The moment is here. After years of planning, experimentation, and analysis you are ready to publish your findings and share your discoveries. Your desktop is littered with manuscript versions one through twelve and your eyes are watering as you scan the final version, anxious to initiate peer review of the work. Before you click “submit”, it’s time to buckle down and do one last copyediting pass on your manuscript.
No one jumps for joy at the task of editing the references cited in a manuscript or book chapter. It is a necessary but tedious job that begs the question “Why can’t my computer just do this for me?” Well, it actually can. Likely the publisher’s computers will perform this feat using software (http://www.inera.com/extyles-products/extyles) designed to automate the process. Currently available programs (https://www.edifix.com/) can proof, format, and even correct for errors and missing information in cited references using a digital object identifier (https://www.doi.org/) to verify the citation with a trusted repository such as PubMed (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed) or by linking to the source publication through CrossRef (www.crossref.org).
Such software developments are good news for authors, publishers, and readers. However, as an author, you still bear the primary responsibility for ensuring that your published work includes accurate and appropriate citations of prior research. A sloppy job of reference citation can delay the publication of your work, annoy reviewers, and, at worst, merit rejection of your manuscript altogether.
How do you master this aspect of manuscript preparation? To answer that, we enter the realm of reference management software. These are tools designed to help you efficiently create and manage reference libraries, format citations of references during manuscript preparation, and share bibliographies with colleagues and collaborators.
Here are four tips for managing your references and making manuscript preparation more efficient and less error-prone. An initial investment in developing a system to manage your references can save you hours of time down the road. Master this part of the process and you are one step closer to getting back to research and to the next discovery awaiting you.
(1) Find a reference management software that works for you and learn how to use it.
Do this early on in the writing process. Choose a software that is well-supported and make a habit of using that system. Reference management systems from Mendeley (https://www.mendeley.com/), EndNote (http://endnote.com/), RefWorks (http://www.refworks.com/), and Zotero (https://www.zotero.org/) are popular options. The American Chemical Society has its own version, ChemWorx (https://hp.acschemworx.acs.org/). BibTeX (http://www.bibtex.org/) is an option for authors who use LaTeX (https://www.latex-project.org/) to prepare their manuscripts.
Reviews and comparisons of these systems are easily found online. Try this one (http://libguides.mit.edu/references) from MIT, this one (http://guides.lib.berkeley.edu/publichealth/citations) from UC Berkeley, and this one (http://www.phdontrack.net/review-and-discover/reference-managers/) geared for Ph.D. students. Before spending time sifting through reviews, get input from your advisor or collaborators on which systems they find useful. Once you have identified a reference management system, look to your university’s library for online or in-person training opportunities. Librarians can help you get started quickly, troubleshoot problems, and provide tips that can save you significant time in the long-run.
(2) Don’t clutter your computer with PDFs that have nonsense file names.
Accessing and downloading literature resources can be time consuming. When you finally download the PDF of the perfect reference that you have been hunting for, it can be tempting to use that resource immediately and hastily file it away on your desktop or server. Take a moment to give that paper a recognizable file name when saving it – you will thank yourself later. While some might balk at lengthy file names, the following convention is an easy one.
Author_et_al_YEAR_Copy and paste title here
(3) When copyediting your manuscript, focus on content and consistency and don’t sweat the details.
As an author you interact with numerous journals, each with their own set of instructions for authors and reference citation guidelines. Small differences in preferred formatting are easy to overlook. When proofing a manuscript as an author or as a reviewer, focus your efforts on ensuring the references contain essential information for each source and use internal consistency in formatting.
Make smart investments of your citation-proofing time by ensuring that the citations are entered correctly into your reference management software rather than within the text of an individual manuscript. Ensure that details such as the publication year and source are correct. For web-based references, don’t forget to include the access date. Check that both a publisher and publishing location are included for book chapters. Verify patent numbers and government report IDs as needed.
(4) Remind yourself of the importance of properly citing published research.
As scientists we are also scholars. Properly citing prior research is an important facet of building your scholarly body of work. An inaccurate reference section is a disservice to those whose work you cite as well as to readers who are looking to learn from and build on your research.
Happy writing!
