About referencing
Referencing
The appearance of references in academic writing is standardized according to an output style. Many academic institutes and disciplines favour one style that they consider more suitable to the topic at hand above other styles. Journals and publishers have often defined their own bibliographic style that then has the name of the journal.
Bibliographical software helps authors to maintain a style in a manuscript by applying a 'style sheet'. A limited number of basic styles may be provided, but products like RefWorks provide a complete library of output styles.
Referencing at the Institute of Social Studies: Harvard style
The Institute favours the Harvard style of referencing in academic writing, where such style is not prescribed a publishers or journals, in particular in all PhD, MA and Diploma programmes.
The Harvard style follows the 'author-date' convention. Intext citations indicate the name of the author(s) and the year of publication in round brackets e.g. (Saith 2008). At the end of the publication a list of references with full bibliographic details is provided.
For a more detailed description we refer to the ISS Referencing Guide Feb. 2012. This guide was written for RefWorks users with examples and instructions on how to enter information. The examples for each type of reference are also helpful when no or other software is used.
Bibliographical Software at ISS
RefWorks Classic
- The Institute favours the use of bibliographical software in academic writing. The Office of Library and IT Services provides support for the use of RefWorks and organizes regular training sessions for staff and students.
- Erasmus University also has an online course in English at
http://www.eur.nl/ub_informatievaardigheden/ul_instruction/refworks/
- RefWorks is complemented with a good number of online tutorials to help you using the programme more easily.
RefWorks 2.0
RefWorks-COS has announced that the old version 'Classic' will cease to be available by December 2011. It will be replaced by RefWorks version 2.0. The new and old version are both offered during the development phase. You can download the following user guides:
- RefWorks 2.0: instructions to get started (for ISS users)
- Write-N-Cite (for ISS users)
Zotero
Apart from RefWorks, users could also consider to use open source software: Zotero.
Zotero can be downloaded at http://www.zotero.org/ and runs as a Firefox extension. The Zotero programme is capable of capturing titles from many online bibliographical databases and resources and of making a snapshot of a webpage. Recorded references can be stored locally or online on the zotero server, depending on the version that is installed.
For working with references that are 'synchronized' at the Zotero server, the user first registers with Zotero to get an account. Zotero has facilities for citing in your wordprocessor [be it Ms Word or open source] and generating a list of references or bibliographies. Zotero provides a number of alternatives in Harvard output style. Recommended, is the Harvard Style that has been 'adapted for Leeds Met'.
Zotero is not (yet) fully supported at ISS, but questions will be answered to 'best effort' (send an email to iliad@iss.nl or phone ext. 456).
