The SAO Referencing and Citation Style Guide
1. Introduction
This webpage provides a guide to the required way to cite
and reference scientific sources in your SAO work (in particular, in essays and
projects). Correct and consistent referencing is an integral part of scientific
writing. It clearly shows where you have sourced information and allows readers
to find this information for themselves quickly.
For scientific sources, we require you to use the style adopted by the
Astrophysical Journal (ApJ), one of the leading astronomy research journals. Astronomers
often refer to this as the "ApJ style". The complete detailed guide is available at
https://journals.aas.org/author-resources/references/. To become more familiar with the style, we suggest you
look at some articles of interest from ApJ, available online
here, thanks to the Swinburne
library.
Please adopt a consistent and common sense approach for more general
sources such as periodicals, magazines, print media, websites, film,
video, etc., and unpublished materials (which really should be
avoided!). Remember that you are referring to these materials to
substantiate or augment your arguments and that the readers should
be able to locate and verify the information for
themselves.
The examples in Sections 2 to 6 (below) illustrate how you should refer to (cite) the work of others
within your written text. In Section 8 below is a guide to formatting the complete source details
as they appear
in the References list (Bibliography). Compare each citation example with
its full source details as listed in the final
References section below.
Note: All sources cited in the text must be listed
in the References, and every entry in the References must be referred to in the
text (except for "personal communication", which, although mentioned
in the text, would not be listed in the References).
2. Scientific sources: journals, textbooks, conference proceedings, theses, etc.
In brief,
within the text of your assignment, you should refer to the work of others by the
last name of the first author and the year of publication, as shown in the following examples in the ApJ style.
- single author: (last name and year, without a comma, or year only if the name is part of the sentence)
The new data provided by Bloggs (2004) clearly showed that the answer was 42,
confirming his earlier theoretical work (Bloggs 1996). The data were analysed
using the IRAF data analysis package (Tody 1993) developed at NOAO.
- two authors: (names joined by an ampersand)
More recently, extensive N-body simulations have derived an answer
of 42.007 ± 0.009 (Fluke & Maddison 2008).
- three or more authors: (first author followed by "et al.")
Sunshine et al. (2006) analysed the comet's surface water ice.
Note in this example that "et al." is used in the text when there are three or more
authors, but all authors (if no more than five) are listed in the References.
However, if there are more than five authors, provide the surname and initials of just the first three authors and add "et al." in the References listing.
- authors with the same last name: (include initials to distinguish)
- citing two or more papers: (citations separated by a semicolon)
More recent studies on small isolated galaxies
(Jalali & Hunter 2005; Hinshaw 2008) revealed that...
- two or more papers, same author(s): (dates separated by a comma)
Recent studies on spiral galaxies (Brainy 2006, 2007) showed that...
- two or more papers, same author(s), same year: (use a, b, c, etc., to distinguish papers)
Recent studies on cluster galaxies (Johns 2008a, 2008b) suggested that...
- two or more papers, three or more authors, same year: (as above, a, b, c, ... used to
distinguish papers; note that the letters are assigned by their order in the References, which may
not necessarily be the same order in which they are cited in the text).
Tammann et al. (2008b) propose a more extensive TRGB calibration of
Type 1a supernovae and have also argued that the Cepheid period-luminosity relation may
not be unique (Tammann et al. 2008a).
- thesis: (cite in the same way as above)
In an analysis of the distribution of hydrogen in the local universe,
Kilborn (2000) searched the HIPASS data.
3. E-prints/Preprints
Many research papers are initially published on the Web prior to being refereed -
these are called "electronic preprints" (or "e-prints" for short) or "preprints".
The website "arXiv" for e-prints is
https://arxiv.org/
and the astrophysics section is
https://arxiv.org/archive/astro-ph
which is sometimes referred to as "astro-ph". The authors are cited in your text in the same way as above, but note how they
appear in the References. See the examples in the Reference section below for Aloisio (2008) and Hinshaw et al. (2008).
4. Websites
We note that several SAO students incorrectly reference websites. To avoid
lengthy URLs (web addresses) in the text, create a unique reference instead (with
the suffix "web"). For example, "SAOweb" would be appropriate for the
Swinburne Astronomy Online Home Page and could be used as follows:
Swinburne Astronomy Online, clearly the best online graduate
astronomy program in the world, has taught into more than 35 countries around the globe (SAOweb).
Since webpages can change over time, but journal articles do not,
you should include the date you accessed the website in the References list.
SAO deviates from the ApJ style in this regard, with the ApJ style such that websites are not considered appropriate sources of information for inclusion in the Reference section.
5. Other non-refereed periodicals and general sources
For newspaper and magazine articles, films, videos, unpublished seminar
presentations, etc., please adopt a consistent and common sense approach to
referencing, as these types of sources will not be found in ApJ articles! References
to well-regarded but non-refereed journals such as New Scientist, Astronomy Now,
Sky & Telescope and so on can be made in the ApJ style.
e.g., James Peebles wrote an article for Scientific American (Peebles 2001),
which many people have read and enjoyed.
A comprehensive style guide for sources not covered by the ApJ instructions
is available from the APA at
https://owl.purdue.edu/.
6. Personal communication
Letters, emails, personal interviews and communications, and other unpublished and
unverifiable material should be cited in the text as (B. Rabbit date, personal
communication) but not be listed in the References. Remember that these
sources are rarely helpful in a scientific paper.
7. Quotations
If you quote text from a trusted source, place it in quotation marks
and give the reference and page number from where you obtained it.
