Vexen Crabtree's Referencing Methods & Sources

1. Sources
   1. The Economist
   2. Academic Periodicals
   3. News Sources in Britain
   4. Books
2. Copyright
3. Square Brackets and Subscripts
4. Bibliography and References Sections on my Web Pages

1. Sources

1.1. The Economist

The Economist is a leading weekly news magazine of an utmost proffessional quality. It features analysis of world news, current events, science, academic research, business news and commercial analysis, and produces comprehensive thematic special reports on chosen subjects. It is intellectual, factual, academic and scholarly, with carefully researched articles. Bill Emmott was an editor of The Economist and before retiring, he described the magazine in these terms:

“One of the exceptional characteristics of this newspaper is the degree to which it still follows the principles and methods begun 163 years ago by its founder, James Wilson, and perfected by his son-in-law, Walter Bagehot. The Economist was launched to campaign for free trade and all forms of liberty, what proponents and detractors today call globalisation. [...] It did so with a formula that was three parts factual description and one part strongly held opinion or argumentative analysis. This is what we continue to attempt today.”

Bill Emmott, editor of The Economist (2006)₁

1.2. Academic Periodicals

Periodicals I read include "New Scientist", "British Medical Journal" and "Skeptical Inquirer" (published by the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry). I keep copies of The Economist if I have quoetd from it, but some other journals I do not generally own copies of. There is an British medical library in Germany where I accessed medical papers and journals from 2005 to 2008, and an Army base in Dorset where I access many political and military-issues journals. Many academic journals include news reports of important articles in other academic journals, so that the British Medical Journal reports on articles in Acupuncture in Medicine, and The Economist reports on publishings in the New Scientist, BMJ, etc. I find The Economist to have the widest scope, yet still to be pleasingly in-depth. When I refer to a secondary source I make it clear that that is what I am doing.

1.3. News Sources in Britain

The Guardian newspaper offers the best researched and most comprehensive reports on current events of all newspapers, relying least on wire copy and PR. Other quality newspapers in Britain include The Independent and The Telegraph (which I don't read) and The Times (according to the political analyst Bill Jones). In my summary of UK news media, the BBC also comes out very well.

There are also many trashy and useless newspapers in Britain, who frequently supply only entertainment and soft porn, mixed with fantastical and ridiculous stories and shockingly short-sighted and bigoted material. Such papers include The Sun, The Star and The Daily Mail.

1.4. Books

The majority of books and periodicals I quote from are ones that I own. When I acquire a new book, I will revisit old texts and add quotes to it from the new source. I tend to write notes on books I read (and stamp them with my library stamp, much to the chagrin of my wife), which horrifies some people. I do not just read books, I use them. Francis Bacon said that book reading can "serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability". My usage of books is definitely in the latter category - not for kicks, or to look good, but to get use out of them. He said, "simple men admire" books, but "wise men use them"₂.

2. Copyright

All text and material has an inherent copyright whereby it belongs to the person who created it. A copyright notice is not required in order for things to be protected. You are legally permitted in the UK to take quotations that are within a legal definition of "reasonable usage".

3. Square Brackets and Subscripts

• Square Brackets: "It is now known that this is so, and this is so. [...] I conclude that [therefore] this other thing is so, too" [Smith, 2000]

  1. "quote": When I am quoting, I mostly use double quotation marks unless sometimes when I'm only quoting a single word. If I'm quoting multiple times I will sometimes introduce an author and then leave subsequent quotes unattributed as long as it remains obvious I am still using the same source.

  2. [...], [... but]: Where square brackets appear, it denotes that I have edited the original. If the square brackets are: [...], then it means that I have skipped a part of their text for brevity or clarity. If there are words inside the square brackets, then they are there simply to make the quote make good grammatical sense after the removal of a long section.

  3. [Smith 1999]: If brackets appear in the middle of one of my paragraphs [Crabtree 2006] and not part of a quote, then it means I am "referencing" someone as being my source of information. It is important to state your sources, so that people can't say you're just making stuff up. It allows others to check that you've understood sources properly, quoted them in context, etc, and helps people understand the biases of your sources too. When someone is referenced, I will state their surname and perhaps some more information. I will give page numbers or chapter numbers etc in the iterated item at the bottom of the page, it is normally pretty self-explanatory. I avoid some conventions (such as "Ibid.") that are confusing to laypeople.

• Subscripted numbers ₃ in various places.₄

  1. It is a fact ₃ !: Subscripted numbers are references. When I reference someone inside a sentence, then it means that the immediate fact(s) preceding the reference are attributable to it. At the bottom of the page will be a numbered list showing more information. Click on the subscripted numbers are you will be taken to the Notes section; click on the carets ( ^ ^ ) in the Notes section to be taken to each major chapter area where that reference has been used.

  2. Lots of text.₃.: A reference outside a sentence or at the end of a paragraph means that multiple facts or quotes come from that one source. That way I can quote from the same source several times in a paragraph without having to insert ugly square brackets everywhere.

4. Bibliography and References Sections on my Web Pages

At the bottom of many webpages, I have a "reference", "sources" or "bibliography" section. They are all the same thing. In alphabetical order by author. Under each author is a list of books or articles used by that author. I state the year of original publication first, then go on to comment if I've used a later edition and give its year. I try to keep my biblio relatively verbose to aid understanding, and so that casual readers can work it out, rather than use specialist academic shorthand that many professionals are fond of. The following are some notes on abbreviations and methods of referencing sources:

• In or Via: This means that I have not seen the original, and the quote was obtained through another source, which will be in the bibliography. When including other peoples' biblio details I sometimes quote their reference in their own format, so it will look different to the others.

• Smith et al. simply means that a source was authored by multiple people, and for simplicity I am only listing the first one "and all" others. The biblio normally lists the authors in full where I've truncated it in the text.

• In the footer I make notes of major edits to the page, such as reformatting, major editing or when substantial new material was added. This is to account for the text, so that if a quote is taken of my text it can be seen why the original text now differs from it. Spelling corrections, minor edits and most reformatting are not mentioned as I consider such things to be routine and not substantial. I do not keep archived copies of previous versions.

Some academics and the like are horrified when referencing systems do not follow one of the great established systems, such as Harvard Referencing. But the truth is that traditional methods do not suit webpages. The capability to hyperlink subscripted numbers to the bottom of the page and have links back up to the original text mean that this method becomes superior, aiding readability and allowing useful levels of information to be added about sources in an inline manner. Also, the bibliography section itself does not use conventions such as ibid and does not follow the normal Harvard format. This is because that format is designed to save maximum space by placing everything in a known order. The problem is, ordinary readers find it hard to understand, and, on the web, there is no need to save pixels. References can be written out in plain English without having to worry about space!