Last year, this journal received an unusual request: could three authors have it indicated in a footnote that they were joint second authors on a paper? We refused - for better or worse, our policy is to allow no more than three authors in first and last positions on a paper. But authorship order is a much greater obsession in some disciplines than others (the example in question was from biology). And there could hardly be a more clumsy way of indicating credit-not to mention the disputes that it provokes among co-authors.
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