Managing Authorship

Establish who's who early on - When authorship disputes arise, young researchers are often in the most precarious situation. Markovitch advises that they push for meetings early in the process of research (long before the paper is written) to establish who will be considered the first author and the last author. If you work in a collaborative setting, this conversation may have to happen a few times. Stephen Kimmel, director of cardiovascular epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania, conducts a monthly conference call with all the PIs on a multidiscipline project; the only topic is author issues.