I think all the journals, across the world, should come together and decide upon a common citation style that is accepted by everyone. This reduces the hassle of rearranging the citation list (without third party software) every now and then when it means the same however we represent them.
This is my perspective and I may be corrected if I am missing any significant effect of using different citation styles.
There is an ISO standard . But nobody knows that except me it seems.
Some disciplines like to emphasise the date (newness), others the author (authority) and others the journal (aura). Others are content with neatly numbering the references sequentially.
A good idea indeed. Uniformity of citation style across journals will lead to relatively hassle free manuscript preparations.
Yes most of the journals have different formats for citations and references. Although some softwares are there to arrange the required format for references, but it is still a major issue when we try to prepare the manuscript.
Did you ever get the feeling that the Editor of the journal or the Examiner of the research paper or thesis is insisting on one particular reference style to keep you out of the system?
Ian Kennedy Respected sir, I am unaware of any ISO standard as such. could you please elaborate on it or share some details. Thank you.
there should be a universal reference style to acknowledge work, idea, writer, journal and publication year. reference is used for acknowledgement so it should be general pattern to acknowledge it.
All people agreeing on a single religion, single language and one government too would appear to be a good idea too - alas: we are all individuals, our nations are coming from a multiple cultural and historical background and the board of editors with every journal is different, Im afraid we have to stick to the two to three types of quotes there are with each discipline.
We are scientists, we are counting bacteria, are calculating multiplication rate and life expectancy of a virus, explain political events and cultural circumstances from the sexteenhundreds, I believe we can manage.
PS: Dear Hemant Sharma, I just read that you are from Skyrim University. I take that as a message of my subcontiousness pointing to the late hour in my part of the world. Have a good one!
@Stephan Glienke Yes sir you are correct. The research world is composed of diverse field of studies and people and we have different ways of representing our ideas. No doubt we have managed all these years and we will continue to do so in the future too. But all I am asking is why do we have to manage? Why can't there be a standard style for representing a citation, just like SI units, which is accepted by every one in the scientific fraternity? Atleast similar style for similar field of study. I think it is possible in the near future if all the editors contemplate on it. Also, what is the significant difference between the citation styles given below? ( P.S. The references are for representation purpose only).
1. Islam, Shah Md Asraful, et al. "Effect of plant age on endophytic bacterial diversity of balloon flower (Platycodon grandiflorum) root and their antimicrobial activities." Current microbiology 61.4 (2010): 346-356.
2. Islam, S. M. A., Math, R. K., Kim, J. M., Yun, M. G., Cho, J. J., Kim, E. J., ... & Yun, H. D. (2010). Effect of plant age on endophytic bacterial diversity of balloon flower (Platycodon grandiflorum) root and their antimicrobial activities. Current microbiology, 61(4), 346-356.
3. Islam, Shah Md Asraful, Renukaradhya K. Math, Jong Min Kim, Myoung Geun Yun, Ji Joong Cho, Eun Jin Kim, Young Han Lee, and Han Dae Yun. "Effect of plant age on endophytic bacterial diversity of balloon flower (Platycodon grandiflorum) root and their antimicrobial activities." Current microbiology 61, no. 4 (2010): 346-356.
Thank you for your time.
Most of the journals that I have submitted to, prefer Vancouver format and that is the default format for me.
Citation or referencing systems have evolved depending upon the nature of disciplines. For example, the way we handle citations in linguistics would be different from that required in chemistry. The author has to follow the specific style the journal follows. Author-Date also called Name-Year (Harvard) systems are more common with science disciplines, where particular date has more relevance. In the arts and literature, however, date of publication may not be the most important information about a particular document.
All the three leading documentation style guides—CSE style, APA style, and Chicago style recommends Author-Date system of referencing with some minor variations.
MLA (Modern Language Association) recommends Author-Page system for arts, literature and humanities.
CSE style guide recommends Citation-Sequence (Vancouver system) too along with Author-date and Citation–Name system.
The Chicago Manual of Style also recommends the foot note method for fine arts (art, theater, and music) and humanities (history, philosophy, and religion).
Hemant Sharma As @ Kay Smarsly says, it is British Standard BS ISO 690:2010. Because it is not on the Internet, and you have to buy it, nobody uses or advocates it as a standard! This is a pity. Please ask your librarian to get a copy of it:
Information and documentation -- Guidelines for bibliographic references and citations to information resources
https://www.iso.org/standard/43320.html
Thank you @Kay Smarsl, Ian Kennedy and @C George Thomas for your valuable inputs and time.
many journals would not like to remove their uniqueness, because that is what sets them apart from the rest!
