Published on
Abstract
Issues of academic authorship pose few problems for philosophers or those in the
humanities, yet raise a host of issues for medical researchers, engineers and scientists, where
multiple authors is the norm and journal articles sometimes list hundreds of authors. At issue
here are abstract questions about desert, as well as practical problems regarding the
distribution of goods attached to authorship -- tenure, prestige, research grants, etc. This
paper defends a version of the author/contributor model, where the specific contributions of
authors are described in a footnote, against other models of authorial attribution. Such a model
offers the best guarantee that authors will get their due, as well as providing the most
reliable protection against misconduct and fraud. The paper also argues that it is important for
this model to be institutionalized across disciplinary boundaries as the increasingly
interdisciplinary nature of research will inevitably bring discipline-specific authorial norms
into conflict.
link
Academic credit where it's due, by Brian Martin
www.bmartin.cc/pubs/97cr.html
