Author

An author is, in the narrow sense of that word the writer of a document. In the broader sense, however, the author is the creator responsible for the intellectual or artistic content of a work, someone who originates or causes or initiates something  (including computer software). A person, group, or corporate body responsible for all or some of the content of published material.

"Michel Foucault points out that one cannot become an author by writing any old thing -- a letter, for example. 'The Author' is a cultural construction. Equally, as Roland Barthes argues, the author is seen to be a special kind of person:- the apparently settled, whole, rational self which post-structuralism has sought to undermine. Author, significantly, is etymologically linked to authority, authorize, authoritarian, etc." (Arrowsmith, 2004).

Birnholtz (2006) studied recent trends in authorship in High Energy Physics. While authorship historically has been attributed to individuals and small groups, thereby making it relatively easy to tell who made major contributions to the work, recent collaborations have involved hundreds or thousands of individuals. Printing all of these names in the author list on articles can mean difficulties in discerning the nature or extent of individual contributions, which has significant implications in the social system of science.

Literature:

Arrowsmith , A. (2004). Critical concepts some media/communications theory keywords: http://www.adamranson.freeserve.co.uk/critical%20concepts.htm

Birnholtz, J. P. (2006). What does it mean to be an author? The intersection of credit, contribution, and collaboration in science. Journal of the American Society for Information Science & Technology, Published Online: 12 Sep 2006

Claxton, L.D. (2005). Scientific authorship: Part 2. History, recurring issues, practices and guidelines. Mutation Research , 589(1), 31-45.

Cronin, B. (2001). Hyperauthorship: A postmodern perversion or evidence of a structural shift in scholarly communication practices. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology , 52(7), 558-569.

Cronin, B., Shaw, D., & La Barre, K. (2003). A cast of thousands: Coauthorship and subauthorship collaboration in the 20th century as manifested in the scholarly journal literature of psychology and philosophy. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology , 54(9), 855-871.

Davenport, E., & Cronin, B. (2001). Who dunnit? Metatags and hyperauthorship. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology , 52(9), 770-773.

Engers, M., Gans, J., Grant, S., & King, S. (1999). First author conditions. Journal of Political Economy , 107(4), 859-883.

Foucault, M. (1984). What is an author?. IN: The Foucault Reader. ed. Paul Rabinow, translated by Josue V. Harari, pp. 101-120. New York: Pantheon Books.

Kennedy, D. (2003, August 8). Multiple authors, multiple problems. Science , 301, 733.

Paneth, N., Hemenway, D., Fortney, J. A., & Jung, B.C. (1998). Authorship: Readers and editors respond. American Journal of Public Health , 88(5), 824-831.

Parker, R. A., & Berman, N. A. (1998). Criteria for authorship for statisticians in medical papers. Statistics in Medicine , 17(20), 2289-2299.

Rennie, D., Yank, V., & Emanuel, L. (1997). When authorship fails: A proposal to make contributors accountable. Journal of the American Medical Association , 278(7), 579-585.

Rose, M. (1993). Authors and owners: The invention of copyright. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Tarnow, E. (1999). The authorship list in science: Junior physicists' perceptions of who appears and why. Science and Engineering Ethics , 5(1), 73-88.

Woodmansee, M., & Jaszi, P. (1994). The construction of authorship: Textual appropriation in law and literature. London: Duke University Press.

See also: Author supplied keywords (Lifeboat for KO); Editor; Lotka's law

Birger Hjørland

Last edited: 25-09-2006

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