Role of last authorship?

[futureapppsy2]

I've seen two different contradictory views of "last authorship" (i.e., being the final author listed on an article). One is that it is the highly coveted "mentor role" slot and is considered at roughly the same level of prestige/desirability as first authorship (people were just as likely to vie for last author as they were for first). The other view is that it represents the lowest contribution to the project out of all the authors and is therefore least desirable/looks the least good on a CV. My PI and colleagues at my undergrad mostly endorsed the coveted "mentor role" view of last authorship, but, with one exception, people at my grad school tend to look at me like I've grown a third head when I bring it up, endorsing the later view thereof.😕

What has been your experience?

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[DrPablo]

In the areas I have published (social/personality, developmental, clinical), the order of authorship has been based on direct contribution to the published paper. The primary author is listed first with the second listed second and so on. It has been typical to find mentors to be listed last since it may be their lab or research data.

However, other disciplines may differ. I recently found out that the last authorship listing in nutritional science is reserved for the primary author and is considered more prestigious.

 

[Ollie123]

Different fields have different standards. Last author seems to have caught on in psych departments, but I think it originated in medicine.

At the hospital I'm at, last authorship is viewed "just as good" as first author by the senior admin who make hiring/promotion decisions/etc. Similarly, they are also expected to have (reasonably) long author lists with cross-department collaborations. So publishing lots of articles with just them and a grad student wouldn't look as good. I've also had the experience of explaining this to folks in psychology, and being looked at like I'm out of my mind.

 

[roubs]

In our lab we follow the last author as advisor/lab director, but I never thought of this as "coveted" in any way because it just signifies who the advisor is. If we're going to follow that convention it seems somewhat silly to jockey over who gets last author when that person clearly isn't the lab director.

 

[Pragma]

I have seen it done both ways. In my experience, my own mentor preferred for the author order to reflect actual contributions to the paper. They generally did not take the last author slot, as they typically did a lot of contributing.

I think that when you reach a point in your career where you are well-established, the last author role is just fine. However, some of it may have to do with promotion/tenure considerations. If your university does not recognize last authorship as reflecting your mentoring, then expect most early faculty to be first authoring just about everything. Of course, they may not have a policy about that, and it would be your responsibility to present yourself as more of a mentor 'Last authorship master"

 

[futureapppsy2]

Different fields have different standards. Last author seems to have caught on in psych departments, but I think it originated in medicine.

At the hospital I'm at, last authorship is viewed "just as good" as first author by the senior admin who make hiring/promotion decisions/etc. Similarly, they are also expected to have (reasonably) long author lists with cross-department collaborations. So publishing lots of articles with just them and a grad student wouldn't look as good. I've also had the experience of explaining this to folks in psychology, and being looked at like I'm out of my mind.

This pretty much was the attitude toward last authorship held by my undergrad PI and colleagues. We were in psych, but our research team was very interdisciplinary and in an area of psych with a good amount of crossover with medicine (rehab psych), so maybe that explains why.

 

[Iwillheal]

In my lab which is a medical lab, the last author is almost always the same guy, the head of the medical department. He is the PI and although he barely does anything (just handles the admin stuff), his name goes pretty much on every paper that comes out of the lab, which is infuriating to me but I have no say in the matter and I don't want to get in trouble by going against how things have been done there for a long time. He does not know stats so our psych postdoc handles all that and I assisted him with some of the basic stuff last three times. Somebody also wrote up the paper with input from people in the lab but he was on vacation so nothing from him. The final draft went to him, he made some minor changes in the wording of two sections, and voila, his name goes last, I don't get mentioned at all. At least the last paper I was mentioned at the end, something like "and thanks to assistance of X, Y, and Mr Iwillheal.

 

[Pragma]

At least the last paper I was mentioned at the end, something like "and thanks to assistance of X, Y, and Mr Iwillheal.

Lol, I can't wait to see that 🙄

Acknowledgements are great, but don't mean much. I wonder if you can make a case for deserving authorship if you contribute greatly to the project.

Your post touched on something that bothers me in a medical school setting: physicians have a very limited understanding of statistics if they haven't gone out to get training in the area. Of the physicians I know (not psychologists) who have funding at my setting (and aren't MD/PhDs), they farm out all of the statistical analysis (as they probably should). However, residents then do "research" projects and presentations, and often completely murder the results sections since they have no idea how the stats work. If you keep it simple it is just fine, but my exposure to this working within a medical school setting has me terrified about just how good a consumer of the literature some of these physicians actually are.

All of that said, despite all of the academic ethics in authorship that are discussed and supposedly honored, those politics are going to be at play, even if that MD doesn't know the difference between a t-test and a correlation.

