East Carolina University
Department of Psychology
When the thesis is converted to a manuscript to be submitted for consideration for publication in a scholarly journal, whose names appear on the manuscript and in what order? Here are the guidelines I give my students followed by references to or quotations from the words of others who have spoken to this topic.
Karl Wuensch's Policy
If the thesis is the student's idea, the student did most of the work (collected the data, did the analysis, wrote the manuscript), and the manuscript is prepared within 18 months from the date of the initiation of the research or one year from the date of the defense of the thesis, then the student is the first author. If warranted by his or her contributions, the director of the thesis may expect to be a co-author. If warranted by their contributions, other committee members may be considered for co-authorship also.
If the thesis is Karl's idea, and Karl did most of the work (did the analysis and wrote the manuscript), Karl will be the first author and the student a co-author. If warranted by their contributions, other committee members may be considered for co-authorship also.
Many cases may fall between the two extremes detailed above. In those cases first authorship should be given to the person who did the most work, with the various types of work weighted by their values. Some work is more valuable than other work. Designing the research and writing the manuscript are considered more valuable than doing the statistical analysis, which is considered more valuable than collecting the data. When the student and Karl have contributed equally, the student will get the first authorship.
If the student does not complete the research, including defending and depositing the thesis and preparing the manuscript for submission for publication within the time limits mentioned above, then all rights to use of the data from that thesis revert to the director of the thesis committee. If the student's manuscript is rejected by the journal to which it is submitted, the student is expected to revise it and submit it to another journal within 6 months of the rejection notice. If the student does not do so, the student may loose rights of first authorship and the director may revise the manuscript and take first authorship.
Students are expected to keep the director advised of their address and to respond promptly to queries about writing the research manuscript. If the director has made reasonable attempts to contact the student but is unable to do so, the director may assume that the student has abandoned the research and that the director may take over authorship of any articles based on the research. Most publishers require signatures of copyright release forms from all authors prior to publication. If the student is a co-author and can't be located, publication can be delayed.
References to articles on this topic
APA Monitor Article, "The Authorship Dilemma," Dec., 1998
Fine and Kurdek, American Psychologist, 48:1141-1147
Costa and Gatz, Psychological Science, 3:354-357.
Louw and Fouché, South African Journal of Psychology, 29:145-148.
Stuart Altman's view on this topic
Stuart Altman has an interesting short article in the February, 1996, issue of the Newsletter of the Animal Behavior Society. In this article he addresses ethical issues "On Authorship and Intellectual Property Rights." He suggests that the leaders of research groups make it clear that there is a 'statute of limitations' on research results -- that is, if the junior researcher (student doing a thesis, postdoc working on a project) does not make serious/successful efforts to publish the results within a reasonable period of time (a year or two) following completion of the research, then the publication rights for that research revert to the laboratory director, at his discretion. Altman also discusses the issue of who is entitled to be included among the authors of a paper.
Discussion of the Topic on the Teaching in the Psychological Sciences Listserv
Date: Tue, 25 Apr 1995 09:07:49 -0700 (PDT)
From: RUSSELL HURLBURT <russ@nevada.edu>
To: tips@fre.fsu.umd.edu Subject: Report: Master's thesis authorship
As you may recall, I asked TIPSters to report their experiences with the order of authorship on journal articles that result from Master's theses.
Here is the promised report of the results.
Thanks to all who returned questionnaires.
--Russ
---------INTRODUCTION--------------------------------
The context of this questionnaire is the 1992 APA _Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct_, which specifies in Section 6.23 that "(c) _Publication Credit_, A student is usually listed as principal author on any multiple-authored article that is substantially based on the student's dissertation or thesis."
The question was (a) whether actual practice corresponded to the ethical principle, and (b) how are the words "usually" and "substantially" in the principle are actually interpreted.
Here is a copy of the original questionnaire; following that is the results.
----------THIS IS THE ORIGINAL QUESTIONNAIRE---------
Assume that a psychology student's master's thesis is rewritten for publication in a journal. Which of the following apply? More than one answer is acceptable.
-----------------------------------------------------
In the psychology department at my university...
1. the student is always (or nearly always) shown as the first author on a journal article.
