The following rules about the author name format apply to all 4 data fields treated as author fields. They include: Authors, Sec_authors, Tert_authors, and Quat_authors. These four author fields are labeled differently for each reference type. To see a complete label list for each reference type, click on the menu command "Tools | Options", then click the "Reference Types" tab.
General rules
Author and editor names should be entered into Biblioscape in the following format: “Lastname, Firstname Middlename” (leave out the quotes). Individual author should be separated by a “; ”. You can enter first name and middle name in full or as initials. Be sure to type a period followed by a space between initials, otherwise the whole set of initials will be interpreted as the first name. Here are some examples of author names in correct format:
- Smith, K.
- Gibbs, Jay Phillips
- Gibbs, J. P.; Smith, K.
Using "et al." or other abbreviations
Enter all of the authors for a reference. Biblioscape will take care of truncating the list of authors and adding “et al.” if necessary. If you do not know all the author names, put “; et al.,” or “; and others,” at the end of the list so Biblioscape treats it as the last name and does not try to parse it. A Biblioscape “Authors” and “Editors” field can only take 255 characters at most. If this is not enough for a particular reference, you can put the rest of author names in another field, for example, in the “Notes” field.
Anonymous works
If a reference has no author, leave the Authors field blank. The style that you use to format the bibliography determines how anonymous references are treated.
Corporate Authors
When entering corporate authors, put a comma at the end of the name. Biblioscape will then interpret the whole name as last name, so it will not be parsed. For example:
- National Health Institute,
- CG Information,
- Department of Chem. University of North Carolina,
Complex Author Names
For authors with more than one word last names, like “Laurent Duchastel De Montrouge”, you need to enter the last name first followed by a comma and first name. For example: “Duchastel De Montrouge, Laurent”.
For authors with titles, such as “Jr.” or “II”, etc., you need to enter the name as “Lastname, Firstname Middlename, Title”. For example:
- Smith, John, Jr.
- Gates, W., III
If there is no comma in the name, Biblioscape will interpret the last whole word as the last name, and the first whole word as the first name, and the rest as the middle name. For example: “Jay Phillips Gibbs” will be interpreted as “Gibbs, Jay Phillips”.
See also: Enter author names and keywords in Chinese, Japanese, Korean
Author role and comment
Sometimes, you may want to store author role information with an author. For example, actor, actress, assistant producer can all be considered author role. In most cases, you don't need to enter author role. For example, the "Book Edited" reference type has a field called "Editor". You only need to enter the editor's name. Biblioscape will add the "Ed." text if needed according to the style used. But in rare cases, you may want to add author role. For example, if there is a book that is authored by Bill Clinton and Al Gore, you may want to add author role information like this: "<President: > Clinton, Bill; <Vice President: > Gore, Al". Once formatted, the authors will look like: "President: Bill Clinton and Vice President: Al Gore". If you store author role after author name, it will appear after author name in formatted form. For example, "Clinton, Bill <- President>; Gore, Al <-Vice President>" will become "Bill Clinton - President and Al Gore - Vice President".
Unlike author role, author comment is some text that you want to add with an author but do not want to show it in the formatted form. For example, there are 3 authors in the authors field, one is from Biochemistry department, one is from Chemistry department, and one is from Pharmacy school. You may want to add it like this: "Hermans, Jan (Biochemistry); Pederson, Lee (Chemistry); Bowen, Phillip (Pharmacy)". Once formatted, the text " (...)" will not be shown in the formatted form. The author comment feature allows user to add something about an author that should not be shown in the formatted form.