There are 3,000 ways to cite source material - why not make it one?

I wholeheartedly support the sentiment, but not the particular approach suggested. I would no longer include the place books are published since the place of publication is now redundant and is not given for any other type of source. I would also include authors’ first names since they make it much easier to track down an author. Google Scholar finds 26,000 results for the author ‘A Gill’ but only 17 for ‘Alec Gill’.

Microsoft have restricted themselves to building in a handful of author/date referencing systems into the most recent version of Word. These are most likely to become the standard accepted systems as they are easy to use and it is possible to switch the whole document from one style to another. It is not trivial to expect students to acknowledge sources and existing academic referencing systems have been evolving. The real issue continues to be plagiarism.

Anything to get overpriced and overhyped biliographic software off the market which upgrades constantly with the promise of "more styles available than the competition" but fails to deliver on the things that matter such as providing multiple styles within the same document. alsoI blame the APA publication manual as much for being so pernickety and illogical it its application of syle which is not limited to citations. It is hard enough getting students to write quality material without adding multiple style variations depending upon discipline specifics or in some cases mere personal preference.

Alec, I wish academic decision-making occurred through popular acclaim. I'd campaign for you.

The idea of a unified referencing style is a welcome one, and would benefit students, academics and librarians. However the format you propose is hard to read. Punctuation exists to separate elements and therefore prevent misinterpretation. In your citations it was unclear when one type of information switched to the next and it was therefore more difficult to read. however your referencing style would no doubt suit students who rite lik this that is in a way that we should be discouraging BCNU

As someone currently working on an MA dissertation any idea which might to shift the emphasis from endlessly perfecting a bibliography in a stilted, old fashioned style towards the exercise of imagination and reading in a quality piece of work is to be welcomed. I quite like A Gill's version but I'm sure there are many variations yet to be offered. I do agree with Kay Williams that plagiarism is one of the 'real issues' (hence the subject of my dissertation) along with Tim Healey's mention of 'personal preferences' (amongst marking tutors I guess.) A Gill is right - it's high time we 'abandoned absurdity'.

Trying to tidy up publication lists on my University website, I see scores of different ways of listing stuff, often on the same page. Ultimately the goal is clarity so information should be only what is required and punctuation should be used sparingly and with appropriate emphasis. Gill's format, for example, puts a strong punctuation (colon) between the publisher and the city of publication (which I agree with Gavin Moodie is entirely unnecessary anyway) and a weak punctuation (comma) between the city and the actual title, which makes the city seem as if it relevant to the title, not the publisher. Colons are very common in titles so should be avoided as separaters in citations; commas are very common too so should never be used adjacent to titles. Under the Gill system, a book called 'Three Cities: Paris, Rome, Madrid' would be listed as 'Three Cities: Paris, Rome, Madrid, London: Hodder & Stoughton' which is clearly daft. Full stops are very rarely used in titles so make much better separaters and should be used between each relevant part of the citation, as: 'Author(s). Title. Publisher. Year.' or 'Author(s). Chapter title. In Publication Title. Editors. Publisher. Year.' One factor that Alec Gill doesn't address is multiple authors, which creates whole new varients. People have an urge to stick extraneous commas and full stops into sometimes quite long author lists, making them harder to read. Instead of 'Smith, A.B., Jones, C,D. and Robinson, E.F.' (or some variant thereof) a much clearer, completely unambiguous format is 'Smith AB, Jones CD, Robinson EF'.

Alec Gill presents a nice idea ... and then spoils it by presenting a somewhat horrible model of how academic citation should work. His rejection of punctuation is misguided, as it really does help with clarity and ease of reading. I would rather retain a multitude of citation styles, than have Gill's pet system foisted upon me.

Perhaps the academic world could follow the example set by the legal world on this issue. When preparing materials for court, Canadian lawyers generally cite legislation, cases, secondary material, treaties etc. in the manner prescribed by the Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation published by Carswell. The guide was published as a result of a citation project started in 1984 by the McGill Law Journal. It involved discussion between editors of law reviews, journals, publishing houses, university law libraries, judges, legislative counsel and lawyers.

