CASRAI Dictionary

Tag: authorship criteria

  • Author Contribution Statement for Case Reports

    An author contribution statement example for a case report should list only the roles that genuinely apply to one or two authors — typically conceptualisation, investigation, and writing — rather than force-fitting all fourteen CRediT categories built for large research teams. For a sole author, a single sentence confirming full responsibility across the applicable roles satisfies both journal policy and ICMJE authorship criteria.

    An author contribution statement is a short, published declaration — separate from the acknowledgements — that specifies which named author performed which part of the research and writing. Below is a practical, minimal-author template for case reports, built around the taxonomy’s actual scope rather than a mechanical checklist.

    What is an author contribution statement, and why do case reports struggle with it?

    An author contribution statement is a brief, structured account — usually one to three sentences per author — of who conceived, conducted, and wrote a published work. CASRAI originated the CRediT contributor role taxonomy in 2014, and the standard is now stewarded by NISO as ANSI/NISO Z39.104-2022, defining fourteen discrete contributor roles: Conceptualization, Data Curation, Formal Analysis, Funding Acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project Administration, Resources, Software, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – Original Draft, and Writing – Review & Editing.

    The taxonomy was designed for multi-author, multi-institution collaborations where credit disputes and hidden labour are real risks. A single-author case report has no such dispute to resolve — one person, by definition, performed every applicable role. Forcing all fourteen categories onto one or two names produces a statement that reads as padding rather than disclosure, which is precisely the awkward fit this template addresses.

    How do you write a single-author case report contribution statement?

    For a sole-author case report, the statement should confirm that the author meets the ICMJE authorship criteria in full, without listing categories that plainly do not apply (Software, Funding Acquisition, and Project Administration are the ones most often irrelevant to a single clinical case). The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors requires that every listed author:

    • Made a substantial contribution to the conception, design, acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of the case;
    • Drafted the work or revised it critically for important intellectual content;
    • Approved the final version for publication; and
    • Agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work’s accuracy and integrity.

    A minimal, publication-ready example: “The author conceived the case report, collected and interpreted the clinical data, drafted the manuscript, and approved the final version for submission.” A CRediT-tagged variant works equally well: “Author Name: Conceptualization, Investigation, Writing – Original Draft, Writing – Review & Editing.” Both versions satisfy journal policy; the second is preferable where the target journal explicitly asks for CRediT-labelled statements rather than free text.

    How do you split CRediT roles between two authors in a case report?

    With two authors — commonly a treating clinician and a co-author handling the literature review or write-up — the statement should separate clinical-care roles from writing roles rather than duplicating the full taxonomy for each name. This keeps the statement honest: a supervising consultant who reviewed but did not draft the manuscript should not appear under Writing – Original Draft.

    CRediT role Typical applicability to a case report Notes
    Conceptualization Applies Identifying the case as reportable
    Investigation Applies Clinical assessment, data gathering
    Writing – Original Draft Applies Usually one named drafting author
    Writing – Review & Editing Applies Supervising or co-author input
    Supervision Rarely applies Only where a senior author directed the case work
    Validation Rarely applies Relevant only if data required independent checking
    Data Curation Rarely applies Usually not distinct from Investigation in a case report
    Software, Funding Acquisition, Project Administration, Resources, Formal Analysis, Visualization, Methodology Usually N/A Omit rather than force-fit for a single case

    Example two-author statement: “Dr A managed the patient, conceived the report, and revised the manuscript critically. Dr B conducted the literature review and drafted the manuscript. Both authors approved the final version and agree to be accountable for its accuracy.” Where a journal mandates CRediT labels specifically, the equivalent tagged form is: “Dr A: Conceptualization, Supervision, Writing – Review & Editing. Dr B: Investigation, Writing – Original Draft.”

    Which journals require this, and in what format?

    Requirements vary by publisher, and case reports are frequently held to the same policy as full research articles even though the taxonomy was not built with them in mind. Elsevier requires a CRediT author statement for all research articles, including case reports, under its published CRediT author statement policy. JMIR treats the Authors’ Contributions section as optional but recommended, per guidance updated by JMIR Publications on 2 February 2026, while Springer/Nature journals commonly request a free-text statement such as “all authors contributed to the study conception and design,” without mandating the full fourteen-role CRediT format.

