PIXABAY, JARMOLUKIt’s a common complaint among scientists that there is tremendous pressure to publish, implying that papers don’t rain from the laboratory rafters. Yet, according to an analysis of medical literature published in PeerJ this week (August 18), a few authors are unbelievably productive, with some putting out at least 25 papers a year.
Publications consultant Elizabeth Wager and her colleagues noted that such production rates may be a sign of inappropriate authorship. “Abusive authorship patterns, such as senior figures who demand to be listed on publications despite having had little or no involvement in research are well documented . . . and can have damaging effects on junior researchers because they send a signal that honest authorship is unimportant,” Wager’s team wrote in its report. “We therefore suggest that institutions and funders should be alert to the possibility of excessive authorship.”
Using author-scanning software, Wager and colleagues combed through the 2008-2012 literature on epilepsy, rheumatoid arthritis, renal transplantion, and liver transplantation. Among 58,000 publications, 99 percent of the nearly 164,000 authors were listed on fewer than 20 papers. ...
