Several studies have documented that the average number of authors per paper is steadily rising. In some fields-such as clinical medicine or high-energy physics-author inflation has been conspicuous, with bylines listing dozens of individuals. No doubt, this increase is due in part to changes in the way science is being conducted. While the days of lone-investigator or small-team research are far from over, multi-institutional and multinational collaborations involving large, interdisciplinary teams are becoming more common. But, whatever the contributing factors may be, author inflation inevitably raises concerns that the standards for determining legitimate authorship are being diluted.
This concern has been addressed by many journal editors. Almost 10 years ago, the editor of Annals of Internal Medicine, Ed Huth, defined basic criteria for authorship (Ann. Int. Med., 104:269-74, 1986). These criteria have since been accepted by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. And they are now included in the ...
