In February 1995, the discovery of the top quark spurred 2 4-page articles submitted to the journal Physical Review Letters, each including over 400 authors. Although an article with this number of authors submitted to a trade magazine might be an editor’s worst nightmare, at a professional science journal 400 authors would be expected for a result 18 years in the making. Within scientific journals, the term author takes on a broader meaning than the term writer. An author is someone who has played a critical role in the outcome of an experiment or calculation. For example, an author might be the individual who maintains crucial laboratory equipment or develops a useful method of collecting data. In all cases, a writer is a person who has contributed to the actual writing of the article and is one of the authors.
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The word author is sometimes used as a verb. For more on this, see
author under Word Choice.
