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Even More About Ref's:
I have had mail about references and citations since my little
article. To my surprise people, at least some people, are very
interested in references. I have added a bunch of examples of different
types of formats below. I also have a few notes of explanation.
But I want to repeat a big warning: do not loose sight of the purpose
of references. The purpose is to prove your points by allowing
people to find previous literature. That's it. I can and
do and will fix a lot of minor things about references, but if
the information isn't there to allow someone to find the
reference, then all the comma placement in the world simply doesn't
matter. And, in point of fact, you may have beautifully formatted
references, but if your paper is not good, then it doesn't
matter. So I expect scientists to do their best with the references, as
with all aspects of a paper, but keep it in perspective!
What helps the editorial office the most:
Examples:
Example:
Smith, J. (2000) The theory of rocks. American Mineralogist, 85,
5-17.
2. Theses/dissertations. I'm very relaxed about these.
I like to have Univ., town, country, and pages, but I don't fuss
too much about it.
Example:
Smith, J. (1962) The first theory of rocks, 534 p. Ph.D. thesis,
University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana.
(In that example, no need to repeat Illinois because part of name
of school, and readers can just figure out that it is the U.S.A.)
3. Books. yes to publisher, pages if possible, and only
the city where one could call to buy the book--the main office.
I assume the first office is the main office and delete all the
others. The idea is to give a totally clueless person a clue to
finding the book. Realistically to find the book you ask your
librarian and she glares at you and hands it over in about 39
seconds. So all the cities just aren't needed.
Example: Smith, J. (1969) The secret life of rebellious rocks,
432 p. Wiley, New York.
(People often cap titles of books, that is great and proper. But
if they don't then I don't. I assume the title is just as it is
suppose to be.)
4. Example of Edited Books: Smith, J., Ed. (1969) Our rock
group, 1002 p. Wiley, New York.
or: Smith, J., Jones, B., and Dole, J., Eds. (1970) Our rock
group, ed. 2, 1002 p. Wiley, New York.
(Capital E when editors, lowercase e when edition. People get
caps.)
5. Example of chapter in Book: Doe, S. (1970) My favorite
rock. In J. Smith, B. Jones, and J. Dole, Eds., Our rock group,
ed. 2, p. 333-360. Wiley, New York.
(No colons, the editor's initials are forwards, and the page numbers
refer to the specific article. Again note the book title could
be capped Our Rock Group, but I rarely fuss with this.)
6. Special volumes can be tricky. Generally they are the
same as no. 1 -- generally they have a volume number and continuous
pages. Think to yourself, can people find the publisher? If there
is a publisher and city and author and year and title and volume
and pages, then the article can be found.
7. I hate conference proceedings. No formal style, I just
as with number 6: do I have enough information? Generally I insist
on publisher and city of publisher.
Example: Smith, J. (1971) The truth of rocks in Florida. In B.
Jones and C. Doe, Eds., Proceedings of the third conference on
Florida rocks, p. 224-228. Mineralogical Society of Florida, Miami.
8. RIM before 2000: Hill, F.C. (1999) Identification of
Uranium-bearing Minerals and Inorganic Phases by X-ray Powder
Diffraction. In P.C. Burns and R. Finch, Eds., Uranium: Mineralogy,
Geochemistry and the Environment, p. 653-679. Reviews in Mineralogy,
Mineralogical Society of America, Washington, D.C.
9. RIM year 2000 and after: Hill, F.C. (2000) Identification
of Uranium-bearing Minerals and Inorganic Phases by X-ray Powder
Diffraction. In P.C. Burns and R. Finch, Eds., Uranium: Mineralogy,
Geochemistry and the Environment, p. 653-679. Reviews in Mineralogy
and Geochemistry, Mineralogical Society of America and the Geochemical
Society, Washington, D.C. WHEW! |