So I rarely think of myself as naive but after reading Ending Honorary Authorship; it turns out I am totally naive.

According to a recent report, honorary authors were attached to 25% of research reports, 15% of review articles, and 11% of editorials published in six major medical journals in 2008.

When I was in grad school I knew a really, really talented grad student who was in love/lust with me (hey I have no data as which was the case but he was a really nice guy and a really talented researcher). Sadly I was neither in love nor in lust with him. To woo me he sent me several manuscripts suitable for publication based on the research he had done (did I mention he was a really really good researcher?) with my name on them as first author.

Of course my response was- that is so sweet of you but I could never be listed as an author on anything I hadn't done/written.

At 23 I thought that was a nobrainer. How sad it is that I was wrong.