title: The ethical assignment of authorship in scientific publications: issues and guidelines.
abstract: Properly assigning authorship of academic papers is often an ethical challenge. Through a hypothetical case study, the authors examine some of the potential ethical issues involved in determining who should and should not be listed as an author: the problems of honorary authorship, coerced authorship, and ghost authorship, as well as the question of how to order authors. Guidelines for avoiding and negotiating these issues are also discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Emergency Medicine, Medical College of Virginia, Richmond, VA, USA.
authors.forename: V Ramana
authors.initials: VR
authors.lastname: Feeser
authors.forename: Jeremy R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Simon
mesh_terms: D001319:Authorship; D035843:Biomedical Research / Q000941:ethics; D032984:Ethics, Research; D006801:Humans; D016134:Organizational Policy; D011643:Publishing / Q000941:ethics*