Trends in Authorship Order in Biomedical Research Publications

Abstract

As research teams have grown larger, authorship lists of resulting publications have become longer. Organizations and journals have issued statements about ethical authorship, nature of contribution, and author responsibility, but author order is less frequently addressed. Unless the contribution of a co-author is specified, readers make their own assumptions about author contributions because practices on author order in the byline vary by discipline, journal, editor, publisher, scientific society, institution, country, and the authors themselves. Because contributions are often subject to misinterpretation and publications have become proof of scientific productivity and impact, it is increasingly important that authors themselves specify to readers the type and extent of contribution made by each author.

KEYWORDS:

• authorship order
• authorship position
• authorship sequence
• bibliometrics
• citations
• contributing authors
• first author
• h-index
• ICMJE
• International Committee of Medical Journal Editors
• last author
• medical publishing
• National Library of Medicine
• NLM
• WAME
• World Association of Medical Editors

Acknowledgments

Conversations with Dr. Jennifer McCafferty-Cepero and Dean Pascal Goldschmidt prompted the idea for this column. Kimberly A. Loper, MLIS, assisted in literature searching and retrieval. Author credits: Authors contributed equally.

Notes

Comments and suggestions should be sent to the Column Editors: Mary Moore ([email protected]) and Suzetta Burrows ([email protected]).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Suzetta Burrows

Suzetta Burrows, MS, AHIP, ([email protected]) is Director for Library Operations (Retired), Associate Professor Emeritus

Mary Moore

Mary Moore, PhD ([email protected]) is Executive Director, Louis Calder Memorial Library and Biomedical Communications, and Head, Department of Health Informatics, University of Miami, Miller School of Medicine, P.O. Box 016950 (R-950), Miami, FL 33101.