Chapter 16. Managing publication expectations and collaborations

Collaborative research and co-authoring are ubiquitous work practices in higher education. With current funding models and promotion expectations, research is becoming more collaborative with publications co-authored by two or more scholars. Macro-level ethical guidelines established by professional organizations are a useful starting point for understanding how to approach collaborations and co-authorships, as much has been already said about how to work responsibly within a given discipline. However, questions of ethics in research need be pursued by tempering macro-level guidelines with micro-level considerations, such as the unique and specific challenges that are involved in working on diverse empirical topics. To this end, we draw on our experiences co-authoring publications to explore the relationship between micro-level considerations and macro-level guidelines in applied linguistics research. We explore the complexities of distributing responsibilities to a team of researchers, managing uneven power dynamics, and negotiating the authorship order for contributors. By grounding our discussion within the context of actual work done in collaboration by both authors, we provide readers with concrete examples of how to attend to the ethics of collaborative research and co-authoring.