Up for grabs — Authors are a dime a dozen: The problem of multiple authors

AIM: To outline some of the major ethical problems related to multiple authorship. METHODS: A survey of the literature, data collected over the years, regarding multiple authors, e.g., definition, contribution, ethical behavior and guidelines, and personal experience were the primary inputs. RESULTS: Despite the efforts of a number of editors' organizations, there still is a major problem in the attribution of authors' credits to those who had nothing to do with the writing. CONCLUSIONS: The solution to this problem may be found in one of two ways: strict enforcement of standards of authorship by journal editors, i.e., rejection of articles, no matter how good they may appear to be, because they violate these standards, and/or adoption of authorship standards as understood by commercial publishers.