{"id":471,"date":"2012-05-24T12:56:24","date_gmt":"2012-05-24T12:56:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rulesofreason.wordpress.com\/?p=471"},"modified":"2012-05-24T12:56:24","modified_gmt":"2012-05-24T12:56:24","slug":"proposal-for-a-world-congress-on-referencing-styles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/re-design.dimiter.eu\/?p=471","title":{"rendered":"Proposal for A World Congress on Referencing Styles"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have been busy over the last few days correcting proofs for\u00a0two forthcoming articles. One of the journals accepts neither footnotes nor endnotes<\/strong> so I had to find\u00a0place in the text for the >20 footnotes I had. As usual, most of these footnotes result directly from the review process so getting rid of them is not an option even if many are of marginal significance. The second journal accepts only footnotes<\/strong> – no in-text referencing at all – so I had to rework all the referencing into footnotes. Both journals demanded that I provide missing places of publication for books and missing page numbers for articles. Ah, the joys of academic work!<\/p>\n

But seriously… How is it possible that a researcher working in the XXI century still has to spend his\/her time changing commas into semicolons and abbreviating author names to conform to the style of a particular journal? I just don’t get it. I am all for referencing and beautifully-formatted bibliographies but can’t we all agree on one single style<\/strong>? Does it really matter if the years of a publication are put in brackets or not? Who cares if the first name of the author follows the family name or the other way round? Do we really need to know the place of publication of a book? Where do you actually look for this information? Is it Thousand Oaks, London, or New Delhi? All three appear on the back of a random SAGE book I picked from the shelf… Who would ever need to know whether it was Thousand Oaks or London in the first place? Maybe\u00a0libraries, but they certainly don’t get their\u00a0data from my references. Obviously, the current referencing system is a relic from\u00a0very different and distant times when knowing the\u00a0publishing place was necessary to get access to the book. Now, collecting and providing this information is a waste of time and space<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

And yes, I have heard of Endnote and BibTeX, and I do use reference management software. But most journals still don’t have their required styles available for import into these programs. So the\u00a0publisher doesn’t find it necessary to hire somebody for a few hours to prepare an official Endnote style sheet for the journal, but it demands from all authors to spend days in order to rework their references to conform to its rules?!<\/p>\n

And why are there different referencing styles anyways? Can you imagine the discussions that\u00a0journal editors and publishers have before they settle for a particular\u00a0referencing style?<\/p>\n

– Herr Professor, I must insist that we\u00a0require\u00a0journal names to be in italics!
\n– That’s the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard – everybody knows that journal names are supposed to be in bold,\u00a0not in italics!
\n– But gentlemen, research by our esteemed colleagues in psychology has shown that journal names\u00a0put in a regular font and encircled by commas are perceived as 3% more reliable than others.
\n– Nonsense! I demand that journal names are underlined and every second one in the list should be abbreviated as well.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And so on and so forth… To remedy the situation I boldly propose a World Congress on Referencing Styles<\/strong>. All the academic disciplines and publishers will send\u00a0delegates to resolve this\u00a0perennial problem\u00a0once and for all. There will be\u00a0panels like Page Numbers: Preceded by a\u00a0Comma,\u00a0a Colon, or a Dash<\/em>, and seminars on topics like Recent Trends in Abbreviating Author Names<\/em>. No doubt several months of deliberation will be needed, but eventually\u00a0the two main ‘Chicago’ and ‘Harvard’ parties\u00a0will reach a compromise which will be endorsed by the United Nations amid the ovations of the world leaders. The academic universe would never be the same again!<\/p>\n

Until\u00a0that day, happy referencing to you all!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have been busy over the last few days correcting proofs for\u00a0two forthcoming articles. One of the journals accepts neither footnotes nor endnotes so I had to find\u00a0place in the text for the >20 footnotes I had. As usual, most of these footnotes result directly from the review process so getting rid of them is not an option even if many are of marginal significance. The second journal accepts only footnotes – no in-text referencing at all – so I had to rework all the referencing into footnotes. Both journals demanded that I provide missing places of publication for books and missing page numbers for articles. Ah, the joys of academic work! But seriously… How is it possible that a researcher working in the XXI century still has to spend his\/her time changing commas into semicolons and abbreviating author names to conform to the style of a particular journal? I just don’t get it. I am all for referencing and beautifully-formatted bibliographies but can’t we all agree on one single style? Does it really matter if the years of a publication are put in brackets or not? Who cares if the first name of the author follows the family name or the other way round? Do we really need to know the place of publication of a book? Where do you actually look for this information? Is it Thousand Oaks, London, or New Delhi? All three appear on the back of a random SAGE book I picked from the shelf……<\/p>\n

Continue readingProposal for A World Congress on Referencing Styles<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[2,20,44],"tags":[53,55,125,311,329,549,550],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7g3hj-7B","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":598,"url":"http:\/\/re-design.dimiter.eu\/?p=598","url_meta":{"origin":471,"position":0},"title":"The International Journal of Indexing","date":"November 20, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"This just needs to be re-posted [from Kottke]: [F]or the\u00a0Society of Indexers, book indices are a topic that holds endless fascination. And I do mean endless. 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