Author Bylines and End-of-Text Signatures - Manuscript Preparation for Submission and Publication

AMA Manual of Style - Stacy L. Christiansen, Cheryl Iverson 2020

Author Bylines and End-of-Text Signatures
Manuscript Preparation for Submission and Publication

For manuscript submission, the complete names of all authors should be included in the manuscript, preferably on the title page(s), following the title, or as individual journals specify in their instructions for authors. In major articles, authors are listed in a byline, which typically appears immediately below the title or subtitle in print and online. For articles that have a large number of authors (eg, more than 50), there may not be space to list all authors below the title in the print or PDF version of the article, and the names may be listed at the end of the article. If authorship cannot appear on the first page of the print/PDF version of an article, an explicit statement about where to locate the complete list of authors should appear on page 1. For the print or PDF versions of some types of articles (eg, letters, editorials, book reviews, essays, poems, news stories), some journals may list the authors’ names as signatures (or in signature blocks) at the end of the text, rather than below the title. Authors’ names should not be presented with initials only, unless that is their preference. The JAMA Network journals publish complete author names and academic degrees for all authors. Some journals publish initials for first names and do not include academic degrees. Authors should consult specific journals for style and format and for instructions on how to list authors in submitted manuscripts (see 5.1, Authorship Responsibility).

2.2.1 Authors’ Names.

The byline or signature block should contain each author’s full name (unless initials are preferred to full names), including, for example, Jr, Sr, II, III, and middle initials, and highest academic degree(s). Authors should be consistent in the presentation of their names in all published works so that they can be recognized by indexers, bibliometric databases, repositories, search engines, and readers.

If the byline includes names of Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Korean, or Hungarian origin, or other names in which the family name is traditionally given first, some journals—and some authors—may “westernize” the order and give the surname last. For example, an author whose name is conventionally given as Zhou Jing, where Zhou is the surname, might list his name as Jing Zhou for publication in a Western journal, or the journal might elect to publish it that way regardless of the author’s preference. For journals that choose to follow the author’s preference in presentation of the order of first name (given name, familiar name) and surname and that therefore might retain the conventional (ie, non-Western) presentation of such names in the byline, the surname may be distinguished from the first name by capital letters (eg, ZHOU Jing)2 or some other typographic distinction (eg, Zhou Jing or ZHOU Jing).

The JAMA Network journals favor following the authors’ preferences on presentation of their names and recommend querying the author at the editing stage to ensure that the surname is properly identified. Identifying first and last names in the document tagging (eg, XML) is critical for accurate publication, indexing, and searching. For example, for the name Jing Zhou, where Jing is the given name and Zhou is the surname, if it is presented in typical Western style (ie, Jing Zhou), the name would be coded in JATS DTD XML as follows:

ZhouJing

If it is instead presented with the surname first, it would be coded as follows:

ZhouJing

See 2.10.19, Preferred Citation Format, and 21.1.1, Editing With XML. See also the Chicago Manual of Style for more details on conventional presentations of names from various cultures.3

Some journals have begun to request or require authors to provide unique identifiers that will link their names with a persistent record of their identities. ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID)4 and ISNI (International Standard Name Identifier)5 are 2 such examples. As some have suggested, these records may help resolve the problem of name ambiguity in search and discovery6 (see 5.1.1, Authorship: Definition, Criteria, Contributions, and Requirements).

2.2.2 Authorship.

All persons listed as authors should qualify for authorship (see 5.1, Ethical and Legal Considerations, Authorship Responsibility, and 5.1.2, Ethical and Legal Considerations, Authorship Responsibility, Guest and Ghost Authors and Other Contributors), and the authors’ names should be consistently presented in all versions of the full text. The order of authors should be determined by the authors themselves (see 5.1.1, Authorship: Definition, Criteria, Contributions, and Requirements, and 5.1.5, Order of Authorship). According to the ICMJE,1

Authorship should be based on the following 4 criteria: (1) substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work, or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND (2) drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND (3) final approval of the version to be published; AND (4) agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Some journals (including all JAMA Network journals, BMJ, and The Lancet) may publish authors’ specific contributions (see 2.10.8, Author Contributions).

Some authors may request that the Author Contributions note those authors who contributed equally to the work.

Author Contributions: Drs Y. Zhang and J. Zhang contributed equally and are considered co—senior authors of this work. In addition, they had full access to all the data in the study and take responsibility for the integrity of data and accuracy of the data analysis.

Author Contributions: Drs Li and Huang contributed equally to this work.

