{"id":467,"date":"2026-09-11T07:28:30","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T07:28:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harvardpublicationhub.com\/blogs\/?p=467"},"modified":"2026-09-11T07:31:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T07:31:14","slug":"corresponding-author-vs-first-author","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harvardpublicationhub.com\/blogs\/corresponding-author-vs-first-author\/","title":{"rendered":"Corresponding Author vs First Author in a Research Paper"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you’ve just seen your name on a manuscript for the first time, or you’re staring at a submission portal wondering which box to check, here’s the short version: the <\/span>first author is the person who did most of the hands-on work and drafted the paper. The corresponding author is the person who talks to the journal, before submission, during peer review, and for as long as that paper exists in the scientific record. They’re often the same person. They’re often not.<\/span><\/p>\n

That single sentence answers the question most people type into Google. The rest of this guide is for the part that actually causes problems: deciding who holds which role, what happens when a journal asks for a “contribution statement,” and why one asterisk next to a name can matter more than the order of the entire byline.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Who Is the First Author?<\/span><\/h2>\n

The first author is whoever is listed first in the byline, the name that shows up before every other name on the paper. In most biomedical and life-science journals, that position is earned, not assigned. It goes to whoever contributed the most: designed the experiments, ran them, analyzed the results, wrote the first full draft.<\/span><\/p>\n

That’s why first authorship carries so much weight in hiring committees and grant panels. It’s the name that gets cited as “Ahmed et al.” for the next twenty years. It’s the name a search on Scopus or Web of Science<\/a> surfaces first. Nobody remembers author six.<\/span><\/p>\n

There’s a catch, though, and it trips up a lot of early-career researchers: in some fields (mathematics, theoretical physics, parts of economics) authors are listed alphabetically. Being first author there means your surname starts with A. It says nothing about contribution. If you’re evaluating someone’s CV, checking the discipline’s convention before assuming anything about author order matters more than the position itself.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Who Is the Corresponding Author?<\/span><\/h2>\n

The corresponding author is the point of contact. Their email goes on the published PDF, usually next to a small asterisk or superscript symbol beside their name. Every question a reader, another lab, or the journal itself has about that paper, five years from now, not just during review, routes back to that person.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here’s what that actually looks like day to day: they submit the manuscript through the journal’s portal. They collect and forward reviewer comments<\/a> to the other authors. They resubmit the revised version. They sign the copyright transfer agreement. And after publication, they’re the one who answers a stranger’s email asking for the raw dataset, or responds when someone flags a possible error in the methods section.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How to Spot the Corresponding Author on a Published Paper<\/span><\/h3>\n

This one trips people up constantly, so here’s the fast way to check: look for an asterisk (*), a small envelope icon, or a superscript number next to an author’s name in the byline. Scroll to the footnote or the first page footer, that’s where the “Corresponding author” label and email address sit. In PDFs from Elsevier, Springer, and most major publishers, it’s almost always at the bottom of the first page. If you’re checking a preprint on bioRxiv or arXiv, the corresponding author info usually sits right under the abstract instead.<\/span><\/p>\n

Most manuscript tracking systems (Editorial Manager, ScholarOne) also list it explicitly as a submission field: one name, sometimes two, but rarely more.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Corresponding Author vs First Author: Side-by-Side<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
<\/th>\nFirst Author<\/b><\/th>\nCorresponding Author<\/b><\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
Defines<\/b><\/td>\nPosition in the byline<\/td>\nCommunication role with the journal<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Earned by<\/b><\/td>\nContribution (in most fields) or alphabetical order<\/td>\nAssigned by the team, not by contribution size<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Writes the manuscript<\/b><\/td>\nUsually, yes, primary drafter<\/td>\nReviews and edits, doesn’t have to draft<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Talks to the journal<\/b><\/td>\nNo, not directly<\/td>\nYes, sole point of contact<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Active period<\/b><\/td>\nNone, it’s a fixed position<\/td>\nSubmission through post-publication, indefinitely<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Typically held by<\/b><\/td>\nGrad student, postdoc, early-career researcher<\/td>\nSenior researcher, PI, or lab head<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Career credit weight<\/b><\/td>\nHigh in life sciences, medicine, psychology<\/td>\nOperationally critical, but rarely the top credit signal<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Can there be more than one<\/b><\/td>\nOnly with an “equal contribution” footnote<\/td>\nYes, at some journals, dual corresponding authors<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Reliable across disciplines<\/b><\/td>\nNo, alphabetical fields strip the signal<\/td>\nYes, the role exists in nearly every field that uses peer review<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n

