Authorship Practices and Institutional C PDF
Authorship Practices and Institutional C PDF
Authorship Practices and Institutional C PDF
1177/0162243902250905
Science,
Pontille
/Technology,
Authorship Practices
& Human Values
ARTICLE
Studies of scientific authorship have been developing for forty years. This phenomenon is
becoming increasingly well documented. However, most of these studies deal with fields
considered in only one national context. This article tries to understand the specific
modalities of sociological authorship within two national contexts: the United States
and France. The analysis yields an understanding of the logic intimately linking texts and
contexts, throwing light not only on the way research and authorship practices are partly
shaped by their particular institutional and historical contexts but also on the interactions between cognitive content and patterns of publication.
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Oromaner 1974, 1975; Patel 1972, 1973; Wilner 1985). These studies
brought to light a general trend throughout the core and mainstream journals of the field (the American Journal of Sociology [AJS], the American
Sociological Review [ASR], Social Problems, Social Forces, and Rural Sociology). This trend is characterized by increases in the number of authors per
article, the use of statistics, and financial support.
Although the important rise of teamwork in sociology has been well documented, one can notice the lack of comparative studies. The bulk of research
focuses on only a single national dimension (especially the United States).
Yet international comparative studies can enhance knowledge of institutionalized patterns of authorship in one specific field. Such a comparative point
of view could draw a particular perspective concerning the relationship
between the institutional conditions and political-economic forces bearing
on a discipline: What kind of disciplinary work is getting done? What kinds
of texts are being produced? What counts as disciplinary contributions?
These questions concern the authenticity of what is product (Strauss 1982)
and the process of establishing and maintaining legitimacy for particular
lines of work in a specific social world (Gerson 1983, 366). Thus, the expectation of authorship practices allows one to address questions both on the analytical status of scientific publication and on the definition of a field (or a scientific social world): the main purpose here consists of revealing particular
interrelations between cognitive content, authorship practices, and institutional context. Previous work has shown that differences in social patterns
lead to differences in various characteristics of journal articles (Katz and
Martin 1997). However, the particular case analyzed here allows us to point
out a specific level that is less documented in the literature: the national institutional contexts for one unique discipline.
In this text, authorship is taken as an extended definition (Pontille 2000b).
It is conceived as the result of several interactions between (co)authors themselves (Who signs the text? Who is relaying the acknowledgments? What
kind of criteria are considered essential to be an author?), between authors
and their texts (What kind of criteria are involved in writing the text and in the
structure of the argument? Is one model of writing predominant?), and
between authors and journals or professional associations (Are there recommendations for name ordering and for the headings of the text?). To address
these questions and bring some new elements to this approach, I focus on a
classical distinction between two ideal-type models: the scientific or experimental model and the literary model. Wolfe (1990) defined these ideal
types by considering that the experimental model is generally characterized
by shorter sentence construction, elliptical phrasing, greater density of jargon
and scientific shorthand, multiple authors, tables and algebraic expressions,
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stylistic conformity, and greater use of the passive voice, whereas the literary model is characterized by more a leisurely development of ideas, more
frequent obiter dicta, less consideration of economy of presentation, single
authors, idiosyncratic styles, use of first-person singular, reliance on metaphor, and more complex rhetorical strategies (p. 479). This definition allows
us to address the topic: What are the interrelations of these models in contemporary sociological research? Which model is most prevalent in research
reports, particularly in relation to authorship practices? In this sense, authorship is here elaborated as a specific line of inquiring: it constitutes the point of
view in revealing some cognitive and institutional elements that shape sociological publication patterns. In this perspective, three facets of authorship are
more specifically analyzed here (see the next section): the number of authors,
the kinds of contributions, and the narrative structure of text.
When turning toward a macro-sociological level, this text tends in part to
smooth out individual practices that are more tinged and complex. Two
national contexts are analyzed (the United States and France) for a particular
historical period: from 1960 to 1995. The postWorld War II period opened
with the carrying out of the Marshall Plan and the increasing role of the state
as an economic and social agent of planning and decision-making processes.
