THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF AUTHORS TO MULTIAUTHORED BIOMEDICAL-RESEARCH PAPERS

Objective.-To determine the contributions of each author to multiautho red biomedical research papers. Design.-Mailed, self-administered surv ey. Participants.-A total of 184 first authors from a consecutive samp le of 200 papers with four or more authors published in 10 leading bio medical journals. Main Outcome Measures.-First authors' ratings of whi ch authors had made substantial contributions to the following: initia l conception of the study, design of the study, provision of needed re sources, collection of data, analysis and interpretation of data, and writing the first draft of the paper or revising drafts for important intellectual content. Results.-The contributions of nonfirst authors v aried greatly within and among papers. Even second and last authors-th ough they generally contributed more than other nonfirst authors-were markedly inconsistent in the extent and pattern of their contributions . Time spent on the research differed among authors by orders of magni tude. An appreciable number of authors made few or no substantial cont ributions to the research. Conclusions.-The nature and extent of contr ibutions of nonfirst authors to biomedical research reported in multia uthored papers cannot reliably be discerned (or discounted) by authors hip or order of authors. The two core purposes of scientific authorshi p-to confer credit and denote responsibility for research-are not adeq uately being met by these authorship practices.