There are other levels of attribution in a paper. Those who make a contribution to the project, but not of a significant intellectual nature, are generally listed in the Acknowledgments. This would include funding agencies and those who provided technical assistance.

Those whose prior work was of significance to the project are generally discussed in the introduction and suitable references are cited. Failure to cite prior work properly in the discipline is a significant source of irritation to those who performed that work. It may also mislead the reader into thinking the author is responsible for more of the reported work than is actually the case.

It is expected that authors of a paper have made a good-faith literature search in order to locate relevant prior research. The increasing availability of electronic indexing services makes comprehensive literature searches more manageable. Additionally, peer reviewers are encouraged to bring relevant, prior work to the attention of the authors.