References (was Re: [asa] Simon Conway Morris)

Nothing to do with Conway Morris (N.B.) here but Steve's post reminded me of an interesting episode in scientific referencing that illustrates some laxity on the part of both auhtors and editors. If you hunt around you can find at least one physics paper by A. Einstein and S.B. Preuss, & might wonder who this collaborator of Einstein's was. Well, a number of Einstein's papers on relativity &c were published in the Proceedings of the Prussian Academy of Natural Sciences - Sitzungberichte der Presussischen Akademie der Naturawissenschaften. In citations this got abbreviated (as we do Phys. Rev. for Physical Review &c) in various stages until someone - who of course had never looked at the article itself - made the mistake of thinking that the abbreviation was of a person, and so S.B. Preuss was born.

Shalom,
George

---- Stephen Matheson <smatheso@calvin.edu> wrote:
> Quick note to all:
>
> Professor Simon Conway Morris should not be referred to as "Morris." His surname is Conway Morris. Some (but not all) of the references in PubMed do say 'Morris SC' but most get it right. If you want to check me on this, try his homepage at Cambridge and look at the list of publications, all of which list him as 'Conway Morris, S.'
>
> Steve Matheson
>
> Link: http://www.esc.cam.ac.uk/index.php/People/Academic%20Staff/34-academic-staff/67-professor-simon-conway-morris ( http://www.esc.cam.ac.uk/index.php/People/Academic%20Staff/34-academic-staff/67-professor-simon-conway-morris )

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Received on Thu Jan 29 19:13:13 2009