Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
Current (CRediT-based) example, as it would appear on a published PLOS ONE article: 'Conceptualization: A.B., C.D. Data curation: E.F. Formal analysis: A.B. Funding acquisition: C.D. Investigation: A.B., E.F. Methodology: A.B., C.D. Project administration: C.D. Writing – original draft: A.B. Writing – review & editing: C.D., E.F.' — each of PLOS's 14 CRediT roles is either assigned to at least one author or omitted if genuinely not applicable to that paper.
- Is an instance
Legacy (pre-2016) example, in PLOS ONE's original five-category format: 'Conceived and designed the experiments: AB CD. Performed the experiments: AB EF. Analyzed the data: AB. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: CD. Wrote the paper: AB CD.' Articles published in PLOS ONE before the 2016 CRediT transition carry statements in this earlier format rather than CRediT role labels.
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
A free-text 'Author Contributions' paragraph with no defined role vocabulary (e.g. 'All authors contributed equally to this work and approved the final manuscript') is not a PLOS ONE-style statement, even if a journal happens to label it the same way — the defining feature here is the structured, role-by-role attribution PLOS requires, not just the presence of a contributions section. Nature's own author contributions requirement is a real example of this non-structured alternative: Nature requires the statement but leaves the wording free text rather than mandating CRediT role tags.
- Not an instance
An acknowledgments entry thanking a lab technician or statistician for assistance is not an author contributions statement — PLOS's structured statement applies only to individuals who meet the paper's own authorship criteria and are listed as authors; non-author contributors are credited separately in Acknowledgments, not assigned CRediT roles.
Editorial commentary
PLOS ONE was one of the earliest large journals to require every submitted manuscript to disclose, in a structured way, exactly what each listed author did to produce the work — a practice it has maintained continuously since the journal’s 2006 launch, years before CRediT existed as a named, shared taxonomy.
What the requirement covers
PLOS’s own author contributions policy states that the contributions of all authors must be described and that these contributions are published with the final article. The statement sits alongside, but is distinct from, two other things a submission also needs: PLOS’s authorship-eligibility criteria (drawn from McNutt et al., “Transparency in authors’ contributions and responsibilities to promote integrity in scientific publication,” PNAS 2018, which PLOS journals largely transitioned to around May 2023) and the acknowledgments section, which credits people who helped but do not meet authorship criteria.
From PLOS’s own five categories to CRediT
From PLOS ONE’s 2006 launch until 2016, the journal used its own fixed list of five contribution types: Conceived and designed the experiments; Performed the experiments; Analyzed the data; Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools; Wrote the paper. Some submissions also recognized secondary tasks such as revising or approving the paper, supervision, and funding. This system predates CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy), which emerged from a Harvard/Wellcome Trust-led workshop process starting around 2012 and was published as a 14-role taxonomy in 2014 (Allen, Scott, Brand, Hlava & Altman, Learned Publishing). PLOS adopted CRediT in 2016, replacing its legacy five-category list with the full 14-role taxonomy: Conceptualization, Data Curation, Formal Analysis, Funding Acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project Administration, Resources, Software, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – Original Draft, and Writing – Review & Editing. CRediT was later formalized as the full ANSI/NISO Z39.104-2022 standard, with CASRAI operating as a federation partner in its ongoing stewardship rather than as the taxonomy’s originator.
This history matters for anyone reading older PLOS ONE articles: a paper published before 2016 will carry a contributions statement in the original five-category wording, not CRediT role labels — the two formats are not interchangeable, and neither is wrong, they simply reflect PLOS’s policy at the time of publication.
How it compares to other journals’ approaches
Not every journal that requires an author contributions statement structures it the same way PLOS does. Nature, for example, requires a contributions statement on every submitted manuscript but leaves the wording free text — authors write their own description rather than selecting from a fixed role vocabulary, even though Springer Nature is a CRediT adopter at the portfolio level (see Nature Author Contributions). PNAS has its own structured convention as well (see PNAS Author Contributions). ICMJE, which many journals’ authorship policies otherwise follow, does not itself mandate a specific contributions-statement format or vocabulary — it encourages journals to adopt a contributorship policy but leaves the implementation to each journal (see ICMJE). PLOS’s early, consistent use of a structured, published, role-based statement — first with its own five categories, then with CRediT — made it one of the more prominent and long-running implementations of the broader contributorship model proposed in the 1990s literature and later standardized as CRediT.
Related reading
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
<role vocab="credit"
vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/"
vocab-term="PLOS ONE Author Contributions Statement"
vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/plos-one-author-contributions-statement" />{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "DefinedTerm",
"@id": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/plos-one-author-contributions-statement",
"name": "PLOS ONE Author Contributions Statement",
"identifier": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/plos-one-author-contributions-statement",
"description": "A PLOS ONE author contributions statement is the mandatory, structured disclosure every PLOS ONE submission must include, attributing specific tasks in the reported work to each named author individually. It is required at online submission, is separate from PLOS's authorship-eligibility criteria (adapted from McNutt et al. 2018 rather than the ICMJE four-point test) and from the acknowledgments section (which credits non-author helpers, not listed authors), and is published alongside the final article. Since PLOS's 2016 taxonomy switch, the statement is built from the 14-role CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy, now ANSI/NISO Z39.104-2022) vocabulary. Before that, from PLOS ONE's 2006 launch through 2016, the same requirement existed but used PLOS's own five-category list: Conceived and designed the experiments; Performed the experiments; Analyzed the data; Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools; Wrote the paper.",
"inDefinedTermSet": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/domain/credit-extensions#set",
"url": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/plos-one-author-contributions-statement",
"sameAs": [],
"license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"publisher": {
"@id": "https://casrai.org/#organization"
},
"dateModified": "2026-07-23T04:30:05",
"inLanguage": "en"
}
