For many disciplines, the first author is the person who has made the most important contribution. Co-authors can be ranked in order of decreasing importance of their contribution or in alphabetical order if their contributions were equal. The second or last author may be the second most important contributor, the direct supervisor or the research leader, depending on the discipline. Note that all supervisors and research leaders mentioned as co-author should have made a substantial contribution to the manuscript in at least two of the above-mentioned activities.
It is recommended, based on expected research activities, to agree early in the research process on criteria and tasks for first authorship and the order of co-authors. Contributors should collectively decide on authorship and the order in which authors appear on the manuscript. Clarify any issue or conflict regarding authorship before submitting a manuscript to a journal or a publisher. Adding or removing authors and changing the order of authors is often very difficult once a manuscript has been accepted for publication.
Authors can only use an affiliation in a manuscript when a significant contribution has been made from work associated with that affiliation. An author may be justified to use double affiliations for a manuscript. However, it is unethical to list affiliations from which no significant scientific contribution to the manuscript has been made, even in case a formal relationship exists or existed with that affiliation. Most confusion arises in those cases where an author, besides her/his UON affiliation, also has a formal work-related relationship with an institute outside UON. In this case, the following guidelines apply:
Note - Your affiliation in the manuscript should be the institution where you conducted the research. You should also include details of any funding received. If you have changed affiliation since completing the research, your new affiliation can be acknowledged in a note.