This was an uplifting period for sociology that saw a considerable increase in
the financing of sociological research. This period has been well documented
concerning the institutionalization and professionalization of the social sciences (Turner and Turner 1990; Ross 1991). It is here analyzed by articulating two sets of elements. On one hand, in this period of institutionalization,
which forced sociology to define its scientific criteria, the reference (positive
or negative) to the experimental sciences model was inevitable. On the other
hand, the states regulating role had gone hand in hand with the accumulation
of useful and applied knowledge brought by the social sciences (Jenkins and
Velody 1970). The analysis focuses on this double process, and especially on
its variations according to particular characteristics of national contexts. It
tries to reveal some logics intimately linking texts and contexts concerning
authorship patterns.
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French Journals
ASR
CIS
RFS
Year
1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
26.9
38.9
20.0
39.5
33.3
48.5
60.0
54.5
52
36
50
43
39
33
35
44
8.2
28.6
42.9
46.9
46.5
57.8
35.9
66.7
49
42
49
49
43
45
64
51
0.0
0.0
0.0
12.5
16.7
22.2
4.0
12.5
14
27
14
16
18
27
25
16
5.6
16.7
23.5
23.1
20.0
20.0
30.4
33.3
18
18
17
13
15
20
23
24
3
n
4
n
5
n
Total
n
Average of
Authors
67.4 87
73.0 119
25.6 33
21.5 35
4.7 6
4.9 8
2.3 3
0.6 1
100.0 129
100.0 163
2.42
2.33
92.9
75.8
7.1
24.2
0.0 0
0.0 0
0.0 0
0.0 0
100.0
100.0
2.07
2.24
13
25
1
8
14
33
from 1895 to 1965: researches using qualitative methods (interviews, participant observation, case studies) progressively gave way to researches
using quantitative methods (survey research, mathematical models). Figure 1 illustrates that this trend continued in the 1990s.3 Statistical analyses
already represented the majority of contributions published in 1965 and 1980
(50 and 48.8 percent, respectively), but they were more numerously published in 1995 (58.9 percent). Theoretical analysis remained present, but it
declined through the period from 25.6 percent in 1965 to 17.9 percent in
1995. Both the French and American parts of the sample exhibited similar
trends toward statistical analysis over the period. However, American sociological articles were more often based on this kind of evidence.
100%
223
4,4
12,1
12,8
15,0
17,9
23,2
22,2
80%
27,3
35,0
50,0
60%
37,8
48,8
33,3
40%
58,9
22,5
7,7
1,2
20%
3,2
35,6
21,2
25,6
25,0
24,4
17,9
0%
1965
Theoretical analysis
Figure 1.
1980
French
Journals
1995
Fieldwork analysis
1965
Textual analysis
1980
American
Journals
Statistical analysis
1995
Mathematical models
Authorship was also shared differently between the types of articles and
national contexts (Table 3). The French articles showed a trend for single
authorship involving every kind of contribution, especially theoretical analyses (97 percent) and fieldwork analyses (91.9 percent). Although statistical
analysis was well represented in the sample of French contributions (28 percent), this type of contribution was single authored for the most part (69.7
percent). On the other hand, American articles were more differentiated: theoretical analyses, textual analyses, and mathematical models were more
often single authored (86, 71.4, and 63 percent, respectively), whereas statistical analyses and fieldwork analyses were regularly coauthored (62.2 and 60
percent, respectively). Thus, the increase of coauthorship in American sociological articles was a characteristic of empirical contributions (only 14 percent of theoretical analyses were coauthored), especially those that were
based on statistical analysis (52.9 percent).
The analysis of the IMRAD format enables the underlining of the characteristics of articles more precisely. As Table 4 shows, this narrative structure
was differently bound with the kinds of contributions. French articles were
ordinarily published without this format. Only a small part adopted the
generic structure: it was exclusively the case for some statistical analyses (3.4
percent). For their part, American articles were divided into two major categories: theoretical analyses without the IMRAD format (22.4 percent) and
statistical analyses with this narrative structure (41.2 percent). The former
were more often single authored, whereas the latter were regularly
224
Coauthored
Articles (%)
Each Type of
Contribution (%)
Total (n)
14.0
60.0
62.2
37.0
28.6
22.4
3.9
52.9
18.0
2.7
100.0
57
10
135
46
7
255
3.0
8.1
30.3
33.3
33.3
28.0
31.4
28.0
10.2
2.5
100.0
33
37
33
12
3
118
French Journals
IMRAD/Type of Contribution
Absent/theoretical analysis
Absent/fieldwork analysis
Absent/statistical analysis
Absent/mathematical model
Absent/textual analysis
Present/statistical analysis
Present/mathematical model
Present/fieldwork analysis
Present/textual analysis
Total
22.4
3.1
11.8
10.6
2.4
41.2
7.5
0.8
0.4
100.0
57
8
30
27
6
105
19
2
1
255
28.0
31.4
24.6
10.2
2.5
3.4
0.0
0.0
0.0
100.0
33
37
29
12
3
4
0
0
0
118
coauthored (Table 3). But statistical analyses were not the only kinds of contributions published with the IMRAD format among the American articles: it
was also the case for some articles based on mathematical models (7.5
percent).
