How does one know how much a author contributed to a paper?

[Abhirao456]

So I saw this paper by Arturo tozzi https://www.researchgate.net/publication/297679077_Towards_a_Neuronal_Gauge_Theory

 

 

So I wanted to know how much this arturo contributed to his work? So I saw papers he has written on the same but hen I saw he abuses self citation, from a paper on 94 citation he has 84 or 87 being self. Sane with most of his other papers. However the one I linked above has about 50 odd self citations but he has contributed to the paper with other authors so that's what I was confused about. Whether the guy really has any expertise in the field he is commenting in?

Edited December 31, 2021 by Abhirao456
Because I'm a cunt

[exchemist]

7 hours ago, Abhirao456 said:

So I saw this paper by Arturo tozzi https://www.researchgate.net/publication/297679077_Towards_a_Neuronal_Gauge_Theory

 

 

So I wanted to know how much this arturo contributed to his work? So I saw papers he has written on the same but hen I saw he abuses self citation, from a paper on 94 citation he has 84 or 87 being self. Sane with most of his other papers. However the one I linked above has about 50 odd self citations but he has contributed to the paper with other authors so that's what I was confused about. Whether the guy really has any expertise in the field he is commenting in?

Impossible to determine just from reading one co-authored paper. But one can get an idea of how Tozzi is seen by people working in the field, by the quality of the collaborators willing to be associated with him and by the quality of the institutions that recognise him, and them. From that point of view I don't see any danger signals. 

[Abhirao456]

17 minutes ago, exchemist said:

Impossible to determine just from reading one co-authored paper. But one can get an idea of how Tozzi is seen by people working in the field, by the quality of the collaborators willing to be associated with him and by the quality of the institutions that recognise him, and them. From that point of view I don't see any danger signals. 

He actually recommended Claudio Messori that's why I asked, see the old thread

[Abhirao456]

I HAVE FOUND MY RESPONSE TO THE FOLLOWING .

[John Cuthber]

How does one know how much a author contributed to a paper?

In general, you don't.

[Genady]

Here is a related story:

"In physical cosmology, the Alpher–Bethe–Gamow paper, or αβγ paper, was created by Ralph Alpher, then a physics PhD student, and his advisor George Gamow. The work, which would become the subject of Alpher's PhD dissertation, argued that the Big Bang would create hydrogen, helium and heavier elements in the correct proportions to explain their abundance in the early universe. ...

Gamow humorously decided to add the name of his friend—the eminent physicist Hans Bethe—to this paper in order to create the whimsical author list of Alpher, Bethe, Gamow, a play on the Greek letters α, β, and γ (alpha, beta, gamma). Bethe was listed in the article as "H. Bethe, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York". In his 1952 book The Creation of the Universe, Gamow explained Hans Bethe's association with the theory thus:

The results of these calculations were first announced in a letter to The Physical Review, April 1, 1948. This was signed Alpher, Bethe, and Gamow, and is often referred to as the 'alphabetical article'. It seemed unfair to the Greek alphabet to have the article signed by Alpher and Gamow only, and so the name of Dr. Hans A. Bethe (in absentia) was inserted in preparing the manuscript for print. Dr. Bethe, who received a copy of the manuscript, did not object, and, as a matter of fact, was quite helpful in subsequent discussions. There was, however, a rumor that later, when the alpha, beta, gamma theory went temporarily on the rocks, Dr. Bethe seriously considered changing his name to Zacharias. The close fit of the calculated curve and the observed abundances is shown in Fig. 15, which represents the results of later calculations carried out on the electronic computer of the National Bureau of Standards by Ralph Alpher and R. C. Herman (who stubbornly refuses to change his name to Delter)."

(Alpher–Bethe–Gamow paper - Wikipedia)

[Prometheus]

By convention, in the fields i'm familiar with - medicine, biology and computer science -  the first author will have contributed the most and the last author will be the most senior academic, usually the head of a lab. The middle authors will have contributed the least. I've been on papers where the squabbling of who goes where on the author list gets pretty intense and petty. Many publications require that the contribution each author makes is explicitly stated, unfortunately PLOS biology doesn't seem to be one.

Karl Friston is a pretty reputable name though, I can't believe he would have tolerated too much jockeying.

[CharonY]

I am pretty sure that PLOS Biology also requires one to enter contribution into the system, but in a general way. (e.g. X contributed to manuscrupt, y did data analysis and contributed to manuscript, etc.).

While most journals have guidelines regarding contributions for authorship, reality is that each group hashes it out according to internal consideration.

For example, most of data could be generated by the first author, but they may not have written much of the manuscript. Often PhD students get to write the first draft, but especially if the supervisor is very experienced, not much might be left in the final manuscript. Sometimes, middle authors are on it, because it benefits the group and so on.