CRediT Author Statement Generator
Build the author contribution statement journals ask for. List your authors, tick the CRediT roles each one performed — with lead, equal or supporting if your journal wants it — and copy the statement laid out by author or by role. Free, no sign-up.
| Role | Author 1 | Author 2 |
|---|---|---|
| Conceptualization | ||
| Data curation | ||
| Formal analysis | ||
| Funding acquisition | ||
| Investigation | ||
| Methodology | ||
| Project administration | ||
| Resources | ||
| Software | ||
| Supervision | ||
| Validation | ||
| Visualization | ||
| Writing – original draft | ||
| Writing – review & editing |
What each role means
- Conceptualization — Shaping the research idea and its goals and aims.
- Data curation — Annotating, cleaning and maintaining the data — and any code needed to read it — for use and reuse.
- Formal analysis — Statistical, mathematical, computational or other formal analysis of the data.
- Funding acquisition — Securing the money that paid for the project.
- Investigation — Running the experiments or collecting the data or evidence.
- Methodology — Developing or designing the methods; building models.
- Project administration — Managing and coordinating the planning and running of the research.
- Resources — Providing materials, samples, patients, animals, instruments, computing or other tools.
- Software — Writing, implementing and testing the code and algorithms the study relied on.
- Supervision — Oversight and leadership of the research, including mentoring outside the core team.
- Validation — Checking that the results and experiments can be replicated or reproduced.
- Visualization — Preparing the figures and other visual presentation of data.
- Writing – original draft — Writing the first draft, including substantive translation.
- Writing – review & editing — Critical review, commentary or revision by members of the research group, before or after publication.
Your CRediT statement
Enter at least one author's name and tick a role to build the statement.
How to Use the CRediT Author Statement Generator
- 1. List the authors. Enter every author in byline order — the by-author statement follows that order. Add or remove rows as you need.
- 2. Tick their roles. In the grid, tick each role an author performed. One person usually holds several roles, and several people can share one. Open What each role means under the grid when a task could fit two roles.
- 3. Add degrees only if asked. Switch on the degree of contribution to mark each tick lead, equal or supporting. Leave it off unless your journal requests it.
- 4. Choose the layout and copy. Pick By author (the layout Elsevier shows) or By role (the layout PLOS publishes), full names or initials, then copy. The copy keeps the bold labels when you paste into Word or Google Docs.
What a CRediT Statement Is and Who Asks for It
CRediT — the Contributor Roles Taxonomy — replaces the free-text "author contributions" paragraph with 14 fixed roles, from Conceptualization to Writing – review & editing. It is maintained by NISO as the standard ANSI/NISO Z39.104-2022, and the official role list is at credit.niso.org. Because every journal uses the same 14 terms, contributions can be indexed, compared and credited across publishers instead of being buried in prose.
Elsevier asks authors to supply a CRediT author statement during submission; it appears above the acknowledgments of the published paper, and the corresponding author is responsible for making sure it is accurate and agreed by all authors. PLOS adopted CRediT for its journals and publishes each article's contributions role by role. Many other publishers collect the same roles through their submission systems. Requirements still vary — some want initials, some want the statement in the manuscript, some only in an online form — so check your target journal's instructions for authors before you paste.
Two habits trip people up. CRediT describes what each person did; it does not decide who counts as an author. And NISO's implementation guidance recommends describing everyone who contributed, including people thanked in the acknowledgments — so a technician or a statistician who is not an author can still be given a role there.
Example: The Same Contributions in Both Layouts
Press Try an example to load three illustrative authors. With full names and no degrees, the generator produces these two statements:
By author (Elsevier layout)
Maya Okafor: Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Methodology, Writing – original draft. Daniel Ruiz: Data curation, Investigation, Software, Visualization, Writing – review & editing. Priya Raman: Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Project administration, Supervision, Writing – review & editing.
By role (PLOS layout)
Conceptualization: Maya Okafor, Priya Raman. Data curation: Daniel Ruiz. Formal analysis: Maya Okafor. Funding acquisition: Maya Okafor, Priya Raman. Investigation: Daniel Ruiz. Methodology: Maya Okafor. Project administration: Priya Raman. Software: Daniel Ruiz. Supervision: Priya Raman. Visualization: Daniel Ruiz. Writing – original draft: Maya Okafor. Writing – review & editing: Daniel Ruiz, Priya Raman.
Switch on the degree of contribution and the shared roles gain their qualifiers — the by-role statement then begins "Conceptualization: Maya Okafor (lead), Priya Raman (supporting)." Roles are always listed in the standard's order, which is alphabetical, and Resources and Validation drop out because nobody in the example holds them.
Common Mistakes
- Treating a role as proof of authorship. The ICMJE criteria still decide authorship: a substantial contribution, drafting or critical revision, final approval, and accountability for the work. ICMJE notes that acquiring funding or general supervision alone does not qualify someone as an author.
- Renaming the roles. Write "Writing – review & editing", not "Editing" or "Proofreading". The value of CRediT is the fixed vocabulary; paraphrased roles cannot be matched.
- Leaving a contributor without a role. Everyone you list should hold at least one role. The generator flags any named author with none.
- Giving everyone everything. Ticking all 14 roles for every author tells a reader nothing. Credit the work each person actually did.
- Mixing layouts. Elsevier's example lists each author followed by their roles; PLOS publishes each role followed by names. Use the layout your journal shows, and the same one throughout.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What are the 14 CRediT roles?
- Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Software, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, and Writing – review & editing. They are defined in ANSI/NISO Z39.104-2022, and journals expect them written exactly that way.
- Can one author have more than one CRediT role?
- Yes — most authors hold several. NISO's guidance is explicit that one person can be assigned several roles and that the same role can be assigned to several people. Tick every role a person genuinely performed.
- What do lead, equal and supporting mean in CRediT?
- They qualify a role that several people share. Lead marks one of the people who led that work, supporting marks someone who contributed but did not lead, and equal means everyone who held the role contributed equally. NISO describes the degree of contribution as optional and not part of the standard itself, so add it only when your journal asks.
- Who writes the CRediT author statement?
- Usually the corresponding or submitting author assembles it, but every author should agree to it. Elsevier states that the corresponding author is responsible for ensuring the descriptions are accurate and agreed by all authors.
- Where does the CRediT statement go?
- It depends on the journal. Elsevier collects it during submission and prints it above the acknowledgments; PLOS gathers the roles in its submission system and publishes them with the article. Some journals want a short author contributions section in the manuscript file instead, so follow the instructions for authors.
- Should I use full names or initials?
- Use whatever your journal shows. Elsevier's example uses full names, and some journals print initials such as M.O. and D.R. If two authors share initials, write full names or distinguish them by hand — the generator warns you when that happens.