Authorship Question

[way112]

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Hi everyone,

I had a question about authorship on a paper I will be submitting at my undergraduate institution very soon. I am graduating this year and will be starting my MD/PhD next year.

So, I started on a project last spring that a graduating senior was supposed to be finishing up. I was helping him along with another college junior. The graduating senior basically never finished his work, graduated, and the work was left on me and the other student still in the lab. The graduating senior was supposed to be 1st author on the paper and the other student and I would have been contributing authors. When the student left, the prof said we would be co-first authors on the paper. It turned out that the work done by the graduating student was completely wrong. The other student in the lab was very unmotivated and never thought/really cared that this project would ever get completed by the time we graduated. I basically figured out what the other student did wrong, re-did all his work and did my initial work.

As we are currently writing the paper, my PI has the other student and myself as co-first authors, myself being the second one on the publication. I find this rather frustrating because it is clear to me that I did most of the work--my initial work and the work of the student who was supposed to be first author.

It kind of bothers me that my name is second on the publication because I put so much hard work into this project (and had to really push the other student to do his part). Personally I wouldn't mind if we were co-authors as I think this would help him in graduate school, but I really wanted my name first on the publication. I think my professor put him first on the pub because his last name comes before mine alphabetically.

I know we would both be first authors but is it even appropriate for the other student to be a first author? I am confident that I did a majority of the work (taking over what I was initially supposed to accomplish and what the student that graduated was supposed to do). Should I say something to my PI? If so, how would I go about saying this? All of your expertise would be greatly appreciated it! (BTW, I hope I don't sound like a gunner, I'm not 🙂 )

 

[GliaGirl]

There is no harm in talking to your PI about it. You're only going to be working in his lab for another week or two. In the end, it doesn't matter at all, since just having the publication is a plus. Who cares where your name is? Are you going to be laying on your deathbed wishing things had been different? In the long run, probably not. But if it is REALLY eating you up (which is understandable), ask your PI about it. You can phrase it as something like: when I run my own lab in the future, I'm going to have to make decisions about paper authorship order, can you please walk me through how you made this decision, and how you determined who deserved to be what author on the paper?

 

[way112]

There is no harm in talking to your PI about it. You're only going to be working in his lab for another week or two. In the end, it doesn't matter at all, since just having the publication is a plus. Who cares where your name is? Are you going to be laying on your deathbed wishing things had been different? In the long run, probably not. But if it is REALLY eating you up (which is understandable), ask your PI about it. You can phrase it as something like: when I run my own lab in the future, I'm going to have to make decisions about paper authorship order, can you please walk me through how you made this decision, and how you determined who deserved to be what author on the paper?

Thanks for the reply. I probably should have said this before but my main concern is that I plan to apply for an NRSA and that this may be looked at in a lesser light. Do you think this would be the case?

 

[GliaGirl]

Well, when applying for things (I can't speak to NRSA in particular, but I am assuming), having a publication will be a big gold star on your application. It sounds like you're going to be a first author anyway, but asking your prof to put you first is definitely an easy thing to do. Asking to have the other person NOT be a co-first author will be much trickier, but just having your namefirst sounds reasonable to me...

It doesn't hurt to ask.

 

[Neuronix]

I doubt it means much at all for a F30 (MD/PhD) NRSA. Don't know for sure though. Mine was funded without a publication, and nobody mentioned it on my summary statement. All I saw was "excellent academic record" and the like.