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# Only three authors?
Only?
(I helped save b3ta! Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Wed 14 Apr 2010, 15:38, archived)
# Papers with 20+ authors are not that rare
though I'm in theory so 1-5 is more normal. My average is probably 2. In observational work you're beginning to look at about 100 authors.

A very quick hunt threw up this one with 34 authors, arxiv.org/abs/1003.0270
(I helped save b3ta! boris the spider, Wed 14 Apr 2010, 15:40, archived)
# A hundred is insane.
Mind you, I find the tradition in the sciences of senior members of staff getting authorship despite having made no material contribution insane.

I much prefer the humanities approach: you fuck off and write something, and possibly mention someone in the footnotes if you can remember their name.
(I helped save b3ta! Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Wed 14 Apr 2010, 15:47, archived)
# we were talking about this over lunch today, actually
the conclusion was that the current system in our field is fucking lunatic but there's no easy way of dealing with it, and no good way of controlling senior professors getting their names added regardless of whether they've done anything or not.
(I helped save b3ta! boris the spider, Wed 14 Apr 2010, 15:52, archived)
# I had an applicant for one of our Masters courses
who was a senior medical person from somewhere-or-other.

The publications section was 45 pages long.

Something tells me that he didn't have much involvement in most of the papers cited.
(I helped save b3ta! Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Wed 14 Apr 2010, 15:55, archived)
# 'kin hell
that's a bit wrong
(I helped save b3ta! boris the spider, Wed 14 Apr 2010, 16:00, archived)
# Aye.
That's what I thought.
(I helped save b3ta! Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Wed 14 Apr 2010, 16:06, archived)
# I've got a single-author paper on the way!
Yay me!

*crys a little*
(I helped save b3ta! Colonel Boris "...a desperate Buzzfeed imitation...", Wed 14 Apr 2010, 15:41, archived)
# Me too :)
I don't think it's actually *publishable* but if I made it publishable it'd be about 60 or 70 pages long and, frankly, fuck that for a lark. So I'm splitting it in two.
(I helped save b3ta! boris the spider, Wed 14 Apr 2010, 15:45, archived)
# Almost all my stuff is single-author.
I don't really like it any other way...
(I helped save b3ta! Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Wed 14 Apr 2010, 15:48, archived)
# Rare thing in my field.
(I helped save b3ta! Colonel Boris "...a desperate Buzzfeed imitation...", Wed 14 Apr 2010, 15:50, archived)