225
This statistical analysis reveals that French and American articles were
singularly different in their forms and their contents. On one hand, most
French articles were single authored, whatever kind of contribution they
were. Some articles were coauthored (particularly statistical analyses in
RFS), but their argumentation conformed to the IMRAD format in only a
very few cases. On the other hand, a large number of American articles presented a specific form: they were coauthored, their arguments were mostly
based on statistical analysis, and the structure of their argumentation corresponded to the IMRAD format. At a formal level, these textual characteristics
are close to those in the experimental sciences.
How does one grasp these differences? How can they be understood? Are
they an artifact of institutional and contextual differences? What can one
learn from these differences with regard to the disciplinary work of sociology? To bring some elements to these questions, a sociohistorical analysis of
the institutionalization of the sociological discipline in each national context
is proposed. The focus concerns the model of research and authorship that is
predominant in the processes of institutionalization.
Toward Quantification
From a methodological viewpoint, the postwar period opened with a
quantitative turn that contrasted with the sociography of Chicagos first
sociologists. For although these sociologists used and integrated official
statistics into their socioanthropological analyses, they used few statistics
based on firsthand data.4 Yet during this period, a movement toward the
226
mathematization of social facts, initiated in the 1930s, increased significantly. The use of statistical methods was then a guarantor of legitimacy and
scientific authenticity for sociology. The work of Camic and Xie (1994) is
particularly relevant in supporting such a statement. Attending to the period
between 1890 and 1915 at Columbia University, Camic and Xie examined
how four fields (psychology, anthropology, economy, and sociology) incorporated European statistical methods. In this appropriation, they showed how
the tools developed by statistics were guarantors of legitimate standards for
scientific practices and variously adaptable according to each discipline.
They allowed the establishment of scientific legitimacy for each while specifying their singularity (institutional and epistemic boundaries).
Institutionally identified with statistical methods, Columbia University
then became a dominant reference against the other competing American
universities (notably, John Hopkins, Yale, Cornell, Michigan, and Harvard).
By employing scientists specializing in quantitative studies, Columbia thus
maintained its advantage in the move toward the quantification of social studies that began between 1915 and 1930 (Camic and Xie 1994, 797). This turn
toward the mathematization of social facts continued after World War II with
P. F. Lazarsfeld, who founded the Bureau of Applied Social Research at
Columbia University at the beginning of the 1940s. The development of survey research was booming, piloted notably by the Sociology Department at
Columbia (under the direction of Lazarsfeld, with his research on radio
effects financed by the University of Chicagos National Opinion Research
Center) and Harvard (with S. Stouffer). Problems relating to the choice of
variables, the sampling of populations, and the formulation of questions were
accompanied by the sophistication of the mode of statistical treatment of
data: chi-square analysis, factor analysis, latent class analysis, structural
equation modeling, and log-linear models (McCartney 1970). This movement toward quantification went on and increased later on at the Universities
of Wisconsin and Michigan:
Theres a big change that happened in the last twenty years. I mean the ColumbiaChicago-Harvard dominance was followed by a shift towards the very large
public universities. They started using large data sets. And then you had the
whole Wisconsin school of Robert Hauser, David Featherman, and Dudley
Duncan, then Michigan. And they gave rise to a very large number of followers, of students . . . . And they tend to try to shift the center of gravity towards
large empirical research. (Interview 21)
Thus, sociological research now quantifies the social and tries to chart
trends as other sciences do. This cognitive orientation toward quantification
brought the sociological mode of production nearer to that of the experi-
227
mental sciences. But reference to the model of the experimental sciences was
not only effective in the adaptation of some of their tools. It was also efficient
by the move of persons.
