Artículos científicos: quién puede firmarlos y en qué orden. Ética y pragmatismo de la publicación académica

Abstract

Introduction and objective: The publish or perish! imperative often leads to misunderstandings and undesirable tensions among potential candidates to sign as co-authors of a scientific article. Objective: To review the proposals of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) on who is justified in appearing as co-author of an article. Method: Narrative review. Results: The authors can carry out their research contributions (1- conception and design, 2- data acquisition, 3- analysis and interpretation) or in the article (4- writing of the article, 5- review of the article). Discussion: The pragmatic and ethical aspects related to the authorship of a scientific article are reviewed. Conclusions: The aspects related to the authorship and order in which the authors will appear in the publication must be agreed before starting the investigation since this will affect the authors when they are evaluated by the evaluation agencies.