Author disambiguation: Include quotes (" ")

Publish or Perish tutorial

If searching for your own name in Publish or Perish gives you a long list of publications that are not yours, there are two possible causes.

1. You did not include quotes

You did not include quotes (e.g. “a harzing”) around the name you searched for.

Why do I need to include quotes?

Google Scholar default search behaviour is the same as Google’s default search behaviour. This means that if you do not use quotes around the search terms it will match your author search terms anywhere in the author record.

  • If you do an author search without quotes, Google Scholar matches the name and initials anywhere in the list of authors, so C Kulik would also match P Kulik, C Williamson.
  • To match an author's initials only in combination with her or his own surname, use "quotes" around the author's name: "C Kulik" will not match P Kulik, C Williamson.
  • However, “C Kulik” will match CT Kulik (the actual academic we are looking for), CM Kulik, NC Kulik or any other name that contains both C and Kulik. To resolve this problem, see Author disambiguation: Use multiple initials.

2. Your name is not unique

The combination of your given name and family name is not unique and there are other academics with the same name. There are many ways in which you can disambiguate your name from other academics with the same name. For more details, please see the links in the right-hand column and below.

Use selective exclusion Use full given name Exclude co-authors
Use multiple initials Use year restrictions Use research field
Exclude homonyms Use multiple names Use affiliation

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