Research Building Blocks: Authorship Guidelines

How do you decide who gets credit as an author in your article and who receives an acknowledgement in your paper? There are guidelines available to help you decide. Before starting a new project, decide amongst the team who will receive credit as an author and in what order, to avoid conflict later. Prior to submitting your manuscript for publication, or as the project changes, confirm this list and the order of authors.

Teaching for Transformation has an Online Supplement about Ethical Research Collaboration that "will introduce the authorship guidelines used by most leading health journals [and] explore their limitations and how factors such as culture, power, and relationships can complicate the application of these guidelines in practice."

International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly work in Medical Journals (ICMJE Recommendations) [Internet]. ICMJE; 2018 [cited 2019 Feb 21].

University Health Network, Research Authorship (Policy 40.60.001). Toronto; 2022.

Baerlocher MO, Newton M, Gautam T, et al.The Meaning of Author Order in Medical Research. Journal of Investigative Medicine 2007;55:174-180.

Dance A. Authorship: Who's on first?. Nature. 2012 Sep 27;489(7417):591-3.

Mongeon P, Smith E, Joyal B, Larivière V. The rise of the middle author: Investigating collaboration and division of labor in biomedical research using partial alphabetical authorship. PloS one. 2017 Sep 14;12(9):e0184601.

 

Phillippi JC, Likis FE, Tilden EL. Authorship grids: Practical tools to facilitate collaboration and ethical publication. Res Nurs Health. 2018;41(2):195-208. doi:10.1002/nur.21856

 

Thurston MM, Moniri NH, Phillip Bowen J, Lea Winkles C, Miller SW. Managing the "Three Cs" of Academic Literature Authorship: Contributions, Credit, and Conflict. Am J Pharm Educ. 2023;87(5):100009. doi:10.1016/j.ajpe.2022.10.002

"Authorship confers credit and has important academic, social, and financial implications. Authorship also implies responsibility and accountability for published work."

- International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors. In: Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly work in Medical Journals [Internet]. ICMJE; 2018 [cited 2019 Feb 21].