Title: Dispute Over Primary Authorship
Author: Matthew Wroblewski and Tristan McIntosh
Description: Three researchers put forth an equal amountof effort on a research project resulting in a dispute over who the primary author should be.
Keyword(s): Authorship, Conflict
Case: Three doctoral students, Mehida, Morgan, and Li, worked together on a research project focusedon exploring psychological strategies to help people adhere to a vegan diet. All three students played an equal role in moving the project forward, including providing assistance in study design, data collection, data analysis, and manuscript writing. After the manuscript was written, Morgan submitted the paper for review with her name as the leading author. The journal invited the authors to revise the manuscript. This is when Mehida realized that he did not appear as the leading author in the manuscript. This made Mehida furious, and he responded by immediately contacting the journal to initiate an authorship dispute.
- Was Mehida’s response justified? Why or why not?
- How could this authorship dispute have been avoided?
- What are potential repercussions of an authorship dispute?
- When is the appropriate time to discuss authorship decisions?