https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAcademia/comments/m6m5ne/academics_who_publish_more_than_your_peers_what/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

I've been using Scopus to compare publication records of academics in my field who have received early career grants to get an idea of what I should be aiming for. In doing this I've noticed that most people have a similar number of publications - usually 1-2 first author papers per year, plus a more variable number of co-authored papers further down the author list.

However, there are some people who are comparably prolific, publishing upwards of 4 first-author publications a year multiple times in the first 5 years of their career (highest I've seen is 7 in one year), usually alongside many more co-authored papers. These authors are publishing in reputable journals with solid citations so they aren't just targeting easier journals.

I've noticed that this usually occurs when the authors sticks closely to the same topic, sometimes even the same dataset (cohort studies in public health/psychology/psychiatry), or studies of different cohorts testing the same/similar research question.

I'm curious about some less obvious differences that might be present. Writing on the same topic/data over and over of course is going to make writing faster and reduce time spent collecting data, but I don't think it's the whole story. I assume there must be other contextual factors at play, as well some differences in how these authors work.

If you are someone with a lot of first-author publications (in a field where that matters) compared to your peers, or you know someone like this, what do you think allows them to publish twice as much as their peers?