KONSİLAuthor order is the least informative piece of metadata in a paper: it varies by field, by lab culture and by negotiation, and it says nothing about who designed the study, who ran the statistics or who cleaned the data. That is why journals now ask for a separate author contributions box at submission — and why its standard vocabulary, CRediT, is worth twenty minutes of your time before your next submission.
What CRediT is (and is not)
CRediT — the Contributor Roles Taxonomy — describes research contributions using 14 standard roles. Proposed in 2015[1] and formalised as ANSI/NISO standard Z39.104 in 2022[2], it is used by thousands of journals including Elsevier, PLOS and Cell Press titles.
One boundary matters: CRediT does not define authorship. Who qualifies as an author is still governed by the ICMJE criteria (substantial contribution, drafting or critical revision, final approval, accountability)[3]. CRediT describes what each qualifying author actually did. Someone whose only contribution is funding may carry the Funding acquisition role — but that role alone does not make them an author. The two systems complement each other; neither replaces the other.
The 14 roles, in plain language
| Role | This is you if… |
|---|---|
| Conceptualization | you formulated the research question and the core idea |
| Methodology | you designed the study and its methods |
| Software | you wrote the analysis code or tooling |
| Validation | you verified reproducibility or measurement reliability |
| Formal analysis | you ran the statistics or mathematical analysis |
| Investigation | you performed the experiments, collected the cases, made the measurements |
| Resources | you provided the cohort, equipment, specimens or database |
| Data curation | you cleaned, annotated, stored and documented the data |
| Writing — original draft | you wrote the first version of the manuscript |
| Writing — review & editing | you critically revised it (content, not just language) |
| Visualization | you produced the figures, charts and tables |
| Supervision | you provided scientific oversight and mentorship |
| Project administration | you carried the coordination and admin load |
| Funding acquisition | you won the grant that paid for it |
Two pairs are commonly confused: Investigation produces the data while Data curation manages it; Supervision is scientific guidance while Project administration is logistics. A senior author may genuinely hold both of the latter — but not automatically.
A worked statement
Most journals want initials plus roles; some accept a degree qualifier (lead / equal / supporting). For a typical imaging study:
Author contributions. A.H.T.: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation, Writing — original draft. M.Y.: Formal analysis, Data curation, Writing — review & editing. E.K.: Resources, Investigation. S.A.: Supervision, Writing — review & editing, Funding acquisition.
The test of a good statement: a stranger should be able to reconstruct roughly how the study ran just by reading it. A statement in which four authors share twelve roles fails that test — and quietly signals to reviewers that it was written as decoration.
Statement generator — tick, copy
Add the authors, tick each one's roles; the statement below is built ready to paste into a manuscript. Nothing is sent anywhere — the generator runs entirely in your browser.
Order = author order. Pick the name format your target journal expects (most accept initials: A.B.C.).
Journal formats: Elsevier, Wiley and a general template
The terms are the same 14 roles; only the heading and typesetting differ. Check the journal's own author guide before submitting — some journals collect the statement in the submission form, not in the manuscript.
Elsevier journals usually set the statement under the heading “CRediT authorship contribution statement”, one author per line:
CRediT authorship contribution statement
A.B.: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing – original draft.
C.D.: Investigation, Data curation, Writing – review & editing.
E.F.: Supervision, Funding acquisition.
Wiley and many medical journals present the same content as a single “Author contributions” paragraph:
Author contributions. A.B.: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing – original draft; C.D.: Investigation, Data curation, Writing – review & editing; E.F.: Supervision, Funding acquisition.
Two cautions: a statement cannot rescue an author with no role — the ICMJE authorship criteria must be met separately; and “Writing – original draft” and “Writing – review & editing” are different roles — crediting the first to someone who did not draft is the most common correction request.
Five mistakes reviewers notice
- Everyone gets every role. Unassigned roles are not a defect; inflated ones are.
- Treating order as contribution. CRediT exists precisely to break that inference — it is the tool that makes early-career contributions visible.
- Laundering gift authorship. Writing "Writing — review & editing" next to a name that contributed nothing makes the statement false; someone who fails the ICMJE criteria should not be on the byline at all[3].
- Absorbing a student's work into Supervision. If the resident collected the data, Investigation is theirs; the mentor's role is Supervision. Merging them moves credit upward on paper.
- Writing the statement on submission day. Agree roles when the study starts; a statement written at the end is written by memory and hierarchy. For multi-site studies a written authorship rule before the first participant is simply mandatory.
CRediT as a team-building language
The taxonomy is just as useful before a study as after it: "I need a statistician" is vague, but "I need someone to own Formal analysis and Data curation" defines the ask precisely — and because the vocabulary is standard, the person you invite knows exactly what they are agreeing to.
Sources and standards
- Brand A, Allen L, Altman M, Hlava M, Scott J. Beyond authorship: attribution, contribution, collaboration, and credit. Learned Publishing, 2015.
- ANSI/NISO Z39.104-2022 — CRediT, Contributor Roles Taxonomy. credit.niso.org
- ICMJE — Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors. icmje.org
On KONSİL, profiles speak CRediT
Member profiles carry these 14 roles as structured fields: you declare which contributions you can take on, and when someone's idea needs exactly that role, you surface as a candidate. A researcher looking for "someone to own data curation" finds you by your declared contribution — not by your job title.
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