Authorship Determinations Determining authorship is critical to establish legitimate ownership and control of the work.

Obviously, authorship conveys credit and recognition. These benets also carry a great deal of weight in promotion and tenure decisions. Given these rights and benets, there are also responsibilities. Authors accept accountability and responsibility for the validity of the work. They also must accept the obligation to share data and/or research materials, particularly when another researcher makes a valid request for the purpose of replicating the research to validate the ndings. Professional societies have guidelines on who can be considered an author. Some examples: The American Chemical Society states that those who made signicant scientic contributions to the work should be listed as co-authors. Those who make lesser contributions should be indicated in acknowledgments section in the publication (see ACS Ethical Guidelines to Publications of Chemical Research). The American Psychological Association in its Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct provides that authorship should be determined based on the relative contributions of those involved in the research. The National Academy of Sciences has stated in its book Responsible Science (1992): There is general acceptance of the principle that each named author has made a signicant intellectual contribution to the paper. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors sets up three criteria and authors are expected to meet all three: (1) that the individual has made substantial contributions to the conception, design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data, (2) that the individual drafted the work or was responsible for reviewing it critical for intellectual content, and (3) that the individual has nal approval of the version to be published. (see http://www.icmje.org) Researchers and authors should be familiar with the ethical guidelines or code of conduct that is published by the professional association in their eld. The decisions may not always be clearcut and sometimes a good deal of discussion may take place between and among authors over the order of listing authors. Still, these decision must be made on the basis of actual contributions and should never be determined on the basis of the power or inuence of any individual may have or on the basis of doing someone a favor by naming him or her as a co-author. Some individuals may make contributions to the work but their contributions do not qualify them to be named as co-authors. For instance, a person may have provided technical assistance in the research or provided nancial support or a gift of materials. While the author may be grateful, these actions do not qualify the person to be named a co-author. Other similar actions would include: performing a literature search; offering advice on the research or manuscript; providing assistance in preparing the manuscript;

 making suggestions on revising the manuscript. To express gratitude for the foregoing, the author should cite the individuals by name in an acknowledgments section. It is important to recognize contributions, but it is critical to keep them in perspective and r the level of recognition and credit to the actual circumstances. Other Ethical Considerations 1. Deciding when it is time to publish: The author must believe that the work will make a signicant advance in currently available knowledge and research. He or she must be condent in the data and ndings. A lack of condence is a signal that the data may be incomplete and the ndings, therefore, possibly invalid. Premature publication, rather than enhancing ones career, could very well jeopardize ones reputation and standing among his or her colleagues. Obviously, there is some truth to the clich publish or perish. It can create pressure on researchers to publish as quickly as possible. Doing so, however, when there is a lack of condence in the data and ndings, could very well have very deleterious effects on ones career. 2. Avoiding redundant publications: In order to pad their publication records, some researchers decide to take steps that are ill-advised and unethical. For instance, they may engage in redundant publications. Here are some examples of how this can happen. First, the same ideas, data, and ndings may be submitted to multiple journals in the hope of being published in more than one place. Second, articles can be submitted which are really nothing more than minor extensions of previously published ideas or less than signicant expansions of published data sets. Third, authors may decide to publish in what is called least publishable units (LPU). These LPUs are short research reports, letters, are articles that are actually publishing fragments of the complete data. The work is organized so that the LPU is made to look like a legitimate study, when in reality they are parts of a larger whole. Again, these practices are followed to falsely increase ones publication record. There are, however, a misuse of valuable space in journals and serve to block other more legitimate articles from being published. If the lists of authors in various articles is not the same, the practice of redundant publication can also give the false impression that the research has been replicated and, therefore, gives an unwarranted boost to the credibility of the data and/or author(s).