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Authorship Guidelines

A Manuscript is a result of scholarly work done in a systematic and scholarly way and involves team-work with complementary talents for successfully carrying out the work from conception, design, execution, analysis, interpretation and communicating it and its implications to practice effectively. This collective effort needs to be reflected in the way authors are listed in the manuscript. International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) under the subheading "Why Authorship matters" states: Authorship confers credit and has important academic, social, and financial implications. Authorship also implies responsibility and accountability for published work.

There is lot of misconception (and because of that lot of rancor & heartburn) among colleagues in the department who are associated with the routine department work but not with the research part related to the routine work. Hence to avoid confusion, it is better to understand and follow the "Authorship Guidelines" stated by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). On its web-page, makes the following recommendations with the intent to ensure that contributors who have made substantive intellectual contributions to a paper are given credit as authors, but also that contributors credited as authors understand their role in taking responsibility and being accountable for what is published. "Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors" (click here ) , it clearly states "Who is an Author?" based on the following 4 criteria:

1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
2. Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
3. Final approval of the version to be published; AND
4. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

What about those who do not fulfill ALL the above mentioned 4 criteria?

ICJME states "Authorship being associated with accountability related to the accuracy or integrity of the work being reported through the manuscript, all those designated as authors should meet all four criteria for authorship, and all who meet the four criteria should be identified as authors. Those who do not meet all four criteria should be acknowledged under "Acknowledgement" . Examples of activities that alone (without other contributions) do not qualify a contributor for authorship are acquisition of funding; general supervision of a research group or general administrative support; and writing assistance, technical editing, language editing, and proofreading. Those whose contributions do not justify authorship may be acknowledged individually or together as a group under a single heading (e.g. "Clinical Investigators" or "Participating Investigators"), and their contributions should be specified (e.g., "served as scientific advisors," "critically reviewed the study proposal," "collected data," "provided and cared for study patients", "participated in writing or technical editing of the manuscript")."

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