Let me clarify what constitutes authorship on a scientific article. It does not necessarily mean that a person wrote one of the paragraphs. In fact, in the future we may have artificial intelligence to thank for writing much of the routine text in our articles and technical manuals.
It DOES mean that an author is a person that is responsible for one or more of the following: Coming up with the original idea (i.e., the hypothesis) for the experiment Collecting data Analyzing data Presenting data (in graphical, written or other forms such as videos, etc.) Supervising the people that collect, analyze and present the data Drawing important conclusions from the data and testing new hypotheses that result from this all-important step Writing the text of the final document You want and NEED all of these people to be listed as authors—as they are the ones that are legitimately responsible for the final published work. If there are any questions about what is presented in the work, everyone knows who is responsible. We call this transparency, which unfortunately is lacking in other important human endeavors. Diana ************************************************** Diana R. Tomchick Professor Departments of Biophysics and Biochemistry University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center 5323 Harry Hines Blvd. Rm. ND10.214A Dallas, TX 75390-8816 diana.tomch...@utsouthwestern.edu (214) 645-6383 (phone) (214) 645-6353 (fax) > On Aug 31, 2016, at 11:59 AM, Cavers Texas <texascavers@texascavers.com> > wrote: > > Wow! Fourteen alleged authors for an article with eight paragraphs. How many > of those people do you think were really authors, i.e., writers? How many of > them were just bottle washers? -- Mixon > ---------------------------------------- > Always forgive your enemies after they are hanged. > ---------------------------------------- > You may "reply" to the address this message > (unless it's a TexasCavers list post) > came from, but for long-term use, save: > Personal: bmi...@alumni.uchicago.edu > AMCS: a...@mexicancaves.org or sa...@mexicancaves.org > > _______________________________________________ > Texascavers mailing list | http://texascavers.com > Texascavers@texascavers.com | Archives: > http://www.mail-archive.com/texascavers@texascavers.com/ > http://lists.texascavers.com/listinfo/texascavers ________________________________ UT Southwestern Medical Center The future of medicine, today. _______________________________________________ Texascavers mailing list | http://texascavers.com Texascavers@texascavers.com | Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/texascavers@texascavers.com/ http://lists.texascavers.com/listinfo/texascavers
