CRediT Author Contribution Statement: Example and Checklist

First, identify contributions. Second, apply the relevant authorship criteria. Third, agree author order using disciplinary, journal and team expectations. These decisions are connected, but one cannot silently replace the others.

NISO. CRediT role descriptors. defines 14 contributor roles, including conceptualisation, methodology, investigation, formal analysis, data curation, visualisation, supervision and writing roles. Use the official descriptors rather than treating the labels as honorary titles.

For journals following ICMJE, the ICMJE. Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors. sets out authorship requirements involving contribution, drafting or critical revision, final approval and accountability. A contribution such as funding acquisition alone does not automatically satisfy those requirements.

Ask each team member to describe concrete work. “Supported the project” is too vague. “Developed the sampling approach and revised the analysis plan” gives the team something to map and verify.

In a fictional study, one researcher designs the analysis and writes the first draft; another leads data collection and contributes critical manuscript revisions; a third develops the software used for data processing and checks reproducibility. The applicable roles depend on what each actually did, not their job title.

Do not assign supervision automatically to the most senior person or writing credit automatically to everyone listed as an author. Conversely, do not overlook substantive contributions by junior researchers, local collaborators or research staff.

Keep names, activities, proposed CRediT roles and confirmation status in a shared record. Update it at major project stages, particularly when responsibilities change.

For a teaching example only, a statement might read: “Researcher A: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Writing – original draft. Researcher B: Investigation, Project administration, Writing – review & editing. Researcher C: Software, Data curation, Validation, Writing – review & editing.”

This example does not establish that A, B or C qualifies for authorship. That requires a separate assessment against the journal’s criteria and actual responsibilities.

Circulate the proposed statement to contributors. Ask them to confirm accuracy and flag omissions. Keep disagreements focused on documented work and applicable criteria rather than seniority or assumptions about what a role “deserves”.

If authorship disputes cannot be resolved, use the relevant institutional process. Do not expect a journal editor to reconstruct the team’s working relationships from competing emails.

Obtain permission before naming someone in acknowledgements, and follow the journal’s requirements. Being acknowledged can imply association with the work even when the person is not an author.

Contributors should have appropriate opportunities to review the work relevant to their responsibilities and, where required for authorship, approve the final manuscript. A contribution statement is not a device for escaping responsibility for the paper.

AI tools cannot take responsibility as authors. Disclose their use according to the journal’s policy, and keep human responsibility for the accuracy, originality and integrity of the submitted work.

Create a row for every contributor, including people who may be acknowledged rather than listed as authors. The worksheet records a discussion; it does not determine author order or substitute for agreement on accountability.

The best time to discuss contributions is early, with updates as the project evolves. The second-best time is before the submission deadline starts doing the negotiating. Use the manuscript and publication collection to complete the remaining submission checks.