    Publisher / body Statement required? Format
    Elsevier Mandatory CRediT-tagged roles, degree-of-contribution optional
    Springer / Nature Mandatory (most journals) Free-text narrative statement
    JMIR Optional but recommended Free-text narrative statement
    ICMJE (cross-publisher baseline) Recommended policy, not a form Four-criteria authorship test

    The American Astronomical Society’s journals took the free-text route deliberately: when AASTeX v7.0 introduced Author Contribution sections, the society specified a free-form field “rather than a formulaic set of checkboxes,” precisely because a rigid taxonomy poorly serves papers with unusual author configurations — a principle that extends directly to minimal-author case reports.

    Common questions on author contribution statements

    How to write an author contribution in a case report?

    State each named author’s role using plain, active verbs — conceived, collected, drafted, revised, approved — rather than the full CRediT list. Confirm every author meets all four ICMJE criteria; anyone who does not should move to the acknowledgements instead of the byline.

    How do you write an author’s contribution statement?

    Identify what each author actually did across conception, data work, drafting, and approval, then write one sentence per author naming those tasks. Use either free text or CRediT-tagged roles depending on the target journal’s house style, and have every author confirm the wording before submission.

    What are examples of author contributions?

    Common contribution categories include conceiving the study, acquiring or analysing data, drafting the manuscript, critically revising it, and supervising the work. The CRediT taxonomy formalises fourteen such categories, but a case report typically draws on only three or four of them.

    What is a contribution statement example?

    A minimal example: “The author conceived the case, gathered clinical data, drafted the manuscript, and approved the final version.” This single sentence satisfies ICMJE’s authorship test and works for any single-author case report regardless of specialty.

    What this means for case report authors and editors

    Journals and editorial offices reviewing minimal-author submissions should stop asking authors to populate all fourteen CRediT fields by default. A short, honest, ICMJE-aligned narrative — or a CRediT statement limited to the roles that genuinely applied — better serves both transparency and author time than a taxonomy stretched past its design case. Editors adopting free-text options, as AAS Journals did for astrophysics collaborations of any size, give case report authors a route that neither omits required disclosure nor manufactures roles that were never performed.

    As more publishers formalise contribution statements as a submission requirement rather than an optional courtesy, case report authors gain most by keeping the statement proportional: name every applicable role, omit the rest, and confirm ICMJE accountability explicitly rather than by implication.

  • Author Contribution Statement Examples in Review Articles

    Not all 14 CRediT roles apply to a review article. When a manuscript synthesises existing literature rather than collecting primary data, roles built around experiments, materials and datasets — Investigation, Resources, Data Curation — rarely fit, while Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal Analysis, Visualization and both Writing roles almost always do. An author contribution statement example review article authors can adapt should map contributions to the roles the review actually required, not force every author into a role designed for empirical research.

    The Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT) is a fourteen-role classification system used to describe, in a standardised author contribution statement, exactly what each named author did on a published work. CASRAI originated CRediT in 2014 as a response to opaque, order-of-authorship-only bylines; the taxonomy is now stewarded by NISO as ANSI/NISO Z39.104-2022, with the current definitions maintained at credit.niso.org.

    Which CRediT roles actually apply to a review article?

    Seven to nine of the fourteen CRediT roles map cleanly onto review-article work. Conceptualization covers who framed the review question and scope — always relevant, since every review starts from a defined aim. Methodology covers the design of the search strategy, inclusion/exclusion criteria and, for systematic reviews, the registered protocol.

    Formal Analysis applies wherever authors synthesise findings — statistically in a meta-analysis, thematically in a narrative review. Visualization covers PRISMA flow diagrams, forest plots and summary tables, which most reviews include. Writing – Original Draft and Writing – Review & Editing apply to every author who meets ICMJE’s drafting-or-revising criterion. Supervision, Project Administration and Funding Acquisition apply exactly as they would on any funded, multi-author output.

    Which roles rarely apply when there’s no primary data collection?

    Resources and Data Curation were written for empirical studies: provision of reagents, patients, instrumentation, or management of a generated dataset. A review that only reads and synthesises published sources produces no such materials, so these roles should usually be omitted rather than stretched.

    Software only applies if authors built bespoke code — for example a custom R script for a meta-analysis — not for using standard reference-management tools. Validation, defined by NISO as verifying reproducibility of results or experiments, has no primary experiment to verify in most narrative reviews, though it can legitimately apply to a systematic review’s dual-reviewer screening check.

    Investigation is the most commonly misapplied role in review contribution statements. NISO’s definition ties it to “performing the experiments, or data/evidence collection” — some editors accept that a systematic literature search and screening process counts as evidence collection, while others reserve Investigation strictly for primary data gathering. Because guidance is inconsistent across publishers, review teams should state explicitly what “Investigation” covers in their statement rather than assume a shared reading.

