JMMC follows the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) guidelines. The ICMJE recommends that authorship be based on the following four criteria:

1. Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work, or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
2. Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
3. Final approval of the version to be published; AND
4. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work, ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Contributors who meet fewer than all four criteria should not be listed as authors, but should be acknowledged.

Those whose contributions do not justify authorship may be acknowledged individually, or together as a group under a single heading (e.g., "Clinical Investigators" or "Participating Investigators"), with their specific contributions noted (e.g., "served as scientific advisor," "critically reviewed the study proposal," "collected data," "provided and cared for study patients," "participated in writing or technical editing of the manuscript").

It is important to note that:

• Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group, alone, does not justify authorship.
• All persons designated as authors should qualify for authorship, and all those who qualify should be listed.
• Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content.
• No addition, deletion, or change to the sequence of authorship is permitted once the signed Undertaking Form is received. See JMMC's Undertaking Form for the formal authorship declaration required of all authors.

 

Corresponding Author
The corresponding author takes primary responsibility for communication with the journal throughout the submission, peer review, and publication process, and should ensure that:

• All administrative requirements — including authorship details, ethics committee approval, clinical trial registration documentation, and disclosures of relationships and activities — are properly completed and reported.
• They remain available throughout submission and peer review to respond promptly to editorial queries, and remain available after publication to respond to critiques of the work and to any requests from the journal for data or additional information.

 

Deceased Authors
A deceased author is indicated with a dagger symbol (†) beside their name, with a footnote stating that the author is deceased and giving the date of death.