Authorship Contribution Statement: How to Write One, With CRediT Roles and an Example
An authorship contribution statement names what each author did, in words a reader can check against the methods. CRediT gives you 14 roles to choose from; the hard part is making the roles match the paper.
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Question | What to do |
|---|---|
Use this page for | Getting the structure, tone, and decision logic right before you send anything out. |
Most important move | Make the reviewer-facing or editor-facing ask obvious early rather than burying it in prose. |
Common mistake | Turning a practical page into a long explanation instead of a working template or checklist. |
Next step | Use the page as a tool, then adjust it to the exact manuscript and journal situation. |
Quick answer: An authorship contribution statement lists every author and says what each one did, in words a reader can check against the methods. Many journals, PLOS among them, use the CRediT taxonomy, which gives 14 standard roles such as Conceptualization, Formal Analysis and Writing (Review and Editing). Write it from the methods outward: every experiment and analysis should have an owner, and every author should own something specific.
Check my manuscript's end matter with the free readiness scan before you finalize it, or copy the template and worked example below.
Evidence basis: On September 23, 2026 we read the CRediT role definitions and contribution rules on the PLOS ONE authorship page, the author contribution section of the Nature Portfolio authorship policy and the ICMJE page on authors and contributors. The template, the worked example and the checks are our editorial synthesis. The example team and paper are invented. This page does not decide who qualifies as an author; that is the authors' call under the target journal's rules.
The 14 CRediT roles, in plain terms
PLOS lists the roles and short definitions below and asks the submitting author to assign them in Editorial Manager; the contributions are published with the final article.
CRediT role | What it covers | Easy to confuse with |
|---|---|---|
Conceptualization | The research goals and the question | Methodology |
Data Curation | Annotating, cleaning and maintaining the data | Investigation |
Formal Analysis | Statistical, mathematical or computational analysis | Software |
Funding Acquisition | Getting the money | Supervision |
Investigation | Doing the experiments or collecting the data | Data Curation |
Methodology | Designing methods or building models | Conceptualization |
Project Administration | Managing and coordinating the work | Supervision |
Resources | Supplying materials, reagents, samples, animals or patients | Investigation |
Software | Writing or implementing code | Formal Analysis |
Supervision | Oversight and leadership of the research planning and execution | Project Administration |
Validation | Checking that results replicate or reproduce | Investigation |
Visualization | Preparing the figures and data presentation | Writing |
Writing (Original Draft Preparation) | Writing the first draft | Writing (Review and Editing) |
Writing (Review and Editing) | Critical review, commentary or revision | Writing (Original Draft Preparation) |
Source: PLOS ONE authorship page (CRediT taxonomy definitions), read September 23, 2026. The "easy to confuse with" column is our own.
A role is a description, not a ticket onto the byline. Under ICMJE, a person whose only contribution was raising the money or running the lab in general belongs in the acknowledgments, even though both jobs have CRediT names. If someone's only roles are Funding Acquisition or Resources, check the co-authorship criteria before the statement goes in.
How Nature and PLOS handle the statement
The two formats you will meet most often differ in who writes it and what it may say.
Question | Nature Portfolio journals | PLOS journals |
|---|---|---|
Is a statement required? | Yes, specifying the contribution of every author, including on review-type articles | Yes, entered at submission |
Format | A statement of responsibility; the level of detail can vary by field | CRediT roles, chosen per author |
Published with the paper? | Yes | Yes |
Equal contribution | One set of co-authors may be marked equal, and one set as jointly supervising; other equal contributions go in the statement | Not covered on the page we read |
Source: Nature Portfolio authorship policy and PLOS ONE authorship page, read September 23, 2026.
At Nature, that limit on equal-contribution markers is where many drafts need a rewrite. Three pairs of "these authors contributed equally" footnotes will not survive; one pair can, and the rest belongs in plain sentences inside the statement.
A template you can fill in
For a CRediT-style journal, one line per author, roles in a fixed order:
[Initials or full name]: [Role], [Role], [Role].
For a free-text journal, one sentence per contribution rather than per person:
[Initials] conceived the study. [Initials] and [Initials] designed the [assay, model or protocol]. [Initials] performed the [named experiments]; [Initials] collected the [named data] at [site]. [Initials] wrote the analysis code and performed the statistical analysis. [Initials] prepared the figures. [Initials] wrote the first draft, and all authors revised it critically and approved the final version.
The last sentence matters more than it looks. It is where the statement confirms that every author reviewed and approved the paper, which is part of what authorship means under ICMJE.
A vague statement, rewritten
The paper: a fictional four-author study of a drug's effect on liver fibrosis in mice, with an RNA-seq arm run by a collaborating core. The draft statement read:
All authors contributed to the study design, experiments, analysis and writing of the manuscript.
