"I Published a Paper...Did I?" | Master Journey #7

Assalamualaikum

and a very sunny Saturday morning

It's a huge deal when you have published a scientific article, especially when you are a scientist, academician or a postgraduate student. It is either a milestone or a requirement which needed to be fulfilled by your university. It is a platform to disseminate knowledge, thoughts, opinion, creating arguments, etc.

I have the honour to assist my colleague in writing an article to a journal. Our supervisor suggested writing a review article on the health benefits of honey. Bear in mind, it is a review article, not a scientific article.

Review article give an overview of a specific subject by examining previously published studies on the topic

Of course, neither of us have published a research article, let alone writing a REVIEW paper. After months of hard work - continuous editing and submission, we got an email;

Acceptance email

Ha.......So that is what it's like when a manuscript is accepted for publication by a scientific journal. I am not the first author, meaning that... all my happiness and thankfulness were transmitted to my colleague cause how many times dah dia mengeluh kepenatan writing this review article.  

But, reading back at the published article, I realized I didn't read the final version of the manuscript. I only read and attained about 80% of the article content when I helped her writing, editing and synthesizing the previous literatures. This brought me to a big question, am I rightfully the author? Who should be the author?

So, I was wondering, If I write a research article, whose name is eligible as co-author besides my supervisory committee? Can I put Z because he/she secured the grant? Should I write Q name because she/he provided our research sample, free of charge? or T because she/he was being a good lab assistant?

When I was an intern at X University, there was a PhD student who sat beside me. One day, suddenly she gasped loudly and shouted gleefully,

                        PhD sis: Nama akak ada dalam paper ni as a co-author!!! (My name was listed in this paper as a co-author.

Something like that... The main point is, she has been listed as the co-author of a paper she never knew about. Her contribution? she helped the student in data analysis. In metaphor, this person only knows the part where Cinderella ran away at 12am, but the early and after stories are unclear to her. If I asked her to give storytelling on Cinderella on the spot, she will be completely staggered.



So, who is eligible to be an author? Fortunately, there is a group of medical journal editors collectively come out with the criteria in Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors;

Basically, I contribute-I write-I approved-I justified this paper.

In the end, I learnt something new. When you write your name as an Author or CO-AUTHOR, you should be held responsible and accountable for every word choice and contents distributed to the public in the form of that article. Then you can proudly say, "I HAVE WRITTEN THIS ARTICLE!"

Authorship is not just a list of names. It is a mechanism to establish credit, integrity, accountability and responsibility in research. It ought to be free from fraud, errors, misinterpretation, wrongful inclusions and exclusions...

(Desai, 2012)

I actually dreamt of writing a review paper of my own. Maybe after I graduated...raising my imaginary cats while reviewing countless of paper.  

p/s: I have felt what it is like to get rejected by a Journal publisher. It was like...huh...that was soft. The road never been easy