Authorship

As a graduate student you should speak to your advisor about his/her practice on authorship and authorship order. This conversation is particularly important for graduate students involved in collaborative research projects wherein there are overlaps between graduate students' or other researchers' works. Also consult your department’s supplemental regulations to determine if there are any guidelines about authorship.

The University of Manitoba provides advice on authorship within the policy entitled Guidelines on Responsibilities for Research Ethics.

Faculty members should ensure that any person who has substantially contributed academically to the study being reported in a publication either in the conception or design, execution of the experimental work, interpretation of data or drafting the article is included as an author or is given other appropriate acknowledgement. Anyone accepting authorship accepts responsibility for the validity of the whole manuscript. It is suggested that each department define a set of criteria for authorship and that this be attached to the departmental supplementary regulations for graduate studies. With regard to the special situation of publications arising from multi-investigator teams, the following general guidelines have been adapted from those of Stanford University (1989):

1. The principal investigators from each laboratory listed on the publication must ensure the overall validity of the publication.
2. All authors share the responsibility for the publication and should have the opportunity to review all procedures and data used in preparing the publication.
3. Each author should know a paper is being prepared, should have access to the manuscript prior to its submission for publication and should agree to being listed as a co-author.
4. Early in the project, each research group should define the procedures for maintaining data.