Guidelines for References

Every reference must be cited at least once in the text!

References must be adequate, correct, complete and consistent!

• Adequate: it is appropriate for supporting the claims for which it is cited.

• Correct: The referenced source actually exists and the bibliographic information is correct, i.e. names and titles are spelled correctly, page numbers are correct, etc.

• Consistent: The same style is used throughout the bibliography for the same types of references, so that the necessary elements of a reference can be easily identified by the reader.

Complete: Necessary elements for any bibliography entry:

• AUTHOR: responsible persons or entities; that may be authors, editors, or sometimes a company

• DATE: usually a year

• TITLE: in full and spelled correctly, be careful of capitalization (in latex: use curly brackets, e.g. {MiXeD CaSe})

• TYPE and SOURCE

Common cases for type and source:

• Book/Monograph: needs a publisher, ideally including the publisher's location, maybe an ISBN

• Book Chapter: full info on the book, plus page numbers and/or chapter number

• Journal article: journal name, volume/issue/page numbers, maybe a DOI, maybe extra info such as editors and a title for special issues

• Proceedings article: full title of proceedings (which is basically a book) i.e. editors, title, publisher; plus page numbers and maybe a DOI

• (Technical) Report: publisher which may be a school, plus maybe an identifier (report number)

• Thesis: type of thesis (PhD, Master's) and school

• Special cases: Complete journal issue (drop page numbers, maybe add special issue details like editor and title) or complete conference proceedings (basically like a book with editors).

Special special cases for type and source:

• Webpages: URL plus "last time accessed", choose the most stable version of the URL if there are alternatives, the "last time accessed" can be handled for all references at once, e.g. at the top of the bibliography; its purpose is to increase the chances for finding the source as seen by you at the time and in case the website goes down (archive.org)

• Film/Game/Software/Installation/Product: details on the responsible person, company, distributor, ... as appropriate

• Private conversation/correspondence: detailed date and time, no title necessary

• Unless there are a lot of those special special cases, it might be better to use footnotes for them.

Extra special special cases for type and source:

• Poems, plays, Greek philosophers, ... may have their own citation rules!