A graduate student is invited to join a team of faculty members and postdoctoral fellows from his faculty advisor’s laboratory in an ongoing study of poverty in the state’s three largest cities. The faculty advisor will not be actively involved in this study due to an imminent sabbatical; in her absence, another researcher in the lab will serve as the senior researcher and manage the day-to-day work and overall coordination of the project, along with her own share of the data collection and analysis.
Although the student’s work will constitute a large part of his dissertation, his individual contribution to the overall study is not considered significant enough to merit his being listed as an author on the resulting publications. The faculty advisor and the student verbally agree at the outset what the student’s role in the study will be; since there is no intention to include him as a co-author on the publications, the advisor does not amend the written authorship agreement that the original research team prepared before the student joined the project.
After the faculty advisor leaves for sabbatical, the senior researcher who is overseeing the project asks the student if he will take on most of her data collection and analysis responsibilities for the study since she has too many other commitments. Seeing this as an opportunity to gain valuable experience, the student agrees.
Near the end of the study, the senior researcher asks the student to help a postdoctoral fellow draft major portions of the study’s first manuscript. Though the senior researcher had originally agreed to prepare the first manuscript and serve as the corresponding author, she is now too busy preparing a grant proposal to draft the manuscript. The student helps the postdoctoral fellow write the initial draft and circulate it to the rest of the team, and subsequently incorporates the revisions submitted by the other collaborators.
When the student reads the final manuscript and the accompanying letter the senior researcher (in her role as corresponding author) has sent to the journal editor, he notes the following: