We learned about authorship issues this week.  The news about “Who Actually Owns That DeGeneres “Selfie”” is really interesting. I never thought about authorship of selfie photos before, as they are so common in our lives, but one thing I learned is that authorship issue is very serious and shouldn’t be ignored anytime.  The video clip of Big Bang Theory also indicated this issue.

The following are my opinions of the questions:  1) What does it mean to be an author? Who should count? I think Individuals who supply the funding shouldn’t be automatically counted as authors if they haven’t made intellectual contributions to the research, it is the same for individuals who supply the laboratory space, Individuals who supply the patients. For Individuals who analyze the samples, statistically evaluate the data, type the paper, if they have made significant contributions to the research design, findings, analysis, then they should be listed as authors. I think it might not be necessary for an author to participate in the writing of the paper or checking the manuscript, but the author should make sure that the ideas expressed in the paper match his/her ideas.

As Jason W. Osborne and Abigail Holland (2009) indicated in the research about authorship, it is only relatively recently that ethical and authorship issues has arisen, as most scientific writing was solely authored  before the mid 20th century.  Higher education has surely add complex to this issue. I am in the field of social science, and most of work follow APA style, and I learned the norms of my discipline for authorship from taking writing classes and also by working with professors in my field.  I encountered some issues of authorship before, as I discussed in my former postings, and I think I will pay more attention to this issue in the future.