Publish or perish--the growing trend towards multiple authorship

Area of Science:

• Medical publishing trends
• Bibliometrics
• Scientific communication

Background:

• Historically, single-author publications were common in medical journals.
• Recent observations suggest a shift towards multi-author research papers.
• Understanding authorship trends is crucial for evaluating scientific collaboration.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the changing landscape of authorship in medical publications.
• To validate the subjective impression of increased multiple authorship.
• To analyze trends in author numbers over a defined period.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of author counts in articles from the South African Medical Journal.
• Comparison of publication data from 1971 and 1982.
• Statistical evaluation of mean author numbers and single-author proportions.

Main Results:

• The mean number of authors per article increased from 1.77 in 1971 to 2.35 in 1982.
• The proportion of single-author articles decreased from 60.8% in 1971 to 40.8% in 1982.
• The study confirms a significant trend towards multiple authorship.

Conclusions:

• The shift towards multiple authorship in medical research is evident.
• Factors such as the pressure to publish may contribute to this trend.
• This evolution impacts collaboration and the structure of scientific contributions.