Mentor added his name and alphabetized the author list, putting me last

Question

I was recruited by a university to work on a research project as a research fellow and have dedicated over 8 months to it. I have maintained a schedule of fortnightly presentations with another senior research fellow and professor to update them with the progress of the research. After I shared the first draft of the paper with them, the senior fellow rewrote the introduction and added his and professor's name to the author list. He alphabetized the list by our last names, stating that's the convention they are beginning to follow, which effectively puts my name as the very last. I have done all the research and I feel shortchanged. I did not like the fact that this was not even discussed with me before changing and the senior fellow will be presenting my paper, I was informed. Again, I am upset about this.

Yet, I have been in the system for 8 months, 4 more months to go before my contract is over with the institute. It matters a lot to me that my name appear first in the list of authors as I am planning to do my PhD soon and having a list of publications with my lead authorship will help me get work with the university of my choice.

What should I do? Should I let this go and not be bothered or should I discuss my concerns with the professor? The senior fellow and professor are very good friends and have been working together for over 6 years and I do not want them to gang up against me as I am new to the field.

Answer 1

Speaking from a field where author lists are always alphabetical: This will do you good in the long run! If you follow this convention, you will never have to argue over authorship order - take a look at the amount of questions on this site dealing with exactly this question, and be thrilled that you have the option to simply exclude that from your life.

Since I am in such a field, I also know what people do on their CV: they explain what they did for the study. You can write that you did the experiment, the analysis and wrote the first draft of the paper. This will be more informative for a hiring committee than any amount or author-list ordering principle you can come up with.

Answer 2

In the first instance, I recommend talking to the professor and respectfully asking the reason why they changed the author ordering. However, unfortunately it is completely conventional in some fields to always list authors alphabetically, meaning that if your name is at the end of the alphabet you're unlikely to ever have a first author paper (note that if it is conventional in your field, the professors you apply to do your PhD with will also know this and hence not be surprised or worried by your lack of first authorship).

You can mitigate this somewhat when you list your publications in your CV. Consider writing a small description or footnote after the paper, saying that it was signed alphabetically and giving a brief explanation of your contribution. For example:

Publications

"Your paper title here", A. Aardvark, B. Bear, Y. Yourlastname¹, Journal of Things, 2020.

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¹ Paper signed alphabetically. My contribution was completing X experiments, Y analysis and writing the first draft of the manuscript.

Answer 3

I had a similar experience a very long time ago: I was working with what would be my Ph.D. advisor's group and this work and I did a long and involved calculation which was the major part of a paper. After I handed in the results and helped write up the paper I found out that my name was nowhere in the paper, and only got a thanks in the aknowledgement. I first went and found a new advisor on a different field. Next, I emailed the journal saying exactly the truth: that this was my work. I was next summoned by the head of the department, who on the one hand rightly chastized me for not coming to him first, but then held a hearing commitee with 3 faculty members, to whom the former professor admitted that his contribution was basically 0 and my work was ingenious. The commitee forced them to put my name on the paper. It was the last author, but I had what I needed and had happily moved to an advisor more in tune with my ethics.

Answer 4

As others have noted there are some fields (and subfields) where alphabetical ordering is the standard and everyone understands, expects, and respects that. A paper with a different ordering will stand out in some way.

But the solution in such a situation is to provide a short section in the paper itself, detailing the main contributions of each author. For the PI, it might just be providing the lab and guiding the research. For yourself it might say that you were the main driver of the research.

Such a section can come early in the paper or at the very end.

And, since you seem to imply that this professor, at least, is moving to an "alphabetical order" standard, it might be to head off such disputes in the future. But it would be hard for an individual, even a powerful one, to do this on their own. Usually it is the consensus of the majority of researchers in a field. Pure Math and Theoretical CS seem to have such a standard.

Some lab sciences do not. Especially those in which a paper could possibly have hundreds of "co-authors".

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Let me add a bit about fairness. Yes, you can ask the professor for the reasoning, but it might be a mistake to try to argue the case, because of the power imbalance if nothing else.

But, if there are unequal contributions that can be clearly identified, then fairness suggests that they be recognized somehow, even if not in author order. Hence, the suggestion of a contributions section.

