Authorship and authorship order are visual shortcuts that communicate student success. We content analyzed to what extent graduate students published as lead authors in 10 refereed communication and media journals over a decade (2007–2016) examining student authorship, coauthorship, and affiliations. Graduate students appeared in approximately 23% of the sampled articles with graduate students most often appearing as lead author on multiauthored articles. If there is an increasing expectation to secure lead authorship, students may need to navigate the authorship process. Guidelines are provided on how to assess and negotiate authorship based on intellectual contributions, tasks, and sustained commitment.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.