[ModernMech]

> stick their name on top of your papers.

Maybe you have a more independent mindset having gone into a PhD program a little later than most, but the whole point of a PhD program (at least in the sciences) is that it’s an apprenticeship. You study under an established researcher using their grant, so it’s not “your” paper. You are supposed to work together using grant money from your advisor.

If you have obtained grant funding on your own and are working independently on a novel research project you thought of yourself, then you can call it your paper. But that scenario usually doesn’t happen, because it’s hard to come by funding without a good proposal, and it’s hard to write or qualify for a grant without the training one gets in a PhD program.

If you are working using grant money, lab equipment, lab space, data, models, software, or methods acquired and developed in your advisor’s lab, then even if you write an entire paper yourself it’s still both your names that go on the paper. I’ve had a few like that and was glad to share the credit, because it wouldn’t have been possible otherwise.

[lambdatronics]

In my field (experimental plasma physics) the general convention is that the PI's name goes last on the paper, while the first author is the one who did the bulk of the work and wrote the manuscript, with the other coauthors usually playing small supporting roles.

This field also tends to have very large grants (~$10-100mn/yr) that support dozens of researchers, because of the large centralized facilities, so it's easier for students to have some self-direction.

[tasogare]

I totally disagree with you. Giving a single word "guidance" and pretending to read a manuscript is not enough to qualify for authorship in most journals submission guidelines. Likewise, all the thing about money, lab space etc. (which in my case is funded by a national scholarship, not my supervisor) has nothing to do with research ideas, which is what papers are about. If people who are making my live easier as a grad student were to be giving authorship, the secretary and the cleaning lady would both rank higher than the head the lab. I'm putting the name of my supervisor because I'm forced to and because I belong to his lab but anyone who worked with him knows his involvement in lot of papers is close to 0.

So if someone has done the research and wrote the paper it is normal he got credit as first author for it. Whatever money is lying around isn't writing paper by itself. The monetary compensation is meager enough not to be robbed on top of that of what we created.