I decided to attach a blog to the Edit Rx website for those of you who would like to be able to leave a comment or a question without having to email or call me. Also, I decided it would be useful to offer (as you see in the right-hand column) a list of useful links for researchers.
I hope that this blog accomplishes two aims:
1) That you get to know me a bit better. My name is Jen Creer, and I am the driving force behind the medical editing, medical writing, and grant writing at Edit Rx. I do have other team members with whom I occasionally collaborate, but when you work with Edit Rx, you are working with me.
2) That I can provide some helpful hints for you here to make the process of writing and editing less painful for you, both as you work on your own, and as you prepare to collaborate with a professional editor/writing consultant.
If you have questions or topics that you would like to see me cover here, please feel free to leave me a comment.
]]>Here are their criteria:
"Authorship credit should be based on
1) substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data;
2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and
3) final approval of the version to be published. Authors should meet conditions 1, 2, and 3."
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As tempting as it may be to include everyone who assisted with data entry and subject recruitment in authorship, if they haven't also assisted with the design, analysis, or writing, then you are not doing yourself (or them) any favors by including them.
Also, after about the fourth author? The journal editors are going to become suspicious of the contributions of the additional authors.
]]>However, if your graduate student (Grad Student B) leaves research without a vested interest in continuing it, then you should absolutely take the initiative to write it up and publish it. As the graduate student to review the article and offer second authorship, but don't leave it to the disinterested graduate student to complete the work. It's in nobody's interest for the data to sit and rust.
The same is true of Graduate Student A: If, after a year has passed, you have had no news or word that anything is happening with the data, feel free to write it up, offer second authorship, and have them take a look at it. But don't let it just sit, when you have worked on it too.
If you have a third or fourth author who has had your manuscript for a month or more (I would contact them at one month, no later if possible), I would take the following action steps:
1) Contact them and tell them they have one more week to return the manuscript to you.
2) Tell them that if you have not heard from them, you will assume that they approve of the manuscript as is.
3) Tell them that if they no longer wish to be an author on the manuscript, they should tell you now, please.
If they return the manuscript to you in that week (essentially, week five) with significant problems with the manuscript or suggesting significant revisions, then it is time for the first two authors to sit down and discuss a course of action. Are these suggestions valid? Or are they based on ego and power? Unfortunately, the revisions are going to fall into one of these two categories, and you will have to decide which one they belong to.
1) You can either accept the fact that the manuscript needs significant revision and make them, or
2) You can politely tell the author in question that you had sent them what you believe to be a polished manuscript and again, ask them whether they want to remain an author.
The third or fourth author can choose at this point to keep their name on a manuscript that you approve of, or remove themselves.
However, the main point is that you should establish an internal deadline for completing the manuscript and submitting it, and nobody who is ranked lower than the second author should significantly hold up the process.
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