Chapter 1
Going to the Source: Citations and References
Adapted from the book: Doing Your Dissertation with Microsoft® Word: A comprehensive guide to using
Microsoft® Word for academic writing (Updated for Microsoft® Word 2007 & 2010), by J E
Raubenheimer (2012). See http://insight.trueinsight.za.com/word/dissertation for more information.
Academic writing means engaging the scientific literature of your chosen field in a
responsible and critical manner. This means that you need to reference your sources—the
bane of a disorganised post graduate student’s existence. While I recommend Mendeley, and
have even written a book on how to use Mendeley, Word also, since Word 2007, now
contains a new set of tools to help with citations and bibliographies. These tools reside in the
Citations & Bibliography group on the References ribbon.
Figure 1
1.1.1
References ribbon: Citations & Bibliography group
Setting referencing style
The first step to using Word’s bibliographic tool is to choose the referencing style you will be
using (Figure 2). This is important, because both the way the sources are captured and the
way they are inserted depends on the style you are using.
Figure 2
Setting the Referencing Style
Table 1
Referencing Styles in Word 2010SP1
MSWord style name
APA
Chicago
Responsible organisation
American Psychological
Association
The Chicago Manual of Style
ISO 690 - First Element
and Date
Standardization Administration of
China
The Federal Agency of the Russian
Federation on Technical Regulating
and Metrology
The Federal Agency of the Russian
Federation on Technical Regulating
and Metrology
Anglia Ruskin University
Institute of Electrical and
Electronics Engineers
International Organization for
Standardization
ISO 690 - Numerical
Reference
MLA
International Organization for
Standardization
Modern Language Association
SIST02
Standards for Information of
Science and Technology by Japan
Science and Technology Agency
Turabian Style (University of
Chicago)
GB7714
GOST - Name Sort
GOST - Title Sort
Hardvard1—Anglia
IEEE 2006
Turabian
1
Institutional Website
http://apastyle.org/
http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/
tools_citationguide.html
File name
APA.XSL
APASixthEditionOfficeOnline.xsl
CHICAGO.XSL
GB.XSL
http://www.gost.ru
GostName.XSL
GostTitle.XSL
http://libweb.anglia.ac.uk/referencing/harvard.htm HarvardAnglia2008OfficeOnline.xsl
http://www.ieee.org/documents/stylemanual.pdf
IEEE2006OfficeOnline.xsl
http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/
catalogue_tc/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=
43320
ISO690.XSL
ISO690Nmerical.XSL
http://www.mla.org/style
http://sist-jst.jp/handbook/sist02_2007/main.htm
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/books/turabian/
index.html
®There are several “variants” of the Harvard style, notably Anglia, Leeds, and Exeter, as well as the South African version.
MLA.XSL
MLASeventhEditionOfficeOnline.xsl
SIST02.XSL
TURABIAN.XSL
1.1.2
Adding sources
The next step to using Word’s bibliographic tool is to add your sources to a database.
If you have a whole bunch of sources to add, you can open the Manage Sources
dialog, and click on the New… button repeatedly to add them. Alternatively, you can
add them one at a time, from the Insert Citation menu’s Add New Source… option
(Figure 3).
Figure 3
Adding a New Citation Source
This will bring up the Create Source dialog (Figure 4). Word allows you to add 17
different types of sources, which at least cover the most common types of sources
(with some important omissions like computer programs, personal communications,
etc.). The seventeenth source type is “Miscellaneous,” which is meant to cover all
those that are not in the list, but might not quite meet your needs. The fields presented
for you to complete will, of course, depend on which source type and which
referencing style you have chosen (hence the importance of setting the referencing
style first, and of choosing the right source type).
Figure 4
Create Source dialog
If you find that you need to add certain information which is not in the list of fields
given to you (e.g., the volume number of a book), you can select the Show All
Bibliography Fields button to have more fields displayed (Figure 5), although these
will again be source type specific. It is also a good idea to set the language being used
for the reference in the Language list box at the top right. You will also notice that
Word assigns a tag to your source. This is used to distinguish sources from each other,
and as Word automatically assigns a unique tag to each source, you need actually not
worry about changing this (in fact, it is best not to fiddle with this, because if you
create duplicate tags, you will be messing up your referencing).
In contrast to adding sources via the Manage Sources dialog, if you added the source
via the Insert Citation tool, it will, when you are done, be added automatically at the
current working position—this is nice, since it means that you can add your sources as
you are working.
Figure 5
1.1.3
Create Source dialog showing more fields (compare Figure 4)
Inserting a citation
Once the source has been added, it will appear in a list under Insert Citation. Thus, if
you did not add a citation “on the fly” by using the Add New Source… option, you
can insert the citation from the list of sources in this tool (Figure 6). Note that, since
you will only be adding a source once, most of your citations will be added in this
fashion.
