Skip to Main Content
Purdue University Purdue Logo Purdue Libraries

Introduction to Scholarly Communication

Intended for graduate students, this guide provides essential information for graduate students to maximize the impact of their scholarly endeavors.

What is name authority?

The selection of a single way that your name will appear in all publications. This action when taken proactively assists other researchers to identify all publications written by you in all databases and web sources. 

Why does name authority matter?

  • Problems of name authority include:
  • Inconsistent name formats caused by the authors themselves or editors
  • Various transliteration systems, especially where different non-Roman alphabet names result in the same transliterated Roman alphabet name.
  • Legal name changes
  • Cultural variants in the position of surnames
  • Compound or hyphenated names
  • The sheer volume of scholarly materials
  • Highly similar names of individuals sometimes doing similar work at the same institution.
  • The large number of common names, especially certain surnames in many cultures.

Picking your authoritative name

ORCID/ContributorID – IEEE/IET endorsed; PURR/HUB integrated

Action Items

Register your authoritative name.