{"id":36894,"date":"2025-08-18T14:22:34","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T18:22:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/academics\/?page_id=36894"},"modified":"2025-08-18T14:59:47","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T18:59:47","slug":"authorship","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/marymount.edu\/academics\/office-of-research\/mu-office-of-research-development-education-and-support-ordes\/academic-publications\/authorship\/","title":{"rendered":"Authorship"},"content":{"rendered":"

Who gets to be an author?<\/h2>\n

The pressure to “publish or perish” can lead to many disputes about who gets to be an author on academic manuscripts, and in what order. Writing teams are encouraged to discuss authorship early and<\/strong> often<\/strong><\/em>, with renewed conversations as roles shift.<\/p>\n

ICMJE Guidelines<\/h3>\n

Most academic journals follow authorship conventions outlined by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE)<\/strong>. ICMJE guidelines<\/a> necessitate that authors meet\u00a0all<\/em> of the following criteria for authorship:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \n

    Substantial contributions<\/strong> to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  2. \n

    Drafting the work or revising it critically<\/strong> for important intellectual content.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  3. \n

    Final approval<\/strong> of the version to be published.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  4. \n

    Accountability<\/strong> for all aspects of the work, ensuring that questions related to accuracy or integrity are appropriately investigated and resolved.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Contributors who meet one or more of the above guidelines, but not all, may be mentioned in the Acknowledgements<\/strong> section of a manuscript.<\/p>\n

    Guest Authorship and Other No-Nos<\/h3>\n

    The politics of authorship have also led to a phenomenon known as “guest authorship,” where authors provide authorship to a individual who has\u00a0not<\/em> contributed substantially to the work. Usually, the individual being gifted authorship is a senior or otherwise prestigious investigator who the authors believe may make the publication look more credible.<\/p>\n

    Additionally, guest authorship may be provided from a sense of awkwardness, wanting to be generous, a tit-for-tat arrangement (“gift authorship”), or other reasons. Guest authorship is considered misconduct and is forbidden by ICMJE guidelines<\/strong>. Authors are encouraged to provide an Acknowledgement to individuals who may have provided informative guidance but do not meet ICMJE authorship guidelines.<\/p>\n

    Author Order<\/h2>\n

    The order of authorship can vary widely by discipline, with different author orders implying different types and degrees of contribution depending on the field. Most biomedical and health sciences journals follow a commonly understood, but unofficially defined, set of ordering conventions that researchers should be aware of. In these fields, author order tends to indicate the following:<\/p>\n