Paper Authorship

Paper Authorship

A study involves the following stages:

1. Question Development/Literature Review

2. Experimental/Research Design & Stimulus Production

3. Data Collection

4. Data Analysis

5. Writing the paper/manuscript

The general rule we will follow for conference papers is:

If you are significantly involved in at least two of these stages for a project, you will be an author on the conference paper.

Exceptions can be made if you participate in only one stage, buy your efforts were truly extraordinary. Exceptions can also be made in the opposite direction, and would be most likely to happen if your work was found to be unacceptable. Clear indications of unacceptable work would be given along the way.

Of course, when a paper moves beyond the conference level and graduates to a manuscript submitted for publication, more involvement is expected in order to remain an author. If you participate in a project and want to get “a pub” out of it, you need to stay connected with the project all the way through. Again, communication is key.

Order of Authorship

This is usually open for discussion.

If the overarching questions are guided by someone’s research program, then it is reasonable for him or her to have an expectation of being first author. Similarly, it is reasonable for others to expect to appear in the authorship list if they were significantly involved in at least two stages of the project.

When several students/faculty have been equally involved in a research project and authorship can’t be determined by amount of work to everyone’s satisfaction, then equally contributing authors will be listed alphabetically the first time it happens (with a footnote stating this) and rotating through the order should it occur subsequently.