Interpreting Authorship Order and Corresponding Authorship

To the Editor: In the era of multiauthored scientific papers, critics have warned that credit and accountability cannot be determined without explicit report of author contributions.1,2 We assessed how academic readers interpret the order of authors and designation of “corresponding author” in assigning credit and accountability for scientific research. We created a fictitious study title with 5 fictitious authors. We provided only the initials of the authors’ first names to avoid sex-biased response. Two authorship bylines were constructed, one with the first author as corresponding author, and the other with the last author as corresponding author. Respondents were asked to infer the authors’ specific contributions for each set of authorship bylines. We sent the survey to the chairs of 32 departments of surgery or medicine in all 16 Canadian university medical facilities. Each respondent received up to 5 follow-up telephone calls after the initial mailing in September 2002. Twenty-two (69%) department chairs (11 medical, 11 surgical) completed the survey. When the first author was also the corresponding author, all respondents credited the author with the analysis and interpretation of data and with drafting the manuscript. Most respondents inferred that the first author was also involved in the process of study conception and design (82%) and acquisition of data (95%). Respondents varied in their inferences about the first author’s involvement in the other areas. The only contribution ascribed to the second, third, fourth, and last authors by at least 50% of respondents was critical revision of the manuscript. When the last author was labeled as the corresponding author, the last author was much more likely to be given credit for study conception and design (increasing from 36–77%), for administrative support (from 41–77%), and for supervision (from 46–86%) (Table 1).TABLE 1: Percent of Canadian Medical and Surgical Department Chairs (N = 22) Who Assign the Following Credit to First or Last Authors, According to the Position of the Corresponding Author in the List of AuthorsMost respondents felt the authorship order should be determined by amount of work done (95%) and contributions to writing the manuscript (91%). Responses did not differ between surgical and medical department chairpersons. Our study demonstrates that 1) labeling an author as corresponding author increased the author’s credit for contributions to the study; 2) beyond the first author’s contribution to design, conduct of the study, and writing the paper, respondents appear to have little idea of the roles of any author; and 3) respondents endorse manuscript writing and the amount of work done on the study as legitimate criteria for designating authorship order. Our findings suggest that experienced readers with responsibility for determining academic advancement of their faculty are inconsistent in their interpretation of authors’ contributions in the absence of explicit reporting. Unless journals report authors’ explicit contributions in research papers, many readers will continue to remain uncertain or draw false conclusions about appropriate author credit and accountability. [Acknowledging the authors’ arguments in favor of publishing author contributions, we have permitted these to be listed below.—The Editors] AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS Study Conception and Design: Mohit Bhandari, Jason Busse, and Abhaya Kulkarni. Acquisition of Data: Mohit Bhandari and Pamela Leece. Analysis and Interpretation of Data: Mohit Bhandari, Jason Busse, Abhaya Kulkarni, P. J. Devereaux, and Gordon H. Guyatt. Drafting of the Manuscript: Mohit Bhandari. Critical Revision of the Manuscript: Mohit Bhandari, Jason Busse, Pamela Leece, Abhaya Kulkarni, P. J. Devereaux, and Gordon H. Guyatt. Statistical Expertise: Mohit Bhandari, P. J. Devereaux, and Gordon H. Guyatt. Administrative, Technical, or Material Support: Pamela Leece and Mohit Bhandari. Study Supervision: Mohit Bhandari. Mohit Bhari Jason W. Busse Abhaya V. Kulkarni P. J. Devereaux Pamela Leece Gordon H. Guyatt Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics McMaster University Medical Centre 1200 Main Street West Room 2C9 Hamilton, Ontario, L8N 3Z5 Canada [email protected]

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