A statement of contribution example shows how a research team assigns specific tasks — such as conceptualisation, methodology, or writing — to named authors using the CRediT contributor role taxonomy. The sentences below are adaptable templates, organised by role, that authors can copy, fill in with author initials, and adjust to match what each person actually did — rather than a single worked example that only fits one paper.
A statement of contribution (also called a contributorship statement or author contribution statement) is a short, standardised section in a manuscript that specifies which named author performed which research task, typically expressed using a controlled vocabulary of contributor roles.
- What is a statement of contribution?
- How do you structure a CRediT-based contribution statement?
- Model sentences for 10 common CRediT roles
- How contribution statement conventions differ across publishers
- What the corresponding author must verify
- Common questions about contribution statement examples
- Implications and outlook
What is a statement of contribution?
A statement of contribution is the section of a manuscript — usually placed before the acknowledgements or funding statement — that records who did what. Most journals now ask authors to express this using the CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) vocabulary rather than free text.
CASRAI originated the CRediT contributor role taxonomy in 2014. The standard is now stewarded by NISO as ANSI/NISO Z39.104-2022, and it comprises 14 defined contributor roles covering the full research lifecycle, from conceiving the study to writing and revising the manuscript. Using a controlled taxonomy, rather than vague phrases like “helped with the analysis,” removes ambiguity about who is accountable for which part of the published work.
How do you structure a CRediT-based contribution statement?
A CRediT-based statement lists each named author followed by the role or roles they performed, using the taxonomy’s standard role labels. Most journals accept either a per-author list format or a short narrative paragraph; some also allow a degree-of-contribution qualifier such as “lead,” “equal,” or “supporting” next to each role.
Three structures are in common use:
- List format — each author’s initials followed by a comma-separated list of roles (the format most journal submission systems now generate automatically).
- Narrative format — a short paragraph that groups authors by task, useful when several people share the same role.
- Degree-of-contribution format — roles qualified as lead, equal, or supporting, which some publishers (including Wiley) explicitly support in their author guidance.
Whichever structure is used, the statement should name every role each author performed and should be agreed by all co-authors — not drafted unilaterally by one person — before submission.
Model sentences for 10 common CRediT roles
The templates below cover the ten CRediT roles most frequently searched and most commonly populated in submission systems. Replace the bracketed placeholders with author initials and the specific task detail; do not leave generic phrases like “helped with” in the final statement.
| CRediT role | Model sentence template |
|---|---|
| Conceptualization | “[Initials] conceived the study and formulated the research questions addressed in this article.” |
| Methodology | “[Initials] designed the [experimental/survey/analytical] methodology used to test the study’s hypotheses.” |
| Formal analysis | “[Initials] performed the statistical analysis of the [dataset/trial] data using [method or software].” |
| Investigation | “[Initials] conducted the [fieldwork/experiments/interviews] reported in Section [X].” |
| Data curation | “[Initials] curated and managed the [dataset name], including cleaning, coding, and metadata annotation.” |
| Writing – original draft | “[Initials] wrote the original draft of the manuscript, including the [Introduction/Methods/Results] sections.” |
| Writing – review & editing | “[Initials] critically reviewed and edited the manuscript for intellectual content prior to submission.” |
| Supervision | “[Initials] supervised the research activity and provided mentorship to the study team throughout the project.” |
| Visualization | “[Initials] prepared the figures and data visualisations presented in this article.” |
| Funding acquisition | “[Initials] acquired the funding, [grant/award number], that supported this research.” |
These ten roles do not exhaust the taxonomy. The remaining four — Project administration, Resources, Software, and Validation — follow the same pattern: name the author, name the specific task, and avoid vague verbs. For example, Software becomes “[Initials] developed the [tool/script name] used to [process/analyse] the data,” and Validation becomes “[Initials] verified the reproducibility of the [results/code/experimental findings].”
How contribution statement conventions differ across publishers
Not every publisher applies CRediT identically. Some mandate it for every original research article; others treat it as optional free text. The table below summarises the main conventions authors encounter.
| Publisher / journal group | Convention |
|---|---|
| Elsevier | Requires a CRediT statement for original research articles, submitted via a dedicated author-contributions form. |
| Wiley | Uses CRediT with optional degree-of-contribution qualifiers (lead, equal, supporting) attached to each role. |
| Springer / BMC | Accepts CRediT roles or a short narrative contributorship paragraph, depending on the journal. |
| BMJ | Requires a contributorship statement that names one contributor as guarantor, responsible for the overall content, per its authorship and contributorship policy. |
| AAS Journals | Introduced an optional free-text Author Contribution section with AASTeX v7.0 in 2022 — not a CRediT role list, but a narrative statement. |
This variation matters: a statement drafted for an Elsevier submission using strict CRediT labels may need reformatting as free text for a journal, such as an AAS title, that does not use the taxonomy at all. Always check the target journal’s author guidelines before finalising the wording.
What the corresponding author must verify
The corresponding author is normally responsible for confirming that every co-author has reviewed and agreed to their stated contribution before submission. This is separate from — and in addition to — meeting the authorship criteria set out by bodies such as the ICMJE.
- Every named author’s role or roles are listed using the correct CRediT label, not a generic description.
- No author is omitted, and no individual who does not meet authorship criteria is included solely because they contributed a listed task.
- All co-authors have seen and approved the final wording of the statement before it is submitted.
- Where the journal requires a guarantor (as BMJ does), one named contributor is explicitly identified as responsible for the overall content.
Common questions about contribution statement examples
What is a contribution statement example?
A contribution statement example is a sample sentence or list showing how a manuscript credits each author’s specific tasks, usually with CRediT role labels such as Conceptualization or Formal analysis attached to author initials. It demonstrates format, not content — authors must substitute their own actual roles.
How to write a contributorship statement?
Write a contributorship statement by listing each author’s initials next to the specific CRediT roles they performed, confirming agreement from all co-authors, and naming a guarantor if the journal requires one, as BMJ does under its authorship and contributorship policy.
What are some examples of contributions?
Typical research contributions include conceiving the study design, collecting or curating data, running the statistical analysis, drafting or editing the manuscript text, supervising the research team, and securing the funding that supported the work — each corresponding to a distinct CRediT role.
Implications and outlook
Standardised contribution statements shift academic credit away from author-list position and towards a transparent, auditable record of who did what. As more funders and institutions incorporate contributor roles into assessment and grant-reporting workflows, CRediT-labelled statements are becoming as routine as reference lists — but the underlying wording still has to be written by the authors themselves, journal by journal, role by role.
The CRediT taxonomy and its individual CRediT roles provide the controlled vocabulary; how that vocabulary is phrased into a submittable sentence is a separate, practical skill — one the templates above are built to shortcut. For the underlying eligibility rules that determine who can be listed as an author in the first place, see CASRAI’s overview of authorship criteria.
Leave a Reply