Academic writing is inevitably tied to the bibliographic styles. No respectable academic paper in all its forms (science, outreach, teaching, training), is complete without references to works consulted in its manufacture. But not enough to have data read and works mentioned in the text: it must also be done with precision, elegance, consistency and uniformity. In other words, you need to follow a format style for references, quotes and the drafting of the list of works cited or bibliography.
Some universities and institutions have designed Bibliographic their own guidelines. Others, however, have opted to choose other system. One of the major problems of Latin American universities is the most prestigious and distributed systems have been designed in English speaking countries, under different spelling rules to ours.
style selection
bibliographic style should be chosen before starting an investigation, writing or publication. Some colleges, departments, journals and publishers already have their own manuals or have chosen openly by a definite style. Should always check the rules of each institution and request the relevant handbooks.
If the institution does not have clear guidelines, is under the direct responsibility of the author (student or writer) to choose a citation style consistent and apply uniformly in all his work.
bibliographic style should be chosen according to the writing style and his field of expertise. Ought not, for example, follow a style designed for the humanities in an academic field. Each discipline has its peculiarities and conventions, therefore, always advisable to find the proper field, the most popular styles among the scientific community for which you write and choose the most versatile system for the particular citations in our investigation.
To provide evidence for the selection of a bibliographic style, here we review some styles that can be taken into account.
the editorial style of the University of Chicago
This is one of the oldest, prestigious and continuously updated bibliographic style. It is published through its manual, The Chicago Manual of Style (The Chicago Manual of Style), I know no English translation and would in any case, quite difficult to do, given its size and degree of specificity. Some topics, such as references Legal or copyright, they could not lead without an adaptation to the legal systems of our nations. However, it is a vast work in more than a century of publication has come to consider a rule for almost any kind of problem literature. This manual has been published since 1906, and its sixteenth edition was released in 2010. This was the first edition to be published simultaneously in print and online.
His chapters on creating bibliographies are more extensive and detailed I've seen so far (over 150 pages in a manual over 1000 pages). The latest edition also contemplates numerous Examples of materials in electronic format.
has the advantage of being a coherent and very detailed with two major variants: the system of footnotes and author-date system. The author or publisher chooses which one best fits your type of work and public and, for both, there are detailed rules. Many other systems use the basic format of Chicago as a reference and much of the oral tradition that is inherited in university classrooms had its origin in this system, even though neither teachers nor students can remember now. For PhD students, also recommended the Turabian manual, adapted from Chicago especially for this field.
addition to the two chapters dedicated exclusively to the format of the references, the manual details guidelines on parts of the publication, writing and editing of original illustrations and tables, copyrights and permissions, grammar and style, punctuation, spelling, names and terms, orthotypography of mathematical figures and abbreviations, foreign language words, quotes and dialogues and creating indexes.
is widely used in the field of history and other humanities.
The manual can be purchased through Amazon. You can also purchase an annual subscription to the online version very useful and versatile.
APA Manual
Perhaps fashion, perhaps for convenience, during the last decade, many Latin American universities have opted for the style of the American Psychological Association (American Psychological Association [APA]). Although widespread use among various social sciences, there are rare cases of scientific departments and even the health area which academics develop their theses and articles in APA style.
Of the systems which we state here, is the only one I know of a English translation, in this case, prepared by the Editorial Manual Moderno.
As indicated in the introduction of the fifth edition of APA style is a variant of the style author-date style from the University of Chicago, however, alters many of the guidelines proposed in this manual and, to date, and is far enough at some points.
should alert some translation problems of the modern version of Manual. While the editorial team makes a highly commendable work, there are points where it has not adapted the style to the English rules, or where in the translation process necessary adjustments were pending. It is also necessary to take care to apply some rules in our context, may be impractical.
The APA manual is in its sixth edition (2009) and is now available translated into English (2010).
MLA Handbook
The Modern Language Association (Modern Language Association [MLA]) published his manual in 1985, and in the third edition: MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing (2008). This style is perfect literature for literary studies and has spread its use in the field of humanities. Quite different from the styles of Chicago and the APA, but is better suited to the appointment of literary sources, poetry and classics.
Manual
MHRA The Modern Humanities Research Association (Association of Modern Humanities Research [MHRA]) was founded in Cambridge (England) in 1918 and bibliographic style is followed by many European institutions. It is very similar to Chicago and has the advantage of being free, since you can freely download website of the association.
is well suited for areas of humanities, such as publications in the field of history. Because of its similarity to Chicago, and the fact of being able to freely use, is a style that deserves consideration.
Vancouver and the Council of Science Editors (CSE, before CBE)
In the field of health and sciences, respectively, these two styles have great prestige and a long tradition in America. The CSE style is used especially in the field of biology, but its use has spread to other sciences. Some people find complex style of Vancouver, because instead of an author-date system, number each of the references. This method complicates the creation of the final reference list. However, for publications in these fields, both systems must be considered.
Blue Book The Blue Book or blue book is the style designed by Harvard University for citing sources legal. The guidelines for legal sources in the Chicago Manual and the APA are based on this publication, but it should be noted that not always applicable in countries whose legal system differs from the U.S. (based on case law).
ISO Standards ISO standards are part of the guidelines for standardization of the International Organization for Standardization [International Organization for Standardization]) founded in London in 1946. This is not a proper bibliographic style, but a regulatory framework for each institution or organization makes its own style. ISO 690 is in its third edition (2010). The original document of ISO is subject to copyright and must be purchased at the website of that organization or any of its subsidiaries in each country at a price of $ 100, but a free interpretation of these rules, drafted by Javier Bezos, you can download site Tex and Typography.
The UNE for references, by the English Association for Standardisation and Certification (AENOR) is the equivalent of ISO for Spain.
In short I think it is wrong to marry academics bibliographic style abroad only because it is fashionable or ignorance of alternatives. Styles mentioned here, not one has been designed for use in the English language and only two have been adapted in some way (APA and ISO). Due to copyright issues, only one of these styles (the MHRA) is freely available online. The interpretation and adaptation of the ISO Javier Bezos is also free, although the original manual of this institution is not.
is our responsibility to choose the most appropriate style for our publication and it completely. We must be aware of the implications of choosing style. For example, it is desirable to decide to use the APA style and based on a summary of second-hand to implement it: the right thing would be to purchase the manual and carefully review the translation to fit properly into our language. Once elected
convention literature and determined its details, the rest is fun academic reading, weaving, quote and build ... with style.
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