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I recently worked on a research project for a client of my organization who was chosen for a highly prestigious lecture in my field (delivered annually). As part of convention, the lecturer is also afforded the opportunity to publish, ahead of the lecture, a single-author-only invited paper in a high-profile journal. From what I understand, no other authors are "allowed" to appear, but having been the sole person responsible for producing literally all tables, models, and visualizations in the manuscript, I still feel strange about this.

I wrote all code used to wrangle and analyze the data and am listed in the acknowledgments for "data and statistical support". Would it be acceptable (conventional, ethical, etc.) for me to list this publication alongside the others (for which I am listed as author) on my CV?

If so, what's the appropriate format? Can it be Only-Author, [Publication Title] or Only-Author et al., [Publication Title]?

This kind of scenario does happen somewhat frequently at my organization, so just thought I'd try to get some insight to avoid raising any eyebrows for grad program applications/future employers. Thanks in advance!

user134782
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    What do you mean with having "allowed" in quotation marks? Maybe there is some convention, but conventions can be broken if the situation justifies it. – lighthouse keeper Feb 04 '21 at 06:46
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    Unfortunately, the journal site doesn't publish these guidelines, and I wasn't even aware that there would be a publication to begin with until I stumbled upon it while doing a lit search for something else lol. Good point though; will keep in mind for the future – user134782 Feb 04 '21 at 07:14
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    "This kind of scenario does happen somewhat frequently at my organization" Sounds like it's time to find a new organization. – Anonymous Physicist Feb 04 '21 at 07:32
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    If there is no guideline, then there is no point why you cannot be second author of the paper. You might want to ask questions, until you are presented with some clear evidence why you cannot be an author of this paper. – lighthouse keeper Feb 04 '21 at 08:29
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    This situation seems extremely weird to me. The requirement that a paper be single-author only seems odd - it's hard to imagine why that would be there. But whatever the reason, if someone publishes a single-author paper then it has to be solely their work. If the content was primarily - or even partially - your work then your name has to be on the paper. If it's not then something is very wrong. Submitting it without your name is a clear case of misconduct by the person who's listed as the author. If the paper doesn't cite a previous publication of yours it could be grounds for withdrawal. – N. Virgo Feb 04 '21 at 11:11
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    What I don't understand is that apparently there are single authors of paper created by at least one more author. This is the wrong side of the story. – Alchimista Feb 04 '21 at 15:39
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    Depending on how routine the data analysis and visualisations are authorship is not necessarily guaranteed. They need to be major intellectual contributions. For example, in some fields if someone could reproduce the analysis or visualisations using well known methods taught in university classes, without modification, it wouldn't count for authorship. – WetlabStudent Feb 05 '21 at 07:35
  • @WetlabStudent the corollary to that is that 'tables' and 'visualisations' is clearly material that will quite literally be embedded in the manuscript. We are not talking about visualisations that helped Author1 come up with their own material to insert. So in that sense, OP is a 'co-author', and the manner in which the tables, models, and visualisations have been formulated express their own work and opinions. Had OP been 'commissioned'to create those following very strict specifications, that is a different matter. Obviously there is a gray area in between. – Tasos Papastylianou Feb 05 '21 at 11:42
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    @TasosPapastylianou Why do you assume it is not the case that OP was "commissioned to create those following very strict specifications"? OP says all they did was write "all code". It sounds like they work for a company that provides visualization services, so an author can send a data file in a random format and ask for scatter plots by principle components, or 3D visualizations, or whatever they want. Then an employee will write the code to "wrangle and analyze the data", including making it look nice. Now an employee sees a prestigious paper full of their figures and wants co-authorship? – Matt Feb 05 '21 at 15:47
  • It's a little hard to follow. Is this a good way to summarize your question? "I have done a lot of work on a paper and feel I should be listed as a co-author. The other author agrees, but due to a technicality would like to omit me from the list of authors so that the paper can be published in a certain high-profile journal for a certain conference. Is there a way I can tell people I'm an 'uncredited co-author' of the paper?" – Jason Goemaat Feb 05 '21 at 16:35
  • @TasosPapastylianou Yes, the assumption is that the author paid the OP, otherwise it is unethical unless the terms of the arrangement (lack of co-authorship and pay) was specified in advance. Usually for such tasks, an academic would either do it themself or pay a research assistant or company to do it. While exploiting students for free does happen, and it is unethical (without explicit agreement as to what the student is getting out of the relationship), this does not appear to be what happened here. – WetlabStudent Feb 06 '21 at 13:16
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    Yes, the assumption is that the author paid the OP — Huh? Whether or not money changed hands has nothing whatsoever to do with deserving authorship. – JeffE Feb 06 '21 at 20:16
  • @JeffE In principle yes. There are cases where "major intellectual contribution" is clear, and authorship should be granted, or not, based on this. However, many people will disagree as to what is a major intellectual contribution. In some fields, it is very common to pay a company to prepare tables, visualisations, or perform standard routine analyses. It is understood that payment is compensation for the work. However, if there is no payment, there is an ethical issue, e.g. did the author take advantage of someone who assumed they'd be an author as compensation? – WetlabStudent Feb 18 '21 at 06:48

