[Taxacom] Ethics? Whose name should be written on a publication as an Author?

[Pierre Deleporte]

Hi Levent,

please try this as a first approach :

http://www.hms.harvard.edu/integrity/authorship.html

integrity is the distance between professional ethical standards and 
real practice

Pierre


Levent Can wrote :
> Dear all,
>
> As far as I know one should have a minimum contribution of %10 to be written
> as an author in a paper. I have read the illustrative book of Robert A. Day
> "How To Write & Publish a Scientific Paper" and came to the conclusion that
> the subject is a purely intellectual concept. Even in an intellectual
> community. I wanted to learn what the taxacom members think about this
> subject, who should be written, who should not be written, and where is the
> threshold to be written in a paper?
>
> I am asking this because I experienced a situation a few days ago. The
> situation was briefly like this:
> I and my colleague have decided to arrange a poster for a local conference
> in Turkey. After two weeks of hard working we prepared the abstract and
> wanted to show it to our mutual supervisor. After 2 hours he gave the
> abstract to my colleague and said she should send it like this. Then I
> realized that this abstract had four names on it, but without my name. My
> colleagues name, the "supervisor"s name, and two other professors names.
>
> As a humble graduate student in a third world country and a future
> academician this experience broke my desire to science, belief and trust in
> my supervisor.
>
> *Few would dispute that researchers have to take responsibility for papers
> that have their names on them. A senior laboratory figure who puts his or
> her name on a paper without direct supervision or involvement is
> unquestionably abusing the system of credit. There have been occasions where
> distinguished scientists have put their names irresponsibly on a paper that
> has turned out to contain serious errors or fraud. Rightly, some of them
> have paid a heavy price.
> *—Editorial*, Nature, *p. 831, 26 June 1997
>
>   

-- 
Pierre Deleporte
Université de Rennes 1
CNRS UMR6552 EthoS - Ethologie Animale et Humaine 
Station Biologique 
F-35380 PAIMPONT   FRANCE
Téléphone : 02 99 61 81 63
Télécopie : 02 99 61 81 88