Responsible Authorship

Abstract

While authorship is perhaps the major source of credit for scientific work, it also carries major ethical responsibilities of vouching for the accuracy and integrity of the conduct of research and the resulting publications. Authorship credit can be highly contested with few guidelines or sources for the adjudication of disputes. Still, even without a single algorithm to determine authorship, addressing authorship and authorship priority at the beginning of an inquiry can reduce the potential for disagreements and disappointment later.