What would you do if your received a submission, in which 1 or more authors you know are just added for whatever reasons (politics, boss's privilege, close contacts with authors actually doing the work etc) and should not be really authoring the paper? Would you look for reasons for rejection, would you question a corresponding author, or would you just let it go? Can an editor do anything about undeserved authorship at all? Thank for your thoughts.

Leszek Czupryniak
Managing Editor, Diabetologia Polska

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When I was editor of a family planning journal in Sydney, I once won a battle of this sort, when a research centre director asked to have his name added to the author list of a paper that had already been submitted, and I refused. The other authors (the real authors) were secretly rather pleased, but didn't have the power inside their institution to win the argument.

Later, for the Australian Journal of Public Health, I introduced a policy that where there were more than 4 authors they had to sign a sheet saying what the role and contribution of each author was.

If the paper has been submitted with all the names on it, and they lie about their contributions on the form, there is not very much you can do about it. After all, there must be other papers where you are not familiar with the authors and don't recognise the honorary authors.

The truth is that the hierarchical institutional conventions of biomedical research make it very difficult to implement the spirit of the ICMJE guidelines, and it will get harder still now that in many universities, staff have to score points each year for their publication output. People will always use author points to do each other favours. Perhaps it would be better if we moved to team attribution, at least for empirical papers (as distinct from theoretical or opinion pieces).

Juliet Richters
Senior Research Fellow, National Centre in HIV Social Research

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I would ask for the specifics on what each author contributed to the paper and tell the lead author that only those who met our qualifications as authors could be listed as such. I would also suggest that the fake author be acknowledged, instead, if they had anything at all to do with the work.

Diana J. Mason
Editor-in-Chief, American Journal of Nursing

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You have touched an interesting issue. I think however, that it is not the editor's duty to question authorship. I understand that in your particular case you know the situation and you feel uncomfortable with it, but please keep in mind that there might be a number of other submissions, perhaps international, in which you are not able to recognize who deserves and who does not deserve authorship. One of the solution to the problem is transparency of a journal. In our case—the Medical Science Monitor—we publish "authors' contributions" by each authors name. This [of course] does not guarantee honesty, but at least it is easier to catch on fraud. You are welcome to visit our website (www.MedSciMonit.com) and see how we manage the authorship information issue.

Mark R Graczynski
Publisher, Medical Science Monitor

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Editors are not policemen but they can implement editorial standards in their journals. Problems with authorship are especially visible in small journals and small scientific communities, where editors know most of their authors and also know who did what on the paper. There is an excellent editorial by Julie Brice in the Medical Education on author's misconduct and the ways the journal can address it: http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1365-2929.2004.02027.x. I also wrote a commentary to the editorial, looking at the role of editors and scientific/academic community: http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1365-2929.2004.02050.x

Ana Marusic
Editor-in-Chief, Croatian Medical Journal

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What I gather from this debate is that the definition of authorship seem to vary for authors, institutions, and WAME.

The task is to make sure that we are talking about the same things when we say someone is or is not an author. The basic minimum is someone who can be held accountable for their name. It is like one has sworn and they are appending their names to the manuscript.

Interestingly, when the paper shine, ghost authors will claim credit but when fraud and other misconduct is brought to light, the ghost authors will quickly distance themselves from the papers.

Adamson Muula
Malawi Medical Journal

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I think you mean the "guest" authors will claim credit when the paper shines (like moths attracted to a light), but when questions are raised, criticisms made, or worse, then the guest authors run from the paper—never mind that they put their name to the paper in the first place...

Larry Hirsch

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