On Identifying Authors of Instructional Materials

1989 NCTE Annual Business Meeting in Baltimore, Maryland

Background Members proposed this resolution out of concern about educational publishers' practice of listing as authors the names of educators who have made little or no contribution to their materials. Increasingly, the members noted, texts are written by publishers' in-house editorial staff. With increasing frequency, they noted, texts are written by "development houses"—companies that contract with freelancers to produce texts. This practice, the proposers said, raises issues of ethics and accuracy within the publishing world and the education community. Be it therefore Resolution Resolved, that the National Council of Teachers of English urge publishers to identify the actual authors of their instructional materials and to detail as fully as possible the contributions of consultants;           that NCTE urge all groups involved in the adoption process, particularly teachers and administrators, to demand that publishers identify the authors of instructional materials and detail the contributions of consultants; and           that NCTE urge educators to refuse to be cited as authors of instructional materials if they have not written a significant part of these materials.