Authorship is a really important issue when publishing academic work, particularly when multiple authors are involved. It’s about giving appropriate credit for intellectual property, but also about authors taking responsibility for their work. Leaving off an author’s name who did contribute to the research is just as bad as including an author who didn’t contribute anything at all. Most institutions and academic journals have standards and guidelines to help authors understand these issues.

But how does a scientist navigate the co-authorship issue when translating their work beyond their discipline?

Say you have co-authored an academic paper that’s just been published in a journal, and now you want to translate those findings into a popular science article for a public audience. Who should initiate the scicomm piece? Do all authors on the paper have to be involved? Continue reading →