Authorship Criteria

HEXAGRO follows the authorship recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and the guidance of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Everyone listed as an author must meet all four criteria below:

  1. Substantial contribution to the conception or design of the work, or to the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data.
  2. Drafting the manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content.
  3. Final approval of the version to be published.
  4. Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work, including its accuracy and integrity.

People who contributed but do not meet all four criteria (for example, providing funding, general supervision, technical assistance, data collection only, or language editing) should be thanked in the Acknowledgements section, not listed as authors.

Corresponding author

The corresponding author submits the manuscript, communicates with the journal on behalf of all authors, ensures that all authors have approved the submission and any revisions, and remains available to respond to questions after publication.

Author contribution statement

Manuscripts with more than one author should include a short Author Contributions statement before the References, preferably using the CRediT taxonomy (for example: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing).

Unacceptable authorship practices

  • Gift or guest authorship: listing a person who does not meet the criteria.
  • Ghost authorship: omitting a person who meets the criteria.
  • AI tools as authors: AI tools cannot be authors (see the AI Policy).

Changes in authorship

The list and order of authors should be final at submission. Any addition, removal, or reordering of authors before acceptance requires a written request from the corresponding author explaining the reason, together with the signed agreement of all authors, including any author being added or removed. After publication, changes are made only through a correction notice (see Retraction, Correction, Complaints and Appeals). Authorship disputes are handled according to COPE guidance.

Authors are encouraged to register and link an ORCID iD.