first author of a research paper

First Author vs. Corresponding Author? How to Decide Which to Choose

This article discusses the importance of authorship in academic publishing. The first author executes a large portion of the work throughout the research process and signifies the researcher has provided the greatest intellectual contribution. The corresponding author is explicitly identified on the first page of the manuscript, is selected to further manage the pre and post-publication responsibilities, and serves as the point of contact for communication with a journal during the submission, peer review, and publication process.

Updated on April 26, 2023

Every process is conducted through a series of steps. The Scientific Method, for example, provides guidelines for navigating the research process and generally includes:

• Making observations
• Identifying a problem
• Formulating a hypothesis
• Designing an experiment
• Analyzing the data
• Reporting a conclusion

While the actual procedures may vary between fields, the underlying process remains intact. The same holds true for the publication process:

• Complete your research
• Choose a journal
• Prepare the manuscript
• Submit the manuscript
• Make any revisions
• Publication

Each of these processes contains many more specific steps and processes, including assigning authorship to the research manuscript . This article outlines the importance of authorship, delineates the meanings of first author and corresponding author, and addresses some of the challenges associated with the process.

Why is authorship important?

On the surface, the positioning of a researcher’s name and title on a manuscript seems straightforward, a simple task. Most lay people use the list of names solely for searching and citation purposes.

In reality, though, the order of those names tells a complex story of authorship. It is, in fact, the primary way for a researcher to convey the extent of their contribution to the reader.

To attain authorship on a manuscript, a researcher must not only contribute substantially to the work but also take responsibility and accountability for the information it contains. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) recommends authorship be based on 4 specific criteria related to these broad principles.

With authorship comes both recognition and obligation that have important academic, social, and financial implications. The two most prominent authorship positions are first author and corresponding author .

What is the first author?

The first author position is a coveted spot. No matter how many other authors’ names appear on the manuscript or which referencing style is used, the first author’s last name will be mentioned in every future citation of the work.

For this reason alone, the name of the first author is remembered, indexed, and promoted more than any other. It is not just a status symbol, though. The first author executes a large portion or majority of the work throughout the research process.

First author credit signifies the researcher has provided the greatest intellectual contribution, and, therefore, comes with substantial benefits. The manuscripts of first authors hold substantial value for grant and position applications, staff appraisals and reviews, and many other forms of career development.

First author duties

The designation as first author is not based on academic or professional hierarchy, the prestige, or expertise of the author. It’s based on the inputs and outputs of work. First authors must:

• Make significant, original, and insightful intellectual contributions
• Participate in the conception and planning of the study
• Generate data through performing experiments, conducting literature reviews, and organizing surveys and interviews
• Analyze the results through statistical analysis and by generating graphs, tables, and illustrations
• Write and edit the manuscript
• Help with queries and revisions after submission

The researcher fulfilling all these duties is rightfully the first author.

What is the corresponding author?

Like the first author designation, the title of corresponding author also comes with considerable prestige. The corresponding author is explicitly identified on the first page of the manuscript. In addition to meeting all the preexisting authorship requirements, this person is selected to further manage the pre and post-publication responsibilities.

The corresponding author is customarily a senior researcher or academic with extensive publishing knowledge and experience. As the primary source of communication for both the publisher and the readers, the corresponding author’s contact information is included within the article.

The corresponding author must have exceptional communication skills. The role assumes primary responsibility for connecting with target journals. They must be organized and meticulous with the substantial volume of tasks associated with the position.

Corresponding author duties

Neither electing a corresponding author nor accepting the position should be taken lightly as it is an essential and long lasting obligation. The duties span from prior to publication to well afterwards and include:

While all corresponding authors serve as the point of contact for communication with a journal during the submission, peer review, and publication process, some journals outline additional conditions for the role. The National Academy of Sciences offers a table that compiles the corresponding author requirements for various journals.

What if there are authorship disputes or changes?

While openly discussing and defining a research team’s roles during the initial planning phase is vital for curbing authorship disputes, combining this practice with other forward-thinking acts is key. Responsibilities and work status must be addressed during regularly scheduled meetings and special meetings need to be called when a team member is added or ends involvement in the project.

