APA guidelines suggest that whoever does the bulk of the work on a given project, whether students or faculty, should be first author. This seems eminently sensible to me, although not everyone I know follows this suggestion. One exception is publications stemming from theses or dissertations, where the student should almost always be first, barring unusual circumstances.
________________________________________ From: Michael Smith [[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, October 13, 2009 1:18 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: Re: [tips] An outsider's view of authorship I thought that's the way it was in psych---the grad students and post-docs get first authorship and the PI gets the last position. Everyone I know in my area of research works that way. I have heard in some related area where perhaps some 'old school' types always take first authorship, but I think that is the minority. No? --Mike On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 7:01 AM, Paul C Bernhardt <[email protected]> wrote: > > I find a lot to admire about what Ubel is suggesting in this short article. > His main point is that Psychology would reduce authorship controversies by > adopting the model used in Medical publication of research. That is: Younger > authors, who usually are doing the predominance of day-to-day work and > writing on the article, should be first author and the most senior person > overseeing the research lab should be last author. He says Tenure committees > for physician researchers actually expect more advanced faculty to be > sliding to increasingly later positions in the authorship and that too many > first authorships is considered a mark against you. > > http://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/getArticle.cfm?id=2563 > > -- > Paul Bernhardt > Frostburg State University > Frostburg, MD, USA > > > --- > To make changes to your subscription contact: > > Bill Southerly ([email protected]) > --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([email protected]) --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([email protected])
