So I have a research mentor at a local university. Great guy. We (me, him, and kids from another town) planned out a research project that we could work on so we could (a) present it at this local conference we have and (b) try and publish it. However, because of technical issues on the university’s side of things, it won’t be approved until the day after the conference.
But since we already paid and he wants to give us the experience of a conference (he is a legitimately good guy) he is going to let us present one of the 30 or so papers he wrote but never published. Then, he said that once we polish it up a little, we can tack OUR names on to it and send it out to try and get it published.
Now I didn’t agree with this in my heart. How can I publish the findings he made? So to make myself feel less guilty, I went ham on the paper and suggested as many (reasonable) edits as possible. I guess what I want to know is if this is common. And if it isn’t, did I do a good job handling it? Do people who are affiliated with the paper/presenting the information get to be given authorship of the paper? I would love to be on the paper, but I could never live with myself knowing that the first paper I published was not something I was entitled to.
I agree…he is the person who is the “First Author”. If he says it is okay, then it is okay.
In many academic subjects, including the natural sciences, computer science and electrical engineering, the lead author of a research article is typically the person who carried out the research, wrote and edited the paper. The list of trailing co-authors reflects, typically, diminishing contributions to the work reported in the manuscript.
So it will be clear that you have a minor contribution (which you do), but will expose you to the conference experience.
I assume after the conference you will do the research that you got approved…this is what you will talk about on your applications.
It’s not uncommon for junior members to get included among contributors. As ski and bopper put it, the first author is widely recognized as the main persona. I don’t see anything to feel guilty about. You won’t overstate your contribution, now or in the future. Don’t worry.
@skieurope@bopper@lookingforward thank you all, I was unsure of whether or not what I was doing was “politically correct”. Also, there were only two authors on the paper (originally) and aparently I contributed more than the other high school students I worked with so now I get 3rd author! Pretty hyped about that.
And yes, we will be continuing with our old experiment post-conference in hopes to publish that one