The Authors’ Contributions section specifies the exact contributions of each author in a narrative form. This is not a required section, but is included in the final publication if provided. See below for JMIR’s formatting/wording preferences:
- The section should be titled “Authors’ Contributions”
- In the Word doc, it appears after the Acknowledgments section and before Conflicts of Interest
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Only author initials are used (without titles or degrees). Style the initials exactly as the name appears in the metadata
- eg, Bryan George Miller → BGM (not BM)
- If more than one author has the same initials, the initials are styled as first initials-space-last name: eg, Brian George Miller → BG Miller
- If more than one author has the same initials and last name, use their full name (ie, first name-space-last name): eg, John Smith and Jane Smith
- In an author’s name includes “Jr” or “Sr,” the initials are styled as initials-space-suffix: eg, Brian George Miller Jr → BGM Jr
- If a group author is listed in the metadata (eg, The CONSORT Group), all collaborators need to be listed in the Authors’ Contributions section. If the submitting author has not provided these names, query them. Non-author collaborators or contributors must be mentioned by their full name.
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Sentences such as "All authors contributed equally to this manuscript" do NOT belong in this section (nor does it belong in the Acknowledgments). Delete any such statements. To declare equal contribution, the copyeditor or submitting author should include this information in the metadata form by clicking the “Yes” radio button in the Equal Contribution field. This will automatically render a footnote in the final proofs to indicate equal contribution.
Option 1: Narrative Description (old format, now discouraged)
For example:
Authors’ Contributions
BGM wrote the manuscript and provided data for Table 1, SGH conducted the patient interviews, and KL conducted all statistical analyses. All authors reviewed the final manuscript.
Option 2: List of author roles using the CRediT taxonomy (preferred)
The CRediT taxonomy has been an international standard since 2022 and we now encourage authors to list author contributions under the following headings (a downloadable summary of the CRediT roles is available here): https://groups.niso.org/higherlogic/ws/public/download/31067/CRediT_Taxonomy_Terms_and_Definitions_list
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Conceptualization – Ideas, formulation or evolution of overarching research goals and aims. Data curation – Management activities to annotate (produce metadata), scrub data and maintain research data (including software code, where it is necessary for interpreting the data itself) for initial use and later re-use. Formal analysis – Application of statistical, mathematical, computational, or other formal techniques to analyze or synthesize study data. Funding acquisition - Acquisition of the financial support for the project leading to this publication. Investigation – Conducting a research and investigation process, specifically performing the experiments, or data/evidence collection. Methodology – Development or design of methodology; creation of models. Project administration – Management and coordination responsibility for the research activity planning and execution. Resources – Provision of study materials, reagents, materials, patients, laboratory samples, animals, instrumentation, computing resources, or other analysis tools. Software – Programming, software development; designing computer programs; implementation of the computer code and supporting algorithms; testing of existing code components. Supervision – Oversight and leadership responsibility for the research activity planning and execution, including mentorship external to the core team. Validation – Verification, whether as a part of the activity or separate, of the overall replication/reproducibility of results/experiments and other research outputs. Visualization – Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work, specifically visualization/data presentation. Writing – original draft – Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work, specifically writing the initial draft (including substantive translation). Writing – review & editing – Preparation, creation and/or presentation of the published work by those from the original research group, specifically critical review, commentary or revision – including pre- or post-publication stages. |
- We require that all contributors who meet authorship criteria describe their input using the CRediT roles, including those who are listed as collaborators (group author);
- The corresponding author/s should take responsibility for discussing and agreeing the assignment of CRediT roles across the author and contributor list; all contributors should be given the opportunity to review and confirm assigned roles;
- Some roles won’t apply – each research output is different; if specific CRediT roles are not relevant to a particular output, they do not need to be included; for example, if there was no software development involved, the category "Software" would be omitted
- Individuals can have several roles – individuals are likely to have made several contributions to a research output (e.g. article) and can therefore be assigned to more than one CRediT role;
- Multiple contributors for a specific role - The same CRediT role can be assigned to multiple individuals – for example, according to ICMJE criteria, all authors should be listed under one of the "Writing" categories to meet authorship criteria
- If there are multiple contributors for a specific role, JMIR encourages authors to Include information about the ‘degree of contribution’ – where multiple individuals serve in the same role, the degree of contribution can optionally be specified as ‘lead’, ‘equal’, or ‘supporting’; these qualifiers should be added in round brackets
Sample CRediT taxonomy format:
Copyeditors and production editors: kindly pay attention to the use of punctuation and styling in the example below. Work with authors on standardizing their subheadings to align with the CRediT taxonomy.
Authors’ Contributions
Conceptualization: AB (lead), CD (equal)
Data curation: EF
Formal analysis: AB (lead), EF (supporting)
Funding acquisition: AB
Investigation: CD
Methodology: CD
Project administration: AB (lead), CD (equal), EF (supporting)
Resources: EF
Supervision: AB
Validation: AB
Visualization: EF (lead), AB (supporting)
Writing – original draft: AB (lead), CD (supporting)
Writing – review & editing: AB (lead), CD (supporting), EF (supporting)
See also
- Can there be two corresponding authors?
- I have different previous and current affiliations. How do I differentiate these?
- Who should be listed as an author and who should sign the publication form (authorship criteria)?
External Link & Source:
NISO - Contributor roles defined - https://credit.niso.org/contributor-roles-defined/