Not sure if this is an obvious question, or if someone has asked this. If so please tell me.
Suppose I and A have a (math) paper. There are two parts, and I believe the first part is done by me, and the second part is done by A.
Now someone asked me a few questions.
- Is first part your part/ your work?
- Is second part your part/ your work?
Easy to see I have a few options here.
a. That is my part.
b. That is not my part.
c. That is our joint work.
I suppose, if I claim my part to be my part, I should not claim A's part as my part or our joint work. And claiming my part to be my part will also lead to a problem when we have another author B who doesn't really has his part. That is, probably we worked together and he didn't produce a part. If I claim my part, I might have to end up claiming B doesn't have a part, which doesn't seem to be good.
So the question is, how should I answer such question, when people ask me which part is mine? Also sorry for the bad presentation of the question, and any edits are welcome.