Sir

I have seen many letters in your pages, most recently from Eugen Tarnow (Nature 398, 657; 1999), suggesting solutions to the problem of supervisors and others unworthily attaching their names to the work of young scientists. But the opposite frequently occurs, so in seeking a solution the pendulum should not swing too far the other way.

In my field, senior scientists might be principal investigators for large space experiments requiring a decade or more of soul-destroying effort. At the end of that time there is usually a flood of new data which investigators and their students and postdocs analyse and publish, generally with the investigator's name attached in recognition that their data are being presented for the first time, whether or not they participated in the analysis. I am sure that analogous situations exist in most research disciplines.

The problem arises when the newcomer publishes such data under their sole authorship, leaving bereft the principal investigator and others in the team, who may be under as much pressure as the youngster to show proof of research activity. Of course, a professor might be in a better position than a student to avoid abuse, but this is not always as easy as might be assumed.

In one extreme example, one of our students provided me with a slide for a presentation that had been emblazoned with her personal copyright statement in large red letters. More commonly, I see papers submitted for publication without the names of those whose significant, unpublished output I know they have used.

The best safeguard against either problem is the integrity of those involved. But students and postdocs can sometimes be poor judges of what is appropriate, and should not be too strongly encouraged to feel they are being exploited when they may just be being nurtured.