Perhaps the greatest anguish of any copy-editor with an academic publisher is to format references. Most authors follow their own styles or the style most common in their branch of study. The problem is not as much with the styling as it is with the inconsistency of styling and missing information.
The difficulty of remembering all the various reference styles and formats prompted me use the term 'Holy Grail' in the title. It is almost unattainable.
The styling that we use where I work is the author-date style as defined in the Chicago Manual of Style.
I have a logic that I use remember how to structure references and to figure out what info is missing and what info I can do without. Every reference (especially in the author-date system) is made of these four elements:
Article from a Journal
Crusoe, R. and M. Friday. 1881. ‘Shipwrecked: Passing Time Alone on an Island’, Journal of Castaway Sciences, 14 (2): 456–74.
Reference of a Book
Hawkins, S. and Q. Prestige. 1988. Steam and Pressures in India. New Delhi: Penguin.
Article from an Edited Book
Becker, B., C. Evert, and P. Cash. 1990. ‘Voice against Rogue Centre Courts’, in P. Sampras (ed.), The Lone Lawn Sagas, pp. 210–11. Wimbledon: All England Club.
Website
Bush, G.W. 2006. ‘American War Policy: Why It Requires Me to Screw Up.’ Available online at http://www.dubya.org/screwup.htm (downloaded on 9 September 2001).
Newspaper Article (Author's name known)
Johnson, James Jonah. 2008. ‘Spiderman’s Friendly Neighborhood No More’, The Daily Bugle, New York, 29 July.
Newspaper Article (Author's name not known)
The Gotham Chronicle. 2008. ‘What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger’, The Gotham Chronicle, 29 July.
Working Papers
Northumbra, Sadhvi. 1992. ‘Demolition Engineering Design with Force Inputs from Fiery Speeches’, XIEC Working Papers in Genocide, Xenophobe Institute of Ethnic Cleansing, India.
Paper Presented in Seminars
Singhal, Ashok. 2008. ‘Quantitative Techniques in Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing’, paper presented at the XXXV South Asian Ultra Nationalism Convention, Swayam Sevak University, Ayodhya, January 01–10.
Unpublished Manuscript
Wannabe, Jane. Unpublished MS. ‘Why I Am Not Yet Published.’
Forthcoming Manuscript
Happening, Ken. Forthcoming. I Finally Get Published. New Delhi: Sage Publications.
Reports
Fake, I.M. 2008. Indian Hypocrisy Laws. Report submitted to the National Hypocrisy Commision, New Delhi.
The difficulty of remembering all the various reference styles and formats prompted me use the term 'Holy Grail' in the title. It is almost unattainable.
The styling that we use where I work is the author-date style as defined in the Chicago Manual of Style.
I have a logic that I use remember how to structure references and to figure out what info is missing and what info I can do without. Every reference (especially in the author-date system) is made of these four elements:
WHO | WHEN | WHAT | WHERE
--> Who wrote it; When did she/he write it; What did she/he write; Where was it published and by whom.
Check out the following examples of referencing styles. Hope they help.(The page ranges are supposed to have en-dashes)
Article from a Journal
Crusoe, R. and M. Friday. 1881. ‘Shipwrecked: Passing Time Alone on an Island’, Journal of Castaway Sciences, 14 (2): 456–74.
Reference of a Book
Hawkins, S. and Q. Prestige. 1988. Steam and Pressures in India. New Delhi: Penguin.
Article from an Edited Book
Becker, B., C. Evert, and P. Cash. 1990. ‘Voice against Rogue Centre Courts’, in P. Sampras (ed.), The Lone Lawn Sagas, pp. 210–11. Wimbledon: All England Club.
Website
Bush, G.W. 2006. ‘American War Policy: Why It Requires Me to Screw Up.’ Available online at http://www.dubya.org/screwup.htm (downloaded on 9 September 2001).
Newspaper Article (Author's name known)
Johnson, James Jonah. 2008. ‘Spiderman’s Friendly Neighborhood No More’, The Daily Bugle, New York, 29 July.
Newspaper Article (Author's name not known)
The Gotham Chronicle. 2008. ‘What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger’, The Gotham Chronicle, 29 July.
Working Papers
Northumbra, Sadhvi. 1992. ‘Demolition Engineering Design with Force Inputs from Fiery Speeches’, XIEC Working Papers in Genocide, Xenophobe Institute of Ethnic Cleansing, India.
Paper Presented in Seminars
Singhal, Ashok. 2008. ‘Quantitative Techniques in Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing’, paper presented at the XXXV South Asian Ultra Nationalism Convention, Swayam Sevak University, Ayodhya, January 01–10.
Unpublished Manuscript
Wannabe, Jane. Unpublished MS. ‘Why I Am Not Yet Published.’
Forthcoming Manuscript
Happening, Ken. Forthcoming. I Finally Get Published. New Delhi: Sage Publications.
Reports
Fake, I.M. 2008. Indian Hypocrisy Laws. Report submitted to the National Hypocrisy Commision, New Delhi.
Puns intended!
;-)
Dear Editor,
ReplyDeleteI think you have hit the nail on its head by looking at the logic behind the information content of references as the basic step for styling/editing references.
And the puns are ingenious, biting and entertaining :) This post is a good example of how with analysis and wit, some of our seemingly dreary tasks can be done more efficiently and with more fun too. :)
As an editor, I have also always gone by understanding info content to deal with references. One way i understand it is by looking at it from the end-user's 'procurement' angle. For eg, a researcher in library doesnt need the publisher's name to locate an article of a journal. He needs the journal's name, and the vol and issue numbers. So pub name is not given in a journal article reference. This approach also helps decide if it is okay to do without a particular info content, if it is missing...
Dear Sir
ReplyDeleteThis is a simple yet meaningful way of understanding the 'mentally challenging' references. I loved the Bush thing the best.
Thank you for sharing this. Hope there's a lot more traffic here so that more people get to divine this.
Regards
Thanks, Asal Poi! I'm glad you liked this post.
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