ArticleAnnals of epidemiology2010
"Equal" contributions and credit: an emerging trend in the characterization of authorship.
Article in Annals of epidemiology, 2010. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 27 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
27 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- A systematic review of research on the meaning, ethics and practices of authorship across scholarly disciplines.PloS one · 2011Pooled it
- Systematic review and meta-analyses of studies analysing instructions to authors from 1987 to 2017.Nature communications · 2021Article
- Misconduct and Misbehavior Related to Authorship Disagreements in Collaborative Science.Science and engineering ethics · 2020Article
- Equal Co-authorship Practices: Review and Recommendations.Science and engineering ethics · 2020Review
- Survey of equal contributions in biomedical research publications.Accountability in research · 2020Article
- Opinion: Authors overestimate their contribution to scientific work, demonstrating a strong bias.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2020Article
- Authorship: from credit to accountability. Reflections from the Editors' Network.Clinical research in cardiology : official journal of the German Cardiac Society · 2019Review
- Authorship: from credit to accountability : Reflections from the Editors' Network.Netherlands heart journal : monthly journal of the Netherlands Society of Cardiology and the Netherlands Heart Foundation · 2019Article
- Collaborative patterns, authorship practices and scientific success in biomedical research: a network analysis.Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine · 2019Article
- Authorship: From Credit to Accountability Reflections From the Editors´ Network.Anatolian journal of cardiology · 2019Article
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- Resolving authorship disputes by mediation and arbitration.Research integrity and peer review · 2018Article
- Team-Based Coaching Approach to Peer Review: Sharing Service and Scholarship.Journal of graduate medical education · 2017Article
- Authorship policies of scientific journals.Journal of medical ethics · 2016Article
- Equal contributions and credit: an emerging trend in the characterization of authorship in major spine journals during a 10-year period.European spine journal : official publication of the European Spine Society, the European Spinal Deformity Society, and the European Section of the Cervical Spine Research Society · 2016Article
- Gendermetrics.NET: a novel software for analyzing the gender representation in scientific authoring.Journal of occupational medicine and toxicology (London, England) · 2016Article
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- Multinational teams and diseconomies of scale in collaborative research.Science advances · 2015Article
- Scientific misconducts and authorship conflicts: Indian perspective.Indian journal of anaesthesia · 2015Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
purposeScientific manuscripts sometimes have two or more authors explicitly designated as having "contributed equally" to the study. The prevalence and characteristics of this practice are not known. The goal of this study was to identify longitudinal trends and characteristics of the practice of explicitly giving authors equal credit in publications found in major medical journals.
methodsWe conducted electronic keyword searches looking for original research articles with equally credited authors (ECAs) published between Jan. 1, 2000 and Dec. 31, 2009 in the five general medicine journals with the highest impact factors (New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association, Lancet, Annals of Internal Medicine, and British Medical Journal). The annual prevalence of original research articles with ECAs for each journal.
resultsOriginal research articles with authors explicitly given equal credit were found in all five journals. Articles with ECAs formed a greater proportion of the total number of articles published in each journal in 2009 versus published in 2000 (NEJM: 8.6% vs. <1%; JAMA: 7.5% vs. 0%; Annals: 3.8% vs. 0%; Lancet: 3.6% vs. <1%; BMJ: 1.0% vs. 0%). There was a statistically significant increasing trend in yearly prevalence of ECA articles for all the journals (NEJM: p < 0.0001; JAMA: p < 0.001; Annals: p < 0.001; Lancet: p < 0.001, BMJ: p = 0.001]. The first two authors listed in the byline received equal credit the majority of the time, but the practice was also applied to authors in nearly every position in the byline. Finally, none of the journals provided specific guidance regarding this practice in their instructions to authors.
conclusionsThe practice of explicitly giving authors equal credit is increasingly common in original research publications. Scientific journals should consider providing guidance for authors regarding this practice. Furthermore, the potential impact of this practice on evaluations for academic promotion should be assessed.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.