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I have been one of the co-authors of a published paper 8 years ago. In those years I was an undergrad student. So, I had no significant scientific contribution to this paper. I have just finished my Ph.D. and I do not want this paper listed in my publications.

Is it possible to remove my name from this paper via a correction?

Clarification: I have concerns about the quality of this work. It was carelessly written and the quality is low. So I do not want my name to come together.

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    I have concerns about the quality of this work. It was carelessly written and the quality is low. So I do not want my name to come together.
    – Raio
    Apr 12, 2019 at 12:24

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When you say "listed in my publications", who is doing the listing? While changing the past isn't going to be possible, it's certainly possible to downplay it. Obviously, on any listing you control (e.g. your CV or personal website), you can mention it or not.* As for any professional website (e.g. your company or university's website), they'll probably ask you for what publications you want listed.

If the only reason you want to distance yourself from the paper is that you feel like you didn't 'deserve' to be included as an author, I would say that your co-authors apparently felt that you did. If you still feel like you don't belong on the paper, you'll just have to downplay any questions about the paper. (E.g. "Oh, the team felt that I played a significant enough role in the collecting of data that they included me as an author. Personally, I'd rather have been mentioned as an acknowledgement, but they insisted, and, especially as a junior member of the research team, I didn't want to seem ungrateful.")

But, that's only going to happen if someone asks you about that particular paper. How often is that going to happen?

* If not mentioning it in a "Publications" section seems like a falsehood to you, branding the section as "Relevant Publications" or the like may be the way forward.

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  • branding the section as "Relevant Publications" --- Nice idea!
    – Dave L Renfro
    Apr 12, 2019 at 12:33
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    -- or "selected publications"
    – henning
    Apr 12, 2019 at 12:38
  • Even if someone asks about your undergrad publication (which in the fields I know is a rare thing to have) and you're not very impressed with the publication, you've still got a good answer about early work in a research group that went well. Unless utterly wrong it's a help not a harm; even then you presumably did something like collect the data
    – Chris H
    Apr 12, 2019 at 12:39
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Is it possible to remove my name from this paper via a correction?

No: You cannot change historical record.

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    This never stopped people from trying though.
    – Dirk
    Apr 12, 2019 at 12:37

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