Adding co-authors after acceptance I am writing a paper, need some review. I want to send it to IEEE, without the name of my co-authors. I might get acceptance. I need to know, in that case, will I be allowed to add my co-authors or not?
I am writing a paper, need some review. I want to send it to IEEE, without the name of my co-authors.


Short answer: Hell no!



Depending on the editorial policies of the venue you submit, they may or may not allow to add co-authors during the review process. Some may even accept you to add co-authors after acceptance of the paper.

However, note that in all cases, it is unethical not to have a correct/honest list of co-authors at time of the first submission. All persons who have made significant scientific (or “intellectual”) contributions to the work should be co-authors in the submitted version of the paper.

“Hiding” co-authors during the first submission, even if you intend to add them at a later point, is a clear ethical violation. It probably also violates the journal's (or conference's) policy, which typically stresses the importance of having an appropriate authors' list (and even sometimes provides criteria for authorship).

The reason that editors may allow you to add authors is for special cases. The main reason why it would be used is when, during revision of the work to address reviewers' comments, someone who wasn't a co-author of the initial manuscript has been brought onto the team. For example, if you asked someone to ran some extra analyses and his contribution warrants authorship of the revised manuscript.