I invented something as part of my job in R&D, and I plan to patent it and get clearance from my company for publication in an academic conference. All the key novel ideas are mine, and I implemented them all and ran all the experiments.
However, I just don't feel comfortable about putting down my name as the sole inventor and author. When I see single-author papers, they always make me wonder if the author is dishonest and/or bad at working with others.
But no matter how much I look at my paper, I just don't see any noteworthy contribution to it from any of my co-workers. We were working on the same problem, but each taking a different approach.
Hence, the solution I've come up with is to put a co-worker's name on my paper and ask (force?) him to make some contribution to it, like helping with the literature citations and/or experiments.
But even then, I'm pretty sure he won't contribute much and I'll still end up doing all the work.
Do I really need to go out of my way to avoid being a single author? :(
Answer
As the proud author of many papers with all sorts of numbers of authors, anywhere from just myself to dozens of co-authors, I see no reason to avoid being a single author.
In evaluating a researcher, I would only have concern with their ability to collaborate if they show a preponderance of single-author papers. If somebody has a mix of single-author and multi-author papers, then my reaction will instead be more positive, because it shows they are both capable of collaboration and also capable of initiating truly independent work.
So: go for it on your single authorship (and/or inventorship)! Just make certain that your co-workers agree with you that they should not be authors/inventors, or else you may have an entirely different type of problem on your hands.
No comments:
Post a Comment