How to tactfully refuse to be listed as a co-author

Question

I was involved with a research project with a group of people. Eventually, a paper was written and was accepted by a journal. I did not agree with the content of the paper and I didn't want to be listed as a co-author, but I did not want to create bad feelings between myself and the rest of the group.

The journal has a policy where every co-author has to turn in a signed agreement that they substantially contributed to the work. I refused to sign that document I thought that by refusing to sign that document, I would be left off the co-authors list.

However, the journal went ahead and included me without me signing the form. It is not going to ruin my reputation to have my name on this paper, but I didn't want my name on the paper and I am just wondering what I should have done differently to resolve this problem.

Answer 1

Well, there were a lot of mistaken decisions here, including by the journal to list your name.

To answer your title question, you should have, before the paper was submitted, told the group you didn't want to be involved, whether you said something like "I disagree with the conclusions of this paper, and don't want to be an author," or a white lie like "I don't feel I contributed enough to be an author."

You can also offer to be happy to be acknowledged; I find this is an option for authors who do not wish to hide an unwilling collaborator's contribution without making them co-responsible for the publication. This can soften the blow of disagreement without requiring to lie. - Captain Emacs

Upon getting the form, you shouldn't have silently declined, you should have talked with the other authors and informed the journal you were included accidentally. With everyone's consent, they would have taken you off.

Answer 2

You should have asked the co-authors not to be included up front. Leaving it until the journal asks to confirm your authorship is a lot more rude to your co-authors than just communicating with them. It makes them look dishonest or disorganized to the journal if you later ask to not be included.

However, if you got to the point you did, you should have explicitly asked to be removed from the list rather than hoping your non-response would give you the same result.

Answer 3

A colleague and I once had to deal with a very similar situation: after telling our then-boss that we disagreed with his interpretations, he went ahead and presented them at a conference, listing us as co-authors.

In that case, there was no paperwork to confirm co-authorship permission. We ended up sending a letter along the following lines:

We note that we have been listed as co-authors for presentation X and poster Y. We feel that our involvement in this work does not meet the requirements for listing as co-authors, and therefore we request that the proceedings be amended not to list us.

In your case, you should also note that you didn't submit the paperwork to be listed as a co-author.

If you want to soothe your colleagues' feelings, you might also suggest that a "with thanks to..." would be appropriate in place of a co-author credit. This allows them to acknowledge your contribution to the work, without implying that you endorse the paper.

Lesson for next time: people don't always check the paperwork closely, so if you don't want to be listed as a co-author, it's best to say so explicitly.

If they had checked the paperwork, the most likely outcome here is not that they'd have gone ahead and published without your name included. Rather, they'd have told you and your colleagues that they couldn't publish until you'd submitted the form, so this wouldn't have escaped the need to have that uncomfortable conversation with them.

Answer 4

The "Golden Rule" is a good start for most academic ethics questions. Treat other people the way you would want to be treated. I would hope that if your co-authors disagreed with the paper that you were working on that you would want them to tell you and that you would not want them to want to avoid disagreeing with you on research matters (which wouldn't reflect well on you). None of us really wants to publish work that isn't solid - it isn't in our long term interests, and we should have our collaborators best interests in mind as well as our own.

At this stage it is a bit late, but if you want your name taken off the paper, then I would suggest being open and straightforward about the reasons.

Answer 5

How core were your skills or contribution to the research work in question ? If you just contributed something secondary, e.g. statistical analysis for a small-scale social research project, then you could have plausibly asked to be left off the authors' roll. Maybe insist on it since you have reservations on the conclusions published - which should have been run by you even if drafted by others. But if you did say 25% of the core work but still had reservations on the conclusions drawn by others, I think you should have done more than meekly try to shy away from it all. I appreciate the fact that many faculty are kind of dragooned into joint research projects and it's hard to say no if you are a young academic. But the university's reputation ultimately stands on its rigorous application of high standards. Though this is often unpopular among a group happy to proceed with an "it'll do" approach, it is vital for your own esteem that you vocally disagree when you really think so.

Looking longer down the road, I suppose prevention is superior to cure. And avoiding - or at least not fully committing - to group dynamics showing a casual approach to research is the best way out of this situation.

Answer 6

Send a request for retraction to the journal.

You're listed as a coauthor on the paper. This was against your consent, but you are still listed as a coauthor, and that gives you the right to write to the journal to request retraction. If you strongly disagree with the results of the paper, and you did not consent for it to be published with your name on it, I would suggest that you might wish to write to the journal to explain the situation and ask that the paper be retracted.

This will likely hurt your relationship with the group who wrote it, but they shouldn't have published something with your name on it without your permission. That's a big breach of academic ethics.