How to avoid authorship disputes

To avoid disputes, teams start by mapping out the most obvious roles, author and non-author contributor, and by rejecting any proposed “non-role.” The input of non-author contributors is narrow in scope, providing technical, administrative or writing assistance, and does not fulfill the previously outlined authorship criteria.

A non-role is any inappropriate or irrelevant participant who will harm the research process, such as unethical types of authors . This category encompasses guest authors, forged authors, ghost authors, and orphan authors and must be avoided at all costs.

Many journals require a document be included with the submission package to delineate author contributions to explain and justify author order. By creating this list as a living document from the outset, a research team fulfills the prerequisite for the publisher and guarantees transparency and fairness throughout.

Because changing authorship after publication is messy, necessitating specific documentation, signatures, and approval, it is frowned upon by journal editors. While taking proactive steps to avoid disputes that may result in this situation saves the research team time and hassle, it does not always alleviate future changes.

The addition, removal, or reordering of authors on a manuscript while actively going through the publication process requires a letter signed by all original and additional authors stating the reason for the change and their mutual agreement. For changes made after publication, an authorship corrigendum must be submitted by all authors per COPE guidelines .

Final thoughts

Getting to the manuscript writing and publication stages of a research project are exciting milestones for everyone involved. Ideally, authorship roles are clearly defined and assigned at this point.

Though the first author and corresponding author positions are sometimes performed by the same person, the obligations of each are unique. The first author undertakes the bulk of work duties and makes a significant intellectual contribution to the research project. The corresponding author carries out the communication and administrative tasks necessary for publishing the manuscript.

Both roles are vital to the research and publication processes. They require intense labor and responsibility. With this comes great recognition and prestige for first authors and corresponding authors.

Charla Viera, MS

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• Published: 26 September 2012

Authorship: Who's on first?

• Amber Dance 1  

Nature volume  489 ,  pages 591–593 ( 2012 ) Cite this article

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When scientists collaborate on an experiment and a paper, it can be hard to decide who gets the credit and how much.

Stephen Kosslyn first started to consider how author lists come together when he found himself mediating a dispute. A postdoc and a graduate student each wanted to be listed as the first author on a study. “They both had a case,” recalls Kosslyn. “It got heated.”

Disagreements often happen when contributors put in similar amounts of effort on different aspects of a project, says Kosslyn, a psychologist at Stanford University in California. For example, one person might have developed the idea for the project and the other performed most of the data analysis. “The force of the dispute usually revolves around the feeling that whatever they did was more important than what the other person did,” says Kosslyn.

Such disputes are common. “As authorship is our academic currency, it tends to be a hot-button topic,” says Karen Peterson, scientific ombudsman at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington. She says that one-fifth of the disputes she adjudicates concern authorship. Similar conflicts are among the most common issues mediated by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), says Virginia Barbour, the organization's chairwoman and chief editor of PLoS Medicine in Cambridge, UK.

Authorship disagreements can be mitigated with careful discussions, explicit lab guidelines and a good understanding of authorship practices in one's field. There is no perfect approach, but deciding on who gets an authorship credit, and how they are ranked, is a crucial part of doing science responsibly.

Precise statistics on authorship disputes are hard to come by, says Mario Biagioli, a science historian at the University of California, Davis, who has studied authorship. Scientists may be reluctant to admit that they have demanded undeserved authorship or otherwise subverted the system, and the US Office of Research Integrity does not track such disagreements because they are not considered scientific misconduct, says Biagioli, who co-edited the book Scientific Authorship: Credit and Intellectual Property in Science (Routledge, 2002). However, in a 2005 survey 1 of researchers who had received a grant from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), 10% of respondents admitted to assigning authorship “inappropriately”.

Credit confusion

Questions of who deserves credit for a paper are a fairly recent phenomenon, says Biagioli. Once upon a time, a paper had one author, maybe two. But with modern big science and large collaborations, a study might have hundreds or even thousands of authors — as in the case of the ATLAS experiment 2 at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, Europe's particle-physics laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland.