2. the order of authorship depends on the contributions of student and advisor. For example, if the thesis topic is the student's idea, and the student collects the data and writes the results, the student is listed as first author on the journal article. On the other hand, if the thesis topic is a "piece broken off" of the advisor's ongoing project, so that the advisor provides the background, design, and context (and perhaps even the data itself), the advisor would be listed as first author.
3. the advisor is always (or nearly always) shown as the first author on a journal article.
4., 5., and 6. asked about the kind of post-graduate education at your school
----------HERE ARE THE RESULTS-----------------------
I received 16 responses, clearly a small and not-random sample that may or may not be representative of practice in general. Responses came from all across the US and around the world.
There were not enough responses to break them down by type of university, so I will ignore questions 4, 5, and 6 in this report.
9 of the 16 responders said "Yes" to choice 1 only
4 of the 16 responders said "Yes" to choice 2 only
3 of the 16 responders said "Yes" both to choice 1 and 2
0 of the 16 responders said "Yes" to choice 3.
Here are the comments, which seemed to break down into three categories:
-----CATEGORY I: ABOUT THE REQUIREMENTS FOR A MASTER'S THESIS-----
"As a school not offering an advanced degree in psychology, we seem to be left out of this questionnaire. However, I did go to graduate school and earned both a Master's and Ph.D. in psychology, and I do have an opinion, if you're interested. Your #1 is the only one that makes sense to me, IF THE PUBLICATION IS JUST A RE-WORKED MASTER'S THESIS. It would seem to me that any Master's thesis that could reasonably be published with the advisor's name first isn't worthy of the name."
"Choices 1 and 2 aren't mutually exclusive. We typically list students first (choice 1) because we make sure they earn it in the course of their thesis research (choice 2)."
-----CATEGORY II: DEGREE OF CONTRIBUTION IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN STUDENT STATUS
"[Choice 2 only]: Give credit where credit is due."
"[Choice 2] seems logical and reasonable, according to other standards of authorship I have come across anecdotally from colleagues and in the professional reports (e.g., Costa & Gatz, 1992, in Psychological Science)."
"I can't reply directly because we're undergraduate only. But our department does have a practice of getting undergraduate honours dissertations published, usually in sources such as Psychological Reports. We've never discussed authoring practices. However, at least one of my more prolific colleagues seems to always put the student's name first which is generous but in my opinion misguided, as I'm certain that the student's contribution is much less than the advisor's....
In my own case, I usually propose the idea to the student and offer much help in the design. The student collects the data and, of course does the dissertation write-up, which is unsuitable as a short publication. I then offer the student the option of writing the paper, for which he/she will get first authorship, or leaving it to me, in which case I do. I generally discourage the student from attempting to write it, because I find that the result is usually unsatisfactory for publication unless I give extensive help (and I would then want first authorship again)....
In summary, I consider three elements: whose idea, who does the work, who writes it. Whoever does two out of three (usually me with undergraduates) gets first authorship. I disagree with the practice, however noble, of putting the student's name first regardless of contribution. Of course, I understand that the problem with graduate students is the exact opposite."
"Choice 2 absolutely. Order of authorship is ALWAYS determined by relative magnitude of the scientific or professional contribution to the finished product. The source of the "idea" is irrelevant except as it might be evaluated as a small piece of the finished product."
"I virtually always give our master's students an idea for their thesis related to my own research interests. They do well with this approach as I can guide their work well and they learn how to conduct a study. I take 1st authorship credit because the ideas are mine, and I write the submissions. I am also working toward tenure. Students who come to me with their own ideas typically require much more effort to investigate a topic area about which I am ignorant and the studies are often limited by a mutual lack of expertise in the subject area."
--------CATEGORY III: TENURE ISSUE--------
"My advisor was TENURED. Other friends in the department had untenured advisors and almost never got first authorship."
"My advisor was tenured. Many of my friends in the program would fall under #3 because their advisor was not yet tenured and he almost always listed himself as the first author."
Thesis End-Game - Defending the thesis & various tasks that must be completed after the defense.
Thesis Humor -Rules for writers and other humor.
Thesis Errors - Examples of what not to do in your thesis.
