Reference styles - How to cite the references - Preparing the text

How to write and publish a scientific paper - Barbara Gastel, Robert A. Day 2022

Reference styles
How to cite the references
Preparing the text

Journals vary considerably in their style of handling references. O’Connor (1978) looked at 52 scientific journals and found 33 different styles for listing references. Some journals include article titles within references, and some do not. Some insist on inclusive pagination (listing of the full page range), whereas others print the numbers of first pages only.

If you use an electronic reference management system, and if that system includes the styles of all the journals in which you might like to publish, you might not need to concern yourself in detail with differences among reference styles. In that case, perhaps just skim—or even skip—the sections of this chapter that discuss formats for citing and listing references. If, however, you might at least occasionally be preparing and citing references by traditional means, we advise you to read these sections.

Whether electronically or otherwise, smart authors retain full information about every item that might be cited. Then, in preparing a manuscript, they have all the needed information. It is easy to edit out information; it is indeed laborious to track down 20 or so references to add article titles or ending pages when a journal editor requires you to do so. Even if you know that the journal to which you plan to submit your manuscript uses a short form (no article titles, for example), you would still be wise to establish your reference list in the complete form. This is good practice because (1) the journal you selected may reject your manuscript, and you may then decide to submit the manuscript to another journal, perhaps one with more demanding requirements; and (2) it is likely that you will use some of the same references again in later research papers, review papers (and most review journals demand full references), or books. When you submit a manuscript for publication, make sure that the references are presented according to the instructions for authors. If the references are radically different, the editor and referees may assume that this is a sign of previous rejection or, at best, carelessness.

Although there is an almost infinite variety of reference styles, most journals cite references in one of three general ways: name and year, alphabet-number, and citation order.

Name and year System

The name and year system (sometimes called the Harvard system) has been very popular for many years and is used by many journals and books, including this book. Disciplines in which it is popular include the social sciences. Its big advantage is convenience to the author. Because the references are unnumbered, references can be added or deleted easily. No matter how many times the reference list is modified, “Smith and Jones (2015)” remains exactly that. If there are two or more “Smith and Jones (2015)” references, the problem is easily handled by listing the first as “Smith and Jones (2015a),” the second as “Smith and Jones (2015b),” and so on. The disadvantages of name and year relate to readers and publishers. The disadvantage to readers occurs when (often in the introduction) many references must be cited within one sentence or paragraph. Sometimes readers must jump over several lines of parenthetical references before being able to again pick up the text. Even two or three references, cited together, can distract readers. The disadvantage to publishers is increased cost. When “Higginbotham, Hernandez, and Chowdhary (2022)” can be converted to “(7),” printing costs can be reduced.

Because some papers are written by an unwieldy number of authors, most journals that use name and year have an “et al.” (meaning “and others”) rule. Commonly, it works as follows: Names are always used in citing papers with either one or two authors, such as “Smith (2015)” and “Smith and Jones (2015).” If the paper has three authors, list all three the first time that the paper is cited, such as “Smith, Jones, and Nguyen (2015).” If the same paper is cited again, it can be shortened to “Smith et al. (2015).” When a cited paper has four or more authors, it should be cited as “Smith et al. (2015)” even in the first citation. In the references section itself, some journals prefer that all authors be listed (no matter how many); other journals cite only the first three authors and follow with “et al.”

Alphabet-Number System

This system, citation by number from an alphabetized list of references, is a modification of the name and year system. Citation by numbers keeps printing expenses within bounds; the alphabetized list is relatively easy for authors to prepare and readers (including librarians) to use.

Some authors who have habitually used name and year tend to dislike the alphabet-number system, claiming the citation of numbers cheats the reader. The reader should be told, the argument goes, the name of the person associated with the phenomenon; sometimes, the reader should also be told the date, on the grounds that a 1921 reference might be viewed differently than a 2021 reference.

Fortunately, these limitations can be overcome. As you cite references in the text, decide whether names or dates are important. If they are not (as is usually the case), use only the reference number: “Pretyrosine is quantitatively converted to phenylalanine under these conditions (13).” If you want to feature the name of the author, do it within the context of the sentence: “The role of the carotid sinus in the regulation of respiration was discovered by Heymans (13).” If you want to feature the date, you can also do that within the sentence: “Streptomycin was first used in the treatment of tuberculosis in 1945 (13).”

Citation Order System

The citation order system simply involves citing the references (by number) in the order in which they appear in the paper. This system avoids the substantial printing expense of the name and year system, and readers often like it because they can quickly refer to the references in one-two-three order as they come to them in the text. It is a useful system for a journal that is basically a “note” journal, each paper containing only a few references. For long papers, with many references, the citation order system can have disadvantages. It a can be burdensome for authors who do not use reference-management software, as adding or deleting references may entail a substantial renumbering chore. It might not be ideal for the reader either because the nonalphabetical presentation of the reference list may result in the separation of various references to works by the same author.

Regardless of which citation system is used, readers of papers online can often link from a citation to the full reference on the list, or even the full paper cited. And authors using reference-management software can use various citation systems with approximately equal ease. In this regard, the electronic age has decreased the burden on authors and readers of scientific papers. And it has diminished arguments in favor of one citation system or another.