But it is a bit subtle. Sometimes people contribute to a bit of research in different enough, but essential, ways so that any notion of "priority" is meaningless. Other times it is clear. In mathematics, for example, it can be devilishly difficult to work out priority when people are contributing insights into a problem. A person who spends little time on a problem might just provide the key insight that makes the solution possible.

In some fields there is a clear "driver" of the intellectual content of a piece of research and other contribute, perhaps with a lot of time and effort, but the ideas and insights come from on person or a small group. There it is a bit clearer how priority is assigned and it should be recognized.

In your particular case, you may be able to argue for that recognition in a way that everyone is comfortable with.

Answer 5

Ask the group if you can be the "corresponding author"

In most disciplines, the corresponding author is either the lead author who did most of the writing/work or the PI on the project. They handle the submission and are in direct contact with the journal. If you are marked as the corresponding author on the publication, it will be assumed that you were a major contributor to the work, even if your position in the author list is close to the back. This convention generally holds more across fields than author order - for example some applied math journals have alphabetical author lists, but they still mark a corresponding author.

Note at the end of the paper you can put a section called "Author contributions" where you summarise what everyone did. Many journals require such a statement. For journals that don't require such a statement, I have never had a journal ask I remove it [mostly general science, applied math, biology, and environmental science journals].

On a CV you can put an asterisk in front of all papers where you are the lead/corresponding author. And explain this at the top of your publication list.

Answer 6

• Please check if the journal actually has a detailing section of the contributions (i think in nature or science this was in the end of the paper)
• Check the Rules of the Journal, could be that they ask for alphabetical order

Answer 7

This is very field dependent, and also can depend a lot on sub-fields within a field. I don't know what your (sub)field is, but since you say the justification is that "that's the convention they are beginning to follow", I am guessing it is not universal in your sub-field.

If that is the case then you are right to be upset. This will harm you as a young researcher, while only marginally benefitting the more senior people who have been shuffled to the front. You are also right to be upset that this was not discussed with you.

In this situation, I would send a reply to both the senior fellow and the professor, stating politely but very clearly that this wasn't discussed with you, and that you are not happy with it, giving exactly the reasons you gave in your SE post. It's quite likely that they haven't really thought about it from your point of view, and the professor may or may not be unaware that it hasn't been discussed with you. In that case I would expect that such a mail would result in a swift change.

It's important to be polite, so as not to be seen as being difficult about it, but this is a situation where you do have every right to make your view known. If the authors aren't usually listed alphabetically in your field then you absolutely should be the first author.

Answer 8

Name change (Yes seriously)

My immediate thought was a name-change. I see that this has already been suggested (perhaps jokingly) in a comment @A. I. Breveleri

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Personal anecdote

Some years ago I changed my surname (by deed poll - I live in Britain). My original surname was "Smith". I wasn't ashamed of this but got fed up with people complaining they couldn't find me in company lists. I changed my name to something distinctive that I liked - I wasn't worried about alphabetical order. It is remarkable how people react differently to you when they hear a cool sounding surname! People even perceive me as more intelligent now! (Hint: Look up nominative determinism - it doesn't just work on oneself).

Because my surname is unusual now - I share it with a famous film actor - people remember me.

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But it's too late for this paper!

Your name seems to indicate that you are female. Just tell them that you are engaged to be married and that you want to change your name ahead of time in order to have consistency with your future publications. Get a friend to pose as John Aardvark. Aardvark is perhaps a little extreme and people will cotton on, however there are plenty of "A" names out there. Personally I would go for it - academics will love or hate you for it but you can bet they will remember you!

If making the change immediately would arouse suspicions, you could change your name after publication and see it as a future investment. If you have the necessary aplomb though, there isn't much they can do.

Long term

Having a memorable (not to say exceptional and cool-sounding name) will be a good career move on its own merit. Having a cool name that is also early in the alphabet will double your credibility - it will be the first thing that people see. So would having a name starting with "Z" by the way. You might like to consider this - it would arouse less suspicion. The effectiveness of always being at the and of a list relates to the well-established Serial Position Effect.

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Incidentally, I'll bet that, with the new alphabetic trend, and the acceptability of pseudonyms in academic publications, people will all start doing this and eventually papers will be written by authors all beginning with "A". It's called the law of unintended consequences.