In many CSA Illumina databases, author names are in the format: Last name, Initial(s). Exceptions are listed below.
In the AU= field, author names may be entered in any of the following formats:
| Format | Example |
| Last name only | shaller |
| Last name and first name | Shaller, Phillip |
| Last name, first name, and middle name | Shaller, Phillip James |
| Last name, first name, and middle initial | Shaller, Phillip J. |
| Last name with initials | shaller, ph |
| Last name with initials and no comma | shaller ph |
| For co-authors | walker and cannell |
| For works by any of several authors | walker, jm or cannell or smith, rjp |
If you are unsure of the full spelling of a name, use the truncation symbol *. For example: Robert* retrieves Robert, Roberts, Roberto, Robertson, etc. To find variable letters within the author's name use the * as a wildcard symbol within the word. For example: wehm*r retrieves wehmeier, wehmer, wehmeyer, wehmoller, wehmueller, etc. The ? wildcard symbol can be used in a similar manner to indicate one, and only one, character per ? within the authors name. Example: Sm?th will retrieve Smyth or Smith. Ste??en will retrieve Stephen or Steffen.
Because a few databases include author first names instead of initials, while others do not standardize the format and carry author names as given in the source publication, we recommend searching the author field of these databases using the surname only.
To narrow a surname-only search, add key subject words or phrases related to the author's area of research.
Example.
au=burger and kw=(solar or photovoltaic)
When searching by an author's surname and initials, please be aware that an author's initials can also be stop words. CSA Illumina stop words include: after, and, before, near, not, or, and within. Search strategies including stopwords will retrieve zero results, eg: au=Robinson, GE. If you need to search for an author whose initials are a stopword, they must be enclosed in "quotes", eg: au=Robinson, "GE".
This problem is most obvious in databases where the authors' initials are run together and not separated by spaces or periods, eg: Cochrane, MN. Databases where this is the author name format are: