Contributorship
Contributorship is the supporting process of article writers in obtaining scientific results. This concept is fully applicable to research articles and very rarely to articles of theoretical or observational nature. Contributorship may take various forms.
Editors are strongly encouraged to develop and implement a contributorship policy, as well as a policy that identifies who is responsible for the integrity of the work as a whole. Such policies remove much of the ambiguity surrounding contributions but leave unresolved the question of the quantity and quality of contribution that qualify an individual for authorship. The ICMJE has thus developed criteria for authorship that can be used by all journals, including those that distinguish authors from other contributors.