Authorship Criteria

Eligibility for authorship

Authorship is reserved for individuals who make a substantial contribution to the conception or design of the study, data collection or development, analysis or interpretation, development of methods or tools, or the drafting and intellectual revision of the manuscript. Every author must approve the final version, agree to its submission to MESIL, and accept responsibility for the integrity and accuracy of the work for which they are accountable.

Corresponding author and author order

The corresponding author serves as the main contact with the editor and must ensure that all eligible authors are listed, the author order has been agreed, and every author has approved the submitted version. Administrative assistance, funding alone, or the provision of facilities without a substantial scholarly contribution does not by itself qualify a person for authorship; such contributions may be acknowledged with the person's consent.

Changes to authorship

A request to add or remove an author or change the author order after submission must include a reason and written approval from all authors. The change requires editorial approval before it is implemented. Guest, honorary, or ghost authorship is not acceptable.

Use of AI tools

Artificial-intelligence tools and large language models cannot be listed as authors. If such tools are used substantially to draft text, create images, process data, or perform analysis, authors must disclose the use and its role in the appropriate section. Authors remain fully responsible for the content, accuracy, citations, originality, and ethical compliance of the manuscript.