Authors of the paper have the following responsibilities:
If research involves health, safety, security or other risk to researchers, describe any risk management plans undertaken.
Scientific paper authorship is a highly contentious matter in research ethics.
Consider the CRediT - Contributor Roles Taxonomy - for understanding different authors' contributions, https://credit.niso.org/
The pressure to include individuals as authors who may not have made a substantial contribution, but have provided assistance or are experts in their field, gives rise to an ethical problem known as honorary authorship. Another problem, ghost authorship, is the omission of individuals who have made significant contributions, which often occurs to conceal financial ties to private companies. In order to uphold the integrity and accountability in authorship, national and international committees established specific authorship policies:
The current version recommends that authorship be based on meeting the following four criteria:
(adapted from Resnik DB, Tyler AM, Black JR, Kissling G. Authorship policies of scientific journals. J Med Ethics. 2016 Mar;42(3):199-202. doi: 10.1136/medethics-2015-103171):
When publishing, check with individual publisher's guidelines, e.g.:
Who is the corresponding author?
The corresponding authors of a paper is a person to whom readers can address questions, requests for materials, or even suggestions for further work. This person often is the Principal Investigator (PI) of the project, who has a broad vision on the research topic of a submitted manuscript. This individual also handles manuscript submission and communication with the journal. In the published version of the manuscript, this person will have a designation "corresponding author" and asterisk next to their name.
Can there be several corresponding authors?
Yes! In our increasingly complex and collaborative work, it has become ever more likely that a single author cannot answer every detailed question about publication, thus there may be more than one corresponding author. Many journals allow authors to declare equal contributions to the published research, e.g., Nature. Unfortunately, not many journals provide a clear guidance on this practice. It is also important that "contributed equally" designation is assigned honestly and accurately to reflect scientific contributions and not for career advancement.
How to cite papers with equal contribution authors?
The purpose of citation is to provide a link to the published manuscript. With this in mind, and considering the workflows for indexing databases, the best way to cite manuscripts is exactly as they appear in the published version. In non-scholarly documentation (e.g., CV), it is appropriate to cite manuscript as it is with a note explaining an equal authors' contribution (if desired).
First, second, or last?
Different disciplines have different rules about authors' placement. General rule is that the person who writes the main draft of the manuscript is placed as the first author. The first author is not necessarily the corresponding author. If the PI is not the first author, they are usually, the last, although there might be exceptions. Some groups choose to place authors in the order corresponding to the amount of their contributions. Others prefer simply placing authors in the alphabetical order, e.g. in this particle physics paper with more than 5,000 authors. In case of equal author contributions, the second author may have contributed as much as the first one, but this will not be obvious in indexed databases. It is important for journals to provide guidance if they allow manuscripts to state that some authors have contributed equally to avoid abuse of this practice. The current research evaluation practices consider the first authorship as an indicator of being an independent researcher and an adept writer, while the second, the 3rd, etc. order on the authors' list indicate being a good team player and a skillful researcher.