If a paper has wrong author or affiliation metadata, you should first verify the correct information from a trusted source, then report the error to the publisher or repository, and finally update your own records and citations accordingly. Incorrect metadata is more common than you might think—author name variations, affiliation changes, and indexing errors can all introduce mistakes—so it’s worth handling systematically rather than ignoring the issue.
Step 1: Verify the correct information
Before you do anything, confirm what the correct author or affiliation actually is. Check:
- The paper's original PDF (often the first page includes a footnote or acknowledgment with the correct details).
- The author's personal website, Google Scholar profile, or institutional page.
- The publisher's official record or the DOI landing page (which sometimes differs from third-party indexes).
- ORCID records if the author has one—this is the most reliable source for name and affiliation disambiguation.
Step 2: Report the error to the right place
Where you report depends on where you encountered the wrong metadata:
- If it’s on a publisher’s site: Use the "correct this article" or "contact us" link. Most major publishers (Elsevier, Springer, IEEE, etc.) have a formal correction process.
- If it’s on an indexing database (PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, Google Scholar): Each has a "suggest a correction" or "report an error" function. Note that Google Scholar corrections only apply to your own profile, not to third-party papers.
- If it’s in a preprint server (arXiv, bioRxiv): You can often request a metadata revision directly from the authors or the moderation team.
Include the paper's DOI, the incorrect field, the correct value, and your source of verification. This helps the maintainers act quickly.
Step 3: Correct your own records
If you’ve saved the paper in your reference manager or cited it in your own work, fix the metadata locally. Most reference managers let you edit fields manually, but if you’re working with a large library, tools like WisPaper's My Library can help you keep track of corrected entries and avoid propagating errors into your writing.
Step 4: Notify the authors (if appropriate)
If you have contact with the authors (e.g., through email or conference networks), a polite note can help. They may not be aware of the indexing error, and they have the most incentive to fix it across all platforms.
Preventing future issues
When you cite the paper, double-check that the author names and affiliations in your bibliography match the corrected version. For critical work—like grant applications or systematic reviews—consider cross-verifying against ORCID or the publisher's PDF rather than relying solely on aggregated databases.
Wrong metadata is frustrating, but it’s a fixable problem. A few minutes of verification and reporting keeps the scholarly record accurate for everyone.
