ABS&Comment:Gelman, Multiple Authorship

[Gretchen Whitney]

 Gelman SR, Gibelman,M. "A quest for citations? An analysis of an d
commentary on the trend toward multiple authorship" J. Soc. Work Edu.35
(2) p.203-213,1999

Comment (Abstract follows):

Scholars in all fields would benefit from reading this analysis.  The
authors are dean and professor respectively of the School of Social Work.
They quote numerous earlier studies using the SSCI data to measure the
growth in authorship per paper (Reamer 1992).

Their catalog of possible reasons for this growth provides an excellent
summary of the reasons for "publish or perish".  They tabulate circulation
data on 187 journals from 250 to over 100,000 but do not, unfortunately,
tabulate the ranked output of these journals.
"According to a survey of 104 graduate schools of social work....
publications rank first in importance of faculty activities for promotion
and tenure, followed by teaching, and a distant third, service to the
school." (Locke BL 1955).

What is remarkable about this paper is that the title word "citation" does
not occur another time in the entire text, except for two references to a
paper in the BMJ (Epstein RJ 1993) on "Six authors in search of  citation
villains or victims of the Vancouver Convention," and a 1986 paper by Thyer
B. and Bentley K, "Academic affiliations of social work authors: A citation
analysis of six major journals"  Journal of Social Work Education, 22(1),
67-73.

For those not familiar with the Vancouver Convention, a set of guidelines
used by a large group of medical journals on such matters as journal
abbreviations, rules on acknowledgements, and naming of authors is
available.  See especially the work of Drummond Rennie, associate editor of
JAMA.

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Eugene Garfield, Ph.D.
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Publisher, THE SCIENTIST, 3600 Market St,
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TITLE:         A quest for citations? An analysis of and commentary on the
trend toward multiple authorship
AUTHOR:    Gelman SR, Gibelman M
JOURNAL:  JOURNAL OF SOCIAL WORK EDUCATION
              35: (2) 203-213 SPR-SUM 1999

 Document type: Article    Language: English    Cited References: 34
Times Cited: 0

Abstract:
Academic careers and granting of tenure within the university are directly
linked to a record of scholarly production.
This growing emphasis on publishing appears to have contributed to an
increase in collaborations among faculty
members, resulting in an increase in multiple-author publications. This
article explores the basis for the phenomenon of
multiple authorship, the implications of multi-author scholarship, and the
potential ethical questions that may arise from
such collaborations. Guidelines from related professions are reviewed in
regard to their utility for social work. Finally,
the authors make suggestions in regard to when and under what circumstances
multiple authorship is appropriate and
beneficial.

KeyWords Plus:
SOCIAL-WORK, PUBLICATION PRODUCTIVITY, ACADEMIC AFFILIATIONS, FACULTY,
JOURNALS,
SCHOOLS

Addresses:
Gelman SR, Yeshiva Univ, Wurzweiler Sch Social Work, Doctoral Program, New
York, NY 10033 USA.
Yeshiva Univ, Wurzweiler Sch Social Work, Doctoral Program, New York, NY
10033 USA.

Publisher:
COUNC SOC WORK EDUC, ALEXANDRIA

IDS Number:
200EG

ISSN:
1043-7797
                          Copyright © 1999 Institute for Scientific
Information
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