If you only remember one line from this table: first author signals <\/span>who did the work<\/span><\/i>, corresponding author signals <\/span>who’s responsible for it existing in the record<\/span><\/i>. Neither one guarantees the other.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Can the Same Person Be Both?<\/span><\/h2>\n

Yes, and for solo-authored or small-team papers, they usually are. If you designed the study, ran it, wrote it, and you’re the one submitting it, you check both boxes. Most journal submission<\/a> systems handle this without any extra step; you just list yourself once and tick “corresponding author.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Where it splits is bigger labs. A PhD student does the bench work and writes the draft (first author). Their supervisor, the one whose grant paid for the reagents, whose institutional email won’t disappear when the student graduates, takes on the corresponding role. That split isn’t a demotion for the student. It’s practical: journals want a contact who’ll still have a working email address a decade from now, and PIs are the safer bet.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Where CRediT Fits In (and Why Most Guides Skip This)<\/span><\/h2>\n

If you’ve submitted to a journal in the last few years, you’ve probably filled out a CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) statement without fully knowing what it does. It’s a separate system from author order, and confusing the two is where a lot of authorship disputes start.<\/span><\/p>\n

CRediT breaks contributions into 14 specific categories. Neither “first author” nor “corresponding author” is one of them; they’re byline and communication roles, while CRediT describes <\/span>what kind<\/span><\/i> of work someone did.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
CRediT Role<\/b><\/th>\nTypically Held By<\/b><\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
Conceptualization<\/td>\nSenior\/corresponding author, sometimes first author<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Methodology<\/td>\nFirst author, co-authors<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Software<\/td>\nWhoever built the analysis pipeline<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Validation<\/td>\nCo-authors, statisticians<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Formal analysis<\/td>\nFirst author<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Investigation<\/td>\nFirst author, research team<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Resources<\/td>\nPI \/ senior author (funding, equipment access)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Data curation<\/td>\nFirst author or dedicated data manager<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Writing \u2013 original draft<\/td>\nFirst author<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Writing \u2013 review & editing<\/td>\nAll authors, heavily the corresponding author<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Visualization<\/td>\nFirst author or designated co-author<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Supervision<\/td>\nSenior\/corresponding author<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Project administration<\/td>\nCorresponding author<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Funding acquisition<\/td>\nSenior\/corresponding author<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n

Journals like PLOS, Cell Press, and most Elsevier titles now require this statement at submission. Fill it out honestly, it’s increasingly what integrity offices check first when an authorship dispute lands on their desk.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Corresponding Author vs Senior Author vs First Author<\/span><\/h2>\n

Add a third label into the mix and things get messier. The senior author, usually listed last, is typically the PI who supervised the whole project and secured the funding. In lab-based sciences, the senior author and corresponding author are the same person more often than not. But “last position” and “corresponding” aren’t linked by any rule; a journal doesn’t care where your name sits in the list, only who’s designated as the contact.<\/span><\/p>\n

So you can end up with three distinct people: first author (did the work), senior\/last author (ran the lab), corresponding author (answers the emails), or all three roles collapsed into one person on a solo paper. There’s no universal formula. Check the specific paper, not a general rule of thumb.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How Author Order Actually Gets Decided<\/span><\/h2>\n

