Pubs: How do you divide up authorship tasks?

[hamsterpants]

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Hey Happy Shinny People,

HP here. I'm sorry it's been so long, grad school is awesome (<3 my cohort ) but the workload is truly kicking my a**.

anyway, I am now working on some pub projects on which I will be 1st author (yay) working with other grad students as coauthors, but I have never really been on a project as a co-author so I have very little understanding of how you divide up tasks as a team. I'm sure this differs from team to team but I'm curious what others have done in the past. Based on the one example I have seen, I would run analyses and write up results, one person would do lit review and write the intro, another would write methods and perhaps review my analyses (since this is my weakest area), and a third would write the discussion section. As first author, I would be responsible for weaving all the writing together (overall editing and "flow", making sure we matched the journal's requirements) and being sort of a project manager, setting deadlines, submission, spearheading rewriting and resubmission. Does this sound feasible? or should a first author do "more"?

Thanks!

 

[roubs]

Hey Happy Shinny People,

HP here. I'm sorry it's been so long, grad school is awesome (<3 my cohort ) but the workload is truly kicking my a**.

anyway, I am now working on some pub projects on which I will be 1st author (yay) working with other grad students as coauthors, but I have never really been on a project as a co-author so I have very little understanding of how you divide up tasks as a team. I'm sure this differs from team to team but I'm curious what others have done in the past. Based on the one example I have seen, I would run analyses and write up results, one person would do lit review and write the intro, another would write methods and perhaps review my analyses (since this is my weakest area), and a third would write the discussion section. As first author, I would be responsible for weaving all the writing together (overall editing and "flow", making sure we matched the journal's requirements) and being sort of a project manager, setting deadlines, submission, spearheading rewriting and resubmission. Does this sound feasible? or should a first author do "more"?

Thanks!

I think different faculty have different expectations in this area. I think what you describe is a perfectly fine way of doing things, I would just make sure you and your advisor are on the same page. It might be that he/she thinks you should write the first draft of the discussion or something like that.

 

[wigflip]

I think different faculty have different expectations in this area. I think what you describe is a perfectly fine way of doing things, I would just make sure you and your advisor are on the same page. It might be that he/she thinks you should write the first draft of the discussion or something like that.

I agree--it all really depends on how the person with the data/your adviser wants it done. I'm working on a project across institutions right now (never see my co-authors in person) and the first author is getting a lot of guidance/interference (depending on your perspective) from prof with data. I haven't first-authored with these folks yet, but I usually get to do final editing (yeah! geeklove 😍) no matter where I fall in authorship order.

 

[PhDToBe]

I thought the first author usually did most of all of the sections (at least the lit review, results, and discussion), with other authors editing and adding to the sections. Maybe what I have seen is not the norm, though!

 

[PsychPhDone]

Hi HP! That sounds reasonable to me. I've written papers that way before.

 

[wigflip]

I thought the first author usually did most of all of the sections (at least the lit review, results, and discussion), with other authors editing and adding to the sections. Maybe what I have seen is not the norm, though!

Ha ha. That does sound reasonable. Maybe I'm working with the wrong folks! For me it's been more like do whatever the person with data tells you to do and when. Much more of a mish-mash. In fact, I don't think the first author has been responsible for the lit review on any of the (only three) collaborative papers I've worked on.

 

[hamsterpants]

Thanks for your thoughts all!

I thought the first author usually did most of all of the sections (at least the lit review, results, and discussion), with other authors editing and adding to the sections. Maybe what I have seen is not the norm, though!

PhDToBe, that's what I thought too. But in my only real co-author experience so far, the first author pretty much just did analyses/ results. It may be though because so many of us wanted to work on this paper and all the work had to be subdivided into many tasks to not leave anyone out. I guess some of this depends on how many people are involved. My advisor lets us figure out for ourselves what works best, I like this style but I guess it wouldn't work for everyone.

 

[cara susanna]

I wish I could be first author on a paper and only put it together or do one section. That'd be nice!

 

[futureapppsy2]

I wish I could be first author on a paper and only put it together or do one section. That'd be nice!

In situations when this the case, though, the first author has usually done a heck of a lot more (e.g., gotten funding, did the analyses, managed the project operations, etc). Authorship can also be influenced by other factors (e.g., who needs what kind of pub most, etc) outside of who does the work. On all the publications I've been involved in to date (maybe around 10-15), the only cases I've seen where a first author lead the writing on every section was when the manuscript came from a thesis, dissertation, comps per, etc, except for one time when the first author pretty much did the entire project, plus the manuscript. Conversely, I've been an author on a couple papers where I wasn't involved in the day to day running of the project at all but was offered authorship in exchange for helping with the writing itself (heading up ahe discussion section plus global editing). YMMV.