IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/scient/v125y2020i3d10.1007_s11192-020-03686-0.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Alphabetic order of authors in scholarly publications: a bibliometric study for 27 scientific fields

Author

Listed:
  • João M. Fernandes

    (University of Minho)

  • Paulo Cortez

    (University of Minho)

Abstract

Paper authorship and author placement have significant consequences for accountability and assignment of credit. Moreover, authors in different scientific fields tend to follow distinct approaches towards their ordering in scholarly publications. This manuscript presents a bibliometric study aiming to characterize the trends in the adoption of alphabetically ordered lists of authors in scholarly publications for 27 scientific fields. The study is supported by two different datasets (with 83 and 32 thousand papers that have two or more authors) and uses two indicators that measure the degree of order of the authors list of a set of articles. The main results show that three fields (Economics; Mathematics; and Business, Management and Accounting) have a strong alphabetic ordering usage, while other five scientific areas present some tendency to use lists of authors in alphabetic order.

Suggested Citation

  • João M. Fernandes & Paulo Cortez, 2020. "Alphabetic order of authors in scholarly publications: a bibliometric study for 27 scientific fields," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(3), pages 2773-2792, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:125:y:2020:i:3:d:10.1007_s11192-020-03686-0
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-020-03686-0
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11192-020-03686-0
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11192-020-03686-0?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Frandsen, Tove Faber & Nicolaisen, Jeppe, 2010. "What is in a name? Credit assignment practices in different disciplines," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 4(4), pages 608-617.
    2. Frank J. Trueba & Héctor Guerrero, 2004. "A robust formula to credit authors for their publications," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 60(2), pages 181-204, June.
    3. Cynthia Lisée & Vincent Larivière & Éric Archambault, 2008. "Conference proceedings as a source of scientific information: A bibliometric analysis," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 59(11), pages 1776-1784, September.
    4. Hagen, Nils T., 2014. "Counting and comparing publication output with and without equalizing and inflationary bias," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 310-317.
    5. Ch Peidu, 2019. "Can authors’ position in the ascription be a measure of dominance?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 121(3), pages 1527-1547, December.
    6. Waltman, Ludo, 2012. "An empirical analysis of the use of alphabetical authorship in scientific publishing," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 6(4), pages 700-711.
    7. João M. Fernandes, 2014. "Authorship trends in software engineering," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 101(1), pages 257-271, October.
    8. João M. Fernandes & Miguel P. Monteiro, 2017. "Evolution in the number of authors of computer science publications," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 110(2), pages 529-539, February.
    9. Xiaojun Hu, 2009. "Loads of special authorship functions: Linear growth in the percentage of “equal first authors” and corresponding authors," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 60(11), pages 2378-2381, November.
    10. Boris Maciejovsky & David V. Budescu & Dan Ariely, 2009. "—The Researcher as a Consumer of Scientific Publications: How Do Name-Ordering Conventions Affect Inferences About Contribution Credits?," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 28(3), pages 589-598, 05-06.
    11. Dorte Henriksen, 2016. "The rise in co-authorship in the social sciences (1980–2013)," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 107(2), pages 455-476, May.
    12. Olle Persson & Wolfgang Glänzel & Rickard Danell, 2004. "Inflationary bibliometric values: The role of scientific collaboration and the need for relative indicators in evaluative studies," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 60(3), pages 421-432, August.
    13. Bornmann, Lutz & Osório, António, 2019. "The value and credits of n-authors publications," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 540-554.
    14. Mott Greene, 2007. "The demise of the lone author," Nature, Nature, vol. 450(7173), pages 1165-1165, December.
    15. Matthias Weber, 2018. "The effects of listing authors in alphabetical order: A review of the empirical evidence," Research Evaluation, Oxford University Press, vol. 27(3), pages 238-245.
    16. Wolfgang Glänzel & Balázs Schlemmer & András Schubert & Bart Thijs, 2006. "Proceedings literature as additional data source for bibliometric analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 68(3), pages 457-473, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kerri Betts & Louise Creechan & Rosemarie Cawkwell & Isabelle Finn‐Kelcey & C. J. Griffin & Alice Hagopian & David Hartley & Marie Adrienne R. Manalili & Inika Murkumbi & Sarinah O’Donoghue & Cassandr, 2023. "Neurodiversity, Networks, and Narratives: Exploring Intimacy and Expressive Freedom in the Time of Covid‐19," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 11(1), pages 60-71.
