Authorship criteria for scientific papers

The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) has proposed four criteria for writing an article. The one who meets the criteria for authorship can be considered as an author.

Authorship criteria for scientific papers

These criteria are as follows:

  • To have major contributions in the study design, data collection , analysis , and interpretation
  • To write the first version of the article or modify it in a significant and impressive way (scientific rather than literary!)
  • To verify the final version of the article (the full manuscript must be read and approved by the author).
  • To have an agreement about the integrity and precision of the manuscript with the other co-authors as well as be informed of other authors’ role in the work.

Note: Although there is no established rules for deciding the order of authors on a paper, the first author is the one who does the bulk of the work as collecting data and producing the first draft of publication (e.g., the student). The supervisor’s name is put at the end of the authors list and is considered as a corresponding author since s/he can offer most of the answers to the questions the experts and reviewers may arise. Generally, in English-language articles, the first author makes the major contributions, and the last one has the highest level of scientific knowledge.

Related articles:

Delay in authors’ final approval

The criteria for being included in the authors list of a scientific article?

Was this post helpful?

1 thought on “Authorship criteria for scientific papers

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *


The reCAPTCHA verification period has expired. Please reload the page.