Comes with its Own Set of Risks in Academia

https://garethdyke.substack.com recently posted a long discussion of “gift authorship.” This is when someone adds your name to a publication that you did not contribute to in any meaningful way. It is never appropriate without permission.

Perhaps because as a English literature major as an undergraduate (See post: Ode to an English Major) I learned to prize the written word. During my career as a faculty member, I was always very particular about what I put my name on. One sloppy article, one serious ethical blunder like publishing essentially the same article twice, or re-using material across several publications, can ruin an academic’s scholarly reputation. It can muddy people’s understanding of your work. On more than one occasion, I asked that my name to be removed from a manuscript when I felt that quality was substandard.

Some might consider gifting authorship as a generous gesture. Here’s one way to think about the perils of gift authorship. Would you be happy if a member of a tenure review committee or a job search chose that as the publication they reviewed?

Two Occasions When Gift Authorship is Practiced

1. It is a common practice in academia to add the principal invistigator who secured funding of the research as the last author.
2. In my institution, as a payback to an advisor and the hours he/she devoted to a project, it was the practice to list the advisor on one of the publications from a doctoral dissertation.

When is Gift Authorship Clearly Unethical

1. Putting someone’s name on a submission to a conference or a manuscript submission in hopes of increasing the chances of it getting accepted.
2. Adding someone’s name to a publication without his/her permission.
3. As “quid pro quo” in exchange for other services.

What Doesn’t Warrant Authorship?

There have been endless discussions about what warrants authorship. I consider it to be related to what is written, but it is considerably more complex than that. Stealing someone else’s original idea is unethical (see post: Playing it Close to the Vest) but they don’t own it until the put it down in writing.

Being paid to do a task does not warrant authorship.

It’s easier to point out what in and of itself doesn’t merit authorship.

1. A brilliant idea.
2. Editing or proofing a draft manuscript.
3. Being in the same room when someone begins to talk about an idea for a manuscript.
4. Informal input.
5. Collecting the data or assembling a data base.
6. Running statistical analysis