Year: 2019
Type: article
Abstract: Reducing bias: accounting for the order of co-first authors Today, the overwhelming majority of biomedical science publications have more than 1 author, and the number of authors per publication is rising exponentially as a function of time (1).For multiauthored papers in the biomedical sciences, the order in which authors are listed is a code for conveying the importance of their contributions.In this scheme, the first position is typically assumed by the individual (usually a junior person in training) who does the bulk of the work in the study, whereas the last position is taken by a senior person who has supervised the work.Hence, the author position is critically important for attributing contributions from junior investigators who need first-author publications to further their careers in biomedical research.This mechanism for credit attribution worked reasonably well when there were 2 authors but has become increasingly strained as research groups have grown to produce complex studies with numerous authors making important contributions.Consequently, recent years have witnessed a practice whereby the first or last author positions in the byline are shared by 2 or more individuals, often with an asterisk indicating that "these individuals contributed equally" (2).Since only 1 author can be listed first on a publication, the chosen individual among a list of "equally contributing authors" is likely to garner a greater share of citation credit and recognition from readers by virtue of having their name first.Two recent studies suggest that the author order is not equitable with regards to sex for authors claiming equal contributions (2, 3).If 2 individuals contribute equally
DOI: 10.1172/jci128764
Language: English
Subfield: Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty
Field: Decision Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Reduced inequalities
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2941753348