[Pols-l] What counts as authorship in your field?

[Paul Johnson]

Dear friends:

A project that I helped with in CRMDA has now submitted to 
PLOS-biology.  I don't usually become a listed co-author on articles 
about projects.  My involvement in this one was deeper than most of our 
projects, so I was proud to be listed as a coauthor.

As a co-author, PLOS sent me a confirmation message that required me to 
agree to a four-part "what is an author" guideline.  It seemed to me 
this was quite a bit different than what the psychologists told me about 
APA.

https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/s/authorship

"The ICMJE lists four conditions for authorship credit. Authors must 
meet all four conditions in order to be listed.

  * Substantial contributions to conception and design, acquisition of
    data, or analysis and interpretation of data, and
  * Drafting the article or revising it critically for important
    intellectual content, and
  * Final approval of the version to be published, and
  * Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring
    that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of
    the work are appropriately investigated and resolved."


Psychologists in CRMDA told me years ago that if a person makes a 
contribution, they become an author. But the four part PLOS criteria is 
much deeper.

I think I agree with this 4 part standard. Over the years, I've not 
tried to be a co-author on many of the projects I help in CRMDA. From 
time to time, I've wondered if that is a mistake. I passed on some 
"resume enhancement" opportunities.  The PLOS guideline gives me a 
feeling I've been doing it correctly.

What do you think?  Are there guidelines in your field?  I don't know 
for an actual fact that the psychologists told me the correct thing 
about APA guidelines. In medical journals, it seems to be that anybody 
who is near a project is an author.

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pj

-- 
Paul E. Johnson			University of Kansas	     	
Professor			Director, Center for Research
Political Science		Methods & Data Analysis (CRMDA)
http://pj.freefaculty.org	http://crmda.ku.edu
email: pauljohn at ku.edu
Address: CRMDA
	 Watson Library, Suite 470
	 1425 Jayhawk Blvd.	
    	 Lawrence, Kansas
  	 66045-7594
   	 Ph: (785) 864-8215