The Eastern Heartland Journal of Medicine follows the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) for eligibility to be considered as an author for submitted papers. The ICMJE recommends that authorship be based on the following four criteria:
Participation solely in the acquisition of funding or the collection of data does not justify authorship. General supervision of the research group is not sufficient for authorship. Each contributor should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content of the manuscript.
The order of naming the contributors should be based on the relative contribution of the contributor towards the study and writing of the manuscript. Once submitted, the order cannot be changed without the written consent of all the contributors. Authors should ensure compliance with the above guidelines, as manuscripts considered to have gift or unjustified authorships will be rejected.
Contributors should describe contributions made by each of them towards the manuscript. The description should be divided into the following categories, as applicable: concept, design, definition of intellectual content, literature search, clinical studies, experimental studies, data acquisition, data analysis, statistical analysis, manuscript preparation, manuscript editing, and manuscript review. One or more authors should take responsibility for the integrity of the work as a whole from inception to published article and should be designated as “guarantors”.