Since I am a native English speaker in Portugal I do an awful lot of rewriting for my colleagues here, but never expect more than an acknowledgement at the end of the paper. However if the rewriter contributes critical comments and ideas, co-authorship is not out of the question. Still, if all I did was translate a Portuguese paper into English I would not expect to be an author. On the other hand, if someone tells me what they did and I shape that into a coherent paper, maybe I should qualify (since I am a theoretical ecologist, this often means that I add interpretations and concepts that were not evident in the raw data).
The issue of how much a co-author needs to contribute is never clear. There should be some contribution, but I have on occasion been pleasantly surprised that someone thought a minor contribution on my part was significant enough to earn co-authorship. A more important question, which has come up before on the list, is whether someone whose role was simply getting the funding or heading the laboratory deserves author credit. The first author is generally the person who made the greatest contribution, but this is not necessarily the case. When I write a paper with a junior scientist I usually put his/her name first since it is more important to someone who is just beginning their career. Still, the first author should be the one who can best address questions about the paper. Which leads to an amusing anecdote. I wrote a series of three papers with a very famous colleague, but since I did most of the work my name came first. When we were readying the third paper for submission he commented that he was not used to being a junior author and would I mind if he put his name first, even though it was mostly my work. I didn't mind, so he appeared as senior author. But unlike the previous two papers, this one was very controversial and came under severe attack. He panicked and frantically came to see me to make sure that the work was OK. He never fully understood what the issues were (they involved some pretty abstruse theoretical arguments) and always regretted putting his name where he shouldn't (but the paper has stood the test of time and I still think it is one of my best!). Bill Silvert ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alicere Bachman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, August 21, 2007 5:37 PM Subject: writing a paper and authorship > One of my friends wants me to post the following question and see what > kind of opinions you may have: > > My friend is teaching in an univeristy. A professor in her department > did some interesting work on biodiversity but the professor cannot write > well enough to put the work into a professional paper. The professor > approached her asking her to write the paper for him and her to be the > second author, although she does not have anything to do with the research > work. > > 1. Is this a good collaboration? If it is, many people can ask others to > write papers for them and are still listed as the first authors. > > 2. Is it ethical? (my friend did not do the research; maybe she should > not be a co-author on something she did not do?) > > 3. Should the person writing the paper be the first author? > > Alicere
