A second place slot in the author list of a paper did not reduce the alleged educational ability of a co-first writer, found in a study. Credit: Getty
Who gets first? The question whether a paper should have a writer more than one before, they can give rise to frightening dialogue. And the discussion can only be prickly when deciding which of the two first authors is nominated in the first slot.
But new results can help remove such discussions. Research published last month in journal Scientific science It is suggested that there is no prestigious punishment for the first writer, even for a person of another name – at least in experimental conditions1,
“There was no loss of credit sharing,” says Mirium Shillbach, a co-author of the study and an organizational psychologist at Mastrich University in the Netherlands. It was nothing that we expected to find. ” He and his co-primitive writer-egoistic psychologist Julian Desius, Bremen, were determined at the University of Germany, which will be first listed by Rolling Dice. (Live deasius.)
Is the first …
Authority is the currency of academic life, and the first writer of a prestigious publication can become or break a career. The stakes are so high that in 2002, two molecular biologists in Germany ended in court on the posts.
Since research projects become more complex and require a large range of skills, the practice of sharing the top name slot, known as the shared first writer, is growing. It has expressed concern that the first listed co-writer gets the most kudos and it is considered less important than the pack on its own to share the first writer to share.
Scientist
To test such ideas, Decius and Schilbach created a CV for a fictional experimental physicist called Kim Muller. He recruited a panel of about 170 researchers outside Physics – mostly to evaluate CVs with psychology and management backgrounds – CVs. He told the panelists that Muller was an applicant for an assistant professorship and his top three articles were published in prestigious experimental-physical magazines.
The pair were then randomly assigned to each panel member of the four versions of the Mueller’s CV. In each version, the Mueller was listed on all three letters, either the first writer, the first writer, the first writer listed first or joint first writer was listed in second place.
Each panelist was then asked to rank six aspects of Muller’s educational success, such as the possibility of becoming the editor of a magazine in the next five years. Members of the panel were also asked to estimate Muller’s H-Index, which reflects the impact of one’s publications.
Credit sharing
On average, the panelists described Muller on all six aspects of educational success when the fictional physicist was the first writer when he was the second writer – confirming the importance of the first writer.
