Timeline for Is there an ethical obligation to make author order reflect conventions in your field?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
19 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dec 8, 2017 at 2:21 | comment | added | Bob Brown | I provided a tiny amount of help to a research group. I am the first author on their paper "because alphabetical order; that's how we do it." I asked, without result, to be omitted entirely. I do not list this paper in my CV and am ready to explain why if challenged which I will not be, as I am retired! | |
| Dec 7, 2017 at 20:31 | answer | added | Fomite | timeline score: 1 | |
| Dec 7, 2017 at 15:59 | answer | added | Ian Sudbery | timeline score: 2 | |
| Apr 13, 2017 at 12:49 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
replaced http://academia.stackexchange.com/ with https://academia.stackexchange.com/
|
|
| May 31, 2016 at 4:13 | answer | added | Significance | timeline score: 14 | |
| May 31, 2016 at 3:57 | answer | added | Anonymous Mathematician | timeline score: 12 | |
| May 31, 2016 at 0:31 | history | edited | ff524 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 349 characters in body
|
| May 30, 2016 at 23:22 | answer | added | Dan Romik | timeline score: 21 | |
| May 30, 2016 at 23:19 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/StackAcademia/status/737423189073113088 | ||
| May 30, 2016 at 23:18 | comment | added | Pete L. Clark | For me, it is only the first scenario that corresponds to something in my experience. It seems pretty clear that it is unethical (unless sufficiently many other people in your field do the same thing, at which point it becomes the convention). I have zero experience with the pride of place being last author, so I probably shouldn't comment further about that. Shouldn't but I will say one thing: it sounds like Prof. Z may be claiming more seniority, but not necessarily more work on the paper. If other authors are okay with this, it does seem less clear who is victimized here. | |
| May 30, 2016 at 23:15 | comment | added | Mad Jack | Right, got it. That is my understanding (in EE, anyway), as well. | |
| May 30, 2016 at 23:13 | comment | added | ff524 | @MadJack No, in the undergrad co-author scenario, the convention says I should be first author because I did more than the other authors. | |
| May 30, 2016 at 23:12 | comment | added | Mad Jack | According to conventions in my field, I should be listed as the first author. — I'm confused. It sounds like you are saying that the conventions in your field do not specifically address the undergraduate-co-author scenario. Is that right? | |
| May 30, 2016 at 23:06 | comment | added | Pete L. Clark | Well, misleading academics into overestimating someone's contribution is not a victimless crime: the victims are everyone else in the academic community. In the case of the undergraduate: it seems like you are asking about giving a dishonest advantage to the undergraduate over all the other applicants whose mentors were honest (or more honest) about their students' contributions. I think one would only contemplate doing this because one hopes it will have some effect. But the effect that it has seems to be unethical. I can't say it's an enormo deal, but it doesn't sound kosher to me. | |
| May 30, 2016 at 23:02 | comment | added | ff524 | @PeteL.Clark I'm asking whether this is "unethical, important to stand up against" or "probably not ideal, but no real harm to it". The discussion I've heard thus far regarding ethics of author order is generally about protecting the authors, not the readers, so I'm not sure whether I'm making this into more of a "thing" than it really is. | |
| May 30, 2016 at 22:57 | comment | added | Pete L. Clark | Hmm, this feels a bit "meta-ethical" to me. Something can be unethical, and it may not be practical for a very junior person to insist on it or even draw stark attention to it. Are you asking whether ignoring what is ethical for practical reasons is ethical? (I'm getting slightly confused...) Anyway, how does this apply in your first example? "Aren't you you" in your example? | |
| May 30, 2016 at 22:51 | comment | added | ff524 | @PeteL.Clark The student who would have to tell a very senior professor, "No, you can't be the last author even if the guy who should be says it's OK" is probably going to earn an enemy in the process. (That's the specific situation that prompted this question.) How much of an obligation does he have to stick to the "conventional" ordering here? | |
| May 30, 2016 at 22:47 | comment | added | Pete L. Clark | When it comes to academia, lots of things only seem unethical if you think them through carefully. But if you reorder the authors with the intention of giving readers the wrong idea about who did the brunt of the work: sure, sounds (at least a bit) unethical to me. What's the other side's argument here? | |
| May 30, 2016 at 22:11 | history | asked | ff524 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |