Reference system of Microsoft Word, reliable?

[Saghar]

Hi everybody,

 

I'm about to apply for New School for social research, and I have a doubt about my writing sample. I see that one of the most important goals of requesting a writing sample, is evaluating student's citation and referencing in that essay. When I was writing my sample two years ago, I simply used the word APA system which I thought it was closer to the way of citation that I got used to. But still some parts of it is strange for me. For example the way of citing inside the text in paratezes, it also include the full title of the book inside the essay each time! like this: the framework of his second government program. (Makki, Ketabe siah/The Black Book, 1370/1991, pp. 353-354). The Chicago system has some other problems especially in bibliography part.

Has anyone ever used word citation systems? If not, what should I do in my manual amendment of my essay. The website of the school did not write anything about the accepted system. Which system I should use and how can I find accurate and reliable information about that system?

 

Thanks in advance!

[yhakak]

i would use a tool such as Zotero. Then if needed you can change your citation format at the press of a button.

[Usmivka]

I use the Mendeley plug-in for Word. Is this what you mean? I don't believe Word has a built in citation manager. I've found that you need to be careful in looking at what options are selected that the citation style you want is actually the one selected. Also, Mendeley and other web or text-crawler based reference software doesn't always collect all the details correctly or assign a source to the correct category (eg it might read a paper or book chapter as a webpage depending on how you access it, which would then read differently int he citations).

[Saghar]

Thanks yhakak and Usmivca,

 

In word there is no special system for recognizing your source. you simply input the information of your book (you choose whether it is a book or paper or website, etc), and according to the system that you have chosen it manage your citation. (you can access it in your "reference" bar of Microsoft word. It seems that it is not reliable, but I don't know what to do now?

 

I know how to cite a book in Persian, and I know which system is commonplace in my country, but I'm not sure whether it is acceptable for New School or not. What makes it worse is that they did not mention any regulation for writing sample. Now I don't know which system I should use, and how can I acquire reliable information about the way of citing in that system.

 

 

 

[alyoshakaramazov]

I've found it mostly reliable. However, if you have an outdated version of Word (i.e., anything besides Word 2013), then I strongly suggest proofreading the citations. Actually, even if you have Word 2013, you should still proofread.