It seems the intention of ISO in bringing out ISO 690: 2010(E) is not to have a universal referencing system but to bring some standards in citation and referencing, whatever style is being adopted. It is specifically written in the Scope of ISO 690: 2010(E) ) that “ This International Standard does not prescribe a particular style of reference or citation”(page 1)
In the Annex A of ISO 690: 2010(E), information on three methods of citation, Name and date system (Harvard), Numeric system (Vancouver), and Running notes ( foot notes) are given. You may also note that there is an ISO standard for abbreviations of journals (ISO 4)
Maybe a compromise:
references in sumbitted articles should be in a standard format, always and for any journal. However, the journal is free to reformat the references into their own preferred style. This is possible without investing any work, since the standard format is computer readable/interpretable, and text software can easily make the required modifications automatically.
Why not? As far as I know do all journals accept .doc or .docx files, what is also a "standard" way to submit text, and they all accept .tif and .jpg as "standard" ways to submit figures. I mean, a journal does not force authors to submit a figure in some journal-specific file format, too, even if the journals present the final figures in different resolutions and possibly store them in different formats.
Half way :)
I think the journal can take the job to layout the references into their desired format. If the authors stick to a common standard, this can even be automated.
Dear Hemant Sharma
The examples you quoted in one of your mail have no specific style, and I am sure no standard journals ever accept such papers for publication. The efforts made by a group of science editors to have clarity and standard not only in reference citation but also in other aspects of document preparation is worth to mention here. The Council of Science Editors (CSE) ( formerly, the Council of Biology Editors, CBE) functions as an international membership organization for editorial professionals publishing in science fields. Their proclaimed purpose is to be an authoritative resource on current and emerging issues in the communication of scientific information.The Council of Science Editors recommends CSE style for all scientific disciplines.
Among other things, the CSE Manual recommends three methods for citing and documenting sources:
· the Name-Year (N-Y) system (Harvard)
· the Citation-Sequence (C-S) system (Vancouver)
· the Citation-Name (C-N) system (Alpha-numeric)
In CSE style, the system of in-text citation that you adopt will decide the order of end references. In all the three system mentioned above, the end references have essentially the same format, except for the placement of the date of publication in the Name–Year system. If you know how to write the sources in N-Y system, it is easy to change them to C-S system or C-N system.
For complete information on CSE style of documentation, refer to “Scientific Style and Format: The CSE Manual for Authors, Editors, and Publishers” (8th Ed.), The University of Chicago Press, 722p (CSE, 2014). It is also available online for subscription (https: //www. scientificstyleandformat.org/ Home.html). They also allow a 30-day free trial.
Respected @C George Thomas sir, the examples that I have cited are directly taken from Google scholar citation tab which corresponds to MLA, APA and Chicago format respectively. Sir, I agree that there are citation formats based on name-year, citation sequence and citation-Name style which is ok and understandable but there are journals which give more importance to punctuations, spaces between names, parentheses on dates/issue no., italicizing/bolding of Title or Journal/publisher, using and vs &, using abbreviated vs non-abbreviated form of journal name, using/not-using inverted commas over title, etc. I don't think these prepositions and punctuations have important significance in citing a reference or do they?
Now, I understand your point. It may be very difficult to have a universal system of documentation. You may know the differences between British English and US English. Both versions differ in the use of punctuation, italics, spellings, and so on. Anyway, as I mentioned in my earlier mail, CSE is trying to have some uniformity.
In India, we generally follow CSE style manual with Name-year referencing system. In my opinion, Name-Year system is the most flexible referencing system.
The CSE style wants to simplify rules on punctuation, and discourage italicization, bold letters or underlining because all these entail extra work at the keyboard (Please note that APA style recommends italicization for titles). The CSE style leave such matters to the discretion of writers and editors although it prefers regular upright fonts. Many Latin terms have been accepted in English, which can be used without translation. For example, the terms such as in vivo, in vitro, e.g., i.e., etc., and et al. are widely used in English, and therefore, these terms need not be italicized.
However, CSE wants the journal titles to be abbreviated, for which you have to follow LTWA (List of Title Word Abbreviations) of ISSN, based on ISO 4 for uniformity. You can access LTWA from: https://www.issn.org/services/online-services/access-to-the-ltwa/ .
C George Thomas sir, exactly my thought and a welcome move by CSE. Thank you for your valuable inputs and time. I came across a journal, Heliyon, by Elsevier which does not demand for a specific citation style. An author can use any format as long as it is uniform and the journal will format the list according to their format just like @Jochen Wilhelm had suggested.
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