1

My conundrum is this. All my coauthors have provided advice from conception to completion, on the study itself, data analysis, write-up but haven't actually done anything at those stages other than provide me with advice. They have however, contributed critically to some parts of the writing. I have to complete a statement of authorship and am not sure how to accurately describe this. If I said:

"All authors contributed to conception of the study, data collection, and analysis."

This would be over-selling co-author contribution.

BUT, if I say:

"ABC conceived the study, collected the data, and conducted the analysis, all authors critically contributed to writing of the manuscript."

I am worried this undersells the input from others.

Is it better to over-sell, in this scenario?

Improve this question
5
  • 3
    If they didn't collect data, you could drop that, but isn't "contributed to conception of the study" accurate for people who gave advice from start to finish? That's exactly what contributes to the conception and design of a study.
    – Bryan Krause ♦
    Commented Oct 7, 2020 at 22:58
  • Good point. What about analysis? If I am conducting all the analysis but they are advising, i.e. what tests to do, which variables to drop from a model (or whatever, made up examples), is this covered in "conception of the study"?
    – sleepy
    Commented Oct 7, 2020 at 23:00
  • 4
    IMO, choosing the analysis methodology for most studies is the primary intellectual contribution to data analysis. Sometimes the actual necessary programming is quite time consuming, but that's not necessarily what counts for authorship.
    – Bryan Krause ♦
    Commented Oct 7, 2020 at 23:04
  • 4
    This is an opinion based question, so I won't give a formal answer. But I think that you gain much by being generous in such matters. People outside your own circle won't be keeping score. People can contribute "equally" without contributing in the same way.
    – Buffy
    Commented Oct 7, 2020 at 23:23
  • Who is ABC? You?
    – Azor Ahai -him-
    Commented Oct 8, 2020 at 17:43

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
5

All my coauthors have provided advice from conception to completion, on the study itself, data analysis, write-up...If I said: "All authors contributed to conception of the study, data collection, and analysis." This would be over-selling co-author contribution.

I disagree. That's exactly what your co-authors did. Execution and writing needn't be the responsibility of all authors, especially when one author is a PhD student.

One way to better appreciate the efforts of others is to ask whether work could have been completed without their input. When the answer is yes, you could consider whether their efforts are worthy of acknowledgement rather than co-authorship. When the answer is no, it is surely clear they played an integral role and merit co-authorship.

Returning to the OP's example, you could ask: Could the study have been conceived without all authors? If so, then perhaps attribute conception to only those that were needed. Ask the same for data collection and analysis. You can then write a more accurate contribution statement. Personally, I'd be generous. Err on the side of inclusion.

Improve this answer
2
  • Yes, "All authors contributed" != "All authors contributed equally," although I agree with the comments it's fine to break out data collection if the other authors didn't do it
    – Azor Ahai -him-
    Commented Oct 8, 2020 at 17:43
  • Great. Thanks for your input! Makes sense.
    – sleepy
    Commented Oct 8, 2020 at 23:37

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .