Paper should publish based on the copyright that constitutes authorship. While there is no universally agreed definition of authorship. Generally, authorship implies a significant intellectual contribution to the work, some role in writing the manuscript and reviewing the final draft of the manuscript, but authorship roles can vary; and it directly related with copyright. Copyright ensures certain minimum safeguards of the rights of authors over their creations, thereby protecting and rewarding creativity.

For all manuscripts, the corresponding author should be required to provide information on the specific contributions each author has made to the article. All authors are responsible for the quality, accuracy, and ethics of the work, but one author must be identified who will reply if questions arise or more information is needed, and who will take responsibility for the work as a whole. This description of author contributions should be printed with the article. The authors are responsible for creating all components of the manuscript. If writers are provided by the sponsoring or funding institution or corporation to draft or revise the article, the name of the writer and their sponsoring organization must be provided. Their names and contributions will be provided with the acknowledgments. Papers should discourage "honorary" authorship (when authorship is granted as a favor to someone powerful or prestigious who would not have qualified for it otherwise) and should also try to ensure that all those who qualify as authors are listed.

All authors must take responsibility in writing for the accuracy of the manuscript, and one author must be the guarantor and take responsibility for the work as a whole. A growing trend among publication is to also require that for reports containing original data, at least one author (eg, the principal investigator) should indicate that she or he had full access to all the data in the study and takes responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis. This helps assure that authors, and not funding sources, have final say over the analysis and reporting of their results.