And what authorship means varies by scientific discipline. For example, in particle physics, hundreds of researchers may contribute to the development and maintenance of a single piece of equipment, such as an accelerator. At big physics labs such as CERN, everyone who was working at the lab when the discovery was made gets a slot on the author list — even if they haven't seen the paper, says Biagioli. The authors are usually listed alphabetically, regardless of how much they contributed.

In the biological sciences, by contrast, the author list is often strictly ranked. The top spot is at the end of the list, where the principal investigator gets credit for running the lab. The student or postdoc who actually did the work goes first. As for the authors in the middle, it is hard to tell whether they participated a lot or a little, says Biagioli.

The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, has developed authorship guidelines that are used by many journals and institutions. These rules state that to be listed as an author, each researcher must meet three key criteria: they must have been involved in designing the project, collecting data or analysing the results; they must have participated in drafting or revising the manuscript; and they must have approved the final, published paper. Many universities that have their own guidelines base them on the ICMJE's wording, says Biagioli.

Kosslyn has his own definition: the crucial element, he says, is creativity. For example, a researcher could work with study participants in the lab, but just be following a protocol. “Anybody could have run the subjects, so running the subjects is not enough,” says Kosslyn. To earn authorship, the researcher would be intellectually engaged: they might point out a feature of the data that leads the team to reshape the experiment. The paper wouldn't look the same without them.

The author in question

COPE recommends that researchers decide who will be an author and what order they will be listed in before they even conduct experiments, and that the group revisits the author list as a project evolves. A handshake isn't enough to seal the deal — researchers should keep author agreements in writing.

Whenever they occur, authorship discussions need not be confrontational (see 'Aggravation-free authorship' ). Mark Groudine, deputy director of the Hutchinson Center, says that the parties in a dispute should sit down and try to talk the matter over. “People get so locked into their positions that they don't make the effort to understand the other person's point of view,” he says, “and therefore they don't understand why it's a dispute.”

If talking doesn't work, Groudine suggests asking the opinion of an unbiased third party. For example, on one project he collaborated with another principal investigator. When it came to writing up the paper, both wanted to be senior author. They invited two trusted colleagues to mediate.

The jury awarded the senior slot to Groudine, but he felt uneasy about it. He suggested that the other investigator be the corresponding author, who communicates with the journal and any scientists who enquire about the work. “I consider corresponding author as equivalent, almost, to senior author,” says Groudine. Co-senior authorship is also an option, he adds.

But sharing credit too broadly can be risky. Sometimes authors are listed more as a courtesy than because they made a key contribution, says Chris Sneden, an astronomer at the University of Texas at Austin, who will step down from his post as editor of The Astrophysical Journal Letters at the end of this year. Accepting courtesy authorship is a “double-edged sword”, he says. If the paper becomes famous, “every author gets to claim credit”. But if it becomes infamous, everyone gets a share of the blame. Researchers need to be aware of the potential risks of adding their names to manuscripts that they know little about (see 'Ghosts and guests' ).

Gerald Schatten, a stem-cell researcher at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, learned that lesson when he lent his good name to a high-profile but eventually discredited stem-cell paper by Woo Suk Hwang, then at Seoul National University. Schatten was investigated by his university, which cleared him of misconduct, but chastised him for 'research misbehaviour' because he failed to check the quality of the science 3 .

The decision to accept courtesy authorship is a matter of preference, says Sneden. “Personally, if I haven't actually contributed something to the specific paper, I just won't have my name on it,” he says. In that case, he politely tells his colleagues that he shouldn't be on the list. “I make sure they understand that it's not a negative reflection on the paper,” he says.

Taken in vain

Sometimes, the recipient of this courtesy may not get the chance to bow out. A researcher who has been added to the author list without their permission might be surprised to see their name when the paper comes out, says Sneden, or even angry if they don't agree with the conclusions. Those who find themselves unexpectedly an author on a paper that they would prefer not to be associated with should contact the editor of the journal, he recommends. The editor will get in touch with the study's corresponding author, and decide whether a corrigendum is necessary to explain that the author in question was not involved with the work.

