Christine Beveridge and Suzanne Morris have outlined an approach to determine the sequence of authors on a muiti-author paperfairiy (see Nature 448,508; 2007). Their criteria are based on percentage scores for each co-author, taking into account a set of items — such as figures, tables, text and ideas — that make up a manuscript. There is a percentage score for each element of the paper. They aim to develop a culture of understanding and agreement about the relative importance of different activities before the start of the work, and to settle the order of authors at manuscript-writing stage.
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