The original query I posted:
I'm mentoring a graduate student who has several publications already
(including one in Ecology). I looked up the student's name on Web of
Science and realized that the name (first and last only) that was
used for publication is shared with a large number of researchers
(although not ecologists), making it difficult or at least time
consuming to do a citation analysis. I know of at least two other
(male) ecologists who have either changed their name (early in
career) or added made-up middle initials on publications to
distinguish themselves from others with a very common name. It turns
out the student I'm mentoring does have two middle names but did not
use them in the early publications, and is now concerned about the
consequences of changing the name on their future publications. My
thought was that to facilitate future reviewers or employers who are
doing a citation analysis it would be better to start using the full
name with middle initials, and then add a note on the CV to indicate
that publications prior to 2010 were with the shorter name. What
advice would you offer?
David Inouye
And responses I got (some off-list)
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Hi David, on some of my early publications I just used my first initials and
originally they showed up under a different name in Science Citation Index
(yes this was the days when it only was a print index). Since they've gone
electronic you can write them and ask them to switch citations into the new
name. On one occasion I had no trouble doing this and on the next they
forgot and I didn't prod them. cheers, g2
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This student could use Hartzings Publish or Perish to do the same thing. It
may give you a slightly different number for h than will ISI but it is close
enough for everyday purposes. Both systems make equally signficant, but
different, errors in the calculation in that ISI leaves out so many journals
it is a joke and HPP sometimes splits an article into two, cutting your
citations. However, HPP gives you more options to knock out the other names
and incorrectly assigned papers.
www.hartzing.com
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I too am a graduate student with several publications. In my
experience, how your name is displayed depends on the journal. Some
journals don't print middle initials, some print the full middle
name(s). Similarly, some journals abbreviate the first name and
others print it out. Scientific search engines will pickup on some
of these differences and screen their outputs depending on your
search terms. The majority of my publications will show up in a
basic name search, but not all of them. To find my publications
(that are in journals that the search engine has access to), I search
my last name with a keyword(s). Because of this, I'm not sure if
actively trying to change the name is worthwhile. The CV should list
all the publications anyway.
*********************************
In Web of Science, one can refine author searches based on
institution etc., so as long as the student checks the boxes for all
institutions s/he authored from, it should be ok if s/he decides not
to change nomenclature. So one option would be to keep the same name
but always refining based on institution, for example. Kind of a
life-long pain in the butt.
It might be easier to add initials now for future referencing by
others. To quote an all-time great song, the student has "only just
begun" :). In 10 years the abbreviations on the articles now won't
make much difference as long as the person is publishing - what's
wrong with having to add on the present five articles to a list of 50
more to calculate the H index later on? For CVs and for job
applications the student simply needs to highlight the name change in
the list of publications.
My advice to the student would be: do you plan on publishing a lot
more articles and become an academic? If yes, then make sure you like
the way your name is popping up on the web.
Hope this helps.
*************************************
Leave it be and take credit for all the others' research with the
same name? :-)
****************************************
It is also worth noting that young female scientists who get married
and contemplate changing their last name face a similar issue. When I
got married and took my husbands name i was advised to make a note of
the change on my CV and include publications under both names on my
CV with my name (before and after the change) bolded or underlined.
That seems to be the common approach used my my other married female
graduate students and postdocs.
Brooke Baythavong
P.S. I also got the added benefit of getting a name totally unlike
others currently publishing ;).
****************************************
or you can use:
http://www.researcherid.com/
to add all your publications which might be under different names,
your affiliations (including former ons) etc...
it uses ISI Web of Science as a database and you can check your
citations like in Web of Science (it is also a Thomson Reuters product)
********************************************
I'm not sure about the name change issue but one solution for the
student may be to sign up for a web of science ResearcherID:
http://isiwebofknowledge.com/researcherid/
It gives you a unique number that can then be provided to folks (or
they can find it through web of science) to clarify what papers are
yours and make getting those summary stats easier. I haven't actually
done it myself but have noticed it on a few people's web pages and
used it to find literature from people with common names. It might
help.
*********************************************
That makes total sense to me... I am not sure how web of science deals with
2 middle initials, you might look in to that, and pick only one if 2
confuses the searches. My middle initial is made up ;-)
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I don't have much experience in the citation field, but I would have
a suggestion for you and your students. There has been a recent
cascade of journals adopting the DOI system. I would advise you to
advise their students to:
a) create a professional web site that has a single page dedicated to
publications,
b) that each publication link the DOI, and
c) the web site be indexed with the search engines (follow the
directions from Google, Yahoo, Microsoft on indexing for their search engines).
Journals are also increasing their "forward citation" databases, all
linked to DOI. Thus, having a complete list of DOIs would give
people an increasingly powerful starting place for citation
analysis. I find that the citation databases are actually behind
Google Scholar in finding citations.
I don't claim it's the best, but you can see what I do at:
http://faculty.washington.edu/jlutz/index_Publications.htm