These kinds of conflicts shouldn't occur. Corresponding authors are expected to have the approval of their co-authors — but some don't realize it. “People, do you read the publication agreement that you sign?” Sneden asks his colleagues. (Often, the answer is no.)

Increasingly, journals are attempting to keep authors in line by asking for details on who did what. In cases of fraud, those descriptions should lay the blame at the right person's door.

Biagioli agrees that delineating each person's contribution should help, but he says that the descriptions are frequently too brief. As an example, he cites the study published this month in Nature by the ENCODE Project Consortium 4 . It ascribes generic tasks such as “data analysis”, “writing” or “scientific management” to large sets of authors, making it impossible to tell, for example, who analysed which data. When scientists sit down to plan a project — and ideally draft the author list — they should also decide how to describe everyone's contributions, says Biagioli. The relevant details will probably vary by discipline, he adds.

In his own lab, Kosslyn has instituted a scheme to make authorship requirements explicit from the outset. As he listened to his student and postdoc arguing their cases several years ago, he started to develop what eventually became a 1,000-point system. The researchers who come up with the idea get 250 points, split between them according to their contribution; writing the paper is worth the same. A further 500 points are available for designing and running the experiment and analysing the data. Researchers who score at least 100 points make the author list, with each person's point total determining their rank.

Disagreements still occur; in those cases, Kosslyn decides how the points are allocated. When the balance of contributions is unclear, he does his best. However, it rarely comes to tallying points. “Usually it's very obvious what the order's going to be,” he says.

In recent years, no disputes have ever risen to the level of the argument that led to the point system. “That,” says Kosslyn, “was the last heated dispute we had in the lab.”

Box 1: Aggravation-free authorship

When many scientists work together, determining authorship isn't always easy. Here are some tips for settling the line-up.

Make sure that you choose collaborators with whom you can work well.

Discuss authorship early, and keep doing so often as a project evolves. Put it in writing.

When there are disputes, first try to talk it out amicably and understand the other person's point of view. For example, try to work out how the idea first came about.

If you must approach your supervisor about an authorship decision that you don't like, keep the tone inquisitive, not accusatory. Explain that you want to understand how authorship was decided.

If a contributor's authorship is in question, it can help to consider what the paper would have looked like without their efforts, and whether someone else could have made the same contribution.

Familiarize yourself with your institution's or journal's authorship guidelines, or those of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Use them to back up your case.

Be prepared to compromise or share credit.

If you can't agree among yourselves, engage a supervisor, trusted colleagues or an ombudsman to investigate the matter and make a recommendation. A.D.

Box 2: Ghosts and guests

Authorship can be misused when there is money to be made. Medical journals contain a mixture of original scientific findings and veiled advertisements for drugs, and scientists and physicians must read papers critically to understand a medicine's true merits, says Alastair Matheson, a biomedical-research consultant in Toronto, Canada.

Some pharmaceutical companies make drugs and run clinical trials, then engage medical writers to draft manuscripts. These contributors are often ghostwriters not listed as authors on the paper. Instead, the company's marketing team finds a big academic name to headline the project — even if this guest author makes no contribution to the paper apart from scanning the final version. Companies sometimes use the same technique to produce reviews promoting their latest medicines, says Joseph Ross, a physician who studies health policy at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. One survey 5 found that guests and ghosts haunted 21% of papers published in six leading medical journals in 2008.

“This vast production line of information about drugs is passed off as the work of academics rather than the work of industry,” says Matheson. The companies get to advertise their products; the ghostwriters receive a pay cheque; and the academics get another line on their CVs. But the patients and the integrity of science all lose out, says Matheson.

For example, Merck, a pharmaceutical company based in Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, minimized reporting of the risks observed for its painkiller Vioxx (rofecoxib) until the drug was taken off the market in 2004. Ross was a consultant to people who had taken Vioxx and developed heart problems, or their families, in two court cases against Merck, and he saw some of the company's internal documents 6 . “We were sort of shocked to find pretty rampant evidence that a lot of the trials were ghostwritten,” says Ross. “We would stumble across a full draft of a manuscript that just said, 'external author?'.”

