Rennie, Yank, andEmanuel (1997) that the distinction between the two modesof credit allocation is inherently artificial. Consequently,they have argued for explicit description of all individualcontributions as a means of eliminating ambiguity. Such aproposal would remove both authorship and acknowledg-ment from the frame, a really quite significant break withscholarly publishing tradition. This alternative amounts to aradical model of authorship attribution in contrast to thestandard model

Some medical commentators (Rennie, Yank, &Emanuel, 1997, p. 582) have advocated abandoning theconcept of author altogether in favor of ‘contributors’ and‘guarantors,’ thereby freeing us “from the historical andemotional connotations of authorship.”