Editors cannot police author or contributor listings for every submission but may sometimes have suspicions that an author list is incomplete or includes undeserving (guest or gift) authors. The COPE flowchart 'Suspected ghost, guest or gift authorship' suggests actions for these situations. The points in this flowchart are designed to help editors be alert for inappropriate authorship and spot warning signs which may indicate problems.
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Cite this as
COPE Council. COPE Flowcharts and infographics — How to spot authorship problems — English.
https://doi.org/10.24318/cope.2019.2.16
©2021 Committee on Publication Ethics (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
https://publicationethics.org
Version history
Version 1: 2006. Redesigned May 2021.
Full page history
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5 March 2024
This guidance has been merged with an infographic to produce 'How to recognise potential authorship problems' https://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts/how-recognise-potential-authorship-problems
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4 March 2024
Updated link text
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25 July 2021
Made citation visible.
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24 July 2021
Redesigned flowchart published, new page alias, updated citation information.