There are ways to identify traces of guests and ghosts in a manuscript: “Check the small print,” says Matheson. That is where a medical writer or communications company may be acknowledged. Funding from a drug-maker is another tell-tale sign. “These are pointers to the likelihood that this is something originated and planned by industry prior to the involvement of the headline authors,” says Matheson. Author disclosures are less helpful, he adds, because academic authors may list several affiliations and it is difficult to tell which commercial relationship is relevant.

With commerce and medicine intimately intertwined, it would be impractical for academics to cut ties with companies, says Matheson. But, he adds, when academics are offered guest authorship, “I would advise them, for the sake of their reputation, to do two things”. First, he says, be more than a guest: make sure that your contribution is author-level. Second, insist that company employees involved in the study are also listed as authors.

Matheson says it is the responsibility of journals to make participation by drug-makers more apparent. He would like to see papers marked right at the top with 'commercial article'. He also suggests that journals use labels to indicate who funded the study, and what drug it supports. A.D.

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How to Order Authors in Scientific Papers

It’s rare that an article is authored by only one or two people anymore. In fact, the average original research paper has five authors these days. The growing list of collaborative research projects raises important questions regarding the author order for research manuscripts and the impact an author list has on readers’ perceptions.

With a handful of authors, a group might be inclined to create an author name list based on the amount of work contributed. What happens, though, when you have a long list of authors? It would be impractical to rank the authors by their relative contributions. Additionally, what if the authors contribute relatively equal amounts of work? Similarly, if a study was interdisciplinary (and many are these days), how can one individual’s contribution be deemed more significant than another’s?

Why does author order matter?

Although an author list should only reflect those who have made substantial contributions to a research project and its draft manuscript (see, for example, the authorship guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors ), we’d be remiss to say that author order doesn’t matter. In theory, everyone on the list should be credited equally since it takes a team to successfully complete a project; however, due to industry customs and other practical limitations, some authors will always be more visible than others.

The following are some notable implications regarding author order.

• The “first author” is a coveted position because of its increased visibility. This author is the first name readers will see, and because of various citation rules, publications are usually referred to by the name of the first author only. In-text or bibliographic referencing rules, for example, often reduce all other named authors to “et al.” Since employers use first-authorship to evaluate academic personnel for employment, promotion, and tenure, and since graduate students often need a number of first-author publications to earn their degree, being the lead author on a manuscript is crucial for many researchers, especially early in their career.
• The last author position is traditionally reserved for the supervisor or principal investigator. As such, this person receives much of the credit when the research goes well and the flak when things go wrong. The last author may also be the corresponding author, the person who is the primary contact for journal editors (the first author could, however, fill this role as well, especially if they contributed most to the work).
• Given that there is no uniform rule about author order, readers may find it difficult to assess the nature of an author’s contribution to a research project. To address this issue, some journals, particularly medical ones, nowadays insist on detailed author contribution notes (make sure you check the target journal guidelines before submission to find out how the journal you are planning to submit to handles this). Nevertheless, even this does little to counter how strongly citation rules have enhanced the attention first-named authors receive.

Common Methods for Listing Authors

The following are some common methods for establishing author order lists.

• Relative contribution. As mentioned above, the most common way authors are listed is by relative contribution. The author who made the most substantial contribution to the work described in an article and did most of the underlying research should be listed as the first author. The others are ranked in descending order of contribution. However, in many disciplines, such as the life sciences, the last author in a group is the principal investigator or “senior author”—the person who often provides ideas based on their earlier research and supervised the current work.
• Alphabetical list . Certain fields, particularly those involving large group projects, employ other methods . For example, high-energy particle physics teams list authors alphabetically.
• Multiple “first” authors . Additional “first” authors (so-called “co-first authors”) can be noted by an asterisk or other symbols accompanied by an explanatory note. This practice is common in interdisciplinary studies; however, as we explained above, the first name listed on a paper will still enjoy more visibility than any other “first” author.
• Multiple “last” authors . Similar to recognizing several first authors, multiple last authors can be recognized via typographical symbols and footnotes. This practice arose as some journals wanted to increase accountability by requiring senior lab members to review all data and interpretations produced in their labs instead of being awarded automatic last-authorship on every publication by someone in their group.
• Negotiated order . If you were thinking you could avoid politics by drowning yourself in research, you’re sorely mistaken. While there are relatively clear guidelines and practices for designating first and last authors, there’s no overriding convention for the middle authors. The list can be decided by negotiation, so sharpen those persuasive argument skills!

