First author vs corresponding author: who does what

The two roles answer different questions. The first author is about who did the most work. The corresponding author is about who talks to the journal. Springer Nature's support pages put it in one line each: the first author is typically the primary contributor to a research paper, and the corresponding author takes responsibility for the manuscript during submission, peer review and production.

The two roles can belong to one person or to two. Springer Nature says plainly that the corresponding author does not need to be the first author or a senior author. In many Indian labs the student is first author and the guide is corresponding author, and that is what Dr. Natarajan suggested for Aravind's paper.

Aravind had assumed the corresponding author simply clicks "submit". The job is longer than that. The ICMJE, the committee of medical journal editors whose recommendations many journals follow, lists these duties.

1. Before submission.Make sure the administrative parts are complete: every author's details, ethics approval, trial registration where needed, and the declarations of interests. Co-authors can help with these.
2. During peer review.Be the main contact for the journal and reply quickly to the editor's questions.
3. Up to publication.Stay the contact while the journal prepares the paper. The ICMJE also asks editors to copy every letter to all the listed authors.
4. After publication.Respond to critiques of the work and share data or extra information if questions arise.

Springer Nature adds that all communication from submission to publication goes to the corresponding author, and that the submission must be made by the corresponding author, not by someone else on their behalf.

The last step in that list, answering questions years later, is why many guides take the role. A PhD student moves on and the hostel email address stops working. A permanent faculty address is still there when another lab writes to ask for a bacterial strain.

Before deciding the order, Dr. Natarajan made Aravind decide who should be on the list at all. The ICMJE says an author must meet all four of these criteria. Many journals outside medicine use them too, but check yours.

1. Substantial contribution to the idea or design of the work, or to collecting, analysing or interpreting its data.
2. Drafting the paper or revising it critically for important content.
3. Final approval of the version to be published.
4. Agreeing to be accountable for all parts of the work, including answering questions about its accuracy.

The rule cuts both ways. Everyone who meets all four should be named, and anyone who meets fewer should be thanked in the acknowledgements instead. The ICMJE gives examples of work that does not, on its own, earn authorship: getting the funding, general supervision of a research group or general administrative support, and help with writing, language editing or proofreading.

So the lab sorted itself out. Dr. Joseph had designed the analysis and rewrote the results section, and he would read and approve the final draft: an author. Keerthana had collected a third of the data; Dr. Natarajan asked her to review the methods and discussion, approve the final version, and agree to stand behind it. Then she was an author too. Murugan's care of the cultures went into the acknowledgements, with his permission; the ICMJE says editors should ask the corresponding author to get that permission in writing.

Once the list was settled, the order came next. There is no single rule. The ICMJE says only that the criteria for ordering may vary and that the authors decide it together, not the editors.

• First author: in most lab and field sciences, the person who did most of the work and wrote the first draft.
• Middle authors: people who contributed parts of the work, often in roughly falling order of contribution.
• Last author: in many sciences, the senior researcher who led or supervised the project, often the guide.
• Co-first authors: when two people contributed equally, many journals let both be listed as first authors, with a note saying they contributed equally.

Some fields do it differently. The American Mathematical Society's statement on joint research says that mathematicians traditionally list authors in alphabetical order, because joint work usually cannot be split into separate contributions. Economics often does the same. So always read a byline with the field in mind.

Aravind's paper ended up as Aravind first, Keerthana second, Dr. Joseph third and Dr. Natarajan last and corresponding. A star beside her name pointed to her email address at the foot of the first page.

This was the hostel senior's question, and the honest answer is that it depends on your career stage and on who is counting. For a PhD student, first authorship is usually what matters: it shows that the work and the writing were mainly yours. Being corresponding author shows responsibility for the paper, and it becomes more common as a researcher starts leading projects.

In India, one place where the roles are counted formally is the research score for teachers in the UGC Regulations of 2018, used for recruitment and promotion in universities and colleges. Its note on shared papers reads like this.

Notice that the regulation puts first and corresponding authors in the same group. Neither role is ranked above the other there. Universities fill in the details through their own forms, so check the one your institution uses. And these scores are for teachers; your PhD regulations will have their own publication requirements.

Dr. Natarajan put it simply to Aravind. "Your name first tells everyone you did this work. My name as corresponding author tells them who will still be answering for it in ten years." Aravind stopped arguing.

Two days later the head of department, who had signed the purchase forms for the project, asked whether his name could go on the paper. "Everyone does it," he said kindly. Dr. Natarajan explained why she would rather not. Elsevier's ethics factsheet on authorship names three kinds of authorship as unacceptable.

• Ghost authors: people who contributed substantially but are not acknowledged, often professional writers paid by commercial sponsors.
• Guest authors: people who made no discernible contribution but are listed to help the paper's chances of being published.
• Gift authors: people whose place on the paper rests only on a slight link to the study.

The same factsheet says that deliberately misrepresenting a scientist's relationship to their work is a form of misconduct. That includes ordering the names in a way that suggests more involvement than someone really had, and submitting a paper without a co-author's permission.

An author is accountable for the whole paper. If a gift author's name is on a paper that later turns out to have a problem, that person shares the blame for work they never saw. Our blog on what retraction means shows how far such problems can go. The head of department agreed to be thanked in the acknowledgements for his support, which was exactly what he had given.

Elsevier's factsheet strongly advises a meeting before the research begins to write down how each person will be credited. Aravind had left it until the paper was finished, which made every conversation harder. For his next paper he followed these steps.

1. Talk about it early.At the planning stage, agree on who is likely to be an author, who will be first and who will be corresponding. Write it in an email to everyone.
2. Revisit it as the work changes.People join and leave, and roles grow or shrink. Check the list again before you start writing.
3. Use the four criteria.Test every name against the ICMJE list, and move anyone who falls short to the acknowledgements.
4. Write a contribution statement.Record what each person actually did, using the CRediT roles below.
5. Get everyone's approval.Every author should read and approve the final version before it is submitted.

CRediT, the Contributor Roles Taxonomy, is a list of 14 roles that many journals now ask authors to use in contribution statements. It became an ANSI/NISO standard in 2022. The roles are conceptualization, data curation, formal analysis, funding acquisition, investigation, methodology, project administration, resources, software, supervision, validation, visualization, writing (original draft) and writing (review and editing). Aravind's statement listed him under conceptualization, investigation and the original draft, Keerthana under investigation, Dr. Joseph under formal analysis, and Dr. Natarajan under supervision, funding acquisition and review and editing.

If a disagreement cannot be settled, the journal will not settle it for you. The ICMJE says editors do not decide who qualifies for authorship or arbitrate disputes; that is a matter for the institution where the work was done. If authors want to add or remove a name after submission, the ICMJE says editors should ask for an explanation and a signed agreement from every listed author and from the person being added or removed. AI tools cannot be authors at all, as our guide on using AI in research honestly explains.

Aravind's paper went to the journal a week later with four names, a contribution statement and an acknowledgements section that thanked Murugan and the head of department. Keerthana sent him a message that evening: her first paper, and she had not even had to ask.