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When citing two articles from the same author using different initials, one should cite each article with the relevant initials, even if they are different. This is answered here.

But what about differences in the last name of the same author when referencing inline? Russian authors, for instance, must transliterate their names and there are sometimes inconsistencies in the way this is done. For example, E. Mashchenko writes his or her name E. Maschenko here (published 2015), but E. Mashchenko here (published 2013). Basic knowledge of Russian transliteration suggests that Мащенко is to be transliterated as Mashchenko, and that is indeed the spelling the author uses on Research Gate, suggesting that the Maschenko spelling is an error.

Yet, because the point of referencing is to make it easy for other researchers to find the sourced material, the literal spelling Maschenko should be preferred when citing Maschenko (2015). When citing both articles inline, which of the following would one write?

  • (Mashchenko, 2013; Maschenko, 2015)

    which would be correct, but misleading and strange because this is the same person.

  • (Mashchenko, 2013, 2015)

    which doesn’t adhere to the above standard.

Wrzlprmft
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Pertinax
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4 Answers4

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Inline citations should match what appears in bibliographies, and bibliographies should match what appears in the publication record. You can augment what’s listed—for instance, you could provide the original Cyrillic rendering in the bibliography to indicate the authors are in fact the same person—but I would leave the citation uncorrected.

aeismail
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  • I like adding the original spelling but bibliographical systems are generally reluctant about adding this information where it belongs, i.e. with the author name (rather than at the end) — the exception being BibLaTex. – Konrad Rudolph Apr 03 '18 at 16:01
  • @KonradRudolph: I would just do this at the final pre-submission step after everything else has been finalized. – aeismail Apr 03 '18 at 16:16
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    Right, in file manuscript_FINAL_3.5_DRAFT.docx. – Konrad Rudolph Apr 03 '18 at 16:30
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    Even with LaTeX, I’d still likely wait until near the end of the process to mess around with the BibTeX entries. But your joke still stands. :-j – aeismail Apr 03 '18 at 17:17
  • In the one case where I’ve previously needed this, I had a script that exported and patched various parts of the references that I managed with Paperpile (my go-to reference manager). No manual work required. Of course this won’t work for many people. – Konrad Rudolph Apr 03 '18 at 17:20
  • @KonradRudolph Why is this non-standard? It seems compatible with bibtex? – user2768 Apr 04 '18 at 08:03
  • @user2768 I didn’t say that it was non-standard. – Konrad Rudolph Apr 04 '18 at 08:11
  • @KonradRudolph You didn't, but you did say "bibliographical systems are generally reluctant about adding this information where it belongs." Then again, you also said BibLaTeX is an exception, so perhaps bibtex is an exception too. – user2768 Apr 04 '18 at 08:28
  • @user2768 Ah, possible. I’ve stopped using pure BibTeX ~ a decade ago. The old implementations are essentially all made obsolete by BibLaTeX. – Konrad Rudolph Apr 04 '18 at 08:45
  • There is at least one author in my field who occasionally has the initial of her second name on her papers, and occasionally not. I would look extremely odd to have those papers show up under different authors in the bibliography, and not sorted chronologically, don't you think? I've never so far encountered a paper where she is actually listed as two authors in the references. – sgf Apr 09 '18 at 19:56
  • @sgf: Initials are a different animal than spelling of the last name, and normally don’t appear in an inline citation. – aeismail Apr 09 '18 at 20:06
  • @aeismail Ha, you are right of course. – sgf Apr 09 '18 at 20:08
16

You can use the correct (Mashchenko, 2013; Maschenko, 2015) version and address the issue that it might be misleading by explicitly stating that Mashchenko and Maschenko are the same author and perhaps by explaining why the issue has arisen.

user2768
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    Could you write, for instance, (Mashchenko 2013; Maschenko 2015, [same person])? This would be in the same vein as writing "no relation" between two people with the same last name. – Pertinax Apr 03 '18 at 14:19
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    @Pertinax "[same person]" could be "[both refer to Мащенко]" – Volker Siegel Apr 03 '18 at 14:41
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    The APA style blog addresses this and has some wording: "Smith-Hartman (publishing as Smith, 2010)" http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2017/05/whats-in-a-name-inconsistent-formats-and-name-changes.html That may be not quite the right wording for a transliteration issue, though. Perhaps "Мащенко (published as Mashchenko 2013; Maschenko 2015) found that..." – cactus_pardner Apr 03 '18 at 17:02
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    @cactus_pardner I think you should make your comment into an answer – Luca Citi Apr 03 '18 at 21:39
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    @cactus_pardner That link is useful, thank you. It does not address, however, how to simultaneously cite two spelling variants inline side by side. I like your proposal of using "Мащенко (published as Mashchenko 2013; Maschenko 2015)". If you make this into an answer, I will accept it. – Pertinax Apr 04 '18 at 16:17
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The APA style blog addresses this and has some suggested wording: "Smith-Hartman (publishing as Smith, 2010)" blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2017/05/… That may be not quite the right wording for a transliteration issue, though.

You could write "Мащенко (published as Mashchenko 2013; Maschenko 2015) found that..." This might be the simplest way to quickly address the confusion, while allowing the citations to match the bibliography and published record. (Other answers have nicely explained the importance of this.)

cactus_pardner
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3

Well, first you do what the publishing guidelines say.

If they say nothing, one feasible option is, in my opinion, to use both spellings this way:

(Mashchenko [Maschenko], 2013, 2015)

This goes with the policy that such a bibliographic entry should allow one to search for the paper. Sure it is not optimal that people may have to search for two different spellings, on the other hand, this makes it clear that it is the same author. Another option is this:

(Mashchenko, 2013, 2015 [published as Maschenko])

Because I think that you personally should refer to the author using one name, and keep the alternative spelling only for the bibliographic entry.

yo'
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