If you have a common name or have changed your name during your career, it can be more difficult for someone to find all of your work in the same place. The easier it is for others to find your work, the easier it will be for them to read it and cite it.

• Be consistent about how you list your name. If you have a common name, consider using a middle name to distinguish yourself.
• Standardize the way you write your affiliation address. Include all of the detail you need (e.g. lab name, department, school, university), preferably with no abbreviations.
• Keep an updated CV online, whether on a personal website, an ORCID profile, or through NCBI's SciENcv tool.
• Register with ORCID.
• Set up a Google Scholar Citations profile.
• Make sure that your Scopus author profile is accurate.

For more information about creating a unique author profile, see our website.

• Construct article titles carefully - use declarative titles rather than questions, and be concise.
• Write abstracts deliberately. Others will find your article by searching, so you want your abstract to include all crucial keywords on your topic for better retrieval.
• Retain the rights to re-use your work when publishing.
• Carefully consider where you will publish. If your main audience is the general public, publishing in an open access journal may be more important than publishing in a high impact journal. Similarly, if you want to reach researchers in a very particular field, it may be more impactful to publish in a discipline-specific journal that people will be likely to see rather than a general science or medicine journal. Wherever you publish, make sure the journal is indexed in major databases like PubMed so your audience finds it when they search the literature.

• Present your work at conferences to get your research out in the world sooner, then follow up with a published manuscript.
• Self-archive your work on your personal website, the library's digital archive, or another repository. This includes not only manuscripts, but presentation slides, posters, data, etc.
• Consider publishing your work in trade journals to disseminate your research to clinicians, consumers, and industry.
• Share your work on a personal blog, social media account, or through a press release.
• Document all of your research outputs in one place.