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Science is subject to a normative structure that includes how the contributions and interactions between scientists are rewarded. Authorship and citations have been the key elements within the reward system of science, whereas acknowledgements, despite being a well-established element in scholarly communication, have not received the same attention. The purpose of this paper is to put forward the bearing of acknowledgements in the humanities to bring to the foreground contributions and interactions that, otherwise, would remain invisible through traditional indicators of research performance.

The study provides a comprehensive framework to understanding acknowledgements as part of the reward system with a special focus on their value in the humanities as a reflection of intellectual indebtedness. The distinctive features of research in the humanities are outlined and the role of acknowledgements as a source of contributorship information is reviewed to support these assumptions.

“Peer interactive communication” is the prevailing support thanked in the acknowledgements of humanities, so the notion of acknowledgements as “super-citations” can make special sense in this area. Since single-authored papers still predominate as publishing pattern in this domain, the study of acknowledgements might help to understand social interactions and intellectual influences that lie behind a piece of research and are not visible through authorship.

Previous works have proposed and explored the prevailing acknowledgement types by domain. This paper focusses on the humanities to show the role of acknowledgements within the reward system and highlight publication patterns and inherent research features which make acknowledgements particularly interesting in the area as a reflection of the socio-cognitive structure of research.

The scale and nature of acknowledgement behaviour was investigated in four academic disciplines: history, philosophy, psychology and sociology. Data were derived from four high‐ranking scholarly journals over a twenty‐year period. More than 5,600 acknowledgements were classified using a six‐part typology. Cross‐disciplinary similarities and differences were observed. Populations of highly acknowledged individuals were identified for each discipline. The frequency distributions of acknowledgements exhibited high levels of concentration. Authors' acknowledgement behaviours were highly consistent.

New technologies allow for efficient dissemination of scientific knowledge objects (SKOs). Yet they are likely to transform SKOs as well. The aim of this paper is to propose a way to structure SKOs that allows for both a clear individuation of the main scientific contributions and a fine‐grained structure of credits and evaluation.

The authors review and analyze existing practices of structuring SKOs in different disciplines.

Provisionally considering the published paper as an atomic SKO, possible subatomic structures of SKOs are investigated. It is hypothesized that SKOs are meant to satisfy two separated but interdependent sets of constraints, one related to the contribution the SKO makes to the body of knowledge, and another related to the contribution the SKO makes to the reputation of its authors. It is hypothesized that existing SKO structures are not optimal for satisfying both sets of constraints at once.

A broader analysis may be needed that covers the totality of existing practices.

Guidelines are offered. This paper, including the present abstract, is an example of what the scientific paper of tomorrow could be like.

The paper proposes better apportioning of scientific credits and evaluation; substantive evolution of the academic publishing and credit attribution models.

The idea that the communication and evaluation function of a SKO are differently reflected in their structure is novel. The proposed fine‐grained credit attribution system is novel. The molecular/atomic/sub‐atomic distinction is a new way to fix the terminology.