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I was recently asked to join a manuscript which had been rejected by a journal. My revisions ended up removing 100% of another author's contributions (i.e. a different approach to the statistical analyses). In my field, this author's contributions were sufficient to warrant authorship - now that their contribution has been removed, should they still be included as an author? (To the extent that it matters, we're all perfectly happy to include them because of the work they put into the paper. I'm curious about the publishing ethics) Thanks!

Edit: I thought I'd add some more info based on comments/questions.

The reason the paper was originally rejected was due to the statistical analyses. I made two main changes to the statistical methods - one necessary (the reason it was originally rejected), and one optional:

1) (necessary) The experimental design required that a mixed-effects/multi-level model be used. In the original version of the paper, this was not done.

2) (optional) While this question could reasonably be addressed using frequentist methods, I thought a Bayesian method did a better job answering the question.

TPM
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    Presumably that author contributed something beyond merely writing, thus it is ethical to include them. – user2768 Jan 12 '18 at 15:34
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    @user2768: According to the question, the author's contribution was removed, not just the words they wrote. – O. R. Mapper Jan 12 '18 at 15:57
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    O. R. Mapper is correct. The entirety of this author's contribution was removed. – TPM Jan 12 '18 at 16:00
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    @O.R.Mapper I think my point has been misunderstood. An author's written text can be removed from a manuscript, but their scientific contribution to the manuscript goes beyond any written text. For instance, the author most likely contributed to scientific discussion and provided inputs that improved results. Such contributions cannot be removed. – user2768 Jan 12 '18 at 16:09
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    I think I should clarify further. This author's main written contribution was the statistical analyses/results sections. Their non-written contribution would have been the behind-the-scenes interpretation of results. Because we have decided to change the statistical approach, those behind-the-scenes interpretations would no longer be relevant. – TPM Jan 12 '18 at 16:14
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    @user2768: I understood that very well, and at least from what is written in the question, I think that exactly that is not the case. (At the very least, I think this is an interesting question if exactly that is true, that the entire contribution of the author has been removed. Think, for example, an author whose only contribution was to devise and describe a case study to underline the usefulness of a presented concept or result - if that case study is removed altogether, there is no contribution by that author left.) – O. R. Mapper Jan 12 '18 at 16:15
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    @user163778: And, just as a remark: "the author most likely contributed to scientific discussion" - for most papers that I have written, this could be said about virtually everyone in my institute. Of course, everyone talks about current projects, exchanges ideas, provides suggestions, etc., yet (at least in my field) it is not customary to actually list 20-something authors for each paper. Customs in other fields may, of course, differ - maybe the OP should also add a field tag, in case it becomes relevant here. – O. R. Mapper Jan 12 '18 at 16:18
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    Can you ask them to add a paragraph or even a sentence about their work, mentioning such work was done but not presented in the paper? This way you can honor your authorship agreement and give them credit for the time they put in. – stochastic Jan 12 '18 at 16:44
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    Did that author contributed to critical review of other parts of the paper? – Orion Jan 12 '18 at 16:54
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    @user163778 you've mentioned the "author's main written contribution," what about their other written contributions? – user2768 Jan 12 '18 at 18:16
  • @O.R.Mapper I think the question becomes far more interesting when phrased along the following lines: We modularized a research project into isolated modules with the goal of joining those modules to derive a result. One of the modules wasn't needed. Should the researchers that worked only on that module be considered as contributors? We now plan to publish the results, should those researchers be listed as co-authors? – user2768 Jan 12 '18 at 18:20
  • Related: https://academia.stackexchange.com/q/73480/19607 – Kimball Jan 12 '18 at 19:54
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    Did the experience of the removed analyses influence how the final version of the manuscript looks like? If so (that is, if his non-working analyses brought you to the point of doing the working one) I would say he should be included, as his contribution is still important, even if nothing is left. – Mark Jan 12 '18 at 20:41
  • Contribution removed author stays. Unless he remotely join the group contributing merely on calculations analysis etc with no different exchange (like I would be sent an equation and solving it , to give an extreme idea of what I mean). Actually I would not remove that coauthor anyway. I will probably be more attentive in future and that is it. – Alchimista Jan 13 '18 at 13:11
  • @Alchimista: "more attentive" about what? That statement sounds as if any mistake had happened so far, which does not seem to be the case based on the question. – O. R. Mapper Jan 13 '18 at 13:34
  • @O.R. Mapper I would not say that someone behaved mistakenly as human being, of course. But submitting a paper that has been rejected because having wrong content that must be 100 percent removed before possible resubmission is surely a mistake. – Alchimista Jan 13 '18 at 13:44
  • @Alchimista: The question doesn't say why the manuscript was rejected, nor whether that happened in relation to the now removed content, nor whether anything about that now removed part was wrong. – O. R. Mapper Jan 13 '18 at 13:55
  • @O. R. Mapper. If they simply changed approach to how to publish then is even not worth asking. If the part was correct the author of it can be or not author depending on mutual agreement and professional convenience. Without him/her declining, of course he/she warrant authorship. – Alchimista Jan 13 '18 at 14:28
  • You need to answer the following question: The paper was rejected. Was this because of the statistical analysis? – Pieter B Jan 13 '18 at 20:54

2 Answers2

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Yes, I would say that he/she should still be included as an author. Despite this person's sections being eliminated, it is likely that they contributed intellectually in other ways throughout the project, through discussions, meetings, paper revisions, etc. Even in the rare occasion that this is not the case (individual responsible for that one analysis only), it is not his/her fault the contribution was removed, and one should respect the time spent.

HEITZ
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    "it is likely that they contributed intellectually in other ways throughout the project, through discussions, meetings, paper revisions" - how do you distinguish that from all the other people who may also have "contributed intellectually" in internal colloquia, group discussions and brainstorming, and everyday talks between colleagues whose desks are just a few rooms apart? – O. R. Mapper Jan 13 '18 at 13:45
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    They contributed into it getting rejected......... – Pieter B Jan 13 '18 at 20:50
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As a general rule in life, you accrue good karma if you err in favor of others. If you have to ask yourself whether someone should be included -- for example, because they participated in discussions that still inform the paper; or because you only removed the statistical analysis this person did because you needed to go through the exercise of doing the analysis first before you could realize that that's not the way to go -- then that person likely "contributed" to the paper. That's true even if the actual work that is still in the paper does not include what that person did.

In essence, the price to add someone as yet another author to a paper is relatively small. The price you pay by permanently alienating someone by being hard-nosed is significantly larger.

Wolfgang Bangerth
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    But you also accrue bad karma by including inappropriate authors, and the question is about the trade-off between these two competing factors. – David Richerby Jan 12 '18 at 23:00
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    @DavidRicherby: To be honest, it seems like most of the kind of karma you lose by including authors incorrectly is StackExchange karma... – user541686 Jan 13 '18 at 01:05
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    @DavidRicherby: In appropriate authors are ones who have no connection to the work. This clearly does not seem to be the case here. – Wolfgang Bangerth Jan 13 '18 at 02:30