Why Authorship Matters

Determining authorship is an important component of upholding the integrity of the research and scholarly enterprise, and serves as an explicit way of assigning responsibility and giving credit for intellectual work. Authorship credit should be given to those who contribute and participate in substantive ways to scholarly and scientific work, and should honestly and accurately reflect actual contributions. Fair and equitable determination of authorship is important to the reputation, academic promotion, and funding support of the individuals involved, and to the strength and reputation of the authors’ respective institutions.

Many institutions and peer-review journals have established standards for authorship that have consistent key principles. Experience with best practices demonstrates that being transparent and communicating these key principles at the beginning of projects helps to promote constructive, conflict-free collaborations. In practice, various inducements have fostered authorship practices that fall short of these standards. Whereas ghost writing and gift authorship reflect one extreme, more commonly substandard practices are employed to improve the credibility of intellectual work, increase competitiveness for publication or funding, or to avoid interpersonal conflict.

We include only one corresponding author per article. Any further contribution details must be included in the contributors.

Contributorship

Our Journal lists contributors in two ways. Firstly, we publish a Corresponding author at the beginning of the paper and, secondly, we list contributors or co-authors (some of whom may not be included as authors) after the corresponding author in the paper, giving details of who did what in planning, conducting, and reporting the work. This is a good place to include contributions by patients or members of the public who have assisted as research volunteers, giving their names and specific roles. We encourage authors to fully acknowledge the contribution of patients and the public to their research where appropriate.

One or more of these contributors are listed as coauthors of the paper. The corresponding author accepts full responsibility for the work and/or the conduct of the study, had access to the data, and controlled the decision to publish.