Authorship in Research
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Q: How to draft the authorship contribution statement
The journal requires that I should provide an «Authorship Contribution» statement when I submit my paper. But the journal website does not provide any template or guidelines about this. What should I do? How can I ensure that the authorship contribution statement I create follows the necessary guidelines?
Asked on 26 May, 2015
Many journals ask for a statement mentioning the individual contributions of authors in a multi-author paper. While some journals provide a form or a template for this purpose, others leave it open for authors. You can check online for a contributorship template provided by some other journal. That will give you a fairly good idea of what to cover. Here is one such template that you can have a look at.
Based on the ICMJE guidelines for authorship criteria, what you need to do is clarify how each author has contributed to the paper. You need to create a list assigning a person’s name against the following roles or tasks:
Note that the names of all the co-authors should be written for the last point. Once you draft the contributorship statement, make sure to get it signed by all the co-authors before you submit it to the journal.
Answered by Editage Insights on 30 Mar, 2017
Guidelines for Author Statements
Contents
Introduction
Author Statements or Word of God (WoG) is an essential part of any series as the creator of the series are giving their own inputs, views, opinions, and ideologies on the series they created and thus, it helps the regular readers/viewers/players of a fictional series to get the answers to their questions. Sometimes, their statements are contradicted by the showings of their own series and thus it is often called Death of the Author (DotA) where their statements are discarded. (WoG) is treated differently in different versus battle sites and in our site, the acceptance and treatment of (WoG) is also different. As such, the following page will help people understand the rules and guidelines of how a statement from an Author shall be accepted for the verses and characters in TSW.
What counts as Word of God
A norm within the online debate community, especially pertaining to vs battles between characters, is that Word of God comes from only the creator of a series as they are the author who created the series and are knowledgeable about every single mechanic, characterization, themes, etc shown in the series. On the contrary, if a statement is made from someone who is involved in the creation of the series but is not the author (for example, the artist, the editor, etc.), then their statements pertaining to the series will not count as Word of God. However, this is approached on a case by case basis as it depends on the statement made, the connection of the individual with the author/creator, the creative involvement of the individual in the series, and so on. For example, if Yoshitaka Amano (the illustrator of Vampire Hunter D) states that according to him D is capable of destroying the Universe, it will not be counted as Word of God. However, if he says that the author Hideyuki Kikuchi himself told him that D is powerful enough to destroy the Universe, then it CAN BE taken into consideration. So we get an idea on what counts as Word of God which is generally the statements from the authors/creators of the series itself.
Validity and Applicability of Word of God
Now moving on, we talk about the application and validity of Word of God or WOG in the context of VS Battles. WOG statements only apply to the characters and verse mechanics of the series which the author has worked on and the statement is subject to scrutiny based on the tier of feats and powers displayed by the characters as anything above will simply be statement without evidence thus subject to Hitchen’s Razor in a debate. Simply put, WOG is only applicable for series where the author has worked on. In addition, Word of God is valid if their statements are backed up by the series itself.
Let’s say, for example, that in a VS Battle match between Son Goku (Dragon Ball Super) and Battler Ushiromiya, someone brings up a WoG statement from Akira Toriyama where the latter says that «No matter who the opponent is, Goku will always win as he can improve and evolve without any limits». Some may use this to claim that Goku will win against Battler since author states that Goku will simply beat his opponents no matter who it is while improving and evolving without any limits, however, this is wrong. Firstly, the WoG statement is only applicable for Dragon Ball franchise and applies to only the characters in the series. In a VS scenario, such type of statement’s validity is nulled as the basis of a vs match is determined by the powers, capabilities, and feats of the characters. Secondly, there is no character in Dragon Ball franchise that close comes to Battler’s level of power, haxes, etc. and moreover, Battler’s feats outweighs Goku’s feats by a wide margin with the latter having no answer to the sheer level of haxes and speed Battler posses. Thirdly, if we take the statement at face value where Goku keeps improving and evolving without any limits and give Goku Reactive Evolution, then it will only be limited to the extent he has shown to evolve and improve in the series. In the context of the matchup, Battler is a Transcendent+ Tier entity while Goku is simply Universe+ level. His verse caps at Low Multiverse canonically speaking and using that statement, he will only be Low Multiverse in tier even if he evolves beyond the Low Multiverse entities. As such, there is no logical scenario where Goku can beat Battler as Battler will simply negate Goku’s powers or erase him on a conceptual level due to the sheer difference in tier as well as feats.
Interviews
Interviews are an ideal way of getting «Word of God» due to their professional as well as somewhat official nature and is generally accepted most of the time. Interviews often involve the author of a series along with some other members of their team (Illustrator, Director, Assistant, Editor, etc) where the interviewer will ask them open-ended questions thereby extracting the opinion and qualitative information regarding a series from the author to gain a deeper insight regarding the series. However, interviews are not infallible as they are assessed on a case by case basis. For example lets look at the following interview with Kazuki Nakashima, the script-writer of Gurren Lagann on the cosmology of the series:
| “ | Interviewer: «Ninja Batman» is a so-called «time thing» in which Batman is transported to the Warring States period. In Japanese anime, there’s a restriction that if you change the past, the present will change, and I think people tend to be very cautious when it comes to time-altered anime. You don’t worry about that kind of thing, and you go out on a limb. Nakashima: That’s because it’s American comics. The world setting of the multiverse, or a universe full of universes, permeates the readership of American comics. And now, the time-modifying stuff is going to be the multiverse stuff, right? There’s a whole universe of all kinds of possibilities, so no matter what you do, you’re like, «Oh, that universe!» (laughs). The interpretation of the multiverse has advanced so rapidly in the last few decades that when we were children, it was only 4 dimensional, but now it is said to be 11 dimensional. Our job is to tell lies, so we take those theories and twist them into something interesting. Interviewer: Come to think of it, in «Gurren Lagann», there was a story about «quantum cosmology that exists by being observed». Nakashima: When I looked up cosmology at that time, I hadn’t read it for a while, so I found that it was very advanced. I was given the theory that the universe can be confirmed only if it is observed, and I set up the idea that there is a universe that can be created if we recognize it. The above interview talks about how Kazuki Nakashima was able to envision the cosmology of Gurren Lagann which follows Brane Cosmology where the Multiverse is 11-dimensional in nature with added Quantum Cosmology. This goes hand in hand with how the Cosmology was stated to contain 11 dimensions in the series itself. As such, this interview is valid and WoG confirms Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (verse) follows the Brane cosmology of 11D multiverse. Now lets look at another interview with the Comic Book writer Dan Jurgens when he was working in Marvel:
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