Authorship ethics in the radiological sciences

SUMMARY The written communication of new ideas and current developments is a crucial part of the progress of radiological sciences. Research results cannot be incorporated into the body of scientific knowledge, unless they are published. In radiology, questions on authorship ethics have received limited attention. Among the topics discussed in this article are the incentives that stimulate radiologists to write and the obstacles to successful authorship. Practices causing concern to editors, authors and readers are examined, such as the excessive growth through recent years in the numbers of authors per paper, unjustified co‐authorships, wasteful publication practices and fraudulent research. The relationship between the abuses of authorship and the pressure exerted on researchers to publish is exemplified. Further issues addressed include the responsibilities of authors, the proposed principles for authorship, the determination of the sequence of authors in multi‐authored papers and the concept of publication credit. The editor's role in preventing unethical authorship is examined and emphasis is placed on the proposals that have been made to achieve the required reforms by eradic