As you can see, choosing the right author order can be quite complicated. Therefore, we urge researchers to consider these factors early in the research process and to confirm this order during the English proofreading process, whether you self-edit or received manuscript editing or paper editing services , all of which should be done before submission to a journal. Don’t wait until the manuscript is drafted before you decide on the author order in your paper. All the parties involved will need to agree on the author list before submission, and no one will want to delay submission because of a disagreement about who should be included on the author list, and in what order (along with other journal manuscript authorship issues).

On top of that, journals sometimes have clear rules about changing authors or even authorship order during the review process, might not encourage it, and might require detailed statements explaining the specific contribution of every new/old author, official statements of agreement of all authors, and/or a corrigendum to be submitted, all of which can further delay the publication process. We recommend periodically revisiting the named author issue during the drafting stage to make sure that everyone is on the same page and that the list is updated to appropriately reflect changes in team composition or contributions to a research project.

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Authorship issue explained

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When it comes to the fact that who should be an author and who should not be offered ghost authorship, it seem we are all in agreement.[ 1 ] Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take responsibility for the content. Authorship credit should be based only on substantial contributions to (a) conception and design, or analysis and interpretation of data; and to (b) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and on (c) final revision of the version to be published. Conditions (a), (b), and (c) must all are met.

However, when it comes to the sequence of authorship there seems to be a grey zone and exploitation at both ends of the spectrum. We have come across aggrieved Unit Chiefs and displeased residents in almost equal numbers. It is important for young authors to understand that there are two positions that count, the first author and the last author. Attached to either position is the status associated with being the author for correspondence. The best combination when one is young is to be first author and the author for correspondence. As one’s career progresses, being last author and author for correspondence signals that this is a paper from one’s Unit, he/she is the main person responsible for its contents, and a younger colleague has made major contributions to the paper, hence he/she is designated as the first author. The guidelines here are not as well defined as for authorship in general, Riesenberg and Lundberg[ 2 ] have made certain very important and simple suggestions to decide the sequence of authorship:

The first author should be that person who contributed most to the work, including writing of the manuscript

The sequence of authors should be determined by the relative overall contributions to the manuscript.

It is common practice to have the senior author appear last, sometimes regardless of his or her contribution. The senior author, like all other authors, should meet all criteria for authorship.

The senior author sometimes takes responsibility for writing the paper, especially when the research student has not yet learned the skills of scientific writing. The senior author then becomes the corresponding author, but should the student be the first author? Some supervisors put their students first, others put their own names first. Perhaps it should be decided on the absolute amount of time spent on the project by the student (in getting the data) and the supervisor (in providing help and in writing the paper). Or perhaps the supervisor should be satisfied with being corresponding author, regardless of time committed to the project.

A sensible policy adopted by many supervisors is to give the student a fixed period of time (say 12 months) to write the first draft of the paper. If the student does not deliver, the supervisor may then write the paper and put her or his own name first.

The second issue raised in this letter is about the use of plurals. Our insistence of avoiding pronouns I, me and mine in all publications is very sound and logical. Even if it is a single author paper, surgery is a team game and we are virtually powerless without our unsung colleagues - residents, nurses, technicians etc. By using plurals we recognize their vital role in our success story. Where as in a multiple author paper, the author has no option but to call it ‘our work’ instead on ‘my paper’, even when he is writing the paper all by himself / herself, there were many hands helping him / her and it is our Journal policy to acknowledge the same.

• 1. International Committee for Medical Journal Editors. Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals. N Engl J Med. 1991;324:424–8. doi: 10.1056/NEJM199102073240624. [ DOI ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
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What is a Corresponding Author?