Contribution-based ordering is the default in biomedical and life sciences: most work first, least work last, with the senior author as the exception at the very end. A few things complicate that in practice:<\/span><\/p>\n

Equal-contribution footnotes are becoming standard. When two people genuinely did comparable work, journals let you mark both with a dagger symbol and a note reading “these authors contributed equally.” Citation databases will still shorten it to “Smith et al.” in most reference formats, which is a real source of frustration for the second name, worth knowing before you agree to it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Alphabetical ordering shows up in economics, math, and some physics subfields, where author order carries zero contribution signal by design. If you’re hiring or reviewing a grant application from someone in these fields, don’t penalize a name that happens to fall later in the alphabet.<\/span><\/p>\n

Institutional and funder policies sometimes override team preference entirely. Some funding bodies specify who must be the corresponding author on any paper the grant produced.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Authorship Differences by Field<\/span><\/h2>\n

We work across medicine, engineering, economics, and social sciences at Harvard Publication Hub, and the honest answer is that “who gets credit” changes shape depending on which of those you’re in.<\/span><\/p>\n

Medicine and life sciences:<\/b> First authorship carries the most individual career weight. Last authorship (usually = corresponding) signals lab leadership. Both matter for promotion committees, but they’re evaluated separately.<\/span><\/p>\n

Engineering and physical sciences:<\/b> Last-author prestige runs closer to first-author prestige than it does in medicine. A senior engineer’s name at the end of a paper isn’t read as passive; it reads as “this came out of my lab, under my direction.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Economics and some quantitative social sciences:<\/b> Alphabetical order is the norm at most top journals. The author position tells you almost nothing; you have to check the contribution statement or acknowledgments to know who did what.<\/span><\/p>\n

Humanities and qualitative social sciences:<\/b> Multi-author papers are rarer to begin with, and where they exist, contribution is usually described in a footnote rather than signaled through order at all.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you’re formatting a manuscript for submission<\/a> and you’re not sure which convention your target journal follows, checking three or four recent issues in that exact journal beats guessing from field-wide norms. Conventions vary by publisher too.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Five Authorship Mistakes That Cause Real Problems<\/span><\/h2>\n
    \n
  1. Gift authorship<\/b>: adding a name (often a department head) who didn’t contribute, just as a courtesy. Increasingly flagged by journals running authorship audits.<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. Ghost authorship<\/b>: leaving out someone who did contribute, often for political reasons or to avoid splitting credit. This is the one that ends careers when it surfaces.<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. Deciding order after data collection<\/b>: the later you leave this conversation, the more emotionally loaded it gets. Settle it at the proposal stage.<\/span><\/li>\n
  4. Skipping the CRediT statement<\/b>: treating it as bureaucratic box-checking rather than the document that actually protects you if a dispute happens later.<\/span><\/li>\n
  5. Assuming seniority equals authorship<\/b>: a supervisor who reviewed a draft for ten minutes doesn’t automatically qualify under ICMJE’s four-criteria test. Neither does someone who just supplied reagents.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Authorship Checklist Before You Submit<\/span><\/h2>\n
      \n
    • Author order agreed and documented in writing, before drafting starts<\/span><\/li>\n
    • Corresponding author confirmed, and their email is one that’ll still work in five years<\/span><\/li>\n
    • CRediT statement completed for every author, not just the first and last<\/span><\/li>\n
    • Equal-contribution footnote added if applicable, and both parties have agreed to the citation trade-off<\/span><\/li>\n
    • Target journal’s specific authorship policy checked (not just the general field convention)<\/span><\/li>\n
    • Every listed author meets all four ICMJE criteria, not just one or two<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

       <\/p>\n

      Final Words<\/span><\/h2>\n

      Corresponding author vs first author isn’t a technicality you sort out the night before submission. It’s the decision that determines whose CV gets the citation, whose inbox gets the angry email about a p-value five years from now, and who has to answer for the paper if something in it turns out to be wrong.<\/span><\/p>\n

