31 replies to this topic

[pito]

nightingale, on 29 November 2010 - 02:27 PM, said:

and Casandra : reading the ethical considerations you kindly shared, is it really the case always ... ???
i know Doctors who ask for authority just because they lend you a device of their own !!![/font]

LOL

But it brings me to an idea or general view on the names in papers: you just cant be sure that they are for "real"..

I mean: offcourse some names are known and will always be meaningfull... but face it: some names are on papers just for any reason you can think of...

I knew of a person who had his name on 2 papers because he wrote a thesis (when studying, graduation thesis) from wich a little bit of info was used.. however the info that was used was nothing more then the info gotten from an experiment from a prof. that the student had to do
(student just did the practical thing, nothing more..)

So is this ok or not?

And what about a person I know who has his name on 5 papers simply because he read the papers and corrected for writing errors or maybe big general errors every teacher in that field would know...

(keep in mind that this person is not a "researcher" , he is mainly a teacher and has no research of his own..)

I can keep giving examples like this..

The point being:
rules are there to follow , to make it clear when and who just be on a paper...
But as we all know: are rules followed by everyone at any time?

[casandra]

pito, on 30 November 2010 - 08:36 AM, said:

The point being:
rules are there to follow , to make it clear when and who just be on a paper...
But as we all know: are rules followed by everyone at any time?

nope, and that's the irony of why we have rules....because we can't do self-policing and we don't trust each other's integrity and sense of fairness and some people (esp those with the power) will not do the right thing unless there's a threat of punishment/sanctions...this is a very depressing topic......

[nightingale]

it IS really depressing ...
i always thought of the world of scientists as an ideal one in terms of manners ...

[HomeBrew]

There should be one rule -- authorship on a paper is determined by the amount of work/data/ideas/financing contributed to the ultimate manuscript.  Titles, hierarchal position within the lab, and secondary considerations (such as so-and-so "needs" a paper) should have no standing.

[casandra]

HomeBrew, on 01 December 2010 - 04:41 AM, said:

There should be one rule -- authorship on a paper is determined by the amount of work/data/ideas/financing contributed to the ultimate manuscript.  Titles, hierarchal position within the lab, and secondary considerations (such as so-and-so "needs" a paper) should have no standing.

I guess most people would agree but who interprets, manipulates and enforces this rule? What a very idealistic way of looking at it, HB....

[HomeBrew]

It is idealistic -- but it should be the starting point.  It's pretty much the standard all reputable journals state.  It was the title of the thread that prompted my post -- of what consequence is it that someone's a technician?  If his or her contribution was significant enough, they should be included as an author.  What would you think if the title was "first-year post docs versus third-year post docs and papers"?

[pito]

HomeBrew, on 01 December 2010 - 04:41 AM, said:

There should be one rule -- authorship on a paper is determined by the amount of work/data/ideas/financing contributed to the ultimate manuscript.  Titles, hierarchal position within the lab, and secondary considerations (such as so-and-so "needs" a paper) should have no standing.

True, but what about "famous" scientist "giving" their name to give papers a certain reputation... How many times do you see a certain name of a well known professor on a paper just to "up" the reputation of that paper? (mostly at the end of the list)
While you know for sure that they had almost nothing to do with it or maybe even just checking it (reading it).

[HomeBrew]

I'm not saying it doesn't happen -- it does, but it shouldn't.  If the paper's good enough, the author names shouldn't matter...

[pito]

HomeBrew, on 06 December 2010 - 06:31 AM, said:

I'm not saying it doesn't happen -- it does, but it shouldn't.  If the paper's good enough, the author names shouldn't matter...

True

[Maddie]

nightingale, on 29 November 2010 - 02:27 PM, said:

at the faculty i worked, the situation was :

technicians are asked to choose between :
taking a monthly salary until the project is done vs writing their names as authors on the paper ...

what are your inputs on this ???

Woaw that sucks. I am shocked. For me, adding one name on the co-author's list doesn't decrease the benefits of the 1st author. A tech should be paid AND be co-author when he did most of the lab work. I know that in the guidelines for co-authorship, the "lab work" isn't an accepted criteria but who are we fooling here? Many people get their names on simply because they share material or read the manuscript. A tech does much more than that.
OK, I vented, I feel better  

[lab rat]

nightingale, on 29 November 2010 - 02:27 PM, said:

technicians are asked to choose between :
taking a monthly salary until the project is done vs writing their names as authors on the paper ...

Did the faculty get the same stipulation? If not, then unfair indeed.

[UBClabbie]

even though some techs just do as they're told, sometimes these types of people should be put onto papers. the way i see it is that there are some techniques that are very finicky and require a certain level of finesse and natural technical talent. even if someone didn't contribute an idea, the time and money saved by a technically skilled and less theoretically skilled technician can be invaluable.

that being said, if u just ran repetitive gels all day then i don't think u can really expect to be on a paper.

i will say though that when i was a co-op at a lab (an undergraduate student working in a lab for work experience and was paid for it) i would have been put on a paper if i contributed any figures, no matter how much theory i contributed.

[MyProteinBulliedMe]

The way they do it in my lab is, if you have a figure that is the result of your own from start to finish, then you are in that paper.

E.g. the idea came from the postdoc. But you are the one creating the vector, mutate it continuously, grow it, IP, process data, western, cleaned it, redo everything etc until you have the final cleaned beautiful figure which is made into Figure 3. This deserves paper authorship. The postdoc should be first, because the whole paper is his idea, but you should be like 2nd or 3rd.

But if you just made buffers then you shouldn't be in paper. If you just helped miniprep everyday they wouldn't put you in paper. If you do 1/2 of the above they will put you on acknowledgement but I think you need to do everything your own for your name to be in paper. Did they give you even acknowledgement?

I don't think this matters that much whether you're a tech or post doc, e.g. when I was undergrad, I had my own project like that for 1 year and got 2nd authorsip (the grad student who write, come up with ideas, obviously got 1st). I'm a tech and the same rule still apply (I mean, tech are basically grad students and they are getting names on paper and also getting paid as well, right?)

[nightingale]

Quote

I know that in the guidelines for co-authorship, the "lab work" isn't an accepted criteria but who are we fooling here? Many people get their names on simply because they share material or read the manuscript. A tech does much more than that.

well Maddie, i can't agree more !

[nightingale]

Quote

Did the faculty get the same stipulation? If not, then unfair indeed.

u mean the doctors ???
off course not !!!
....