Research assistants: Scientific credit and recognized authorship.

Key points: Research assistants are frequently excluded from authorship for several reasons—including the perception that they merely provide paid administrative help.Authorship criteria should be based on the people who are both shapers and doers rather than the ICMJE recommendations which can be differently interpreted.The pressure for single‐authored papers in some disciplines may lead to the exclusion of substantive contributors from authorship lists.The CRediT taxonomy is a preferable means of recognizing and rewarding authors but may find resistance of those unwilling to disclose exact contributions.Publishers can assist in recognizing all contributing authors by requiring affirmation that all who have significantly contributed are credited as authors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]