Authorship Criteria

ETERNAL: English Teaching Journal follows the authorship recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Authorship credit must reflect a genuine intellectual contribution to the work.

1. Who qualifies as an author

Each person listed as an author must meet all of the following criteria:

  1. Made a substantial contribution to the conception or design of the study, or to the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data;
  2. Drafted the manuscript or revised it critically for important intellectual content;
  3. Approved the final version to be published; and
  4. Agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work, including its accuracy and integrity.

Contributors who do not meet all four criteria (e.g., those who only provided language editing, technical help, data collection assistance, funding, or general supervision) should be named in the Acknowledgements section, not as authors.

2. Corresponding author

  • One author is designated as the corresponding author and handles all communication with the editorial office during submission, peer review, and publication.
  • The corresponding author confirms that all co-authors have seen and approved the final manuscript and agree to its submission.
  • The corresponding author must provide a valid institutional e-mail address and is encouraged to provide an ORCID iD.

3. Gift, guest, and ghost authorship

ETERNAL does not accept gift/guest authorship (listing someone who did not contribute) or ghost authorship (omitting someone who made a substantial contribution). Generative AI tools cannot be listed as authors (see our Generative AI Policy).

4. Changes to authorship

The list and order of authors should be finalised before submission. Any request to add, remove, or reorder authors after submission must:

  • be sent by the corresponding author to the editor, stating the reason for the change; and
  • be accompanied by written consent from all authors, including the author being added or removed.

Changes to authorship are not permitted after the manuscript has been accepted, except in exceptional circumstances approved by the Editor-in-Chief. Disputes are handled according to COPE guidance.

5. Author contribution statement (CRediT)

Manuscripts with more than one author must include an Author Contributions statement before the References, using the CRediT taxonomy, for example:

Author 1: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing – Original Draft. Author 2: Data Curation, Formal Analysis. Author 3: Supervision, Writing – Review & Editing.

CRediT roles: Conceptualization; Data curation; Formal analysis; Funding acquisition; Investigation; Methodology; Project administration; Resources; Software; Supervision; Validation; Visualization; Writing – original draft; Writing – review & editing.

6. Authorship statement

At submission, the corresponding author declares on behalf of all authors that the manuscript is original, has not been published or submitted elsewhere, that all listed authors meet the criteria above, and that all authors agree with the content and the order of authorship.