Referencing styles have usually been created by an organisation that specialises in a certain tyle of information, and the styles specify:
- how to arrange items in a reference list, eg in alphabetical or numerical order
- how to arrange and punctuate the author, title, date and source information of the referenced items in enough detail for readers to consult them for themselves
- how to write the cross-references from in-text citations to the reference list.
There are many referencing styles. The main categories are author-date styles and numbered styles. Six of the most common styles are described below.
Author-date styles
Harvard
Also known as the author-date style, citations are added in parentheses within the text or after a sentence. The list of citations is alphabetized at the end of the document. The Harvard referencing style was originally created by Harvard University and the organisations that use it can specify their own punctuation and spacing so you have to get the referencing guidelines of the individual organisation.
APA
An author/date referencing system that uses parenthetical in-text citations. Footnotes are used for extra information. APA is common in the social sciences. The referencing style is maintained by the American Psychological Association.
MLA
Similar to APA, MLA uses parenthetical in-text citations. The author’s last name and page number appear in the text near the borrowed material. MLA is common in the arts and humanities. The referencing style is maintained by the Modern Language Association.
Chicago
Users of this referencing style can give details of referenced items in footnotes at the bottom of the page or in a bibliography at the end of the document (or in both). Sources are cited with a superscript after the information. The format of the details differs in the footnotes and the bibliography. The Chicago Manual of Style is available from the University of Chicago Press.
Numerical styles
Vancouver
Also known as the author–number system, this style uses numbers in the text that refer to numbered entries in the reference list. It’s popular in the physical sciences and is one of the two referencing systems normally used in medicine.
Like the Harvard style, its format can vary per institution, especially in the way the numbers are presented in the in-text citations.
The Vancouver referencing style originated in 1978, when a group of editors from general medical journals met to establish guidelines for manuscript formatting. The names comes from the place where they met: Vancouver, Canada.
Like the Harvard style, its format can vary per institution, especially in the way the numbers are presented in the in-text citations.
The Vancouver referencing style originated in 1978, when a group of editors from general medical journals met to establish guidelines for manuscript formatting. The names comes from the place where they met: Vancouver, Canada.
IEEE
The Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers has a numeric style that is commonly used in the fields of electrical, electronics, communications, and computer engineering. In-text citations are numbered in the order of appearance. The details of the reference items are very brief. The reference guide is the IEEE Reference Style Guide for Authors. but there are other style guides for article format and mathematics.
For more information, see
- A live bibliography – What is it and should editors make one?
- Bibliography or reference list – What is the difference?
- DOIs and URLs – What is the difference?
- The don’ts of academic editing
- The intricacies of editing academic texts for examination purposes
Published on: Nov 29, 2024 at 12:22
511 words