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convergence of the social sciences and the physical, mathematical, and engineering sciences, including such disciplines as mathematical social science,
human geography, economic engineering, and statistical design. (Alpert 1955,
657)
1950: Physics
1955: Theoretical Physics
1960: Sociology
1959-1963: Sociology
1962: Physics
1963: Physics
1969: Physics
1973: Sociology
It is likely that this transfer of people and tools had an impact both on the
conception that sociologists had of their discipline and on their working habits. A part of American sociology was deeply reshaped in its research practices, then focused on empirical quantitative research. This recentering of the
field was nonetheless more specific to some sociology departments, such as
Columbias from the beginning of the twentieth century to the 1950s and
Michigans and Wisconsins from the 1960s onward. However, the disciplines convergence and their crossover encouraged by research programs
were also at the origin of this conception, widely shared by numerous other
departments. Furthermore, members of those departments (or those who
were educated in those departments) were involved in the editing committees
of mainstream journals of the field (Wanderer 1966; Yoels 1971, 1974). The
intrusion into these journals thus led to the promotion of contributions essentially oriented toward empirical investigation conducted with statistical
methods and/or the mathematical modeling of social facts, despite some theoretical publications (Wiley 1979). And in this empirical turn, the narrative
structure of articles was also transformed.
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students gained access to authorship and mostly took the second position,
after their mentors.
All these elements allow us to grasp certain modifications in sociological
practices in the United States. Reference to the experimental sciences model
turned research toward an increased use of statistical methods as guarantors
of a certain scientific authenticity, with repercussions on article format. In
these transformations, sociology was also influenced by scientists from other
walks of scientific life (psychology and economics, but also physics and
mathematics) importing their knowledge and methods. Simultaneously, public and private financial support greatly encouraged works with a predominantly useful and applied character. Finally, the massive increase of candidates for university careers facing the available positions tended to reinforce
the evaluation criteria and modify authorship patterns.
Empirical research based on quantitative data enables sociologists to
operate more easily than other methods of standardizing concepts and techniques leading to a certain work organization: work can be divided and
ranked among different complementary operations. In such a division of
labor, the article format allows, in some cases, several scholars to write the
different parts (introduction, material and methods, results, discussion, conclusion) of the final article.9 In this context of a new work organization starting under the impulse of a specific content of knowledge (empirical quantitative) and of a specific form of research (financed and commissioned) linked
to the new requirement for publications, collaborative team research and
coauthorship become common practices. These contextual elements throw
light on the transformations in the nature and form of texts.
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the side of experimental sciences that the ambivalence of the reference was
most pronounced. It was the object of several intermediates. Whereas in the
United States, psychology was the bridge between the social sciences and the
experimental sciences, in France, it was rather economics that played this
role by mathematizing itself before the other social sciences. The collecting
of ciphered information under the impulse of the reinforcing of the technical
and statistical services of the state then became a priority for the construction
of the economy (Pollak 1976; Drouard 1982).
But to the eyes of the first French sociologists, a second intermediate came
to the fore: American sociology, perceived as unified, became the model to
follow in acquiring investigation methods. The borrowings liable to promote
the scientific label claimed by the new discipline occurred primarily on the
methodological side. French sociologists (Bourricaud, Crozier, Mendras,
Boudon, Touraine, Tranton, Stoetzel, etc.) made stays, partially financed by
Fulbright scholarships and as part of Marshall Plan productivity missions, in
some American universities (Chicago, Harvard, Columbia, Cornell, etc.).
There they discovered and learned research methods (interviews, surveys,
statistics) and some modes of data treatment grounded in original firsthand
documentation. These initiation trips were an important step in learning the
job of the sociologist.
At the time, to obtain a grant to attend an American university during a year,
that was a real treat. . . . In Chicago I found what I was looking for: a biting worrying to go get a look at things, to plunge my hands in the social dirty
grease . . . . I learnt my job as I wished to and as you could not learn in Paris at
the time. (Mendras 1995, 43-48)
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235
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financial level. The third level concerned the place of sociologists in society:
if Stoetzels point of view tended to install a professionalization by numbers,
Gurvitch and his fellows held to the contrary that sociology, experienced as a
true vocation, must stay close to philosophy while keeping its lettres de
noblesse.
Defining itself sometimes as an activity close to empirical application and
expertise and sometimes as a form of generalizing synthesis leaving out any
external pressure, French sociology is thus marked by a strong ambivalence. This ambivalence lies in the ambiguous relations that French sociology entertains with the social command.
