Timeline for Is it okay to list a PhD student as corresponding author?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
11 events
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| Mar 10, 2017 at 22:50 | comment | added | Christian Matt | @SashoNikolov Now I see your point, thanks for the clarification! I tried to edit the answer to somewhat prevent misleading interpretations without changing the intended meaning. | |
| Mar 10, 2017 at 22:47 | history | edited | Christian Matt | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
Clarified that choice is not necessary.
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| Mar 10, 2017 at 22:16 | comment | added | Sasho Nikolov | You are missing the point. You may choose to have the corresponding author to be the one who did more of the work, or less: that is your private choice. Both authors should know the work well enough to answer to emails and that's all that a corresponding author is supposed to do. But saying that the "corresponding author is typically the person who did most of the work" is is in my opinion a misleading and dangerous claim to make. Would you like hiring and promotions being based on this supposedly typical thing? | |
| Mar 10, 2017 at 22:11 | comment | added | Christian Matt | @SashoNikolov If one person did 80% and the other one 20%, I'd say both contributed substantially. I understand that you want to avoid this, but it is not always possible. | |
| Mar 10, 2017 at 21:59 | comment | added | Sasho Nikolov | The answer is that you try not to have this situation in the first place. From the AMS culture statement: "the authors of a mathematical paper are almost always listed alphabetically by surname; all authors are assumed to have made substantive intellectual contributions to the work." | |
| Mar 10, 2017 at 20:09 | comment | added | Christian Matt | @SashoNikolov Apparently, there are different approaches to this. Just out of curiosity: If a paper is authored by two people and one of them (say author X) clearly did much more than the other one, why would you resolve this arbitrary choice differently than setting X to be the corresponding author? If it is arbitrary, there is no harm in choosing X, and there seem to be people like me who make certain (maybe wrong and unjustified) assumptions. | |
| Mar 10, 2017 at 19:49 | comment | added | Sasho Nikolov | -1. As David said, being a corresponding author has and should have no implication for who did how much of the work. At least not in TCS, and not in fields that have adopted the mathematics publication culture. In most papers I was involved in everyone contributed to the writing to some extent, and who is a corresponding author is essentially an arbitrary choice. | |
| Mar 10, 2017 at 12:45 | comment | added | David Richerby | But, in the cases I've been involved in, all the co-authors have been willing and able to discuss issues with the paper. "Able" is more or less a condition of co-authorship, so that really ought to boil down to "willing" and most people are happy to talk about their work. | |
| Mar 10, 2017 at 12:31 | comment | added | Christian Matt | @DavidRicherby Sure, but typically (at least for the papers I'm involved) the person who prepares the final document is also the one who submits it. This must of course not always be true. Moreover, people after publication will more likely contact the corresponding author, so this should rather be someone who can and is willing to discuss issues with the paper, and not someone randomly chosen... | |
| Mar 10, 2017 at 11:43 | comment | added | David Richerby | I'm my area of theoretical computer science, the corresponding author is literally that: the author who dealt with the submission process. Sure, the upshot is that it's completely normal for it to be a student but, for example, I'd never think, "Oh. X is the corresponding author. That must mean they did most of the work or prepared the final manuscript." | |
| Mar 9, 2017 at 20:59 | history | answered | Christian Matt | CC BY-SA 3.0 |