Coin of the Realm: Practical Procedures for Determining Authorship

Authorship credit is conceivably the most important and least understood area of professional life for members of the scientific community. Because promotion, prestige, and productivity are judged largely by publication activity, authorship credit has become the 'coin of the realm' in the scientific marketplace (Wilcox 1998). Beyond the value of authorship to individual investigators, the assignment of individual credit to a publication implies certain ethical and scientific imperatives that are of tremendous importance to the scientific enterprise. These imperatives include the certification of public responsibility for the truth of a publication and the equitable assignment of credit to those who have contributed in a substantive way to its contents.