Author markup question

Hi,

Why do I see this in examples on schema.org:

<span itemprop="author">Ellie</span>


What I don't understand is why this is correct, the expected type is not
'text' but for example 'person'.

So the only way this is correct I think is:

<span itemprop="author" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Person">

   1.   <span itemprop="name">Jane Doe</span>
   2. </span>



Am I right or wrong here?

Kind regards,

Willem