According to Norris (2000),
"While quoting material in this way is fine, you must be sure to make it clear that it is a
quote. If you quote material but do not make it clear, the person marking it may treat [it]
as plagiarism and reduce your marks accordingly. Note that those marking assignments
will routinely use search tools to check for plagiarism." (p. 5)
If your quote is greater than 40 words, it is called a block quote and
requires indentation (formatted as above).
If your quote has less than 40 words, you can include it within your
text (a.k.a., a regular direct quote) and is formatted like any other
text. For example: "While quoting material this way is fine, you
must make sure to be clear that it is a quote" (Norris 2000, p.5).
Think carefully about using quotations. Does the quotation add strength to your arguments?
A quotation by itself will be likely to add little quality to your submission (or marks to your
grade!).
Overusing quotations will impact your work's "originality", and graders
may assess your submission less favourably.
8. Final comments
Do not merely summarise the writings of others: present your arguments in your own words using references unless
quoting directly (see above). A list of references, in alphabetical order by
first author, is essential at the end of the work but must only include
references referred to in the work. A supplementary
reading list is not required. Do not separate your reference list into sections
such as texts, journals, websites, etc. Usually, statements about
"common knowledge" found in general astronomy textbooks do not
require a reference, e.g. "The Sun is a star."
Your references should not heavily rely on
your Unit textbook, SAO Course Content, or Wikipedia entries (track down the original source).
For high marks, you
should use higher-standard resources (conference texts, journal
papers, e-prints, reputable websites and the like).
9. Listing your references
References are listed alphabetically by the first author's last name (and then chronologically).
The names of frequently cited scientific
journals can be abbreviated, and a list of these acronyms is provided in the
Appendix at the end of this guide, together with more general information about
finding the abbreviations used for other publications.
- The general ApJ format for journal papers is as follows.
Lastname, I. Year, Journal abbreviated title, Volume, First page number of the article
- If the volumes are divided into numbers in which the page numbering recommences from
1 with each volume, then the number of the volume will need to be included:
Lastname, I. Year, Publication, Volume (Number), First page
- For articles with two to five authors, all names should be listed, with a comma
between authors and an ampersand before the final name:
Firstauthor, F., Secondauthor, S., & Thirdauthor, T. Year, Publication, Volume, First page
- If there are more than five authors, name just the first three authors, followed by "et al."
- Papers submitted but not (yet) accepted
for publication should be listed with the journal name and "submitted". Papers
accepted for publication should be listed as "in press".
These details can be added if the article is available as a preprint.
The pre-publication details are superseded once the article has been published, and the journal reference must be used instead.
For example, the paper by Maddison et al. (2007) listed
below has now been published. Before publication, it had been referenced as a
preprint (arXiv:0706.4248v1).
- Where the same author details are listed in sequential references, the second entry can
be abbreviated using a long dash, although this need not be applied.
- Please read the ApJ guide for more extensive details about
correctly referencing books, collections, conference proceedings, star catalogues,
newsletters, instrument documentation, etc.
References
Aloisio, R. 2008, arXiv:0807.0151 (nb. once a work is published, you need to update the entry, replacing the arXiv entry with the publisher details)
Bloggs, F. 1996, MNRAS, 283, 1287
Bloggs, F. 2004, AJ, 128, 45
Brainy, V. 2006, ApJ, 652, 279
Brainy, V. 2007, Natur, 449, 868
Fluke, C., & Maddison, S. T. 2008, ApJ, 42, 7
Hinshaw, G., Weiland, J. L., Hill, R. S., et al. 2008, ApJS, submitted (arXiv:0803.0732)
Jalali, M. A., & Hunter, C. 2005, ApJ, 630, 804
Johns, J. J. 2008a, A&A, 479, 311
Johns, J. J. 2008b, MNRAS, 389, 502
Kilborn, V. A. 2000, PhD thesis, Univ. of Melbourne
Maddison, S. T., Fouchet, L., & Gonzalez, J.-F. 2007, Ap&SS, 311, 3
Norris, R. P. 2000, The Bright Student Almanac, Vol. 3 (Sydney: Galactic Press)
Peebles, P. J. 2001, SciAm, 284(1), 54
SAOweb: Swinburne Astronomy Online Home Page,
https://astronomy.swin.edu.au/sao/
(accessed 27 Jan 2010)
Sunshine, J. M., A'Hearn, M. F., Groussin, O., et al. 2006, Science, 311, 1453
Tammann, G., Sandage, A., & Reindl, B. 2008a, ApJ, 679, 52
Tammann, G., Sandage, A., & Reindl, B. 2008b, A&ARv, 15, 289
Tody, D. 1993, in ASP Conference Series 52, Astronomical Data Analysis Software and Systems II, ed. R.J. Hanisch, R.J.V. Brissenden and J. Barnes (San Francisco: ASP), 173
Appendix
Journal Abbreviations
From https://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs_doc/refereed.html the abbreviations of some commonly cited journals are given:
- A&A – Astronomy and Astrophysics
- A&ARv – Astronomy and Astrophysics Review
- A&AS – Astronomy and Astrophysics Supplement Series
- Afz – Astrofizika
- AJ – The Astronomical Journal
- ApJ – The Astrophysical Journal
- ApJL – The Astrophysical Journal Letters
- ApJS – The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series
- Ap&SS – Astrophysics and Space Science
- ARA&A – Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics
- AZh – Astronomicheskij Zhurnal
- BAAS – Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society (AAS Meetings)
- JA&A – Journal of Astrophysics and Astronomy
- MNRAS – Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
- Natur - Nature
- PASJ – Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan
- PASP – Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific
- QJRAS – Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society
- RMxAA – Revista Mexicana de Astronomia y Astrofisica
- Sci - Science
- SvA – Soviet Astronomy