Lead author

In academic publishing, the lead author is the first named author of a publication such as a research article or audit.

Academic authorship standards vary widely across disciplines. In many academic subjects, the lead author of a research article is typically the person who carried out the majority of the research, and wrote and edited most of the manuscript. The list of trailing co-authors reflects, typically, diminishing contributions to the work reported in the manuscript. Sometimes, journals require statements detailing each author's contributions to be included in each publication.^[1] In other disciplines (specifically mathematics and theoretical computer science) however, authors are typically listed alphabetically rather than by contribution.^[2][3]

The proportion of multi-author papers has increased in recent decades, reflecting increasingly complex multi-investigator research projects,^[4] as well as the "publish or perish" culture of academic performance evaluation.

See also

• Academic authorship

References