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Are you familiar with the terms “corresponding author” and “first author,” but you don’t know what they really mean? This is a common doubt, especially at the beginning of a researcher’s career, but easy to explain: fundamentally, a corresponding author takes the lead in the manuscript submission for publication process, whereas the first author is actually the one who did the research and wrote the manuscript.

The order of the authors can be arranged in whatever order suits the research group best, but submissions must be made by the corresponding author. It can also be the case that you don’t belong in a research group, and you want to publish your own paper independently, so you will probably be the corresponding author and first author at the same time.

Corresponding author meaning:

The corresponding author is the one individual who takes primary responsibility for communication with the journal during the manuscript submission, peer review, and publication process. Normally, he or she also ensures that all the journal’s administrative requirements, such as providing details of authorship, ethics committee approval, clinical trial registration documentation, and gathering conflict of interest forms and statements, are properly completed, although these duties may be delegated to one or more co-authors.

Generally, corresponding authors are senior researchers or group leaders with some – or a lot of experience – in the submission and publishing process of scientific research. They are someone who has not only contributed to the paper significantly but also has the ability to ensure that it goes through the publication process smoothly and successfully.

What is a corresponding author supposed to do?

A corresponding author is responsible for several critical aspects at each stage of a study’s dissemination – before and after publication.

If you are a corresponding author for the first time, take a look at these 6 simple tips that will help you succeed in this important task:

• Ensure that major deadlines are met
• Prepare a submission-ready manuscript
• Put together a submission package
• Get all author details correct
• Ensure ethical practices are followed
• Take the lead on open access

In short, the corresponding author is the one responsible for bringing research (and researchers) to the eyes of the public. To be successful, and because the researchers’ reputation is also at stake, corresponding authors always need to remember that a fine quality text is the first step to impress a team of peers or even a more refined audience. Elsevier’s team of language and translation professionals is always ready to perform text editing services that will provide the best possible material to go forward with a submission or/and a publication process confidently.

Who is the first author of a scientific paper?

The first author is usually the person who made the most significant intellectual contribution to the work. That includes designing the study, acquiring and analyzing data from experiments and writing the actual manuscript. As a first author, you will have to impress a vast group of players in the submission and publication processes. But, first of all, if you are in a research group, you will have to catch the corresponding author’s eye. The best way to give your work the attention it deserves, and the confidence you expect from your corresponding author, is to deliver a flawless manuscript, both in terms of scientific accuracy and grammar.

If you are not sure about the written quality of your manuscript, and you feel your career might depend on it, take full advantage of Elsevier’s professional text editing services. They can make a real difference in your work’s acceptance at each stage, before it comes out to the public.

Language Editing Services by Elsevier Author Services:

Through our Language Editing Services , we correct proofreading errors, and check for grammar and syntax to make sure your paper sounds natural and professional. We also make sure that editors and reviewers can understand the science behind your manuscript.

With more than a hundred years of experience in publishing, Elsevier is trusted by millions of authors around the world.

Check our video Elsevier Author Services – Language Editing to learn more about Author Services.

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First Author and Corresponding Author defined

The  first author  is typically the primary contributor to a research paper. You may list multiple authors as first authors in the manuscript, mentioning in the author contribution statement that these authors contributed equally to the study.

The  corresponding author  takes responsibility for the manuscript during the submission , peer review and production process. All communication from submission to publication will be with the corresponding author. 

On SNAPP , the requirement of managing all communication between the journal and all co-authors during submission and proofing may be delegated to a s ubmitting author . In this case please make sure the Corresponding Author is clearly indicated in the manuscript. For more information, see Submitting and Corresponding Author roles on SNAPP .

The corresponding author does not need to be the first author or a senior author. The order of authors can be arranged during the submission process, in whichever order suits but submissions must be made by the corresponding author and not on behalf of the corresponding author.

Articles can be published with more than one corresponding author, but only one can be accommodated by the Peer Review System. For that, make sure that all corresponding authors are listed as such in your manuscript.

The logic behind only allowing a single author to access the manuscript is that only one author should take responsibility for the manuscript during the submission, peer review and production stages. Having a single point of contact ensures that the manuscript can progress rapidly through the process and that all communication from Springer Nature regarding a submission goes to a unique contact.

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