Authorship guidelines in 30 bioethics journals
| Journal | Author | Not an author | Acknowledge | Describing contribution | Responsibility | Conceptual versus empirical | Total categories |
| 1. Accountability in Research | N | N | N | N | N | N | 0 |
| 2. American Journal of Bioethics | Y | N | N | N | Y | N | 2 |
| 3. American Journal of Law and Medicine | N | N | N | N | N | N | 0 |
| 4. Bioethics | N | N | N | N | N | N | 0 |
| 5. Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics | N | N | N | N | N | N | 0 |
| 6. Christian Bioethics | Y | N | N | N | N | N | 1 |
| 7. Developing World Bioethics | N | N | N | N | N | N | 0 |
| 8. Environmental Ethics | N | N | N | N | N | N | 0 |
| 9. Hastings Center Report | N | N | N | N | N | N | 0 |
| 10. Healthcare Analysis | N | N | N | N | N | N | 0 |
| 11. HEC Forum | N | N | N | N | N | N | 0 |
| 12. Houston Journal of Health Law & Policy | N | N | N | N | N | N | 0 |
| 13. International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics | N | N | N | N | N | N | 0 |
| 14. IRB | N | N | N | N | N | N | 0 |
| 15. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics | N | N | N | N | N | N | 0 |
| 16. Journal of Bioethical Inquiry | Y | Y | Y | N | Y | N | 4 |
| 17. Journal of Clinical Ethics | Y | Y | Y | N | Y | N | 4 |
| 18. Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | N | 5 |
| 19. Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics | N | N | N | N | N | N | 0 |
| 20. Journal of Medical Ethics | Y | Y | Y | N | Y | N | 4 |
| 21. Journal of Medicine and Philosophy | Y | N | N | N | N | N | 1 |
| 22. Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal | N | N | N | N | N | N | 0 |
| 23. Medical Humanities | Y | Y | Y | N | Y | N | 4 |
| 24. Medicine, Healthcare and Philosophy | N | N | N | N | N | N | 0 |
| 25. New Genetics and Society | Y | N | N | N | N | N | 1 |
| 26. Nursing Ethics | N | N | N | N | N | N | 0 |
| 27. Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine | Y | Y | Y | Y | Y | N | 5 |
| 28. Science and Engineering Ethics | N | N | N | N | N | N | 0 |
| 29. Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics | Y | Y | N | N | N | Y | 3 |
| 30. Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law and Ethics | N | N | N | N | N | N | 0 |
| Totals yes (%) | 11 (36.7%) | 7 (23.3%) | 6 (20%) | 2 (6.7%) | 7 (23.3%) | 1 (3.3%) | – |
The websites of 30 bioethics journals were analysed for six different categories of authorship guidance. ‘Y’ refers to ‘Yes’— the journal satisfies provides this type of guidance. ‘N’ refers to ‘No’—the journal does not provide this type of guidance. The six categories are: Author, provides instructions on the contributions that merit authorship; Not an author, provides instructions on the contribution(s) that do not merit authorship; Acknowledge, provides instructions on the contribution(s) that merit an acknowledgement; Describing contribution, requires author(s) to describe their contributions to the research; Responsibility, requires author(s) to take responsibility for either their specific contribution to the manuscript or for the entire manuscript; Conceptual versus empirical, provides instructions on authorship for empirical versus conceptual research projects; Total categories, calculates the total number of ‘Y’ for each journal indicating the number of categories (out of six) each journal has satisfied.