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Understanding Author
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Affiliation and accurately

mentioning it in different
scenarios

Charlesworth Author Services 16 April, 2022

Understanding Author
Affiliation and accurately
mentioning it in different
scenarios
In academic publishing, the affiliation of an author is
the place (institution) at which the author
conducted the research that they have reported /
written about. However, given the frequent mobility
of academics, that place may not necessarily be the
place the author happens to be based at the time of
submitting the paper. This article explains the
significance of affiliation and illustrates how to
accurately mention your affiliation in different
scenarios.

The importance of affiliation

In some cases, affiliation is linked to authenticity.
Imagine a research paper on field pollination of rice
by an author whose affiliation is that of an institute in
the polar region. It is not that this work cannot be
done, but it would seem incongruous and may raise
doubts.
In many cases, it is a matter of prestige. Science may
be democratic, but not all research institutions and
laboratories are considered equal.

Some may be better equipped than others.

Some may have more luminaries on their staff
– people who have outstanding work (or even
prizes) to their credit.
Some may have enviable collections of records
or research material.

Therefore, by proxy, work carried out at those

institutions is regarded more highly, at least initially,
than that carried out at lesser-known institutions.

A study by Peters and Ceci (1982) found that

when 12 already published papers were
resubmitted after doctoring the affiliations to
replace the original high-status institutions
with fictitious ones with no status in the field,
eight of those papers were rejected.

Mentioning your affiliation in a paper

In nearly all published papers, affiliations of their
authors are given after their names but before the
abstract. The typical sequence is:
1. Title of the paper
2. Names of authors
3. Affiliations
4. Abstract and keywords
Doesfoodsecuritymattertosubjective
well-being?Evidencefromacross-countrypanel

LukasKornher'®|TekalignGutuSakketa?®

'CenterforDevelormentResearch(ZEF).

UniversityofBonn.Bonn.cermany
Abstract
?GermanDevelopmentInstitute(DIE,Bonn, Theconventionaleconomicsliteratureequateswelfarewith
Germany
consumption-basedutility,neglectingthepsychological
Correspondence
effectsofuncertaintyandfearofthefutureonwell-being.
LukasKomher,CenterforDevelopment Inthisstudy,weexaminehowfoodinsecurityrelatesto
Research(ZEF),UniversityofBonn,Bonn, changesinsubjectivewell-beingwithinacomparativeanal-
Germany.
in.de ysisacrossdifferentcountrygroupsbetween2005and
2018andfindthatfoodinsecuritymatterstowell-being.
Fundinginformation

GermanFederalMinistryofEconomic
CooperationandDevelopment,Grant/Award
Number:2014-0689.1
Wealsoexaminetherelationshipbetweenexperienced
foodinsecurityandwell-being,takingintoaccountany
potentialendogeneity.Inlow-income,food-deficient,food-
importinganddrought-affectedcountries,changesinthe
prevalenceofundernourishmentexplainagreatdealofthe
variationinsubjectivewell-beingovertime.

KEYWORDS
countrycomparison,foodsecurity,subjectivewell-being

Paper with title, author names, affiliation, abstract and

keywords

Mentioning affiliation and address

Authors of research papers must keep an important
distinction in mind: that an affiliation is not the
same thing as a mailing address. The former
names the institution at which the work in question
was carried out whereas the latter simply supplies
the current contact details of the author.
For example…

A PhD candidate submitting a paper based on

their doctoral work should name, as their
affiliation, the university/institution that is
granting them the doctorate. However, that
author may have since moved to another
institution for a post-doctoral job. This is not
considered their affiliation, but just provides
their current contact details.

Therefore, you may have to name two institutions in

your manuscript:
Under Affiliation: Name the institution where
the work (that forms the subject of the present
study) was undertaken.
Under Current address: Name the institution at
which you happen to be working at the time of
submission or even your home address if you
have retired.
Note: The ‘current address’ serves as the means of
contact and can change; the affiliation cannot.

Mentioning affiliation when you

change your institute
It may also happen that when you submitted the
paper, you were stationed at Institute A and
accordingly gave that as your contact address, and
subsequently, you moved to Institute B. In such
cases, so long as your paper is yet to be published,
you should inform the journal of your new current
address at Institute B. The paper is based on the
work you carried out while you were based at
institute A, which constitutes the affiliation and
remains unchanged.

Mentioning affiliations for multi-

author papers
Most research papers have multiple authors and not
all of them may have the same affiliation. To match
their names to their affiliations, journals may use the
method used for indicating footnotes. The names
of authors are followed by superscript letters,
numerals or other symbols, and the same symbols
precede the respective affiliations.
We recommend: Note the journal’s preferred
method (letters, numerals or other symbols) and be
sure to follow the journal
guidelines when preparing your manuscripts for
submission.

Numerals indicating authors (above) and their

affiliations (below) in a paper

Dealing with affiliations during peer

review
To avoid the kind of bias mentioned earlier, affiliation
information is removed in manuscripts sent out for
review: in a blind review, the reviewers do not know
who wrote the paper under review, nor their
institutional affiliation. To make this easier, many
journals ask that such identifying information be
separated from the body of the paper. Authors are
advised to attend to the journal’s instructions in this
regard, which typically involve a separate title page
explicitly showing the names and affiliations. This
page is usually removed before sending the paper to
reviewers.

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