237
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239
Publication, the central communication tool of scientific activity (the diffusion of knowledge, training, and the peer assessment of scientists), was
widely studied from an evaluative perspective (the productivity of scientists,
laboratories, countries, etc.). By reconsidering its status, this study has
attempted to bring to the fore that it is as much an element in the construction
of research practices as a structured space for their legibility. As a critical vector for scientific production, publication crystallizes, in a specific way, the
particular links woven between the cognitive and institutional aspects of a
field. This work hence reveals that the understanding of a fields scientific
practices goes necessarily with the analysis of the specific interrelations
between its contextual modalities of institutionalization and the characteristics of the knowledge it produces.
Notes
1. Collective publication is far from being the only dimension of scientific collaboration.
For critical contributions on this assumption, see Edge (1979) and Katz and Martin (1997).
2. In this period, the rate of coauthored articles was differential according to the journals
too, but this point is not examined in this article.
3. For a more detailed analysis of characteristics of articles published in AJS and ASR
between 1950 and 1995, see Pontille (2000a).
4. The presence of the National Opinion Research Center within the University of Chicago
calls for adding nuances to a vision, too widely spread in France, that holds that sociologists from
Chicago did not use statistical survey methods between 1920 and 1940. This center indeed
financed quantitative opinion research, with some realized in collaboration with some members
of the Columbia University Department of Sociology. The presence of proquantitative
approach scientists such as W. F. Ogburn and O. D. Duncan at Chicago testifies to this orientation. For complementary information on this, see notably Bulmer (1981) and Shanas (1945).
5. For an institutional and historical analysis of universities and academic systems in several countries, see Ben-David (1991); see also Turner and Turner (1990) for an institutional analysis of American sociology.
6. This analysis is based on interviews with American sociologists who either benefited
from or witnessed this move. Here is an excerpt of one of these interviews:
The Ford Foundation had a fellowship program to encourage people to consider a
change in field. And so it was a nonthreatening thing, it was just a year, you know it
was a bit like taking a year off. So I went to Princeton, where my physics people
were . . . . And so I got in there and I was just fascinated. This was in the economics
and sociology department. So it was very flexible and a lot of interesting things to do,
where I could do what I thought . . . . I hadnt really thought that you could do science
in social science. (Interview 25)
7. Only excerpts of the education sections are reported here to avoid the identification of the
individuals.
240
8. For an analysis of the codification of scientific writing, see Bazerman (1988), especially
chapter 9, Codifying the Social Scientific Style: The APA Publication Manual as a Behaviorist
Rhetoric (pp. 257-77).
9. As one interviewee said,
Ive done coauthorship where one person writes one section, another person writes
another section . . . . I did that with the graduate student that I wrote the two papers
with. In the first paper we did more of that, but its just hard to make sure the style
flows, and that the paper is consistent. Not just in terms of style, but in terms of focus
and theoretical development and that sort of thing. Its hard to make that work. (Interview 19)
10. To supplement this overview of French sociology, see the special issues of RFS (volume
32-33, 1991, Reconstructions de la Sociologie Franaise) and LHomme et la Socit (volume
131, 1999, Politiques des Sciences Sociales).
11. For a very interesting historical analysis of this first foundation, see Mucchielli (1998).
12. For an analysis of the first research reports of French sociologists in this period, see
Chapoulie (1991, 352-58).
13. As two interviewees noted, Writing is a crucial criterion. If there are two coauthors, I
hardly can imagine there would be a big unbalance where writing production is concerned
(Interview 5); and
I strongly rely on the rule who writes signs his or her name. And of course, it happened to me to be on research projects where people who did not write, did not put
their name. Thats obvious . . . . Otherwise . . . no this is a minimum. After all you
dont put your name just for anything, you sign a text. You sign if you write. (Interview 11)
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David Pontille is a postdoctoral student in sociology at both the Centre dEtude des
Rationalits et des Savoirs and the Institut National de la Sant et de la Recherche
Mdicale, Unit U558, Toulouse, France. His research interests include authorship in
different fields, modes of authenticating knowledge, writing procedures in sciences and
social sciences, and forms of research organization in biomedical sciences. His recent
articles are LAuteur Scientifique en Question: Pratiques en Psychologie et en Sciences
Biomdicales (Social Science Information, 2001) and La Signature Scientifique:
Authentification et Valeur Marchande (Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales,
2002). He is finishing a book on scientific authorship, and he is currently involved in a
project on the introduction of the electronic signature in various professional arenas.