DIFFERENT TYPES OF AUTHORSHIP

(True) Authorship
The author is ‘truly’ responsible for the article, including making “substantial contributions” to the research and drafting, revising, and approving the final article.

Ghost Authorship
A person who contributed substantively to the research, but is not named as an author.

Guest Authorship
A person who lends his or her name to a publication as an author, usually for a fee, to increase the likelihood of publication.

Gratuitous (Gift) Authorship
Individual named as an author as a tribute or a ploy by the real author, whose relationship with the gift author is one of expected reciprocity or of dependence.

COMPLEMENTS TO AUTHORSHIP

Ghost Writership
The circumstance in which the ideas of one or more persons (authors) are expressed in the words chosen by another, who is—appropriately—not identified as an author.

Contributorship
Identifying in the published article the contribution of each named author to the research

Guarantorship
1) Identifying the named author most responsible a) for the research as a whole or b) a critical aspect of the research

Chapter Meeting: September 10, 2005

"Staking Your Claim - Authorship Issues Impacting Medical Writers"

Speaker: Tom Lang
Biography and Introduction

a review of the presentation by Lydia Green

Did the bylined physician author actually conduct the research? Was the article authored instead by a medical writer hired by a communications company? Did the lead author actually review the final draft? These are the issues addressed in the article below.

Introduction

On Saturday, September 10th, a group of Northern California AMWA members had the good fortune to attend Tom Lang's presentation "Staking Your Claim - Authorship Issues Impacting Medical Writers", a timely subject for anyone who writes or reviews medical journal articles, books, or medical education programs.

According to Tom, authorship in the medical world is different from authorship in the humanities. In the humanities, we are taught that writing is a form of personal self-expression, with the author being the one who both creates and communicates the content. Writing and authorship are thus inextricably linked, with the true author being the individual who pens the content.

The role of medical writers

In contrast, in the biomedical paradigm, author and writer may not be the same person. The medical writer is responsible for accurately presenting information, but does not contribute to authoring original content and so, does not interject bias. In contrast, the author creates the content. Establishing authorship is important because authors are responsible for scientific fraud or misconduct. Confusion may occur, however, when the writer has performed authorship tasks during the process of writing. Therefore, whether the writer gets credit for authorship depends on the writer's role and how you define authorship.

As the accompanying handout illustrates, there are many situations where the lines between authorship and writing are poorly defined. However, with a deeper understanding of what authorship means, resolving the grey areas is easier.

Defining authorship

Tom states that authorship in the sciences is concerned with insight, which is distinct from the technical communication and documentation tasks associated with medical writing. Medical authorship entails creation of new information or ideas. In contrast, medical writers are trained specialists skilled in effectively conveying this information, often to multiple audiences and in different media.

Authors and writers: a question of bias

While an author can introduce bias to the topic, a writer cannot. Why? Because according to Tom's paradigm, the medical writer's role is limited to expressing, clarifying, organizing, or summarizing the author's content. If the writer is in a position to interject bias, the writer is functioning as an author and not just as a medical writer. In this case, the writer ought to get credit for an authorship task, that is, the writer should be named as an author. Failure to make these respective roles clear leads to confusion over who is accountable for the content.

How editors look at authorship

Today, a great deal of scrutiny is being given to scientific authorship. Many editors are determining the actual contribution of each bylined author to the final piece. As such, it is imperative for us to define and understand true authorship , so that medical writers can more readily understand their role in creation of scientific materials.

For more information, please see Tom's Powerpoint Presentation and his handout, an authorship quiz. Suggestion: take the quiz first and then study the PowerPoint presentation.

Tom's Introduction

"Can scientists afford to let the Humanities define authorship? Can medical writers afford to let industry ignore authorship? What do journal editors think about authorship, guarantorship, and contributorship? What do you think about ghost authorship, gift authorship, and ghost writership? Come explore the scientific, ethical, and economic issues of authorship that concern medical writers!"

Tom's Biography

Tom has been a technical or medical writer/editor since 1975. From 1990 through 1998, he was Manager of Medical Editing Services for the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in Cleveland, Ohio. Since leaving the Clinic, he has been a Senior Scientific Writer in the Division of Clinical Care Research at the New England Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts, and is now an independent consultant and trainer in medical writing and scientific communications.

Tom has led hundreds of workshops on various aspects of medical writing and editing for physicians, researchers, and medical writers in academia and industry throughout North America, Europe, China, Japan, and India. He has been recognized as an outstanding teacher by the American Medical Writers Association, from whom he received the 1994 Golden Apple Award for Outstanding Workshop Leader; the Council of Science Editors, for his work on the CouncilÕs Short Courses for Manuscript Editors and Statistics for Journal Editors; and the American Statistical Association, who presented him with the 2002 Excellence in Continuing Education Award.

He has also taught courses for the University of Chicago's Medical Writing Certificate Program since its inception in 1999 and is Adjunct Professor of Biomedical Writing at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, the nationÕs oldest college of pharmacy.

Tom has taught for the European Medical Writers Association and the Canadian Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons and has been a visiting scholar at several medical universities throughout China since 1996. In Japan, he regularly presents to the Drug Information Association, the Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers, the Japanese Medical Interpreters and Translators Association, and the Japanese Medical Communicators Association.

Tom is a Fellow of the American Medical Writers Association and a Past President of the Council of Science Editors. His master's degree is in Communication Management, with a specialization in scientific communication, from the Annenberg School of Communication, University of Southern California.