    CRediT role Typical fit for a review article Note
    Conceptualization Applies Framing the review question and aims
    Methodology Applies Search strategy, protocol, screening criteria
    Investigation Contested Literature search sometimes counted, sometimes not
    Formal Analysis Applies Statistical or thematic synthesis
    Data Curation Rarely applies No generated dataset in most reviews
    Resources Rarely applies No materials, patients or instrumentation
    Software Rarely applies Only if bespoke analysis code was built
    Validation Rarely applies Occasional fit for dual-reviewer screening checks
    Visualization Applies PRISMA diagrams, forest plots, summary tables
    Writing – Original Draft Applies Always, for drafting authors
    Writing – Review & Editing Applies Always, for revising authors
    Supervision Applies Senior-author oversight
    Project Administration Applies Coordinating multi-reviewer teams
    Funding Acquisition Applies If the review was funded

    Does it differ between narrative and systematic reviews?

    Yes. A systematic review generates far more CRediT-relevant activity than a narrative review because it follows a documented protocol. Formal database searching, dual-reviewer screening, a PRISMA flow diagram and, often, a meta-analysis all create genuine Methodology, Formal Analysis and Visualization contributions.

    A narrative review, by contrast, typically compresses most of the work into Conceptualization and the two Writing roles, since there is no registered protocol or formal extraction process to document separately. Authors of narrative reviews should resist copying a systematic-review template wholesale — an author contribution statement that lists Investigation, Validation and Data Curation for a narrative review with no protocol will look inflated to an editor who knows the difference.

    How do you write the statement itself?

    Springer Nature’s author instructions explicitly accommodate reviews: where “discrete statements are less applicable,” the statement should still identify who had the idea for the article and who performed the literature search, even without a full role-by-role breakdown. JMIR’s author guidance is more direct: “Some roles won’t apply – each research output is different; if specific CRediT roles are not relevant to a particular output, they do not need to be included.”

    A practical three-author example for a systematic review:

    • Conceptualization: A.B. (lead), C.D. (equal)
    • Methodology: A.B., C.D.
    • Formal Analysis: E.F.
    • Visualization: E.F. (lead), A.B. (supporting)
    • Writing – Original Draft: A.B. (lead), C.D. (supporting)
    • Writing – Review & Editing: A.B., C.D., E.F.
    • Supervision: A.B.

    Note what is absent: no Data Curation, Resources, Software or Validation, because none occurred. Under ICMJE’s authorship criteria, every named author must still meet all four conditions — substantial contribution, drafting or revising, final approval, and accountability — regardless of which CRediT roles they are assigned.

    Common questions about author contribution statements

    What is a contribution statement example?

    A contribution statement lists each author’s initials against the specific CRediT roles they performed, such as “A.B.: Conceptualization, Writing – Original Draft; C.D.: Formal Analysis, Writing – Review & Editing.” It replaces vague author-order assumptions with an explicit, auditable record.

    What is the author contribution statement in Springer?

    Springer Nature requires a statement of responsibility in every manuscript, including review-type articles, specifying each author’s contribution. For reviews where a full role-by-role breakdown does not fit, Springer still expects the statement to name who conceived the article and who conducted the literature search.

    How to write an author contribution statement?

    List every author’s initials, then attach the CRediT roles that genuinely apply to their work on that specific manuscript, omitting roles that do not apply rather than padding the list. Corresponding authors are responsible for confirming the statement with every co-author before submission.

    What should substantial contributions include to be credited as an author?

    Per ICMJE, substantial contribution means conception or design, or acquisition/analysis/interpretation of data, combined with drafting or critically revising the work, final approval, and accountability for its accuracy. Meeting only one criterion, such as literature searching alone, does not by itself satisfy authorship requirements.

    What this means for review authors and editors

    Review teams that copy a data-heavy CRediT template wholesale risk two failure modes: omitting genuine synthesis work under vague “Writing” credit, or inflating the statement with roles like Investigation and Data Curation that a careful editor will question. The more defensible approach is to start from the fourteen roles, keep the seven or eight that genuinely occurred, and state plainly — as JMIR’s guidance recommends — that the rest were not applicable to this output.

    As more publishers formalise CRediT for review-type manuscripts under ANSI/NISO Z39.104-2022, expect journal instructions to increasingly distinguish narrative from systematic reviews in their contribution-statement guidance, closing the ambiguity that currently surrounds roles like Investigation. Until then, the safest practice for review authors is explicit scoping: name what each role means in this specific manuscript, rather than relying on definitions written for laboratory-based research.