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14 W. Criminology Rev. 84 (2013)
On the Ethics of Collaborative Authorship: The Challenge of Authorship Order and the Risk of "Textploitation"

handle is hein.journals/wescrim14 and id is 88 raw text is: WE Tg lIN V Online citation: Henry, Stuart. 2013. On the Ethics of Collaborative Authorship: The Challenge of Authorship Order and the Risk of Textploitation. Western Criminology Review 14(1): 84-87 (http://wcr.sonoma.edu/vl4nl/Henry.pdf). http://wcr.sonoma.edu On the Ethics of Collaborative Authorship: The Challenge of Authorship Order and the Risk of Textploitation Stuart Henry San Diego State University Keywords: author order, ethics of co-authorship, collaborative publishing, power relationships With the possible exception of marital conflict and divorce, few relationships create more interpersonal animosity than when co-authors lose trust and respect for one another; power and partnership can be mutually reinforcing or mutually destructive. The problem with authorship is that it is a highly prized academic reward. It is the measure of much of what we do, from securing an appointment, to obtaining grant funding, to obtaining research release time, to being granted sabbaticals, to being recommended for tenure and promotion, and ultimately to academic prestige and reputation. Authorship is a mark of one's contribution to the field and academic legacy. Publications and the academic's role in authoring them, reflected in one's place in the authorship order, are thus highly contested. Ideas and research disseminated through publications are the oil of academia, and they are often fought over tooth and nail. Indeed, like other collaborative partnerships, co-authorship is best approached with what might be seen as the equivalent of a pre-nuptial agreement so that, if there are ever questions about who is to be the first author on an article or book, or who is even an author at all, there is some reference to an existing contract that provides guidelines and clarification. But we are getting ahead of ourselves. The first question to ask is: What is collaborative authorship? The way we consider authorship has, not surprisingly, varied over time and cross-culturally, let alone varying among academic tribes. The insights from historians of the book, remind us that the idea of a book being a sole- authored work is a peculiarly Western notion that resonates with the ideology of individual accomplishment and achievement. Unless books are literally written by one person, edited by the same person, and also printed by that person, then multiple hands touch the book, book chapter and, for that matter, the scholarly article. These comprise various uses of others' work and interventions through the book or article editorial and production process that give many of a book's contributors a claim to authorship of the final written form. Therefore, being designated the author implies that other contributors, including editors, reviewers, and publishers, regardless of how influential they are in shaping a written work, are both less than, and marginal to, authorship. By authorship we mean the person or persons who write an article, chapter, or book manuscript, and we do not include as co-authors any of the source authors who wrote words that are quoted in this work (unless the book is, for example, on Marx, or on Foucault), or any of the contributing players from editors to colleagues whose subsequent commentary on the work changes it in significant ways. Collaborative authorship implies that there is more than one author. Just how many authors is an open question depending on the academic discipline. In the humanities it is the norm to see sole authorship, but certainly not to go much beyond two collaborating authors, whereas in science there can be as many as five or six co- 84

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