The Hand of Science: Academic Writing and Its Rewards

The collaborative character of science and scholarship, whether formal or informal in nature, is the focus of this discussion by a master of the subject. The world of scholarly communication is evolving with exponential speed. Propelled by the Web and the rapid transition from paper to electronic journals, the scale of the research effort is moving from the individual to research conducted by dozens of scientists scattered all over the globe.

These changes evoke many questions: What does it mean to be an author in an age of collective effort? How are responsibility and credit allocated in collaborative endeavors? What is the relationship between reading, referencing and reputation - the political economy of citation? How are social relations inscribed in intellectual space? Will the move to online and open access publishing provide new measures of authorial salience and intellectual impact? Cronin answers these questions as he captures the complex relationship between authorship and the reward system of science.