Do citation conventions influence coauthorship patterns?

The main purpose of contributing to radiologic publications should be to advance the state of knowledge or increase awareness of issues useful in radiologic practice and research. According to experts on medical writing, however, the pride of discovery and the communication of scientific information for the enrichment of public knowledge are not the sole motives of authors. Success in the profession, prestige, and tenure have long been associated with prolific publishing in peer-reviewed journals. A proof of this association is the documented rise through recent years in the number of authors per paper. The phenomenon has been attributed in part to the increasing complexity and labor intensiveness of biomedical research, but this speculation remains unproved, and it is believed that often the allocation of authorship has a volitional component.