Authorships, Collaborations, and Acknowledgments: On the Increasing Responsibility to Report Relative Contributions

Abstract

The number of authors per article continues to increase in research relating to adolescent development. Indeed, single authorship is becoming a rarity. In this journal, for example and over the past few years, only about 5–6 % of manuscripts have been single-authored; while, in 2000, over 30 % were single-authored. The average number of authors per article also continues to increase, from about 2 in early 2000 to about 3.5 in 2011. Put another way, the proportion of articles published by four or more authors constituted about 15 % of articles in 2000 and well over 50 % in 2010. Given that we publish from 100 to 125 articles per year, the trend appears to be a robust one not attributable to such factors as temporary fluctuations in submissions or journal special issues. The trend certainly appears here to stay and likely will become the standard. Several fields of study have reported similar trends in the increasing number of authors per manuscript and have sought to explain it. Commentators attribute documented author inflation to several sources. Among the apparent driving forces are the increasing pressure to publish, specialization of research expertise, collaborative efforts, larger research teams, financial incentives (e.g., citation-based evaluation metrics relating to promotion and grant activity), concern for prestige, and even gift and bullied authorships. If anything, these pressures appear likely to increase, which supports the notion that the trend in author inflation likely will continue unabated or at least not reverse itself. The trend is worthy of notice. Authoring serves as the final affirmation of scholarly accomplishment and the foundation of a field’s development. Changes in authoring may raise challenges and, apparently, they do. Perhaps because they noticed the spike in author inflation before ours did, other fields have identified concerns and responded to the issues they raise. Perhaps the greatest concern has been outright fraud that emerges from the pressures to publish, as well as the challenges that arise in attributing proper authorship and taking responsibility for it. The importance of authorship and the potential challenges raised by multiple authorships have led to proposals to have authors report their contributions. We can learn from other fields. At first, other fields experimented with encouraging, but not requiring, the identification of authors’ specific contributions. That experimentation ended with a clear message: unless editors insist, authors will resist (as concluded, for example, by the editors of JAMA, see Rennie et al. 2002). This is a bit odd given that authors often have acknowledgment sections detailing the assistance of those who are not authors. Yet, for the articles themselves, it is assumed both that the order of authorship reveals the contribution and that being listed itself means that the author appropriately contributed and takes full responsibility for the article’s content. But those assumptions surprisingly do not meet reality in more cases than one would like, especially when dealing with an increasing number of authors per manuscript (e.g., see Rennie et al. 2002). As other disciplines have learned, the best practice in responding to limitations of traditionally ascribing authorship is to have the authors affirmatively report their contributions and to have that affirmation published for readers. This is not a cure-all, as some authors still may bully their way to authorship or what is reported may not fully reveal the full contribution. These limitations in reporting are not surprising, as social scientists know full well that what is articulated and reported does not always R. J. R. Levesque (&) Indiana University, 302 Sycamore Hall, Bloomington, IN, USA e-mail: rlevesqu@indiana.edu