    2. João M. Fernandes & António Costa & Paulo Cortez, 2022. "Author placement in Computer Science: a study based on the careers of ACM Fellows," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(1), pages 351-368, January.
    3. Ali Barış Öz, 2024. "Overcoming alphabetical disadvantage: factors influencing the use of surname initial techniques and their impact on citation rates in the four major disciplines of social sciences," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 129(8), pages 4885-4908, August.
    4. Zhang, Lin & Qi, Fan & Sivertsen, Gunnar & Liang, Liming & Campbell, David, 2023. "Gender differences in the patterns and consequences of changing specialization in scientific careers," SocArXiv ep5bx, Center for Open Science.
    5. Kyriakos Drivas, 2024. "The evolution of order of authorship based on researchers’ age," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 129(9), pages 5615-5633, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Waltman, Ludo, 2016. "A review of the literature on citation impact indicators," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 365-391.
    2. Liu, Xuan Zhen & Fang, Hui, 2023. "A geometric counting method adaptive to the author number," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 17(2).
    3. Hagen, Nils T., 2013. "Harmonic coauthor credit: A parsimonious quantification of the byline hierarchy," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 7(4), pages 784-791.
    4. Kyriakos Drivas, 2024. "The evolution of order of authorship based on researchers’ age," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 129(9), pages 5615-5633, September.
    5. Osório, António (António Miguel), 2019. "The value and credits of n-authors publications," Working Papers 2072/376026, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Department of Economics.
    6. Pär Sundling, 2023. "Author contributions and allocation of authorship credit: testing the validity of different counting methods in the field of chemical biology," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(5), pages 2737-2762, May.
    7. Kim, Jinseok & Kim, Jinmo, 2015. "Rethinking the comparison of coauthorship credit allocation schemes," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 667-673.
    8. António Osório, 2018. "On the impossibility of a perfect counting method to allocate the credits of multi-authored publications," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 116(3), pages 2161-2173, September.
    9. Simoes, Nadia & Crespo, Nuno, 2020. "Self-Citations and scientific evaluation: Leadership, influence, and performance," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 14(1).
    10. Hagen, Nils T., 2014. "Reversing the byline hierarchy: The effect of equalizing bias on the accreditation of primary, secondary and senior authors," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 618-627.
    11. Matthias Weber, 2016. "The Effects of Listing Authors in Alphabetical Order: A survey of the Empirical Evidence," Bank of Lithuania Occasional Paper Series 12, Bank of Lithuania.
    12. Ali Barış Öz, 2024. "Overcoming alphabetical disadvantage: factors influencing the use of surname initial techniques and their impact on citation rates in the four major disciplines of social sciences," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 129(8), pages 4885-4908, August.
    13. Rahman, Mohammad Tariqur & Regenstein, Joe Mac & Kassim, Noor Lide Abu & Haque, Nazmul, 2017. "The need to quantify authors’ relative intellectual contributions in a multi-author paper," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 11(1), pages 275-281.
    14. Xuan Zhen Liu & Hui Fang, 2014. "Scientific group leaders’ authorship preferences: an empirical investigation," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 98(2), pages 909-925, February.
    15. Klaus Wohlrabe & Lutz Bornmann, 2022. "Alphabetized co-authorship in economics reconsidered," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(5), pages 2173-2193, May.
    16. Hagen, Nils T., 2015. "Contributory inequality alters assessment of academic output gap between comparable countries," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 629-641.
    17. João M. Fernandes & António Costa & Paulo Cortez, 2022. "Author placement in Computer Science: a study based on the careers of ACM Fellows," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(1), pages 351-368, January.
    18. Jinseok Kim & Jana Diesner, 2014. "A network-based approach to coauthorship credit allocation," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 101(1), pages 587-602, October.
    19. Maria-Victoria Uribe-Bohorquez & Juan-Camilo Rivera-Ordóñez & Isabel-María García-Sánchez, 2023. "Gender disparities in accounting academia: analysis from the lens of publications," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(7), pages 3827-3865, July.
    20. Kai Petersen & Nauman Bin Ali, 2021. "An analysis of top author citations in software engineering and a comparison with other fields," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(11), pages 9147-9183, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:125:y:2020:i:3:d:10.1007_s11192-020-03686-0. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.