Marziale, Maria Helena Palucci

English

Cadernos Espinosanos (E-Journal)

143EditorialRev Latino-am Enfermagem 2009 março-abril; 17(2):143-4www.eerp.usp.br/rlaeTHE PROBLEM OF RECOVERING INFORMATION DUE TO THE VARIABILITY OFAUTHORSHIP REGISTRATION IN SCIENTIFIC ARTICLESMaria Helena Palucci Marziale1Bibliographical databases are an indispensable tool to recover scientific information and carry outbibliometric studies. However, errors and inconsistencies in data registers lead to the loss of relevant informationin research and interfere in the access to documents(1).The name of the author is one of the main fields to recover information, as users frequently searchscientific journal databases and electronic libraries through this field. Thus, the lack of standardization toregister the name of the author makes it difficult to find studies and can interfere in the articles’ and authors’citation ratios. These indicators are increasingly used in the assessment of scientific journals, selection processes,to advance in the academic career and to obtain research grants.Despite the strict control measures based on international publishing policies, editors often do notapply rules and standards coherently. In addition, authors’ names are registered in different ways in journalspublished in Spanish and in English. Journals published in English usually present the surname followed by thefirst name and middle names, if applicable. As an example, my name would be cited “Marziale, Maria HelenaPalucci”. In journals published in Spanish, the reference of my name becomes “Palucci - Marziale, MariaHelena”, that is, the first and second surnames are followed by the first and middle names, although there canbe other variations.In a study about the probable causes of the inconsistency in the registration of authors’ name injournals published in Spanish, the identified causes were: authors use different forms of their names throughouttheir career, lack of control by the databases, use of incompatible indexing methods and possible editorialinterventions from journals(1).The editorial standardization used by the journal regarding the name of the author is also highlighted.In Brazil, most Nursing journals use the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals– Vancouver style. In the United States and in some European countries, the American Psychological Association(APA) standards are used. Adopting the Vancouver style, a few years ago, brought quality and indexing benefitsto Nursing journals in Brazil, both in national databases like the SciELO Collection and international bases likeSCOPUS and ISI. It has also facilitated the process for authors to prepare their manuscripts, as many journalsin this area adopted the mentioned standardization.Due to the lack of standardization regarding authors’ names, and as databases publish and use authors’names in the same way as they are described in journals, authors’ names are abbreviated in different ways indatabases too. My name, for instance, is registered on ISI - Web Knowledge, Scopus, Medline, Lilacs andSciELO Collection, in the following different ways “Marziale, Maria Helena Palucci”; “Marziale, Maria H P”;“Marziale, M. H.”; “Marziale, M. H P”; “Marziale, Maria Helena; “Palucci - Marziale, M H”; “Palucci Marziale, MariaHelena”. These variations make it difficult to find and recover published articles and also to calculate thebibliometric indices of authors and articles.Another aspect highlighted in this editorial is the way journals’ names are registered in references injournals indexed in databases and documents published in search websites like Google. The publication ofincorrect names of journals represents damages to journals’ citation ratios and, in Brazil, it also impairs theassessment of graduate programs, as their scientific production is assessed by CAPES (Coordination for theImprovement of Higher Education Personnel), a governmental agency that assesses graduate programs inBrazil. The QUALIS index, by CAPES, classifies the journals graduate students and advisors publish in, usingmainly citation indexes from ISI - Web Knowledge, through the impact factor published in the Journal Citation1Editor of Latin American Journal of Nursing, Full Professor, University of Sao Paulo at Ribeirao Preto College of Nursing, WHO Collaborating Centre for NursingResearch Development, Ribeirao Preto, SP, Brazil, e-mail: marziale@eerp.usp.br.144Rev Latino-am Enfermagem 2009 março-abril; 17(2):143-4www.eerp.usp.br/rlaeReports, and from Scopus, the H index, published by the SCImago Journal & Country Rank. Citations, ingeneral, imply that highly cited journals should be more relevant, or have more impact, in their area. Thus, itis used to measure the importance or influence of a journal or a group of documents, based on the number oftimes articles published in this journal are cited in a given period of time(2). Authors and editors should be alertto the proper register of authors’ and journals’ name in article references.In view of this problem, authors should be encouraged to sign their articles with the same name duringtheir entire career. Editors of Nursing journals need to work jointly to create a single structure to register thename associated to different source documents. That is, scientific journals should standardize the elementsused in the information transfer process, including the order of priority and presentation of articles’ authorship.Databases can also help in this important duty.REFERENCES1. Ruiz-Pérez R, Delgado López-Cózar E, Jiménez-Contreras E. Spanish personal name variations in national and internationalbiomedical databases: implications for information retrieval and bibliometric studies. J Med Libr Assoc. 2002;90(4):411-302. Marziale MHP. Produção científica da enfermagem brasileira: a busca pelo impacto internacional. Rev Latino-am Enfermagem.2005;13(3):285-90.The problem of recovering information due...Marziale MHP.

The problem of recovering information due to the variability of authorship registration in scientific articles

https://www.revistas.usp.br/rlae/article/download/2552/3117

A problemática da recuperação da informação diante da variabilidade do registro da autoria dos artigos científicos

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