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fmfreshman
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April 27th, 2013, 11:04 pm

Someone told me that, in mathematical financial field, some journals publish papers with author order by alphabeta, not the contribution of the work. If it is true, could you please give a an outline of it.
 
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bearish
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April 27th, 2013, 11:28 pm

The order of authors is not decided by the publishing journal, but by the authors themselves when submitting a paper. There is a long-standing tradition in finance (since well before mathematical finance became a field in its own right) to keep the authors in alphabetical order. Classic examples would be Black-Scholes, Breeden-Litzenberger, Cox-Ingersoll-Ross and Heath-Jarrow-Morton.
 
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fmfreshman
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April 28th, 2013, 12:20 am

Is it because people in this field do not care about the order, or just difficult to specify the amount of contribution? Does it seem not fair for those whose name is the bottom of Alphabeta? QuoteOriginally posted by: bearishThe order of authors is not decided by the publishing journal, but by the authors themselves when submitting a paper. There is a long-standing tradition in finance (since well before mathematical finance became a field in its own right) to keep the authors in alphabetical order. Classic examples would be Black-Scholes, Breeden-Litzenberger, Cox-Ingersoll-Ross and Heath-Jarrow-Morton.
Last edited by fmfreshman on April 27th, 2013, 10:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
 
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bearish
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April 28th, 2013, 1:01 am

Unlike in the hard sciences, you rarely see papers with more than about three co-authors in finance. Consequently, you are much less likely to become "et al" if your name happens to be alphabetically challenged, and it has just never (or at least not very often) been that big of a deal. Based on my earlier set of examples: Scholes, Litzenberger, Ross and Morton are all doing just fine.
 
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ppauper
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April 28th, 2013, 8:30 am

QuoteOriginally posted by: fmfreshmanSomeone told me that, in mathematical financial field, some journals publish papers with author order by alphabeta, not the contribution of the work. If it is true, could you please give a an outline of it.that would benames starting with Anames starting with Bnames starting with Cand so on
 
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deimanteR
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April 28th, 2013, 9:23 am

read_on_wikipedia
 
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fmfreshman
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April 28th, 2013, 6:06 pm

But how about the case when one author did significant much more contribution than the other 2 authors, for instance, but his or her name unfortunately appear on the last, according the Alphabeta. Is it common in Mathematical Finance field? In this case, does the alphabeta rule still apply?For me, ordering by alphabeta gives me a feeling that all authors contribute equally, or no one contributes significant much more than the others. How do you think of it?
Last edited by fmfreshman on April 27th, 2013, 10:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
 
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bearish
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April 28th, 2013, 7:00 pm

You are looking for signals where there are none. In finance (mathematical and otherwise) there is only one class of co-author. Obviously, their contributions may be wildly uneven, but as long as they have agreed to submit/circulate a paper as co-authors, that is essentially a private matter between them.
 
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mj
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April 29th, 2013, 3:36 am

In mathematics it's always alphabetical. If you publish as first author and you are later in the alphabet, your egotism will be sneered at. In financial maths, you get some people from different traditions who use different conventions. Generally, in maths your name only goes on the paper if your contribution was substantial. If you are not satisfied with the result of a collaboration, well you don't collaborate with that person again.
 
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Paul
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April 29th, 2013, 6:42 am

All of you are correct!In mathematics it's almost always alphabetical. If it's not alphabetical then the first author will indeed be sneered at. But it can make a big, big difference to your later fame and fortune. So if you have made a significantly greater contribution than the other authors you have a decision to make...and I don't think fear of being sneered at should enter into that decision-making process, unless you are a six-year old math prodigy...e.g. how do you feel about holding your position and annoying your colleagues?I've got a lovely story of this with multiple levels of intrigue! With insights into people's personalities, politicking and success in life! But I'll save it for another day!P
 
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ppauper
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April 29th, 2013, 7:24 am

one issue when there are more than 2 authors is a tendency for the citation to be reduced to et al.For example, a paper by Pauper, Duffy and Dash would often be cited as "Pauper et al.", so only the 1st named author gets acknowledged and the others are invisible
 
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ppauper
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April 29th, 2013, 7:28 am

another wrinkle is that some of those open source journals which charge publication fees have institutional memberships, in return for which the publication fees are waived if the first named author comes from a supporting institution.If Mr Duffy and Mrs Dash write a paper together and submit it to such a journal, they might have to pay $500 in page charges if the submit it as Dash and Duffy and $0 if they submit it as Duffy and Dash, because Duffy comes from a supporting institution but Dash does not.
 
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Cuchulainn
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April 29th, 2013, 8:46 am

Feels like being back in university, so it does.
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