Figure 6
Inserting a citation
If you don’t have a source, you could also just insert a placeholder from the Insert
Citation tool. You can then later return and add the source to the placeholder by
selecting Edit Source (see the list of options in Figure 8), and adding the source
details in the Edit Source dialog (which is, apart from the title, exactly the same as
the Create Source dialog). You can also search for a source using the Search
Libraries tool, which will open up the Research pane.
While the citation will look like standard text, it is actually a Word Citation field, as
you will discover if you were to hold your mouse over it (see the shading shown in
Figure 10), or click on it (see the citation box shown in Figure 8).
Remember that one often references multiple sources for a single point (especially if
you have done your reading well). Word will allow you to reference as many sources
as you want, and will combine them in the citation. If you want to do this, make sure
that you position yourself within the citation field (the simplest is just to press ← once
as soon as the citation has been added). When you then add another source, it is added
to the same citation field. Figure 7 shows a citation with two sources, and a third
about to be added.
Figure 7
1.1.4
Adding multiple sources to a single citation
Editing citations
Once the citation has been added, you can then modify it. If you do click on it, you
will see the citation box, with an arrow on its right. Selecting this arrow (Figure 8), or
right clicking anywhere on the citation, will allow you to edit the citation, edit its
source (e.g., if you see that you misspelled the author’s name), convert the citation to
text2, or update your bibliography (see 1.1.6 below), and so include your new
reference, without having to go there first.
2
Note that the field is then removed, which means that this reference will no longer be updated if you were to edit
it (e.g., in the Source Manager dialog), and will not be included in the bibliography.
Figure 8
Selecting Edit Citation
The Edit Citation dialog will allow you to enter page numbers for your reference, or
to suppress the author, year or title information (Figure 9).
Figure 9
Edit Citation dialog
For example, Figure 10 shows the same citation from Figure 8, just with the page
numbers added. If you want to suppress the author name, Word may, depending on
which referencing style you are using, replace it with the title3, so you may need to
actually suppress the author name and title to get only the date displayed. For
example, en dashes are used for number ranges, thus, when you add the page
numbers, use the en dash (the dialog accepts it).
Figure 10
Citation with page numbers added
If you have referenced multiple sources in a single citation, you can then edit every
source in a citation individually (e.g., to add page numbers, or suppress one of the
information fields)—the Edit Source option will change to a sub-menu title, and
holding your mouse over it will display all the sources cited in its sub-menu
(Figure 11). Similarly, you can remove any of the sources, or edit any of the sources.
3
Microsoft reports this as a known bug (http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/word-help/apa-mla-chicagoautomatically-format-bibliographies-HA102435469.aspx).
Figure 11
1.1.5
Working with multiple sources in a single citation
Managing sources
When you have a large number of sources, you will want to manage them. This is
done with the Source Manager dialog (Figure 12), which is launched from the
Manage Sources tool in the Citations & Bibliography group on the References
ribbon (Alt | S | M).
Figure 12
Source Manager dialog
This tool will allow you to sort your sources by Author, Title, Year or Tag. You can
also search for a source using the Search tool, and Word will preview the
bibliographic entry for the source based on the referencing style you have chosen (see
1.1.1).
It’s important also to understand how Word handles sources that you add to.
Whenever a source is added, it is added to what Word calls the Master List of sources
(stored
in
C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Bibliography\
Sources.xml), regardless of which document you are working in. In other words,
Word collects all the sources that you ever use. If you want to use a source that you
have already added at an earlier stage, you need to load it to the Current List for that
document. Simply select the source (you can select multiple sources at a time) and
click on Copy. The source will now appear on the list of sources on the Insert Citation
tool (as shown in Figure 6). You can also Delete, Edit, and add New sources (the
latter was mentioned on p. 3). Lastly, the sources already cited in the document will
have tick marks next to them—this will come into play again when we examine
creating a bibliography in the next section.
Sadly, all this tool does is show you your sources in your master list and in your
document—in reality it does very little to actually help you manage your sources.
Good RMS programs help you manage your sources by allowing you to easily
identify duplicates (in Figure 12, Word gives no indication that the two sources at the
top of the list are duplicates), by allowing you to filter, group, and classify your
sources, and by allowing you to easily index your sources with keywords. If you have
only a few sources, that is not a major problem, but if you do large amounts of work,
over lengthy periods of time, where your sources might run into the thousands, this is
not just a problem, it is a major shortcoming.
1.1.6
Creating a bibliography
When you are ready, Word can create a bibliography for your document. Simply
position yourself in the document at the place where you want the bibliography to be
added, and select the Bibliography tool in the Citations & Bibliography group on the
References ribbon (Alt | S | B). As Figure 13shows, Word has two options built in,
and you can create your own using the Save Selection to Bibliography Gallery tool.
