Should I be first author?

[TheRealBatmanMD]

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Recently, a public policy manuscript that my PI and I submitted was rejected by a journal. I anticipated this decision as my PI tends to submit manuscripts quickly with little regard to the quality of the content. As a result, I spent the past few days rewriting the entire manuscript, and the new content is almost 99 percent different compared to the original paper. My PI, however, was originally the first author of the paper as he wrote the original manuscript. My question is, because I rewrote the entire manuscript, should I tell my PI that I should be first author of the paper (of course in a polite manner) ?

 

[500miles]

Recently, a public policy manuscript that my PI and I submitted was rejected by a journal. I anticipated this decision as my PI tends to submit manuscripts quickly with little regard to the quality of the content. As a result, I spent the past few days rewriting the entire manuscript, and the new content is almost 99 percent different compared to the original paper. My PI, however, was originally the first author of the paper as he wrote the original manuscript. My question is, because I rewrote the entire manuscript, should I tell my PI that I should be first author of the paper (of course in a polite manner) ?

Are there figures on this paper produced by your lab?
Is the purpose or hypothesis the same even though you rewrote it?
1st author is for the person who conceived and contributed the main intellectual "story" for the paper. Does that fit your revision?

 

[chaim123]

Recently, a public policy manuscript that my PI and I submitted was rejected by a journal. I anticipated this decision as my PI tends to submit manuscripts quickly with little regard to the quality of the content. As a result, I spent the past few days rewriting the entire manuscript, and the new content is almost 99 percent different compared to the original paper. My PI, however, was originally the first author of the paper as he wrote the original manuscript. My question is, because I rewrote the entire manuscript, should I tell my PI that I should be first author of the paper (of course in a polite manner) ?

Scientific authorship is a really touchy subject, and different PIs can have different opinions about the line. For first author, the question is who did most of the work and who did most of the writing. So who did the bulk of the research that ultimately went into the manuscript? Furthermore, writing and editing tend to be different, and so even if you made substantial edits, it was still your PI who put it all together originally.

All in all, some PIs would make you the first author. Some wouldn't.

 

[Catalystik]

Recently, a public policy manuscript that my PI and I submitted was rejected by a journal. I anticipated this decision as my PI tends to submit manuscripts quickly with little regard to the quality of the content. As a result, I spent the past few days rewriting the entire manuscript, and the new content is almost 99 percent different compared to the original paper. My PI, however, was originally the first author of the paper as he wrote the original manuscript. My question is, because I rewrote the entire manuscript, should I tell my PI that I should be first author of the paper (of course in a polite manner) ?

Don't "tell," rather initiate a conversation on the subject and ask his opinion.

 

[mistafab]

Should? No
Could? Maybe - talk to the PI

 

[Goro]

Recently, a public policy manuscript that my PI and I submitted was rejected by a journal. I anticipated this decision as my PI tends to submit manuscripts quickly with little regard to the quality of the content. As a result, I spent the past few days rewriting the entire manuscript, and the new content is almost 99 percent different compared to the original paper. My PI, however, was originally the first author of the paper as he wrote the original manuscript. My question is, because I rewrote the entire manuscript, should I tell my PI that I should be first author of the paper (of course in a polite manner) ?

Simply being an editor or a secretary does NOT merit first authorship.