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Recently while submitting a manuscript on ScholarOne (a manuscript submission software for many journals) I ran into a problem of having to compulsorily enter a first name and surname (1/n).
When the manuscript was published, it was cited with my entered surname (as is common procedure). However, my surname is actually my father's name and hence the paper was not really cited with my first name (as I had intended) (2/n).
This problem arose as a result of a naming convention (first name-surname) that is not necessarily followed in certain parts of the world (for example, check out this article -- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4910272/) (3/n).
This led to a drawn out situation with the journal to publish the article with the citation carrying my first name (that is not entirely resolved). One of the reasons for this problem is that the submission software does not allow submission of a paper without a surname (4/n).
And once the surname is provided (due to compulsion), it is used as the author's name for citation purposes. I'm currently going through another iteration of the same issue with a second journal using the same submission software (ScholarOne) (5/n).
My advisor (Dr. Allison Shaw), @binsan5, and I feel that this is something that needs to be changed and have submitted a petition to change this requirement to compulsorily provide a first name and surname (6/n).
We feel that authors need to be given the freedom to publish with/without surnames and choose how they want their papers to be cited in the future (7/n).
If you think we make a valid point, please consider voting for this petition that will instigate changes in the software's requirements. We feel that it is a small step to make science more inclusive for researchers. The link to vote is: https://scholaronemanuscripts.ideas.aha.io/ideas/S1MI-I-5256 (8/n)
Thanks for reading through till the end! (n/n)