 

[Iwillheal]

You're absolutely right on both counts Pragma, regarding being thanked not meaning much and also doctors having limited understanding of stats, though obviously I have a very limited experience, and I'm not sure if my agreement means anything beyond my own immediate experience having worked in this lab for a few years. The lab has a very "medical school" feel to it. When I started out, I had to database maintenance stuff and I would have rather gouged my eyes out instead. Just the exact opposite of my interests and talents and all that. When I asked him if I could get involved with actual research that would lead to publication, he said something like, You know, everybody starts out doing "grunt work." Our postdoc is a very nice fella and he told me that I could help him with stats and that this would eventually lead to me having my name on a publication. I asked him why the female student who started out just a few months before me had a publication to her name, and he said something like, He (PI) is a traditional guy and has a "soft spot" for women. I'm not even sure what that means. Reverse sexism? He has a very professional relationship with her as he does with me and everybody else, although I do notice she gets "more interesting" tasks as times. But it's not we're in competition, we are not working on exact same project or same aspect of the project so, but anyhow.

As far as stats, you gotta see the PI's face every time our postdoc mentions stats. He looks like as if he ate something sour or is put in a very uncomfortable position and needs to escape. We have learned not to talk stats in front of him and focus on the big picture stuff. I still remember the confused expression on a volunteer's face when she questioned the validity of one of the main measures used in the study during the lab meeting and while looking at the PI who in response just looked at postdoc and made some vague gesture and then completely changed the subject to the timing of the next conference and if the poster will be ready in time.

I hate all these internal politics. I just want to sit in my corner, do the stats, write a paper, get published, etc. This stuff is very distracting and emotionally exhausting.

 

[deleted103644]

Last author pays the bills, first author does the work, the rest are just padding their resumes.

 

[cara susanna]

What if there are only like two authors though? Is being last author still bad? What if there are three? When does this ranking end? Haha.

 

[Dirkwww]

I believe this has already been said, but in my lab and on the last two papers i have been on, last author is the head of the lab

 

[wigflip]

What if there are only like two authors though? Is being last author still bad? What if there are three? When does this ranking end? Haha.

I think the best answer is to look at the CVs of recent hires who have the jobs you want (i.e. ones you have a realistic chance of getting). If you go too far back, you'll find that T-T faculty could get jobs with few/even no pubs. You'll probably find a mix of first- and later-authored pubs. I know one guy who got hired in the last few years in Canada with a handful of middle-authored, but no first-authored pubs. I think he trained in psych, but got hired in comm stud or similar.

In my field, co-authored papers are a little less prevalent than in psych, and I know the hiring committee in my department talked a lot about "risk" and "trajectory" with regards to their finalists for a recent position. i.e. they wanted to see some first- and/or solo-authored work in order to know that the new hire wasn't simply "riding coattails" on their previous pubs and would be able to actually produce once they got thrown into the assistant professor gig.

I've also seen dual-authored papers with notations indicating that authors' contributions were equal.

On another note: I know a prof who took last author on a dual authored, top-cited paper in my field. So now s/he gets to tell students how First Author needed the publication more, and imply that it was very big of Second Author to step out of the way and let FA go first. Further implication being that SA deserved the FA credit, but in addition to making the major contribution, was tremendously generous. 🙄

 

[mewtoo]

Your post touched on something that bothers me in a medical school setting: physicians have a very limited understanding of statistics if they haven't gone out to get training in the area. Of the physicians I know (not psychologists) who have funding at my setting (and aren't MD/PhDs), they farm out all of the statistical analysis (as they probably should). However, residents then do "research" projects and presentations, and often completely murder the results sections since they have no idea how the stats work. If you keep it simple it is just fine, but my exposure to this working within a medical school setting has me terrified about just how good a consumer of the literature some of these physicians actually are.

I don't know if this will make you feel any better, but when I had been looking at med schools a few years ago they were transitioning from wanting calculus to stats. Perhaps this will help a bit? I believe they all require probability and statistics for admission now, but then again by the time they finish med school whats the chance they will remember much?

 

[PsychPhDone]

At my grad school, tenure/promotions committee looks at first/last authorships. It's been my experience that the anchor author role is important, especially on a paper with many authors.

 

[Iwillheal]

On another note: I know a prof who took last author on a dual authored, top-cited paper in my field. So now s/he gets to tell students how First Author needed the publication more, and imply that it was very big of Second Author to step out of the way and let FA go first...

Oh how nice. LOL.

p.s. Wigflip, what is that in your avatar? A model, a mannequin? The more I look at it the more it's freaking me out, especially the eyes.