      The short version holds up: first author did the work, corresponding author owns the paper’s future. On a solo project, that’s one person wearing two hats. On a lab team, it’s usually a split between the researcher who ran the study and the PI who’s still reachable a decade later. Either way, the conversation about who holds which role belongs at the start of the project, not the week before you hit submit.<\/span><\/p>\n

       <\/p>\n

      FAQs<\/span><\/h2>\n

      What is a corresponding author?<\/h3>\n

      The person designated to handle all official communication with a journal, from submission through peer review, publication, and any correspondence after the paper is out. Their email is printed on the published paper.<\/span><\/p>\n

      What is a first author?<\/h3>\n

      The researcher listed first in the byline, typically the one who contributed the most hands-on work and wrote the initial manuscript draft, except in alphabetical-order fields, where position doesn’t reflect contribution.<\/span><\/p>\n

      Is the corresponding author the same as the first author?<\/h3>\n

      Sometimes. On solo or small-team papers, frequently yes. In larger lab groups, the corresponding role often goes to the senior researcher instead.<\/span><\/p>\n

      Does the corresponding author get more credit than the first author?<\/h3>\n

      Not usually, in terms of hiring and promotion. First authorship is the stronger individual credit signal in most disciplines. Corresponding authorship is operationally important but evaluated differently.<\/span><\/p>\n

      Can there be two corresponding authors?<\/h3>\n

      Yes, at many journals, especially for international collaborations spanning time zones, where two people share the communication load. Check the specific journal’s policy; some cap it at one.<\/span><\/p>\n

      How do I find the corresponding author on a published paper?<\/h3>\n

      Look for an asterisk or superscript symbol next to a name in the byline, then check the footnote on the first page (or under the abstract, for preprints) for the labeled email address.<\/span><\/p>\n

      Who decides author order?<\/h3>\n

      The research team, ideally at the study-design stage, based on contribution, with institutional or funder policy sometimes overriding team preference.<\/span><\/p>\n

      Can the author order change after submission?<\/h3>\n

      Yes, but most journals treat it as a red flag requiring written approval from every listed author and a justification to the editor. Some refuse changes after acceptance outright.<\/span><\/p>\n

      Is the last author the same as the senior author?<\/h3>\n

      Usually, in fields that follow contribution-based ordering. The last position typically signals the PI or lab head who supervised the work, but it’s convention, not a rule enforced by journals.<\/span><\/p>\n

      What happens if authors disagree about who should be the corresponding author?<\/h3>\n

