Ridge, NY -- A new program announced today [http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v99/e230001] by the American Physical Society offers authors the option to include their names in either Chinese, Japanese or Korean characters, following the name as it appears in Latin characters, for example: Tadanori Minamisono (南園 忠則) or Chang Kee Jung (정창기). The program is offered for author bylines throughout the Physical Review journals, including Physical Review Letters.
The option offers advantages to these authors and to readers of the journal. Many names that are different when expressed in characters become the same when transliterated into English. Showing the characters after the transliterated name removes the ambiguity, and enables readers to know definitively whose work is whose.
The program is the brainchild of Gene Sprouse, APS Editor in Chief. "A person's name is important. It is the first word that a child learns to write, and it stays with him or her throughout life," he observed. "Authors who choose to have their names printed this way can show their name on their paper to a friend or family member who may not read English! Our international submissions are growing and we occasionally have trouble ourselves distinguishing one Asian author from another. We value these authors and we want to be welcoming to them in our journals," he said.
The pilot program for Chinese, Japanese and Korean characters is now available, and with time and more experience additional languages may be offered. Full instructions are given for authors on how to supply the proper Unicode characters at the time of submission [http://authors.aps.org/names.html].
About the APS: The American Physical Society is the world's largest professional body of physicists, representing over 46,000 physicists in academia and industry in the US and internationally. It has offices in Ridge, NY; Washington, DC; and College Park, MD. For more information: www.aps.org.