# Transparent Attribution of Contributions to Research: Aligning Guidelines to Real-Life Practices
## 6 Moving Forward to Accurate, Open Allocation of Credit  
CRediT is well intentioned but flawed, and should be revised to reflect as many real-life contributions to research as possible. The changes we propose here, although small, would make the allocation of credit and responsibility for editorial and technical support substantially more transparent, and would reflect current real-world practices more accurately. However, more work could be done, especially to obtain input from non-author contributors. First and foremost, CRediT should be applicable not only to byline authors but to all contributors, as it was initially conceived. If this cannot be achieved, the ability of the CRediT taxa to accurately and transparently reflect all contributors to published research will remain limited. CRediT has been endorsed by some research publishing experts, and the list of journals using it seems to be increasing. Although there are hopes that it will remove ambiguities about specific contributions and preempt potential authorship conflicts [62; 63; 64; 53], evidence for these outcomes is lacking at present. Before CRediT data are used to study authorship trends, evaluate researchers, or make funding and promotion decisions, empirical research is needed to determine how accurate and meaningful the data are. Authors' self-attributed CRediT roles may be inflated, as research on authorship disclosure has shown that binary (yes/no) tick boxes lead authors to choose more roles than they declare in free-text statements of authorship [65; 66]. A comparison of CRediT with guidance from medical writers' associations yields interesting insights. The guideline \"Good Publication Practice for Communicating Company-Sponsored Medical Research\" explains how to transparently acknowledge medical writers and other editorial professionals [5], while the \"Joint Position Statement on the Role of Professional Medical Writers\" provides criteria for distinguishing between the roles of authors and contributors of non-author editorial support [46; 67]. These guidelines are clear and straightforward to implement, and have been widely accepted by stakeholders in health science research publication and ethics (e.g., [[https://www.ismpp.org/gpp3-endorsements](https://www.ismpp.org/gpp3-endorsements)]([https://www.ismpp.org/gpp3-endorsements](https://www.ismpp.org/gpp3-endorsements))). Their success is due in large part to the labor-intensivebut ultimately effective process of drafting, consultation and revision involving non-author contributors together with journal editors, industry representatives and publication policy experts. A similar effort may help CRediT to achieve its goals. The ICMJE recommendations also make room for writing assistance in the Acknowledgments section [56]. Although it is not known whether this has increased the frequency of such acknowledgments, it has probably raised authors' awareness that gatekeepers and readers expect and value transparency. In our experience it has also encouraged writing and editing professionals to request or require acknowledgment for their work, at least in manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals that implement ICMJE's advice. Whether guidelines such as the ICMJE recommendations and CRediT have a direct impact on how researchers document non-author contributions in the published record is an area that awaits further study. Perhaps further along, a new taxon could even be considered for journal peer reviewers, who also make important contributions (sometimes, but not always, acknowledged) to the final quality of published research reports. Unfortunately, in disciplines other than biomedicine there are few shared spaces such as professional organizations, meetings, conferences or projects where editorial support professionals, researchers and policy makers (e.g., publishers, funders and universities) can work together to develop guidelines for accurate, transparent attribution of credit--and responsibility--to non-author collaborators.