Authorship Contribution Selector
Select the work a contributor performed to identify suitable CRediT roles, contribution levels, and authorship discussion points.
Describe contribution before debating author order
Transparent role mapping makes invisible work easier to recognize.
CRediT provides 14 standardized roles that describe how research outputs are produced. A contributor may hold several roles, and each role may be shared by several people.
The selector prepares a contribution statement and identifies issues the team should resolve before submission.
Ideas and methods
Conceptualization and methodology capture intellectual design work.
Evidence and analysis
Investigation, curation, analysis, validation, and software capture technical work.
Writing and presentation
Drafting, editing, and visualization describe communication contributions.
Leadership and support
Supervision, administration, resources, and funding describe enabling roles.
The 14 CRediT contributor roles
Select all roles that accurately describe the work performed.
| Role | Typical contribution |
|---|---|
| Ideas, goals, aims, and overarching research direction | |
| Cleaning, documentation, organization, maintenance, and preservation of data | |
| Statistical, mathematical, computational, or other formal analysis | |
| Obtaining financial support for the project | |
| Conducting experiments, fieldwork, interviews, or data collection | |
| Developing methods, models, protocols, or study design | |
| Coordinating planning, execution, schedules, and team activity | |
| Providing materials, samples, instruments, computing, participants, or access | |
| Developing, programming, testing, or maintaining software | |
| Leadership, oversight, mentoring, and responsibility | |
| Verifying methods, results, outputs, or reproducibility | |
| Preparing visual representations of data or findings | |
| Preparing the initial substantive manuscript or output | |
| Critical review, revision, commentary, and improvement |
Before finalizing an authorship statement
- Discuss contributions early. Revisit the discussion when roles change.
- Select every accurate role. Do not limit contributors to one role.
- Confirm role assignments. Each contributor should review what is attributed to them.
- Apply authorship criteria separately. Contribution labels do not replace publisher or institutional rules.
- Document disagreements. Resolve disputes transparently before submission.
Avoid honorary and ghost authorship
Honorary authorship gives authorship to someone whose contribution does not satisfy the applicable criteria. Ghost authorship omits a person who made a contribution that should be disclosed.
CRediT can improve transparency, but teams still need a fair process for authorship eligibility, order, corresponding-author responsibilities, acknowledgment, and accountability.