Table Info

Terminology	Definition	Examples	Prevalence
Gift or guest author	Honorary author	Senior academician	Very common (> 50%)
Ghost author	Paid to not author paper	Sponsor payroll	Common (20–50%)
Gold author	Paid to author the paper	Allen’s vodka man	Uncommon (5–20%)
Fake author	Does not exist	S. Bestiale	Rare (< 5%)

Declarations

Author contributions

EP: Conceptualization, Writing—original draft, Writing—review & editing.

Conflicts of interest

Eugenio Picano who is the Editor-in-Chief of Exploration of Cardiology had no involvement in the decision-making or the review process of this manuscript.

Ethical approval

Not applicable.

Consent to participate

Not applicable.

Consent to publication

Not applicable.

Availability of data and materials

Not applicable.

Funding

Not applicable.

Copyright

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