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论文作者排名不仅在国内，在国外也存在类似不合理的现象，但总的来说国外作者排名还是很公正的，尤其是一些期刊如PNAS要求注明每位作者的contribution。

这是一篇以前贴在msn spaces上的一篇关于论文作者排名先后顺序及规则的文章，打算把那边的文章都转到这边来，本来想翻译一下这篇论文作者排名小短文的，也懒得翻译了，今天又看了一遍，加下注释吧，这篇英语文章还是很容易懂的。以后有时间再说吧。

Authorship issue: overemphasized?
Forum Identity: RD    Thu, 11 May 2006 03:50 PM
affiliation/organization: MD Anderson Cancer Center
author: Rob

研究生不是给老板打工的奴隶
Hmm, well I'll delurk a bit here. I agree with all the PI types regarding the basis for teh conflict. It should come as no shock to grad students and postdocs that they are one step above slaves at this point. Some PIs will treat them as slaves and some won't. I've had a variety of different PIs, and thoroughly enjoy my current PI because I don't feel taken advantage of and I am much more appreciated. I'm now a postdoc after getting a PhD/MS in 8 long years.

论文作者排名的一些规则：规则1，老板制定规则，呵呵，这条说的还是很实在的；规则2，见规则1，呵呵，绕晕了；规则3，老板排在最后并且是通讯作者，毕竟老板买单；规则4，老板愿将谁放在论文上就放；规则5，那些放在论文上的作者往往是亲信，或者大牛，来增加论文的分量，提高接收概率；规则6，第一作者往往是用来激励研究生或博后，或者干脆剥夺成果。
I guess it would help to know what the rules of the authorship game are, for those who don't get it. I get it, I think 1) The PI makes the rules. 2) See #1 3) The PI is always last and correspond author, b/c they pay the bills. 4) The PI can put anyone on your paper that they please. 5) Most of these people are cronies that did very little to help the paper, and are added as a payback mechanism or to promote the probability of paper success (big name on paper - must be an important paper mentality) 6) The PI will toy with the student/postdoc with first authorship as a potential reward. Or they might equally screw them and remove first authorship.

作者硕士时的一个幸运的例子，一篇共同一作，一篇二作。
Some examples. For my MS I continued a very long study and it finally got published thanks to my finishing touches. We got two papers out in decent journals. I was cofirst author on one paper, and second author on the other. I didn't write the papers. From my point of view I was happy I got this, considering about 10 people worked on the project to various degrees.

一个PHD的例子，一篇一作，一篇老板一作，PHD反而二作，但PHD没参与撰写，这样的决定还说的过去，但PHD心里多少还是不好受。
From my PHD, a postdoc in lab worked very hard to get two papers out, and the PI wrote them up. Postdoc got 1st author on one, and 2nd author on another (PI was corresponding author on first, and 1st author on second). The postdoc was upset but since he didn't write the paper, I somewhat agreed with the decision.

作者PHD例子，两篇应该都是一作，但都带了七八个人甚至10个作者，有的参与实验设计，有的只提供试剂，有的甚至什么都没做！
From my PhD; my first and last paper in the lab was written up and submitted before I graduated. On the paper were 6 to 8 people. One person helped with the expts. The others did nothing, zip zero. One is even dead, unfortunately. But it was a payback mechanism and my former advisor is known to stuff her papers with cronies. I protested in vain and realize if I even get this paper out it will be a minor miracle (and will add, gratefully, another 4 people who actually helped on the paper somewhat). So that's about 10 authors for teh revised manuscript, and I did all the expts (with help from one person on one expt), one or two provided reagents. That's life and the way it goes. In my field, one good paper can be sufficient to jump start a career. Hopefully search committees will look at the quality and amount of the work required and be their own judge.

作者的妻子学的医学物理，那领域的作者排名规则更遭。
My wife is in medical physics; her authorship issue is worse. She does all the work, and she ends up listing ten MDs because they thought her work was a good idea (or some such rubbish). That's the way it goes for her field too.

Anyway good discussion!
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