      Talk it through directly first. If that fails, most institutions have a research integrity office or ombudsperson who mediates. Unresolved disputes can delay submission indefinitely, so it’s worth resolving early rather than at the deadline.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      If you’ve just seen your name on a manuscript for the first time, or you’re staring at a submission portal wondering which box to check, here’s the short version: the first author is the person who did most of the hands-on work and drafted the paper. The corresponding author is the person who talks to the journal, before submission, during peer review, and for as long as that paper exists in the scientific record. They’re often the same person. They’re often not. That single sentence answers the question most people type into Google. The rest of this guide is for the part that actually causes problems: deciding who holds which role, what happens when a journal asks for a “contribution statement,” and why one asterisk next to a name can matter more than the order of the entire byline.   Who Is the First Author? The first author is whoever is listed first in the byline, the name that shows up before every other name on the paper. In most biomedical and life-science journals, that position is earned, not assigned. It goes to whoever contributed the most: designed the experiments, ran them, analyzed the results, wrote the first full draft. That’s why first authorship carries so much weight in hiring committees and grant panels. It’s the name that gets cited as “Ahmed et al.” for the next twenty years. It’s the name a search on Scopus or Web of Science surfaces first. Nobody remembers author six. There’s a catch, though, and it trips up a lot of early-career researchers: in some fields (mathematics, theoretical physics, parts of economics) authors are listed alphabetically. Being first author there means your surname starts with A. It says nothing about contribution. If you’re evaluating someone’s CV, checking the discipline’s convention before assuming anything about author order matters more than the position itself.   Who Is the Corresponding Author? The corresponding author is the point of contact. Their email goes on the published PDF, usually next to a small asterisk or superscript symbol beside their name. Every question a reader, another lab, or the journal itself has about that paper, five years from now, not just during review, routes back to that person. Here’s what that actually looks like day to day: they submit the manuscript through the journal’s portal. They collect and forward reviewer comments to the other authors. They resubmit the revised version. They sign the copyright transfer agreement. And after publication, they’re the one who answers a stranger’s email asking for the raw dataset, or responds when someone flags a possible error in the methods section.   How to Spot the Corresponding Author on a Published Paper This one trips people up constantly, so here’s the fast way to check: look for an asterisk (*), a small envelope icon, or a superscript number next to an author’s name in the byline. Scroll to the footnote or the first page footer, that’s where the “Corresponding author” label and email address sit. In PDFs from Elsevier, Springer, and most major publishers, it’s almost always at the bottom of the first page. If you’re checking a preprint on bioRxiv or arXiv, the corresponding author info usually sits right under the abstract instead. Most manuscript tracking systems (Editorial Manager, ScholarOne) also list it explicitly as a submission field: one name, sometimes two, but rarely more.   Corresponding Author vs First Author: Side-by-Side First Author Corresponding Author Defines Position in the byline Communication role with the journal Earned by Contribution (in most fields) or alphabetical order Assigned by the team, not by contribution size Writes the manuscript Usually, yes, primary drafter Reviews and edits, doesn’t have to draft Talks to the journal No, not directly Yes, sole point of contact Active period None, it’s a fixed position Submission through post-publication, indefinitely Typically held by Grad student, postdoc, early-career researcher Senior researcher, PI, or lab head Career credit weight High in life sciences, medicine, psychology Operationally critical, but rarely the top credit signal Can there be more than one Only with an “equal contribution” footnote Yes, at some journals, dual corresponding authors Reliable across disciplines No, alphabetical fields strip the signal Yes, the role exists in nearly every field that uses peer review   If you only remember one line from this table: first author signals who did the work, corresponding author signals who’s responsible for it existing in the record. Neither one guarantees the other.   Can the Same Person Be Both? Yes, and for solo-authored or small-team papers, they usually are. If you designed the study, ran it, wrote it, and you’re the one submitting it, you check both boxes. Most journal submission systems handle this without any extra step; you just list yourself once and tick “corresponding author.” Where it splits is bigger labs. A PhD student does the bench work and writes the draft (first author). Their supervisor, the one whose grant paid for the reagents, whose institutional email won’t disappear when the student graduates, takes on the corresponding role. That split isn’t a demotion for the student. It’s practical: journals want a contact who’ll still have a working email address a decade from now, and PIs are the safer bet.   Where CRediT Fits In (and Why Most Guides Skip This) If you’ve submitted to a journal in the last few years, you’ve probably filled out a CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) statement without fully knowing what it does. It’s a separate system from author order, and confusing the two is where a lot of authorship disputes start. CRediT breaks contributions into 14 specific categories. Neither “first author” nor “corresponding author” is one of them; they’re byline and communication roles, while CRediT describes what kind of work someone did. CRediT Role Typically Held By Conceptualization Senior\/corresponding author, sometimes first author Methodology First author, co-authors Software Whoever built the analysis pipeline Validation Co-authors, statisticians Formal analysis First author Investigation First author, research team Resources PI \/ senior author (funding, equipment access) Data curation First<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":468,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry","has-media"],"yoast_head":"\nCorresponding Author vs First Author in a Research Paper<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Corresponding author vs first author: what each role means, who counts as which, and how to decide before your next journal submission.\" \/>\n<meta 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