Difference between Author and Coauthor

Key difference: An ‘author’ is the one who writes content that is developed on his own, whereas a ‘co-author’ is the one who accompanies an author to write the latter's content.

Coauthors are the type of authors who basically work together, depending on the type of content that they research. They play the roles of a senior or a first author in a particular work.

An Author is a core writer who implements his/her real ideas into a writing format. Authors are known for their contribution towards writing and content in the field of literature. There are many famous authors in different parts of the world today. They are famous for their literary works and novels. They are known for their way and style of writing. They provide the content and make the people (or readers) aware of facts and traditions that have evolved over time. The word author refers to those people who write books, stories, articles, etc. professionally. They are the real developers of any written work. Authors have to create, develop and communicate an idea.

A Coauthor, also written as co-author, means a ‘Corresponding Author’. As the name suggests, coauthors work in correspondence with other authors. Generally, coauthors work in collaboration with one-another for writing articles. These are joint authors who work together on a single subject. They function similarly to an author, and also in a different manner, as there are a variety of ideas explored in their content. In their system and management, various tasks are distributed among them, for example: if any research content is to be written, then the first author would be the researcher or the one who actually collects the real thesis or content regarding the research, and the other author would be responsible to structure the respective data into a content or writing format. Likewise, these authors are also called as senior authors, main authors, etc. Sometimes, these authors exchange their work depending upon the category and knowledge collection. Nowadays, there are many stories, research, novels, magazines, works, etc., which are developed by coauthors.

Authors and Co-authors are major roles in the field of writing. A corresponding author is one among the several authors who works on a paper or a report, which has been submitted to a journal or a periodical for review and publication. Coauthors work especially in prestigious fields such as psychology or medicine, in combination with a group of researchers and authors on a paper, etc. They usually choose one person among them to submit the paper to a journal or another publication. The corresponding author is also chosen within the same group, who would be responsible for all contact and correspondence with the periodical they are contacting and writing.

Comparison between Author and Coauthor:




Web definitions of the terms

Someone who writes (books, stories, articles or the like) professionally and one who causes or initiates something

A writer who collaborates with others in writing something.


Single author.

There are two authors.

They are

He/she is a single author.

There is First author, Lead author or the Senior author.

Work on

They work on papers associated to stories, magazines, novels, articles, etc.

They work on papers associated to Science, Nature, Cell, PNAS.

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