Figure 13
Inserting a bibliography
Unfortunately, the two options provided by Word (Bibliography and Works Cited)
provide exactly the same result: a bibliography, just with two different titles. In
academia, a bibliography is a list of all sources consulted in the course of your work,
both those referenced in your thesis and those not referenced. A reference list, by
contrast, is a list of only those sources which are directly referenced in your thesis
(Neville, 2007, pp. 13–14, 87). Most disciplines require reference lists, although some
may want bibliographies. Word cannot, automatically, give you a reference list.
The distinction between the two titles also reflects a misunderstanding of the terms
(i.e., Microsoft’s Wunderkinds got it wrong—they may be clever programmers, but
they show little experience of having done academic work): Most styles would
distinguish between a “Bibliography” and a “Reference list,” whereas the MLA style
distinguishes, respectively, between a list of “Works consulted” and a list of “Works
cited” (and hence, presumably, Microsoft’s two different titles). In other words, the
options you should have seen should have been “Bibliography” and “Works
consulted” (not “Works cited”), since both options provide you with a bibliography
only. Now what we would have wanted to see would have been these two options:
“Bibliography/Works consulted” and “Reference list/Works cited” (And depending
on whether you have chosen MLA or one of the other styles, Word should have
named it appropriately).
Getting back to what Word does offer, The two options differ only with regards to
their titles (“Bibliography” or “Works Cited”), and both will insert a bibliography
field into a box, but will use all the sources in the current list for the document (see
the Source Manager dialog in Figure 12) into that bibliography. The top of the box
(Figure 14) will have options to switch from one title to the other, or to convert the
bibliography into static text, and will allow you to update the bibliography at any
time.
Figure 14
Bibliography options
Note that Word uses the Heading 1 style for the title (you may want to change that)
and also the Bibliography style for the bibliography (you should probably not change
that, but you may want to customise it, as it is based on the Normal style.
How, then, can a reference list be created? The first thing to do is to create the
necessary title: Add a bibliography as already described. Then rename the title to
“Reference List” and make sure that it is in the style you prefer (note the different
style shown in the gallery in Figure 14). Then select the new title and the entire
bibliography. Next, click on Save Selection to Bibliography Gallery… in the
Bibliography tool in the Citations & Bibliography group on the References ribbon.
All that remains is to make sure that no sources appear in the list that are not cited. To
do this, use the Source Manager dialog discussed above, and make sure that there
are no sources in the current list of your document (the list on the right) which do not
have tick marks next to them by deleting them from the current list (see the top
duplicated reference in Figure 12). This is a real hassle, as it means that you have to
manually check that the document source list contains no unreferenced sources.
1.2
Alternatives
The Word Citations and Bibliography tool has several shortcomings. Two alternatives
which I recommend are Mendeley (www.mendeley.com) or BibWord. BibWord was
developed by Yves Dhondt of MIT in an attempt to overcome some of these
limitations to the Word Citations & Bibliography tool. It is downloadable freely from
the website (http://bibword.codeplex.com).
The styles that are available from the BibWord web page are listed in Table 2. One
more style—HarvardSA.XSL—which I created using the BibWord template, can be
downloaded
from
my
own
website
(search
for
it
on
http://insight.trueinsight.za.com/word).
Table 2
Referencing Styles Available via BibWord
Style
AssociaçãoBrasileira de NormasTécnicas (ABNT)
Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
American Medical Society (ACS)
American Medical Association (AMA)
American Sociological Association (ASA)
Chicago Footnotes (beta - not in zip)
Council of Science Editors (CSE)
Harvard - AGPS
Harvard - Anglia
Harvard - Exeter
Harvard - Leeds
Humana Press
IEEE
Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS)
Modern Humanities Research Association (MHRA)
Nature
Vancouver
File names
ABNT_Author.XSL
ABNT_Num.XSL
ABNT_Num_Alt.XSL
ACMCitSeq.XSL
ACMNameSeq.XSL
ACSCitSeq.xsl
ACSCitSeq2.xsl
AMA.XSL
ASA.XSL
CMSFootnote.XSL
CSECitSeq.XSL
CSENameSeq.XSL
HarvardAGPS.XSL
HarvardAnglia.XSL
HarvardExeter.XSL
HarvardLeeds.XSL
Humana.XSL
IEEE_Alphabetical.XSL
IEEE_Reference.XSL
LNCS.XSL
MHRAFootnote.XSL
Nature.XSL
Vancouver.XSL
Glossary:
Words:
bane
citations
duplicate
engaging
hassle
Description of words:
a cause of great distress or annoyance.
a quotation from or reference to a book, paper, or author, especially in a
scholarly work.
exactly like something else, especially through having been copied.
to interest someone in something and keep them thinking about it.
irritating inconvenience.