Miscrediting

Miscrediting is the act of attributing credit, recognition, or authorship to the wrong person or source. It can involve misattributing ideas, discoveries, quotations, or contributions, and may occur in academic, journalistic, artistic, or organizational contexts. Miscrediting can be unintentional, resulting from errors in record keeping or citation practices, or intentional, arising from bias, conflict of interest, or deception.

Common forms include incorrect authorship order, omitting contributors (ghost authorship), or crediting someone who did not contribute (gift authorship). In journalism or reporting, miscrediting can involve attributing a quote, fact, or image to the wrong source. In music and art, incorrect credit for composition, performance, or ownership can occur. In science, citation errors or misattribution of findings undermine scholarly credit.

Causes include ambiguous collaboration structures, inadequate contribution statements, or mistakes in manuscript handling; pressures to publish; carelessness in editing; deliberate manipulation for prestige or funding.

Consequences include reputational harm, disrupted careers, retractions, loss of funding, and legal or ethical sanctions. Miscrediting can erode trust in institutions and the integrity of the record.

Prevention relies on clear contribution declarations, standardized attribution frameworks such as the CRediT taxonomy, use of persistent identifiers like ORCID, careful citation practices, and editorial verification. When miscrediting is discovered, corrections, retractions, or apologies and policy changes may be issued to restore accuracy.