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LettersFull Access

How Many Authors Is Too Many?

Published Online:1 Mar 2012https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ps.20120p293

To the Editor: A brief report in the January 2012 issue has 20 authors (1). To put this number of researchers and scribes in perspective, the text of the report is composed of 20 paragraphs, and thus we could conclude that each author wrote a single paragraph. Further, the list of authors and the paragraph that presents their affiliations account for more than 10% of the total space of the four-page report.

Psychiatric Services specifies the maximum number of words and number of references each type of submission can have. How about also specifying the maximum number of authors?

Dr. Geller is professor of psychiatry and director of public-sector psychiatry at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester.
References

1 Schennach R , Obermeier M , Meyer S , et al.: Predictors of relapse in the year after hospital discharge among patients with schizophrenia. Psychiatric Services 63:87–90, 2012 Link, Google Scholar