4 Answers4

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Would it be acceptable (conventional, ethical, etc.) for me to list this publication alongside the others (for which I am listed as author) on my CV?

No. If you are not on the author list in the publication, never imply that you are on the author list in your CV. It's dishonest, even if you deserved to be on the author list.

Anonymous Physicist
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Assuming that you really cannot be an author of this paper (about which I have doubts, see my comments), you cannot list it as a publication in your CV.

An alternative, ethical way of taking credit for your efforts would be as follows: You can have a separate section in your CV called "Additional research experiences". There you could mention this project and the tasks that you performed in it.

This would be worth more than nothing, but also less than a publication.

lighthouse keeper
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The other answers/comments provide accurate information from the perspective of academia, where authorship (including co-authorship) is an important metric for achievement and prestige, and where a lot of attention is therefore given to its fair allocation.

I'll add a perspective from someone who has jumped around between academia, industry, and the grey area in between. In many instances in industry and general-public-focused publications in particular, it is only the prestigious seniors who get "credit in the byline". Or sometimes the publication channel limits the number of authors that can be listed and the contributors are expected to sort it out. When I was starting in my field, I was multiple times the grunt who did a lot of the work for such papers but wasn't listed as author, and in recent years have sometimes become the prestigious senior.

It is good form*, where someone has done a significant part of the work but isn't listed as official co-author, for them to be credited in the text or at least a footnote, e.g. "the author acknowledges the significant contributions of John Q. Hardworker, Jr. to this paper". But whether this happens depends largely on how much priority the prestigious senior puts on it, and often editors will resist. In particular, if the editors feel they have scored a coup by getting Amy Y. Famous to write a paper on "Future trends in intradisciplinary factology", they may not want to dilute the prestige by an overly fulsome acknowledgement that implies it was effectively ghostwritten.

As others have said, you can't claim authorship for a paper where you are not a listed author in the "Publications" section of an academic CV. But you can -- and should -- mention it under "Additional research experience" or somesuch. For the purposes of job hunting -- when you are still fairly junior -- or grad school applications, it should be still be treated as very positive evidence of your ability to do and write about research. As you become more senior, for a while it will hang around your CV as a shoe-horned unloved stepchild as you build up more conventional publications. (Many of us have them, the "it-felt-like-a-great-accomplishment-at-the-time-but-I-didn't-quite-realize-it's-not-peer-reviewed" type of publication) You will eventually axe it from your CV once it's long enough for it not to matter.

I'd like to hope the "prestigious journal" in question isn't an academic journal, since if they are, they really ought to know better. So probably even you had been listed, it wouldn't have counted as peer-reviewed.

*I recognize from the perspective of academia, it is much more than "good form", it is an obligation. I'm deliberately using this weaker statement here to emphasize that the culture outside or on the boundaries of academia can be different.

Houska
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What does "producing the models" mean to you?

Did you choose something from a drop-down menu and massage the code a bit?

Or did you formulate a mathematical model entirely from scratch based on this person's verbal description of the relevant assumptions?

I grant it will be somewhere in between, but I am just sketching the end points of a continuum of possibilities. On the one end, you should just quit yer bitching, but on the other, yes, I agree you have been had, and if this is a structural/systematic problem in your organisation, you could try and bring this to the attention of its leadership.

Deipatrous
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