title: Unethical practices in authorship of scientific papers.
abstract: Over the past few decades, there has been an increase in the number of multi-author papers within scientific journals. This increase, in combination with the pressure to publish within academia, has precipitated various unethical authorship practices within biomedical research. These include dilution of authorship responsibility, 'guest', 'pressured' and 'ghost' authorship, and obfuscation of authorship credit within by-lines. Other authorship irregularities include divided and duplicate publication. This article discusses these problems and why the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors guidelines are failing to control them.
authors.affiliation: Emergency Department, Royal Melbourne Hospital, Parkville, Victoria, Australia. dianne.bennett@mh.org.au
authors.forename: Dianne M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Bennett
authors.forename: David McD
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Taylor
mesh_terms: D001319:Authorship; D001690:Biological Science Disciplines / Q000592:standards; D006801:Humans; D011643:Publishing / Q000592:standards*; D015871:Scientific Misconduct