Defining author contributions is an important part of any research paper. It provides transparency about who did what in the study and helps ensure appropriate credit is given to each author. Many researchers are unsure of how exactly to convey contributions in a clear, precise yet concise manner. This article aims to provide guidance on how to effectively write the author contributions section.
The author contributions section should be placed right after the acknowledgments section and before any competing interests statement. It should use brief yet complete sentences to describe what each author specifically did to contribute to the study. List the authors in the same order as they appear in the byline.
For clarity and reproducibility, contributions should be divided into categories like conceptualization, methodology, software, validation, formal analysis, investigation, resources, data curation, writing – original draft, writing – review and editing, visualization, supervision, project administration, and funding acquisition. Not all categories need to be used for every study depending on its nature.
For example, the first author conducted the formal analyses, investigation by performing experiments, visualized the main findings, and wrote the original draft. The corresponding author conceptualized and designed the study, acquired funding, supervised the project, and reviewed/edited the manuscript. The third author developed methods and tools for data collection, curated and validated the datasets.
Verb phrases like “conducted”, “designed”, “collected”, “analyzed”, “interpreted”, “wrote”, “reviewed” clearly convey active participation. Passive constructs like “helped with” or vague terms like “assisted” should be avoided as they do not precisely reveal contributions. Quantifiers such as “most”, “majority” are also ambiguous and best left out.
Listing only high-level responsibilities is insufficient and risks undermining specific contributions. For instance, simply stating that an author “supervised the project” is lacking in detail and does not do justice. Their actual contributions in terms of supporting technical aspects, reviewing drafts, troubleshooting challenges warrants explicit mention.
Another effective technique is grouping related contributions together under headers for easier reading. For instance, all methodological contributions can be grouped under “Methodology” with bullet points elaborating individual tasks. Similarly, analyses and resources used can have their own headers. Too many sub-headers should also be avoided for the sake of brevity.
Anthropic provided the following example of a well-written author contributions statement with categories and specific verb phrases:
Conceptualization – J.D., S.K., F.W.; Methodology – J.D., F.W., A.T.; Software – A.T.; Validation – J.D., S.K., F.W.; Formal Analysis – J.D.; Investigation – J.D., S.K.; Resources – J.D., F.W.; Data Curation – J.D., S.K.; Writing – Original Draft Preparation – J.D.; Writing – Review and Editing – J.D., S.K., F.W., A.T.; Visualization – J.D., A.T.; Supervision – S.K., F.W.; Project Administration – S.K., F.W.; Funding Acquisition – F.W.
Carefully crafting the author contributions using active verb phrases within relevant categories helps ensure transparent and accurate credit is given to all authors for their respective roles in a collaborative research work. This improves reproducibility and accountability.