The ordering of authors’ names in academic publications
www.overcomingbias.com
Alphabetical ordering of authorship of articles in economics journals apparently is the source of two biases. Einav and Yariv (2006) show that alpha order is biased against authors with later surname initials; the problem is the name that is salient and that readers remember in connection with an article is the first in the sequence, especially when subsequent names disappear in “et al.” Eninav et al. (1999) show that alpha order biases downward the total quality of research; here the problem is that the alpha order convention blocks a race among authors to attain first place by contributing more. Although it should be possible to overcome the first bias via random ordering, the second appears much more intractable.
The ordering of authors’ names in academic publications
The ordering of authors’ names in academic…
The ordering of authors’ names in academic publications
Alphabetical ordering of authorship of articles in economics journals apparently is the source of two biases. Einav and Yariv (2006) show that alpha order is biased against authors with later surname initials; the problem is the name that is salient and that readers remember in connection with an article is the first in the sequence, especially when subsequent names disappear in “et al.” Eninav et al. (1999) show that alpha order biases downward the total quality of research; here the problem is that the alpha order convention blocks a race among authors to attain first place by contributing more. Although it should be possible to overcome the first bias via random ordering, the second appears much more intractable.