That sentence says nothing a reader can check, and it claims every author designed the study. Here is the same team, rewritten in CRediT form after matching each role to the methods:
A.R.: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation, Formal Analysis, Visualization, Writing (Original Draft Preparation).
J.K.: Investigation (histology and fibrosis scoring), Validation, Writing (Review and Editing).
M.O.: Software, Formal Analysis (RNA-seq), Data Curation, Writing (Review and Editing).
L.T.: Conceptualization, Supervision, Funding Acquisition, Writing (Review and Editing).
All authors approved the final version.
Three things changed. The histology scoring and the RNA-seq analysis now have named owners, so a reviewer who questions either knows who answers. L.T.'s Funding Acquisition and Supervision sit alongside Conceptualization and a revision role, which is what keeps the byline defensible. And the core facility technician who ran the sequencer, with no other role, moved to the acknowledgments.
What our review checks in the end matter
Across our pre-submission reviews, the contribution statement fails in predictable ways, and most of them can be caught by reading it against the methods and the acknowledgments.
The statement is missing. In the $99 Submission-Ready Dossier, a missing contributions section counts as a critical gap. The Dossier reports whether one exists and quotes it when it does, in the same audit that looks for the funding, competing-interest, ethics and data statements.
Every author did everything. "All authors contributed equally to all aspects" reads like a line nobody wrote on purpose. At a journal that publishes the statement, it also tells readers nothing about who ran which analysis.
A method has no owner. The methods describe a mass spectrometry run, a mouse cohort and a clinical sample set, and the statement names only two people doing "experiments." Give each named method an owner.
The acknowledgments describe an author's roles. Someone thanked for "study design and data interpretation" is being credited with Conceptualization and Formal Analysis. Either the byline is missing a name or the thanks are inflated.
Two versions of the statement disagree. At a journal that collects CRediT roles in the submission system, the manuscript file often still carries an older free-text paragraph from a previous target. The system says M.O. did the formal analysis; the paragraph in the file says A.R. did all the statistics. Delete one, or make them match word for word, before you upload.
The contribution lines contradict the figure legends. A legend credits imaging to a core facility, while the statement lists an author for Investigation on the same panels. Nothing is wrong with either, but a reviewer reading both will ask who generated the data. One clause in the statement ("J.K. scored the histology; imaging was performed by the institute core") settles it.
None of these checks settles who deserves a byline. The review only has the file in front of it, and a file does not show who ran which experiment.
Before you paste it in
- Every author on the byline appears in the statement, spelled and abbreviated the same way.
- Every experiment, dataset, code base and figure in the methods has at least one owner.
- Funding Acquisition, Supervision and Resources never appear as a person's only roles unless you have checked they meet the authorship criteria.
- Equal-contribution markers fit the target journal's limit.
- The statement confirms that all authors reviewed and approved the final version.
- The format matches the journal: CRediT roles in the submission system, a free-text paragraph in the end matter, or both.
For the people who helped but are not authors, see our guide to wording the acknowledgments; for the order of names on the byline, see our guide to deciding author order.
Readiness check
Run the scan to see how your manuscript scores on these criteria.
See score, top issues, and what to fix before you submit.
Think twice before you submit if
- The statement was copied from the last paper by the same team. Roles drift between projects, and the old paragraph will credit people for work this paper does not contain.
- Anyone on the byline has only Funding Acquisition, Supervision or Resources. Resolve their authorship first; the statement will not fix it.
- Two or more pairs are marked as equal contributors and the target is a Nature Portfolio journal. Collapse to one pair and describe the rest in the statement.
Frequently asked questions
It is a short section of a research paper that names every author and says what each one did. Nature Portfolio journals require one that specifies the contribution of every author and publish it with the paper. PLOS journals collect it at submission using the CRediT taxonomy and publish it with the final article.
CRediT defines 14 roles: Conceptualization, Data Curation, Formal Analysis, Funding Acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project Administration, Resources, Software, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing (Original Draft Preparation) and Writing (Review and Editing). An author usually holds several.
No. CRediT describes what people did; the authorship criteria decide who belongs on the byline. ICMJE, for example, says acquisition of funding or general supervision alone does not justify authorship, even though both are CRediT roles.
At Nature Portfolio journals, one set of co-authors can be marked as having contributed equally and one set as having jointly supervised the work. Any other equal contributions go in the author contribution statement itself. Other journals set their own limits, so check the target journal's instructions.
Many journals place it in the end matter, near the acknowledgments, funding and competing interests statements. Some, including PLOS, collect it in the submission system rather than the manuscript file. Follow the target journal's instructions for placement and format.
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