Author names:

Choosing the format of your own name is very important. This is especially the case if you have a common name. While a common name is inherently useful when ordering a taxi or a pizza over the phone, in academic publishing having a common name suffers the burden of ambiguity when attempting to discern ones complete bibliographic record from databases such as Web of Science, Scopus or PubMed. Including a middle initial is one way that you can add uniqueness. Another tool you can use is to align yourself with a researcher or Orcid ID. ORCID is a unique identifier that distinguishes you from all other researchers and is recognised in MRC’s Online Editorial Office as well as in grant submissions \cite{orcid}. These tools enable researchers to link all of their publications to one perpetual identifier ensuring the completeness of their entire bibliographic record.