As a graduate student researcher and scholar, your reputation, future funding, and career opportunities are influenced by the work to which you have contributed and for which you have been given credit. Shared authorship on published papers is a standard practice and should be discussed and agreed upon by all contributors. Credit must be appropriately allocated through authorship or acknowledgement. If you are involved in collaborative research, it is also important to be clear on your discipline’s or research team’s criteria for determining the number and the order of authors on any publications.

The Tri-Agency Research Integrity Policy defines authors as “...all those and only those who have materially or conceptually contributed to, and share responsibility for, the contents of the publication or document.” Whether in a term paper, thesis, or academic journal, in addition to listing authors it is appropriate to acknowledge individuals and institutions that have supported your research. Support may be financial, intellectual, or practical. Fellow students, faculty members, the university and its staff, government agencies, industrial partners, and public or private individuals are examples of those who may have facilitated your research and who should be acknowledged with their consent.

Consult the following documents and web pages for more information:

• Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). Tri-Agency Framework: Responsible Conduct of Research. (See especially Section 2.1, Tri-Agency Research Integrity Policy.)
• School of Graduate Studies, Memorial University of Newfoundland. (2000). Responsibilities of Faculty Supervisors and Graduate Students.
• School of Graduate Studies, Memorial University of Newfoundland.  Theses and reports.

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Next: Bibliographic accuracy
When preparing a course paper, work term report, thesis, or scholarly article, acknowledge all sources of information, directly quoted or paraphrased, in a complete and accurate bibliography...
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