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Changes in authorship patterns in prestigious US medical journals

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  • Weeks, William B
  • Wallace, Amy E
  • Kimberly, B.C.Surott

Abstract

To improve identification of contributors to manuscripts, editors of medical journals have developed authorship responsibility criteria. Some have specified an acceptable number of authors per manuscript. We wanted to examine changes in patterns of authorship in the context of the development of these specifications. Therefore, we used a retrospective cohort design to calculate the average number of authors per manuscript and the prevalence of group and corporate authorship between 1980 and 2000 for original, scientific, non-serial articles published in four prestigious medical journals: the Annals of Internal Medicine, Archives of Internal Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association, and the New England Journal of Medicine. Group authorship identifies individual authors in the byline who are writing for a group; in corporate authorship, contributors are not individually listed in the byline. We found that the number of authors per article increased dramatically over time in each journal, from an average of 4.5 in 1980 to 6.9 in 2000 across journals. As a proportion of published manuscripts, group authorship (authors listed in the byline) increased from virtually zero to over 15%, while corporate authorship (authors not listed in the byline) remained rare and stagnant. Manuscripts published by single authors all but vanished. Group authorship was most prevalent in journals that limited the acceptable number of authors per manuscript. These findings suggest that the number of authors per manuscript continues to grow. The growth in the number of authors on bylines and the proportion of group-authored manuscripts is likely to reflect the increasing complexity of medical research.

Suggested Citation

  • Weeks, William B & Wallace, Amy E & Kimberly, B.C.Surott, 2004. "Changes in authorship patterns in prestigious US medical journals," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 59(9), pages 1949-1954, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:59:y:2004:i:9:p:1949-1954
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    Cited by:

    1. Jason Cory Brunson & Xiaoyan Wang & Reinhard C Laubenbacher, 2017. "Effects of research complexity and competition on the incidence and growth of coauthorship in biomedicine," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(3), pages 1-23, March.
    2. Carlo Galli & Stefano Guizzardi, 2020. "Change in Format, Register and Narration Style in the Biomedical Literature: A 1948 Example," Publications, MDPI, vol. 8(1), pages 1-15, February.
    3. Pentti Riikonen & Mauno Vihinen, 2008. "National research contributions: A case study on Finnish biomedical research," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 77(2), pages 207-222, November.
    4. Gómez-Ferri, Javier & González-Alcaide, Gregorio & LLopis-Goig, Ramón, 2019. "Measuring dissatisfaction with coauthorship: An empirical approach based on the researchers’ perception," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 13(4).
    5. Gertrude Case Buehring & Jessica E. Buehring & Patrick D. Gerard, 2007. "Lost in citation: Vanishing visibility of senior authors," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 72(3), pages 459-468, September.
    6. Abdelghani Maddi & Lesya Baudoin, 2022. "The quality of the web of science data: a longitudinal study on the completeness of authors-addresses links," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(11), pages 6279-6292, November.
    7. Mercedes Echeverria & David Stuart & Tobias Blanke, 2015. "Medical theses and derivative articles: dissemination of contents and publication patterns," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 102(1), pages 559-586, January.
    8. Dan Greenberg & Allison B. Rosen & Oren Wacht & Jennifer Palmer & Peter J. Neumann, 2010. "A Bibliometric Review of Cost-Effectiveness Analyses in the Economic and Medical Literature: 1976-2006," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 30(3), pages 320-327, May.
    9. Adam Emmer, 2019. "The careers behind and the impact of solo author articles in Nature and Science," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 120(2), pages 825-840, August.
    10. Enrico di Bella & Luca Gandullia & Sara Preti, 2021. "Analysis of scientific collaboration network of Italian Institute of Technology," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(10), pages 8517-8539, October.
    11. Edson Melo Souza & Jose Eduardo Storopoli & Wonder Alexandre Luz Alves, 2022. "Scientific Contribution List Categories Investigation: a comparison between three mainstream medical journals," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(5), pages 2249-2276, May.
    12. Nigel Golden & Kadambari Devarajan & Cathleen Balantic & Joseph Drake & Michael T Hallworth & Toni Lyn Morelli, 2021. "Ten simple rules for productive lab meetings," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(5), pages 1-13, May.
    13. Wilfred Dang & Matthew D F McInnes & Ania Z Kielar & Jiho Hong, 2015. "A Comprehensive Analysis of Authorship in Radiology Journals," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(9), pages 1-15, September.
    14. Feng Zou & Mingxing Wu & Kaili Wu, 2009. "Outcomes associated with ophthalmology, optometry and visual science literature in the Science Citation Index from mainland China, 2000–2007," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 81(3), pages 671-682, December.
    15. John P A Ioannidis, 2008. "Measuring Co-Authorship and Networking-Adjusted Scientific Impact," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 3(7), pages 1-8, July.

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