Thoughts on the process of co-authoring scientific publications

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authorship, journals

Well, so much for my idea to write more regularly…

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the processes involved in co-authoring scientific publications, typically journal articles. I’ve had a wide variety of experiences, from exceptionally positive to not-that-brilliant, and everything in between so I thought I might put finger to keyboard and put together some of my own ethos.

 

Platform

There is now a plethora of programs, platforms, and methods for writing a paper. When I wrote my first paper 15+ years ago, nearly everyone used MS Word (or WordPerfect). Establishing what platform you use is important because it will filter down into some of the other aspects. This will largely be driven by the lead author, and linked to whatever reference management software they use, but there may be other considerations, too. I still prefer MS Word because I’m getting increasingly old & crotchety, but also because I still have a local copy that’s not reliant on an internet connection. I still (thankfully) spend a lot of time in the field, on remote islands or on ships where an internet connection isn’t a given. I also only have a (small, nearly full) free Dropbox account; don’t assume your coauthors have the same resources you do.

Whatever system you choose, make sure that all your co-authors are fine with it, as they might have restrictions you do not. When I worked for Environment Canada, for example, Google Drive and Dropbox were blocked. The ability for multiple authors to add comments and edits (ideally tracked) is an important aspect for me as well, so I tend to avoid systems where this isn’t an option.

 

Contributions

The first rule of co-authorship is that not all co-authors will contribute to the same degree. Some contribute data, software, or samples, while others are much more involved in framing the publication, writing, and editing. Whatever your arrangement (which isn’t the topic of this post), make sure that you and everyone else is clear. There’s nothing worse that misunderstandings about who thought whom was doing what.

When it comes to writing, lots of tools, including Google Docs, and files in Microsoft OneDrive allow simultaneous editing/writing, which can be quite beneficial, but isn’t essential. Even if the method is to circulate drafts by email, there are tools like the Compare/Combine functions in Word that mean it’s easy to combine multiple versions. There’s nothing worse than a flurry of emails asking who’s got the most current version, or feeling like you have to start over if someone sends through their input halfway through. But fear not – these can all be combined later. It will be up to the group dynamic to decide whether everyone sees everyone else’s comments, or whether the lead author compiles all of these. Regardless, this brings us to one of the most important aspects of co-authorship – timing

 

Timing

How long should you give coauthors to add their input to a draft? Well, it varies. Early on, when there are likely to be a lot of comments, or if some coauthors are only seeing the draft for the first time, longer is better. I tend to default to a month, but I always make it clear that if folks have other commitments, the deadline can be flexible. I also make it clear when it can’t (for example, a journal special issue has a strict submission deadline).

If some co-authors are non-responsive, get in touch with them directly, and don’t be afraid to set more strict deadlines. But recognize that not everyone has time available to go through a 8000-word manuscript in a week; the time allocated for research, especially for folks who have high teaching responsibilities or are outside academia can be amazingly small (if I get 20% of my time in a given week these days, I’m lucky!).

When wrangling particularly large coauthor lists (I’ve done up to 22), all the above becomes more important. But it’s also important to make sure that regardless of time commitments, everyone who is a co-author has enough time to feel comfortable to “sign-off” on the paper, as it will have their name on it in the end, after all.

 

Communication

The hallmark to good collaboration is communication. Pick the tools that work for you. I dislike slack/teams/instant messaging for manuscripts because it implies that everyone is often around or can chime in in real time. Often decisions can get made, and then the conversation moves on before there’s consensus.

Forward the journal submission confirmation email (redacting any confidential sign-in details, of course), and a copy of the submitted paper around to everyone, and do the same with the reviews, and the response to reviews (see also above on timing), and the final decision. Not all journals alert all coauthors to decisions, or changes in status. I tend to not circulate journal page proofs unless I have a specific query, but that may be useful in some contexts. Always send around a copy of the paper (you should get an “author’s version” at most places, even if you lack a subscription and the paper isn’t Open Access).

If your data aren’t yet publicly available (and there are legitimate reasons not to, after all), it’s usually good for all co-authors to at least have the data, if not the code for analysis (if applicable), or know where to find these. It’s just redundancy in the system. If the lead author becomes uncontactable, leaves research, or loses access to their email address and there are queries, the other coauthors can (sometimes) help. This can either be done through private data repositories (figshare, which I use, has this and can provide a link and DOI even if the data aren’t public), or by email/shared folders. Again, pick a system that works for you and your team.

 

Anyway, just a few things that I’ve discovered over the years. Co-authorship can be thorny, prickly, and sometimes unpleasant, but if all coauthors work in an inclusive and understanding way (I can dream, right?!), it can also be much smoother. The bottom line is, have discussions, achieve consensus, be understanding, and communicate clearly at every stage.

Good science happens because of good people – thoughts on coauthorship

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authorship, publishing

The title of this post if often how I end my talks and show that even though I’ve been the one talking for the last 45-50 minutes, there’s a whole cadre of students, mentors, and collaborators behind the science. And I will admit that I have had, on the whole, generally good experiences with coauthors. Perhaps so much so that when things don’t go as smoothly, I really notice it. And I’ve only had one coauthoring experience that I would describe as truly awful (and perhaps unsurprisingly, that paper was never published).

So below are a few nuggets. It’s not advice, or meant to be prescriptive, but is more about the ethos that we (my coauthors and I) have tried to adopt over the last 15 years. It’s never been something that someone sat me down to explain, and I’ve picked it up over the years working for (and with) folks at universities, NGOs, quasi-NGOs, government, and community groups.

 

Authorship

Always (ALWAYS) discuss this up front, but be open enough to discuss it again as projects change. I am a huge fan of the CLEAR Lab’s Equity in Author Order post, and highly recommend it. Different folks in different places (geographically, career-wise) have different pressures. Read Max’s post above which lays it out better than I ever could.

