{quotes} Apples, Ideas, and Publications

"If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas." George Bernard Shaw

How about this: I am writing a paper and you are writing a paper. If I put your name as the co-author, and you put mine as the co-author, we will both have two papers.

While I strongly agree with the GB Shaw to exchange ideas, I do not think that the common trend in most research institutions adds any value to academic excellence. Some categorize it as excellent team work. Equally worse, I have even heard it as a win-win situation, but I think most of time it should clearly be categorized as academic fraud.