Editorial Headaches
Aug. 16th, 2007 07:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ellarienI'm not living entirely in memories of my vacation, really. It's just that my current life consists almost entirely of fascinating conundrums to do with the three-author rule[*] in journal citations, against a background of hot sticky weather, would-be fratkids running around campus, and occasional barrel cactus flowers.
This is about author-year format for journal citations, in which you cite author and year in the text and have a list at the end with the full bibliographic data.
In principle, it's fairly simple:
Nelson, H.A. 1975, J. Marine Res., 123, 456 would be referred to in the text thusly:
"Nelson (1975) demonstrated that ..." or, "Things are not always so simple (Nelson 1975)."
Similarly,
Nelson, H.A., & Crane, L.B. 1975, Ann. Subm. Const., 90, 5200
would be referred to in the text as
Nelson & Crane (1975) or (Nelson & Crane 1975).
Nelson, H.A., Crane, L.B., & Morton, C.P. 1975, J. Geophys. Res., 55, 273
would be Nelson, Crane, & Morton (1975) on first reference, but Nelson et al. (1975) thereafter.
Nelson, H.A., Crane, L.B., Morton, C.P., & Sharkey, F.E. 1975, Torpedo Monthly, 101, 56
will always appear in the text as Nelson et al. and get spelled out in the reference list. Once the author list goes past, I think, eight, it's acceptable to abbreviate it even in the bibliography, though precise protocols differ between publications and I'm not sure it's specified for the one I'm dealing with right now. (And then you get oddities like Nelson, H.A., Crane, L.B., & the NIMR Engineering Team which would probably be another Nelson et al. in the text.)
But what to do if there's also a paper by Nelson, Crane, \& Sharkey (1975) cited in the same article, and either of them appears more than once? Nelson et al. (1975) is ambiguous, and as I understand it I shouldn't call them Nelson et al. (1975a) and Nelson et al. (1975b) when the et al.s are not the same. (Though if there were papers from the same first author and two different sets of three+ co-authors in the same year, I wouldn't have much choice about it, come to think of it., so maybe that's the best solution after all, except that then it's confusing when the first mentions appear as "Nelson, Crane, & Morton (1975a)" and "Nelson, Crane, & Sharkey (1975b).)
It's enough to make me understand why some publications go for citation-by-number instead, even though it's an utter pain to read if you're actually interested in the references.
This is about author-year format for journal citations, in which you cite author and year in the text and have a list at the end with the full bibliographic data.
In principle, it's fairly simple:
Nelson, H.A. 1975, J. Marine Res., 123, 456 would be referred to in the text thusly:
"Nelson (1975) demonstrated that ..." or, "Things are not always so simple (Nelson 1975)."
Similarly,
Nelson, H.A., & Crane, L.B. 1975, Ann. Subm. Const., 90, 5200
would be referred to in the text as
Nelson & Crane (1975) or (Nelson & Crane 1975).
Nelson, H.A., Crane, L.B., & Morton, C.P. 1975, J. Geophys. Res., 55, 273
would be Nelson, Crane, & Morton (1975) on first reference, but Nelson et al. (1975) thereafter.
Nelson, H.A., Crane, L.B., Morton, C.P., & Sharkey, F.E. 1975, Torpedo Monthly, 101, 56
will always appear in the text as Nelson et al. and get spelled out in the reference list. Once the author list goes past, I think, eight, it's acceptable to abbreviate it even in the bibliography, though precise protocols differ between publications and I'm not sure it's specified for the one I'm dealing with right now. (And then you get oddities like Nelson, H.A., Crane, L.B., & the NIMR Engineering Team which would probably be another Nelson et al. in the text.)
But what to do if there's also a paper by Nelson, Crane, \& Sharkey (1975) cited in the same article, and either of them appears more than once? Nelson et al. (1975) is ambiguous, and as I understand it I shouldn't call them Nelson et al. (1975a) and Nelson et al. (1975b) when the et al.s are not the same. (Though if there were papers from the same first author and two different sets of three+ co-authors in the same year, I wouldn't have much choice about it, come to think of it., so maybe that's the best solution after all, except that then it's confusing when the first mentions appear as "Nelson, Crane, & Morton (1975a)" and "Nelson, Crane, & Sharkey (1975b).)
It's enough to make me understand why some publications go for citation-by-number instead, even though it's an utter pain to read if you're actually interested in the references.
