Different journals have different standards regarding author names - some mention only the first name (i.e. "William Webb"), some mention also an initial of the middle name ("William A. Webb"), some mention only initials ("W. A. Webb"), etc.
So, when I copy BibTeX records of papers to my bibliography manager, the names are copied in different styles, and also appear in different styles in my bibliographic listing.
My question is: is this a problem? Should I go over all my bibliography, each time I write a paper, and make sure all names have the same format?
Answer
Let me cite Donald Knuth (from this webpage):
Do you know any of these people?
[...] I try to make the indexes to my books as complete as possible, or at least to give the illusion of completeness. Therefore I have adopted a policy of listing full names of everyone who is cited. For example, the index to Volume 1 of The Art of Computer Programming says "Hoare, Charles Antony Richard" and "Jordan, Marie Ennemond Camille" instead of just "Hoare, C. A. R." and "Jordan, Camille."
I also think that a database with complete names is the way to go. The more complete the names are, the less ambiguous (consider all the different "A. Smith's", "X. Zhang's" or "H. Kim's"…).
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