Critical Studied research - authorship

The dictionary states that Authorship is the state or fact of being the writer of a book, article, or document, or the creator of a work of art. For example, "the single authorship of the book gives it a uniformity of style and a proper balance between chapters."

Authorship is a primary basis that employers use to evaluate academic personnel for employment, promotion, and tenure. In academic publishing, authorship of a work is claimed by those making intellectual contributions to completing the research described in the work. In simple cases, a solitary scholar carries out a research project and writes the subsequent article or book.

Authorship gives credit and implies accountability for published work, so there are academic, social and financial implications. It is essential to make sure people who have contributed to a paper, are given credit as authors.

However, inappropriate authorship involves undue credit to a non-contributor and no credit to a true contributor. Many examples of both types of authorship issues have been documented. Just because something is created by a person and doesn't have the maker's name attached to it, is it worth people knowing about the person who designed/created it, thus it being branded? Just like the company brands we see today.

Inappropriate authorships are defined in simple terms as those which do not follow all the standard criteria for authorship.

"International Committee of Medical Journal Editors recommends that an author should meet all four of the following criteria: [2]‘‘Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work,’’[3]’’ Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content,’’ [4] ‘‘Final approval of the version to be published,’’ and [5] ‘‘Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved’’. The committee further designates that in addition to excluding a scholar who has not met all four criteria, any scholar who meets all four should be included as an author."

- The Embassy of Good Science

Maurizio Cattelan's Comedian, created in 2019, it appears as a fresh banana affixed to a wall with duct tape. As a work of conceptual art, it consists of a certificate of authenticity with detailed diagrams and instructions for its proper display. Two editions of the piece sold for US$120,000 at Art Basel Miami Beach to significant media attention.

In my opinion, this is an example of inappropriate authorship mainly because of how easy it is for other people to make something just like this, it holds no originality or artistic style as well as being basic and tasteless. Just because it exists, doesn't mean it is art.

But things of popular notability, it is taken into account that they are of authorship, such as Agatha Christie, (15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976), was an English writer known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. This is appropriate authorship, in my opinion, because of how popular her creations came to be, and continue to be well known, well known to the point of several movie and television adaptations.

Christie's creations can be called art to a degree because they have a style in which she curated them, what made her stories stand out were, of course, the characters. She created memorable and dignified characters which any class of readers could relate to.

She was adept at combining period subject matter with delicate story development, creative plot structure, and psychology. This is evident in her novel, Curtain, her brilliant finale. Written long before her death and placed in a bank safe with instructions to be published only after her demise, Curtain is an artwork that utilizes the best of her talents.

(Christie in 1958)

Another example of appropriate authorship is Cecily Brown, (b. 1969, London) one of the most celebrated artists working in painting today. Brown draws from the compositional structure, historical motifs, and brushwork of master painters across an assorted range of genres. Her style of painting uses a palette ranging from bright hues to deep blacks, her works obscure singular readings as their compositions break down into restless and elusive activity.

A favourite of mine from Brown is Girl on a Swing, painted in 2004. A person with peach-coloured skin sits on a swing, holding onto the ropes, in a forest setting in this loosely painted horizontal work. The swing hangs from the two topmost trunks, just to our left of the centre. Beyond the trees, the upper left quadrant is painted with broad strokes of pale blue; the upper right with cool, mint green. In the lower left, a tree trunk lies along a grassy ground with plants growing around it, painted with dashes of vivid green and red. The lower right has some strokes of terracotta orange. An area to our right of the person and swing is painted with smears of brown, peach, red, grey, and white, and is difficult to make out. Brown's style is shown this way, creating an image, but it also lets it be distinctly seen with the positions of the colours and methods of strokes.