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
- 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
- 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.
- 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.
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.
See also