Do medical journals provide clear and consistent guidelines on authorship?

Area of Science:

• Bibliometrics
• Scholarly Publishing
• Scientific Ethics

Background:

• Authorship disputes in scientific papers are common.
• Clear authorship guidelines from journals can benefit authors and readers.
• Existing surveys suggest a lack of universally accepted authorship criteria.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the extent of authorship guidance provided in biomedical journal instructions.
• To determine the consistency of this guidance within journals and with international standards.

Main Methods:

• A review and analysis of published instructions to authors.
• Examination of instructions from 234 biomedical journals, selected from the World Association of Medical Editors and Medline.
• Journals included were those publishing instructions in English online.

Main Results:

• 41% of journals provided no authorship guidance.
• 29% used International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) criteria, with 35% of these citing outdated versions.
• Only 9% of journals required individual author contributions to be described.

Conclusions:

• Biomedical journals often fail to provide consistent and clear authorship guidelines.
• This inconsistency represents a missed opportunity for editors to enhance author education and improve the integrity of author listings.
• Standardized authorship policies are crucial for accuracy, fairness, and transparency in scientific publications.