mentioned, my PI asked to be listed first author for the reasons you listed.