Checking and re-checking references in my article...

[Strangefox]

Hi!

I have the following question. I understand that references in an article one submits need to be carefully checked. But I was wondering if anybody will check references in my article on the other end in case they want to publish it. I mean, what if I make a mistake, a minor one, like writing just "Continuum" instead of "London: Continuum" (I mean the publishing house)? Or something of that kind? And what if, God forbid, I misspell the name of an author (I still mean references)?? I would not want the article to be published that way!!

Edited June 21, 2011 by Strangefox

[lyonessrampant]

In my experience, the editors didn't closely check my references but instead made content suggestions. I think it is largely up to you to double check your references.

[Eigen]

In my experience, nearly all of the editing for the article is up to you. The reviewers and editors don't read it that closely.

And don't trust copy editors to do your work justice... I ended up with 5 pages of corrections to send back to the editor after the copy-editing process!

[Strangefox]

In my experience, nearly all of the editing for the article is up to you. The reviewers and editors don't read it that closely.

And don't trust copy editors to do your work justice... I ended up with 5 pages of corrections to send back to the editor after the copy-editing process!

So you mean after copy-editing they send it to you so that you could check the result - before they publish it?

[Eigen]

They have on all of my manuscripts.

[lyonessrampant]

Mine too.

[mandarin.orange]

So you mean after copy-editing they send it to you so that you could check the result - before they publish it?

Yes, they should send you proofs to double-check, with any changes highlighted that they have had to make.

Depending on the journal, the editors may send it back for revisions multiple times before it even goes to the publisher (mine did). Part of the revisions included re-formatting the references according to their specs (their website of Author's Guidelines said one thing, while recently-published articles were showing another). In my proofs, the copy-editors caught a reference or two that was cited in the paper, but omitted from the list at the end.

Reference formatting is, IMO, by far the most excruciating, nit-pickiest part of this process. Just go over it multiple times, ask for the help of your co-authors (if you have them), and have a willing friend/family member serve as editor. My BF has impeccable grammar and was very helpful with reading multiple drafts.

[Strangefox]

Ok, then I will keep re-checking, re-re-checking and re-re-re-checking my references

[Eigen]

Just get a copy of Endnote... It has reference styles for almost every journal out there, and you don't have to worry about the headache of compiling references. You drag and drop the reference you want into Word as you write, and then at the end it compiles them for you in the style you specify.

A copy of X4 (the newest version) is around $100 on Amazon (Student Edition) and is the best money you'll spend as far as saving headaches, imo.

Also, don't assume they'll highlight editorial changes... The last article I submitted didn't, I had to read and compare to my version to find them all.

[Strangefox]

Just get a copy of Endnote... It has reference styles for almost every journal out there, and you don't have to worry about the headache of compiling references. You drag and drop the reference you want into Word as you write, and then at the end it compiles them for you in the style you specify.

A copy of X4 (the newest version) is around $100 on Amazon (Student Edition) and is the best money you'll spend as far as saving headaches, imo.

Cool! But $100?

[mandarin.orange]

Cool! But $100?

Zotero is free. I didn't use it for this last article (many of my refs were old print copies anyway) but installed it and plan to do a lot of archiving of my articles this summer.

There was a thread here awhile ago about citation programs...from what I (vaguely) remember, folks spoke more highly of zotero than Endnote anyway. Might be worth a search.

[eco_env]

Cool! But $100?

Zotero is free. You log into it through firefox and can access citations anywhere, but you also need to install something in Word to insert citations and automatically prepare a list of references.

[Strangefox]

Thanks! I will try Zotero.

[Eigen]

We should probably revive the "Reference Manager" thread... But imo, Zotero isn't very good compared to Endnote.

Mendeley and Sente are both OK, and I hear people saying good things about Refworks.

But I really think Endnote is the best of the bunch. And when you're talking about something that you'll use constantly from now until you finish your dissertation... It's well worth the money. It's nothing compared to other productivity software (Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Illustrator, Origin, Prism, even MS Office), and it's spending the money on something that increases the accuracy and ease of your work.

Edited June 23, 2011 by Eigen

[Strangefox]

But I really think Endnote is the best of the bunch. And when you're talking about something that you'll use constantly from now until you finish your dissertation...

Only until I finish my dissertation? And what about after that?

[Eigen]

Only until I finish my dissertation? And what about after that?

Hah. Fine, it'll be a tool you use from now until you die! But after you finish your dissertation, you'll be rich and able to afford the upgrades that will have come out while you were a poor graduate student.

[rising_star]

I've had lots of headaches with EndNote and, consequently, have mostly switched to Zotero. The most annoying was when EndNote deleted a reference from my paper, causing all the other references to shift around. I caught the error, luckily, but it was not good. A friend has been using EndNote for her dissertation and came out of her office the other day screaming about how EndNote was f*$%ing up her references again...

I wish Zotero had more output styles though.

[natsteel]

I used EndNote for a long time but never the CWYW feature. I like to type out all my footnotes (Chicago-style) myself, but I would use EndNote for doing the bibliography. Now that Papers2 has incorporated a citation manager in it even easier than EndNote, I have given up on EndNote for personal use. Though, sometimes I have to use it when collaborating with others and keeping a shared ENL on Dropbox. I've tried them all: Mendeley, Sente, Bookends, Zotero, and Refworks. And, for me, Papers is the most intuitive yet. If I had stayed with Windows, I would likely still be using EndNote, however.

[Eigen]

Really? I have a quite sizable library, and have never had a problem with it deleting references- in the library or in papers.

The newer versions help in that they create sublibraries of all references that you're citing in a paper, so it's easy to see if you have everything you want.

The thing I most like about Endnote is that I can really easily transfer it from computer to computer- or even keep the full library synced to all my computers using Dropbox. I have a folder for all my papers in Dropbox, and another for the Endnote data files.... And so any computer I open that library on has all my references complete with the attached papers. Really nice for swapping between my desktop and laptop while I'm writing a paper.

I'm thinking of swapping to a Mac later this year, and I'm looking forward to giving Papers a try when I do, however.

[runonsentence]

OP: When I worked as a production editor for a large academic publisher, we did have our copyeditors check (and edit) references on journal articles. But there's a wide disparity in the quality/competence of copyeditors, and it becomes a huge headache at proofs for everyone involved (including yourself) if there's a ton of missing information in your citations. Plus, every change you request at proofs has the potential to go awry when the typesetter goes to implement the change. It's best to send the cleanest copy you can to a publisher, despite the presence of copyediting.

[eco_env]

I wish Zotero had more output styles though.

You can add more styles by going to Actions (the gear symbol), preferences, cite, styles, get additional styles, (or just click install here: http://www.zotero.org/styles) but maybe you knew that already... I found a style that was fairly similar to the style I needed and made a few changes by hand.