# Put your name on it
Being the reference · practice · https://build-here.africa/book/chapters/10-01-put-your-name-on-it.html

## The starting point

A useful piece of work circulates with no name on it. Its readers do not know who made it, in what context, or who to ask.

## The move

Sign your work: your name, the context, and how to reach you. Credit every person who contributed.

## Why it works

A name makes work findable and accountable. The reader knows who to ask for a clarification, who to correct, who to come back to. An anonymous document ends up belonging to nobody, and nobody keeps it up to date.

Signing is also a commitment. You put your name on what you checked. It makes you read it twice, and that is a good thing.

Several colleagues prepare a file reconciliation sheet. One identified the cases, another tried the procedure, a third clarified the explanations. The sheet credits all three and names who maintains it. A single name on the cover would have erased two contributions.

What you sign gets attributed to you, inside and outside. That is how you become a reference on a subject: by leaving signed work that others reuse.

## Try this

Take a useful resource you made. Add your name, the contributors, the date, the context, and a way to reach you.

Publish it where its readers will find it. Ask a reader whether they know who to contact, and fix what is unclear.

## To discuss

Whose name is missing from our most useful resources?