[Co-Authoring Series] Managing Co-Authored Papers

Today’s episode is the cornerstone of our series, Co-Authoring 101. I provide a ‘co-author checklist’ and detail essential steps you should take before writing with a co-author. I explain the importance of getting to know your co-author, the framework of an effective pre-project meeting, and how to handle ending a co-author relationship.

Tune in to learn how to get your co-authoring project off to a good start, maintain momentum, and achieve due dates. Learning to collaborate with colleagues effectively is essential to your academic writing career. Maximize time and minimize stress with these preliminary setup and communication tips!

Step #1: Get to Know Each Other

The first step of the co-author checklist is getting to understand your partner(s). Ask about their working style. Do they describe themselves as due date oriented? Do they often miss due dates? Do they need external pressure in order to move their work forward? Can they manage the timing of their writing on their own? Then, understand the priority of the project for you and them. Is this co-authorship a top priority or one of ten other projects in the pipeline? 

Step #2: Setting Up the Project

Schedule a pre-project meeting to lay the groundwork for responsibilities and due dates. The three main project pillars you must solidify in the initial meeting are:

• Decide on authorship and communicate it immediately.
• Choose a project manager.
• Determine how you will communicate and what software(s) you will use.
• Set a target submission date and reverse engineer the project to schedule milestones with due dates.

Step #3: Ending the Co-Authorship

Hopefully, you will be able to complete the project and publish it without changes. However, it is important to be aware of when it is time to end a co-authoring relationship. This knowledge will ensure that you don’t waste time. The biggest clue to a drop in priority is non-responsiveness. If your co-author is missing due dates and not communicating challenges, give them the opportunity to break away. Similarly, if you are no longer able to dedicate the time and attention to the project, communicate with the team right away. This awareness will keep you informed and prepared for any eventuality.

“You really need to get to know each other better in order to have a successful co-authoring relationship and what I mean by successful is that everybody has a relatively nice time during the co-authoring and that the paper gets submitted and that the paper gets revised and that the paper comes out.”

“You need to give them an opportunity to break off the co-authoring relationship. The opposite is true too. If things have changed for you and it’s not important to you anymore you need to be a mature colleague and write and say you can no longer participate in writing the project so they should take over the authorship.”

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