Alicere - Two other very relevant questions:
1) Is your friend an untenured person in the department? 2) Is the professor/collaborator tenured? It may be difficult (i.e., not politically wise) for the untenured person to reject collaboration with a tenured member of her department. Tell your friend to carefully consider this aspect if she is untenured. Regarding authorship rights and author order, there are a number of good papers out there that discuss this, e.g.: Weltzien JF, Belote RT, Williams LT, Keller JF, Engel EC. Authorship in ecology: Attribution, accountability, and responsibility. Front Ecol Environm. 2006;4:435441. Good luck! ----- Forwarded message from Alicere Bachman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ----- From: Alicere Bachman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [email protected] Subject: writing a paper and authorship Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2007 09:37:24 -0700 One of my friends wants me to post the following question and see what kind of opinions you may have: My friend is teaching in an univeristy. A professor in her department did some interesting work on biodiversity but the professor cannot write well enough to put the work into a professional paper. The professor approached her asking her to write the paper for him and her to be the second author, although she does not have anything to do with the research work. 1. Is this a good collaboration? If it is, many people can ask others to write papers for them and are still listed as the first authors. 2. Is it ethical? (my friend did not do the research; maybe she should not be a co-author on something she did not do?) 3. Should the person writing the paper be the first author? Alicere ----- End forwarded message ----- Kim J. Brown, Ph.D. Assistant Professor [tree ecophysiology & forest ecosystem function] Dept. of Environmental and Plant Biology Ohio University, Athens OH 45701 Lab = http://ecophys.plantbio.ohiou.edu Dept = http://www.plantbio.ohiou.edu