 

Journal

We all have preferences for journals, and different factors that go into picking one. Some folks do/don’t have funds for open access. Some have to play the impact factor game. Some need something out quick (more on this below). We always try to come up with a list of 2-3 so that there isn’t a lot of back-and-forth in the case of desk rejects (which happen often enough).

 

Time

With very few exceptions, there are no hard limits on getting things submitted. Not necessarily everyone on the team has a huge time allocation for research, and speaking from personal experience, timelines of “get this back in a week” aren’t likely to be met with compliance. It obviously depends on one’s team, but I found that at least 3 weeks for minor comments worked for a bunch of our papers (especially with larger teams). And obviously longer for things like first drafts or major changes. Whenever we suggest a deadline, we usually include the caveat that if someone feels they can’t make it, we can happily accommodate if they let us know.

The same goes for revisions. I have yet to be denied additional time from a journal to complete revisions, so long as they know it’s coming. And believe me, I have certainly asked frequently.

 

Software

There are lots of tools for writing papers these days. Overleaf, Google docs, Word, TeX, papyrus, and no doubt others. There are likely to be legitimate preferences for one over the other, and finding a consensus (with rationale for why) is another piece that brings everyone on board. For several years, I was in the field & working offline for large chunks of time so Google Docs was less than ideal, for example. Each has its advantages and disadvantages.

 

Communication

I mean, this one is pretty universal. But in this context, I mean keeping everyone in the loop about where things are. Not all journals email all coauthors about decisions, and sometimes folks who aren’t coauthors will need to be kept in the loop. Send around submitted (and indeed accepted versions) of manuscripts for folks to decide to keep for their records. In the case of accepted versions, many institutional repositories need these, and so it saves an email.

 

Develop a checklist

If you work with the same team, or supervise students, having a quick checklist for common issues can be helpful and save time. Are all references cited listed? Are the figures colour-blind-friendly? Our students submit this checklist with each new submission, and it means we can focus on the more substantive parts of the manuscript.

 

A note about process

With all the above, we try to come to a decision by consensus and after hearing from everyone. Sure, we have suggestions and can have informed starting suggestions, but we get the OK from all before proceeding. Yes, it can take a bit longer, but it means that everyone’s involved in the decisions, and has a bit more invested in the project and its success. At the end of the day, everyone’s name is going to appear on it, so if there’s something grating someone the wrong way, it’s not great (from either side).

The above is just a few of the major “process” things we think about when writing a paper. There are indeed more, and as I said, this isn’t meant to be prescriptive or a complete list. My point is that finding a system that eliminates (or mitigates hurdles before they manifest in a collaborative way has been a huge benefit for us, and when we end up working in other collaborative circles without some (or any) of these, it’s quite noticeable, and sometime unpleasant.

An understanding of everyone’s pressures, institutional requirements, and logistical situation up-front can help ensure smooth(er) passage of papers through the part of science publication where we have the most direct control – producing that manuscript for submission.

 

Happy coauthoring!

What’s in an affiliation?

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affiliation, authorship, writing

Every scientific paper has a few key ingredients, but the one that may receive rather little attention is the authors’ affiliation(s). Absent until the early/mid 20th century, authors’ affiliations were probably added to facilitate correspondence with an ever-growing community of readers.

Nowadays, it can be a loaded, political, and/or much discussed part of putting a paper together for a variety of reasons. Organizations, departments, and schools use it as evidence of research output for publicity, or internal and external evaluations. Indeed, in some places, authors (or their departments/institutions) receive financial renumeration for published papers, which hinges on the affiliations. Sometimes this can be gamed (in obvious ways), as more and more researchers are offered honourary positions at institutions where they used to work*, or collaborate frequently. Seeing authors repeatedly list 3, or even 4 affiliations often causes me to raise my eyebrows. Most (some?) of these are legit, but how many simply list affiliations so the institution can add the paper to their list of “papers published by our department/school/institute”? Adding such affiliations has no material cost to the authors, is highly unlikely to be questioned, and so becomes a question of personal ethics. I should add, though, that I suspect this is an extreme minority of cases.

As a general rule, authors should list their affiliation as the place where they did most of the work. In my case, this is fairly straightforward: if I primarily use data collected during my MSc, my affiliation is the University of New Brunswick (and I list my current affiliation as “Present/current address”). In some cases, though, the distinction between data/ideas/projects started at Affiliation A and those at Affiliation B may be more opaque.

Author affiliations can also be a political tool. Some institutions (primarily those outside academia) require approvals to publish, or authors may want to publish on topics that are outside the scope of their work. In extreme cases, authors may wish to make particular points or conclusions that could be counter to those of their employer (e.g., government policy), or their employer may not wish to be affiliated with a particular piece of work. I discussed this last scenario with a friend of mine who was told he couldn’t list his institution’s affiliation on a manuscript. His solution was to basically invent an affiliation (we amusingly settled on the nonsensical “Giraffe & Sons, Ltd.”, though I don’t think he ended up using it in the end, sadly) for work that he did outside of his day job. Similarly, it’s fairly common in ecology/conservation for researchers to do small bits of independent consultancy, which could include publication based on work done while on one’s own dime, so to speak.

On a more annoying/foolish/sinister side, affiliations have likely been used by some to infer the quality of the output (“Check out this new paper from Cambridge” can, to some, sound more impressive than “Check out this new paper from North-central Podunk State University” because some use affiliations as a proxy for quality. Which is utter bollocks).

I think affiliations do matter, though perhaps more so outside academia.

 

*I’m an adjunct professor at the university where I did a postdoc, but this was a requirement to co-supervise a student, and this affiliation appears only on papers associated with that student’s work.