ABSTRACT
When you have assessed your material and chosen a target journal you will be ready to design an effective paper. Begin by agreeing on its authorship and giving it a strong framework.
AGREEING ON AUTHORSHIP
If you have co-authors, problems about authorship can range from the trivial to the catastrophic. You should therefore discuss the question of authorship before the drafting stage. Anyone named as an author should have made a substantial contribution to the work being described. In the words of the ‘Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals’ (Appendix 1) (ICMJE 1988):
Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for the content.
