Authorship Contributorship Policy

Authorship and Contributorship Policy

Author Declaration and CRediT Form

1 Authorship Criteria

The Ghurki Journal of Medical and Health Sciences (GJMHS) awards authorship only to individuals who have made substantial intellectual or scientific contributions to the submitted work.

Each author must have:

  • Contributed substantially to the conception, design, data collection, analysis or interpretation of the study;
  • Participated in drafting the manuscript or critically revising it for important intellectual content;
  • Approved the final version submitted for publication; and
  • Accepted responsibility for the accuracy, integrity and ethical conduct of the work.

Individuals who do not meet these requirements must not be listed as authors. Their contributions may instead be recognized in the acknowledgement section, with their permission.

2 Prohibition of Gift and Ghost Authorship

GJMHS strictly prohibits:

  • Gift or honorary authorship: including an individual because of seniority, position, relationship, influence, funding or institutional authority without a qualifying scholarly contribution;
  • Guest authorship: including a well-known person to increase the perceived importance of the manuscript;
  • Ghost authorship: excluding an individual who made a substantial contribution or using an undisclosed professional writer;
  • Coercive authorship: demanding authorship without making an appropriate contribution.

The corresponding author must confirm that no gift, guest, honorary or ghost author has been included and that no eligible contributor has been omitted.

Evidence of inappropriate authorship may result in manuscript rejection, correction, retraction or referral to the authors’ institution.

3 Author Order and Approval

The order of authors must be agreed upon by all authors before submission. GJMHS does not determine the sequence of authors.

All authors must approve:

  • The author list and sequence;
  • Names, affiliations and contact details;
  • The final submitted manuscript;
  • The CRediT contribution statement; and
  • Relevant declarations concerning ethics, funding and conflicts of interest.

4 Corresponding Author Responsibilities

The corresponding author acts on behalf of all authors and is responsible for:

  • Providing complete and accurate author information;
  • Confirming that all authors meet the authorship criteria;
  • Obtaining approval of the submitted and revised versions;
  • Communicating editorial and reviewer correspondence to all authors;
  • Submitting the authorship declaration and contribution statement; and
  • Informing the journal of any authorship dispute or requested change.

5 Changes in Authorship

Requests to add, remove or rearrange authors after submission must include:

  • A written explanation;
  • Written consent from all existing and proposed authors; and
  • Updated contribution and authorship declarations.

Authorship changes after acceptance are permitted only in exceptional circumstances and require approval from the Editor-in-Chief. Changes will not be made solely to improve academic credit or institutional representation.

6 Contributorship Disclosure

All submitted manuscripts must include a contribution statement based on the CRediT Contributor Roles Taxonomy.

Authors should identify the specific role or roles performed by each contributor. Listing a contribution does not automatically establish eligibility for authorship; all listed authors must also meet the journal’s authorship criteria.

7 Authorship Disputes

GJMHS does not independently adjudicate disputes concerning contribution or author order. Where an unresolved dispute arises, manuscript processing may be suspended while the authors seek resolution through their institution or another competent authority.

8 Use of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial-intelligence tools cannot be listed as authors because they cannot approve the manuscript or accept responsibility for its content.

Any material use of generative AI or AI-assisted tools must be disclosed in accordance with the journal’s applicable policy.

This policy directly addresses the committee’s direction that journals must discourage gift authorship.

 

CRediT Contribution Statement

Every manuscript must contain a CRediT Author Contribution Statement identifying the specific role or roles performed by each author.

The available roles are:

  1. Conceptualization
  2. Methodology
  3. Software
  4. Validation
  5. Formal analysis
  6. Investigation
  7. Resources
  8. Data curation
  9. Writing – original draft
  10. Writing – review and editing
  11. Visualization
  12. Supervision
  13. Project administration
  14. Funding acquisition

More than one author may be listed under a role, and one author may perform several roles. Only roles that genuinely apply should be reported.

All authors must review and approve the contribution statement before submission.

Recommended manuscript format

Author Contributions: Conceptualization: HMA and ABC; Methodology: HMA, ABC and XYZ; Investigation: ABC and XYZ; Data curation: XYZ; Formal analysis: HMA; Writing – original draft: ABC; Writing – review and editing: HMA and XYZ; Supervision: HMA; Project administration: ABC. All authors reviewed and approved the final manuscript.

Authors should use their initials consistently. Roles that do not apply should be omitted rather than marked “not applicable.”