It is enormously rewarding to see your research paper published in a peer-reviewed journal. Months to years of hard work and perseverance comes together and the article sees the light of the day. In order to get the paper published, however, you will have done everything in your capacity to make sure the paper is well structured, the right words are used, and important points are highlighted. Nevertheless, you also need to ensure that you are using a universally accepted style.
Why is style so important? It provides clarity to the reader; with the right formatting, your paper looks like a publication-ready product.
Now, let us understand the common styles used by academic journals. Frequently, these formats are specified in the author instructions available at the journal’s website.
In this post, we will discuss the three main academic reference styles. For each of these styles, the primary aspects are the reference/citation styles (in text/numerical citations, bottom of the page referencing style).
Harvard Style
This is one of the more predominant styles used in biosciences and the social sciences literature.
Harvard style uses the ‘author-year’ mode of in-text citation. The name of the author and the year is placed in parentheses in line with the running text. The citation refers to the reference at the end of the article.
Harvard style of referencing has the following format:
Author name(s), initial (s), (year published). Title Edition. Place of Publication. Publisher
Here’s an example.
Pears, R. and Shields, G. (2019) Cite them right: The essential referencing guide. 11 th ed. London: MacMillan
In this example, you can be seen that the title is italicized, the first word of the title is capitalized and after that only proper nouns are capitalized.
APA Style
APA style or American Psychological Association is commonly used in social and medical sciences. The APA style of referencing is the author date style similar to the Harvard style of referencing.
- Berscheid, E., Dion, K. K., Walster, E., and Walster, G. W. (1971). Physical attractiveness and
dating choice: A test of the matching hypothesis. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology,
7, 173-189.
The referencing style follows the following format: Author AA, Author BB, Author CC, Author DD, (year of publication). Title of the article. Journal Name, Volume, Page Number.
There are a few subtle differences between the Harvard and Vancouver style of referencing. It could be a bracket or two, or simply the year of publication is mentioned in one, and in the other, the year of publication is mentioned later.
Vancouver Style
This is the style of referencing commonly used in the physical sciences. When using the Vancouver style, the in-context citation should be in Arabic numerals and the reference is written at the end of the work. Each number has a full reference at the bottom of the paper. Typically, the Arabic numerals are placed outside periods and commas, and inside colons and semicolons.
…as one author has put it ‘the darkest days were still ahead’. 1
Here Arabic numeral 1 indicates this is the first intext citation.
The format for the references at the end of the article is as follows: Author AA, Author BB, Author CC, Book Title, Place, publisher, date of publication, volume number, page numbers.
References are listed in numerical order at the bottom and in the same order in which they are cited in the text. Now let us understand how the references are compiled in the reference list.
- Jain A, Jain S, Rawat S. Emerging fungal infections among children: A review on its clinical manifestations, diagnosis, and prevention. J Pharm Bio allied Sci. 2010; 2:314–20
In this example, you will notice that the format is as follows: Arabic numeral. Author AA, Author BB, Author CC, Author DD. Title of article. Abbreviated title of journal/full name of journal. Date of publication, volume, page number.
How to know which reference format to use?
Choosing the right format can be a difficult task, considering that many of them look very similar. Nevertheless, a few aspects will help you decide which one is more appropriate. Of course, if you have a target journal where you would like to send the article, the choice is made for you. Happily, many journals now use ‘format-free’ submission, allowing you to use the style most comfortable for you.
- If the article is in the physical sciences, consider the Vancouver style of referencing.
- If it is in the social sciences or medical fields, consider the Harvard or APA style.
- If there is no specific formatting style mentioned and it is the social sciences or the medical sciences section, then it is better to go with the APA style of referencing because this is more universally accepted.
This post should have given you a fair understanding of the various and most popular formatting styles.
If you would like to know more about the different formatting styles, please consider contacting me.