Tyler Cowen asks, “Why are there so many co-authored papers?” I do it because I think adding coathors makes my work better. That’s why I’ve put coauthors on all my books and most of my articles. More than once, I’ve written an article or most of a book and added a coauthor, just because I think I’ll like the result more if someone else’s input is included.
One advantage of working in statistics, political science, and public health is that the norm in these fields is for the first author to indicate the person who actually writes the paper. So if I add a coauthor, I don’t have to worry that people will think he or she did all the work. Conversely, if I suggest an idea to a student, who then does the work and writes it up (under my guidance), he or she can and should be first author.
The field of economics is a bit more difficult because there it seems the norm is alphabetical order. Sometimes I’ve unfairly benefited from this, sometimes I’ve lost out.
Do you see any advantages to writing on your own?
Not sure I agree with your author-order claim as it relates to political science. I'd suggest that the norm there is alphabetical order; at least, that's the practice that (though it inevitably works to my detriment) I've adhered to my whole career. Of course, there are now studies of such things out there, most of which (as seems inevitable in our post-Freakonomics world) seem to have been done by economists.
Really? I Thought the alphabetic order is THE norm in political science…I think these standards should be clear in order to avoid confusion and unfairness.
Dr. Zorn, I hope you will excuse me for finding that your response, coupled with your name, really hit my funny bone. I am reminded of the Far Side cartoon about the deer with the unfortunate markings.
I suppose a freakonomist — am I the only one who HATES the term "freakonomics", by the way? — will do a study and find that people with names early in the alphabet tend to choose economics and other "alphabetical" disciplines, in a sort of arms race, while others tend to avoid those disciplines. In another hundred years, a typical economics-paper author list will be Aaronson, Andrews, Apte, and Baker. Poor Baker, he'll never get tenure.
Iirc (and it's been a while), the rule in the hard sciences is that the Graduate Researcher/PostDoc goes first.
This probably mitigates the risk Phil mentions.
Just down the hall from Dr Z and disagree — a little bit about the claim that alphabetical is a norm in political science, but a lot about whether it should be. It works fine for 2 authors, either mixed and matched over a career or Lennon-McCartney style. But alphabetical breaks down completely with 4, 5+ authors in big multi-collaborator projects with organizations like a science lab (like my current one – we've just sent out an 8).
I agree with Chris and Burt. The norm is largely alpha order – with the result that those of us at the end of the alphabet are grateful when coauthors suggest otherwise. I agree with Burt that the limit for the alpha rule is probably 3 coauthors, but I'd also guess that fewer than 2% of polisci papers have more than 3 coauthors.
As an aside, I think I'll offer to collaborate with Chris.
You guys might find this New Economist post interesting; it discusses Harvard's Roland Fryer and the issue of co-authorship.
Andy / Chris:
I'll introduce you guys to a coauthor even a Zorn could love, Union College mathematician Bill Zwicker. Unless there's a Professor Zip Zygote hiding out somewhere, that's damned near unbeatable.
The approach described in the New Economist post is pretty standard in the Swiss system, along with others in continental Europe.
"More than once, I've written an article or most of a book and added a coauthor, just because I think I'll like the result more if someone else's input is included."
Is it possible to include solicit and include someone else's input without making them a co-author? Is there a recognized limit, as to the extent of contribution for which making someone a co-author is merited?
If I send my paper to some colleagues to read it and give me their feedback, do I have to make it clear whether or not I'm offering them a chance at being listed as co-authors or whether I'd just like their casual feedback?
I guess I'd be somewhat stingy about listing anyone as a co-author, but would still like to get some input from my peers. Is this done often, and if so how?