[Refdb-users] no-formatting of given name(s) in some publications

[Marc H. <mar...@fr...>]

On Sat, 10 Jan 2004, Markus Hoenicka wrote:

> Could you provide an example of a publisher in the natural sciences or
> anywhere else whose author name formatting recommendations read: "Use
> whatever the bearer of that name prints on his letterhead?" Besides
> the difficulty to even obtain this information for all 100+ author
> names that an average bibliography carries, I'm not aware of any
> publisher allowing this. The result would be bibliography entries
> like:
>
> F.D. Roosevelt, Truman, Harry S., Chun Wu, Dwight D Eisenhower,
> Schmidt HHHW: A paper about something. Science 56:456, 2000.
>
> Do you think this is acceptable to anyone? Do you think this is
> readable? Is Chun the given name or the family name?

This discussion is and has always been about given names and so-called
"middlenames" only. That was even stated in one "Subject:". I find
somewhat dishonest to suddenly pretend that I want to dump the whole
difference between family name(s) and given name(s). Of course this
would be ridiculous. I slighty reformulate your question as if it
answered my messages:

> Could you provide an example of a publisher in the natural sciences
> or anywhere else whose author name formatting recommendations read:
> "Use whatever the bearer of that GIVEN name prints on his
> letterhead?"                     ^^^^^


I made some quick statistics about BibTeX stylesheets and related
investigation to try to answer this question. BibTeX is the de-facto
format & tool to manage bibliographies with LaTeX. LaTeX is this small
typesetting system used by millions of people. BibTeX does not know
what is a "middlename" (just like most formats). It knows only 4
parts:  - "von"
         - last name(s)
         - first name(s)
         - suffix (e.g. "Jr")


All BibTeX stylesheets I have seen either do format the _given_
name(s):
- "as is" from the BibTeX file (their "database") {ff}
- abbreviate it and period-ize it  {f.}

The BibTeX code for printing the given name(s) "as is" is {ff}, while
the code for abbreviating the given name(s) is {f.} or similar. See:
 <http://www.eeng.dcu.ie/local-docs/btxdocs/btxhak/btxhak/node5.html>

Basically, the {ff} code means that the stylesheet does not want
to format the given name(s), maybe because it thinks this is too
error-prone. It just trusts the typist. The question is: did I made up
category {ff} ?

The standard unix LaTeX installation I have (TeTeX) is shipped with 10
stylesheets (excluding variations). Those are the very basic
bibliographic stylesheets used by all people that do not care to
design their own. Half of them are {ff}: 5 stylesheets (plain,
alpha, unsrt, amsplain and amsalpha) format the given name just as
given (i.e., they don't format it), while 5 remaining. "ieeetr, abbrv,
siam, apalike, acm" abbreviate it.

Of course, it's possible that all {ff} stylesheets are minor ones,
while all the ones used by professional publications are not. So I
looked for some precise examples of {ff} BibTeX stylesheets in the
LaTeX archive (CTAN) and also in this compilation:
<http://www.lecb.ncifcrf.gov/~toms/latex.html>

I found at least the following {ff} stylesheets for "real"
publications:

- American Mathematical Society
- American Journal of Human Genetics
- Methods in Enzymology
- Journal of Neuroscience

Besides BibTeX stylesheets, I also found some other real world
examples of lack of given name(s) formatting:

- All Elsevier's International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC)
 journals (stylesheet ifac.bst)
 <http://authors.elsevier.com/getting_published.html?dc=QG3>

- The german DIN 1505 standard seems to let people free to decide how
  their given name(s) should be written.
  <http://www.phil-fak.uni-duesseldorf.de/ie/competence/09_schriftkom/bibdin.html#top>

- The MLA (Modern Language Association) style seems quite popular and
  does neither "format" the given name(s). See BibTeX file "mla.bst" and
  <http://www.english.uiuc.edu/cws/wworkshop/MLA/singleauthor.htm>
  "The author's name should be given as it is listed on the title page
  of the text."


>  > - some less authoritarian publishers/formatting conventions leave more
>  >   freedom about this, in order to please authors and grant them the
>  >   right to write their (possibly "weird") name as they want.

> I've never seen this in real life, and I'm glad I didn't.

Again, I was of course talking about GIVEN names only, it did not
change from the start of the discussion.


Conclusion: I would of course never pretend that the majority of
publications let people write their _given_ name(s) as they want. I
just don't know. But a short investigation seems to show that at least
a non-negligeable number of non-negligeable journals does.