Persons who made other contributions but do not qualify for authorship (see 5.1.1.1, Authorship: Definition, Criteria, Contributions, and Requirements, Authorship Definition and Criteria, Box 5.1-1. Common Terms: Contributor, Author, and Collaborator) may be listed in the Acknowledgment section (see 2.10.17, Additional Contributions), with their permission (see 5.2, Acknowledgments). See 2.2.4, Multiple Authors, Group Authors.

2.2.3 Academic Degrees.

Journals should establish their own policies on the inclusion of authors’ academic degrees. The policy of the JAMA Network journals is as follows: The highest degree or professional certification follows each author’s name. If an author holds 2 doctoral degrees (eg, MD and PhD, MD and JD), either or both may be used, in the order preferred by the author. If the author has a doctorate, degrees at the master’s level are not usually included, although exceptions may be made when the master’s degree represents a specialized field or a field different from that represented by the doctorate (eg, MD, MPH).

Academic degrees below the master’s level are usually omitted unless these are the highest degree held. Exceptions are made for specialized professional certifications, degrees, and licensure (eg, RN, RD, COT, PA) and for specialized bachelor’s or master’s degrees (eg, BSN, BPharm, MPA, MBA, MSJ) and combination degrees (eg, BS, M[ASCP], BNurs, MHA).

Fellowship designations (eg, FACP, FACS, FRCP, FRCS, FRCPC) and honorary degrees (eg, PhD[Hon]) are omitted (see 13.1, Academic Degrees, Certifications, and Honors, for the rationale for this policy).

2.2.4 Multiple Authors, Group Authors.

When the byline contains more than 1 name, use semicolons to separate the authors’ names (see 5.1.9, Group and Collaborative Authorship).

2.2.4.1 Multiple Authors.

The following examples show bylines with multiple authors.

Melvin H. Freedman, MD; E. Fred Saunders, MD; Louise Jones, MD, PhD; Kurt Grant, RN

John E. Ware Jr, PhD; Martha S. Bayliss, MSc; William H. Rogers, PhD; Mark Kosinski, MA; Alvin R. Tarlov, MD

Varun K. Phadke, MD; Robert A. Bednarczyk, MS, PhD; Daniel A. Salmon, MPH, PhD; Saad B. Omer, MBBS, MPH, PhD

2.2.4.2 Individual Authors for a Group.

When a byline or signature contains 1 or more individuals’ names and the name of a group (not all members of which meet the qualifications for authorship), use for followed by the name of the group if the specific individuals named qualify for authorship and are writing for the group.

William A. Tasman, MD; for the Laser ROP Study Group

In the example above, those listed in the article as members of the group may be identified as nonauthor collaborators (see 2.10.12, Group Information [Including List of Participants in a Group] and 5.1.9, Group and Collaborative Authorship).

2.2.4.3 Individual Authors and a Group.

When a byline or signature contains 1 or more individuals’ names and the name of a group (all members of which meet the qualifications for authorship), use and followed by the name of the group if the individuals as well as all the members of the group qualify for authorship. In this case, every member of the group must qualify for authorship, and for journals with specific authorship criteria, like the JAMA Network journals, each member of the group must complete an authorship form indicating that he or she has met the criteria for authorship (see 2.10.12, Group Information [Including List of Participants in a Group], 5.1.9, Group and Collaborative Authorship, and 13.9, Collaborative Groups).

Debra L. Hanson, MS; Susan Y. Chu, PhD; Karen M. Farizo, MD; John W. Ward, MD; and the Adult and Adolescent Spectrum of HIV Disease Project Group

2.2.4.4 Subgroups as Author.

Occasionally a specific subgroup of a larger group will be listed as the author:

The Writing Committee of the NORDIC Idiopathic Intracranial Hypertension Study Group

Executive Committee for the Symptomatic Carotid Atherosclerotic Study

The Writing Group for the DISC Collaborative Research Group

In this case, the names of the members of the subgroup should be clearly listed as authors (eg, at the end of the article) and each member of the subgroup must sign a statement indicating that he or she met the authorship criteria.

2.2.4.5 Group Name in Byline, With All Group Members Qualifying as Authors.

If each member of the group qualifies for authorship, the group name may be listed alone in the byline or signature block (see 2.3.3, Author Affiliations, and 2.10.12, Group Information [Including List of Participants in a Group]). The group members (authors and any nonauthor collaborators) would be listed separately at the end of the article and would be identified as authors or collaborators (see 2.10.12, Group Information [Including List of Participants in a Group], and 5.1.9, Group and Collaborative Authorship).

Global Burden of Disease Pediatrics Collaboration