How to Choose the Author Order in a Manuscript
As a researcher, a key part of your career is to conduct research and publish your findings, all to advance the body of work in your research area. The primary way to recognize your contributions and the contributions of others is through authorship.
But who should you list as an author? And in what order should you list them?
Granting Authorship
A great way to select who should be an author is to use the guidelines created by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. According to the ICMJE, each author should fulfill all four of the following criteria:
Were they significantly involved in designing the study, collecting data, or analyzing the data?
Were they involved in drafting or reviewing the manuscript?
Did they approve of the final version of the manuscript for publication?
Were they responsible for the accuracy and integrity of all aspects of the research?
Honorary Authorship
Some groups give honorary authorships to someone who has not substantially contributed to a research project. For example, they give a gift authorship out of respect for or gratitude to an individual, such as a department head or senior researchers. Or they give a guest authorship to a well-known researcher to increase the apparent quality or prestige of a paper.
While honorary authorships do happen, they are unethical. And they can be equated with research misconduct. Instead of adding an honorary author, play it safe and mention the person in the acknowledgements section.
Corresponding Author
When you submit a manuscript, the journal requires you to choose one of the authors to serve as the corresponding author. This author receives all updates from the journal, such as the submission status, the reviewers’ comments, and the final decision. The corresponding author is often the principal investigator. In some cases, research groups have the first author or another author fulfill this role.
Ordering Authors
When many authors collaborate on a paper, they face the task of figuring out the order of authors. In some cases, the order may be obvious. But in others, deciding on the order can be difficult. Here are a few guidelines to help you decide how to order the authors in a manuscript.
First Author
The first author is the most sought-after position in a publication. Postdoctoral researchers use this “ranking” to get funding, get hired, or get promoted. Graduate students use it as their ticket to their PhD, because they often need at least one first-authored paper to earn their degree.
The first author is most often the person who has contributed the most to the work. This contribution can be through designing the study, performing experiments, collecting data, analyzing data, writing the manuscript, or other tasks related to the project.
You can choose to have more than one “first” author. But the first “first” author will still enjoy more visibility than the other “first” author. The first “first” author is the first name a reader will see. In some citations, the first author may be the only name a reader can see. When possible, avoid having more than one first author by planning your project carefully.
Last Author
The last author is usually the supervisor or principal investigator who oversaw the project. This person receives much of the credit when the project is successful, or the criticism when something goes wrong.
Similar to choosing more than one first author, you can recognize more than one last author in a manuscript. This practice is increasing as research becomes more interdisciplinary. Some groups also use the practice to show that several senior group members reviewed the data and analysis in the manuscript.
In-Between Authors
After the first author, the authors are usually listed according to their contribution to the work, from the most to the least. If more than one author contributed equally, you can ask the journal editor to note this in the publication. You can also order these authors by their seniority in the group or the degree of difficulty needed to carry out a specific part of a project.
If your group debates on the author order, you can use a mathematical approach to order the authors. First, decide which items will appear in the manuscript. These items include text, figures, tables, and ideas. Determine how much each author contributed to each of those items. Then rank the items and assign a weight to each of them based on their importance to the overall manuscript. Finally, calculate each author’s total contribution based on this system. Then order the authors from the most to the least contribution.
Planning Authorship from the Start
The best way to mitigate any issues in authorship is to have a plan. Discuss the order of authors when you start the project. As the project progresses, keep track of everyone who contributed and how they contributed to the work. Remember to discuss authorship at regular intervals or at major milestones. This can help reduce the risk of disagreements later on in the project.
When negotiating the order of authors, remember that it takes a team to successfully complete a project. You are all working together to accomplish the same goal—a successful publication that advances your field.
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