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Writing & Publishing

Need help getting published? This guide has resources to help you create a poster or manuscript.

Authorship

ICMJE Recommendations:

  • Significant involvement in study conception/design, data collection, or data analysis/interpretation;
  • Involvement in drafting or revising manuscript;
  • Approval of final version of manuscript for publication; and
  • Responsibility for accuracy and integrity of all aspects of research.

Decide on authorship and order BEFORE you begin writing (preferably early in your research process).

Contributors: Examples of activities that alone (without other contributions) do not qualify a contributor for authorship are

  • acquisition of funding
  • general supervision of a research group or general administrative support
  • writing assistance, technical editing, language editing, and proofreading
  • Non-Author contributors should be acknowledged and should be notified of the acknowledgement prior to submission of the manuscript

For a full list of Contributor roles, see the CRediT website.

What about AI?

Authors who use AI should describe in the cover letter and submitted work how they used it. Chatbots should not be listed as authors because they cannot be responsible for accuracy, integrity and originality of the work (required for authorship). ICMJE IIA4.

Plagiarism / Salami slicing

Breaking up research in order to get several publications is often called "salami slicing" or "data fragmentation" or "least publishable units."  Don't do this!

Elsevier. Salami slicing