Some ethical dimensions of scientific authorship

Abstract

Scientific authorship is an avenue for professional validation and professional credit. Unethical behavior is the cause of the reduction of the scientific quality of publications and the deterioration and devaluation of research. In the beginning, most scientific publications were signed by a single author. The number of authors per manuscript in peer-reviewed medical journals has increased substantially over the past few decades. Despite all efforts by the ICMJE and journal editors to reduce the number of inadequate authors for a publication, author inflation is increasing. There are different factors that contribute to the increase in pluralism in scientific authorship.