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I have the following citation:

M. Hama and T, Imahashi. Periodic β-expansions for certain classes of Pisot numbers. Comment. Math. Univ. St. Paul. 46(2):103–116, 1997.

I prefer citing the full names of the authors, however, I'm unable to find them. I tried googling their names, finding what is their affiliation, but I did not succeed. Is there any standard way how to find scientists' full names?

yo'
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    The actual paper should have more information, at least the affiliation. It doesn't seem googleable, but as you're citing it, you obviously have a copy of that paper available. – Peteris Aug 27 '14 at 14:04
  • @Peteris No, I don't have a copy of each paper I cite. I only know the results. This is one of these papers I have never actually seen. – yo' Aug 27 '14 at 14:07
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    After trying the usual suspects (e.g. Google Scholar, the journal website, institution pages, LinkedIn etc.), and you still can't find the author's full name, I think you reach the point of diminishing returns and should conclude that using the first initial and last name is "good enough." Some authors aren't currently active or googleable in any meaningful way. – Mad Jack Aug 27 '14 at 14:09
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    Take into account that, unless you are citing for personal use (or for an internal report of some sort), the citation style is dictated by the publisher. – Massimo Ortolano Aug 27 '14 at 14:11
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    @MassimoOrtolano But many publishers (esp. in math) are loose on requirements, or prefer full names when available. It is our case as well: we're free to do as we wish, but I prefer the full names. – yo' Aug 27 '14 at 14:16
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    @tohecz How do you know that what you think and claim about the article actually matches what is inside the article? http://sss.sagepub.com/content/44/4/638.full is a nice exposition on consequences of such re-citing, as each repetition distorts the original content more and more. – Peteris Aug 27 '14 at 14:19
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    Related: Should I cite author names as they appear in the journal or as I know them to be complete? – Mangara Aug 27 '14 at 14:22
  • @Peteris (This discussion starts to spam the comments, but ok.) Most time you cite something to give background, it's the case here as well. I wouldn't dare myself to use the result without being at least a bit sure that the result is there. – yo' Aug 27 '14 at 14:23
  • @Mangara Maybe more related ;) http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/15242/citing-full-names-of-authors – yo' Aug 27 '14 at 14:24
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    And where do you get the background? If you've read in a book by John Smith that claims that Hama&Imanashi did X, then you should cite exactly that - "It is known that Hama&Imanashi did X [J.Smith 2010]". Because you don't know if they did X or X' that is almost but not entirely X; and it may well be that the difference between X and X' is one that didn't matter for J.Smith's result but matters for your paper. – Peteris Aug 27 '14 at 14:31
  • @Peteris For example from here: http://www.ams.org/mathscinet/search/publdoc.html?arg3=&co4=AND&co5=AND&co6=AND&co7=AND&dr=all&pg4=AUCN&pg5=AUCN&pg6=PC&pg7=ALLF&pg8=ET&r=1&review_format=html&s4=hama&s5=imahashi&s6=&s7=&s8=All&vfpref=html&yearRangeFirst=&yearRangeSecond=&yrop=eq But as I say, these comments are unrelated to the question ;) – yo' Aug 27 '14 at 14:37
  • MathSciNet has the paper and gives (when you click the authors' names) "Masaki Hama" but only "T. Imahashi". – Andreas Blass Aug 27 '14 at 17:49
  • @AndreasBlass I know that. The reason is it's the only paper of T.I. that MSC is aware of (and that I am aware of, as well). – yo' Aug 27 '14 at 17:51

1 Answers1

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First go to the original journal web page for the paper in question. That might have more information. It may have their full names, links to other papers by them, and will almost always have their affiliation at the time of submission of the paper.

You can also search the usual literature databases for other papers in the same field by the same author: other journals may have the author' full names; furthermore, more recent papers will have their most recent affiliation.

Once you've got their most recent affiliation, you can then search that institution's website for the authors' home pages.

In this particular case, the paper is listed here. By clicking on the author names, I find that Hama Masaki is one of the names you are after: by using the distinctive "Pisot" from the paper title, I can narrow down to an individual. A bit of searching for the full name and Pisot gets me what I think is a different form of the same name: 浜, 正樹 ; searching for that with Pisot gets me what looks like the author's home page. This should be enough to enable you to contact that author.

And for goodness sake, don't go directly citing a paper that you haven't read. I'm grateful to Peteris for the comment on the original question that deserves higher profile than a comment: indirect citations are one of the ways in which myths are born and are spread: see this excellent read on "Academic urban legends" from Ole Bjørn Rekdal. (full text here)

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  • The journal webpage has neither the full names nor the affiliation: http://ci.nii.ac.jp/naid/110007696209/en And it's quite difficult to search these two specific names, since they're very common. Well, I just found an article by Hama and someone else, and I know that he's Masaki Hama. But the second author seems not to exist at all. And still it's just random googling :( thanks anyways! – yo' Aug 27 '14 at 14:08