The essential thing is that the meaning should be clear. Anything else is a luxury. I doubt if any prescribed system can be certain to cover every eventuality. For example, italic type is useful in typed material, but in an exam, which is hand-written, the use of underline to indicate italic (the proof-reader's convention) may or may not be appropriate. Let's just agree that anything that makes sense is OK.

Hi Everyone, Is the author of the piece entitled to comment upon the comments? I assume I can, so here goes. First of all, very many thanks to everyone for adding your views on this crucial topic (within the academic world, that is). I appreciate that and would add that this is the JOY of the internet. That is, we can all speedily contribute to an idea as feedback is obtained and ideas evolve. We have some guests this weekend, but I will try to respond to each contributor at a time, in chronological order. 1. Gavin Moodie: Thanks for your support for the idea, but not necessarily the method suggested. That is great (and many others go along with that line of thought). Since attending the Bradford University symposium (8 June), I have also heard the evidence that the Place of Publication is now also antiquated (the speaker suggested the ISBN instead). Equally, I take you point about the author's first name. The new system was never put forward in stone or cast in iron. First names are also 'do-able' when these are known and more friendly, I think - thanks for the Google Scholars search. 2. Kay Williams: It is interesting what you say about the Word 2007 Reference Ribbon. Do you use it regularly? People in the Bradford audience gave a big groan when it was mentioned. I would think any of these citation software packages are very useful IF you are a postgrad or academic - with time to committ to them; but for the typical UG who has an essay deadline, it is too much to ask. But if you are right Kay, then things would simplify over time - and that is the right direct to go. [Plagiarism is another ball-game that I will leave at this stage.] 3. Tim Sealey: "Overpriced and overhyped biblio software" - I fully agree. They are making money out of the chaos I am writing about and trying to ameliorate. Interesting what you say about the APA manual. Obviously, the various Associations will not be keen to go for any unified system - but time will tell. This Times article is just an opening shot. 4. Jenna Price: I wish too... You are very kind. Right, I will return to our guests and come back to the rest when I can. Cheers for now. Alec Gill.

Its about time this issue was discussed with the students who have to find their way through it all. I am not what you call academic, but have worked my way through a degree and Post Grad, with 2 universities,and was so frustrated with the referencing. Each uni said to use Harvard but then there were discrepencies within this system. I would not be bothered what system was being used just as long as the same one was accepted everywhere, that in itself would make life easier.

Hi Again, I hope to catch up this time. (5) Karl Drinkwater: Thanks for your feedback on the format and punctuation. I will come back to that below. (6) Matthew Hisbent: Good Luck with your MA on Plagiarism [I am currently working on a VLE about the same topic]. (7) Mike Simpson: Clarity is definitely a key goal. I fully accept your criticism of the punctuation I used (stronger separators needed) and like your illustrations of titles and authors. (8) Dismayed: 'Nice idea, shame about the punctuation'. Never dismay - and I am not trying to foist anything on anyone. I am enjoying this process of feedback - see below (or my next session). (9) Rachel: Yes, good to know about the Canadian legal system; but is their method also in line with the US, UK, Europe, etc? It seems that Associations around the world are forever 're-inventing the wheels' and thus piling more styles upon the ones we already have. (10) Hywel y Brynlau: Good historical perspective on italics and print v. hand-written styles. (11) Alison Heaton: Thanks for confirming about the Harvard hybrids. Thanks to all. I am delighted with both the praise and criticism of my new referencing style idea. Can I come back next time (must go again!) with an amended format of how the author-year-type system could be re-drafted based upon your feedback so far? Cheers for now. Alec Gill.

One thing which I feel is inarguable is that any system must avoid the use of bold, underline or italics since such formatting usually disappears the moment that a piece of text is cut and pasted onto a website or into a publication (or sent via e-mail) and one simply cannot rely on (or expect) editors to check and reapply formatting to every citation. This doesn't preclude people adding their own formatting if desired. Some folk like to italicise publication titles, some like to bold their own name to make it stand out among a dozen co-authors. Either of these can benefiit clarity in some situations. But any general system reliant on something as ephemeral as italicising or underlining is on a hiding to nothing in the modern age.

So, Mike Simpson, you're advocating that we get rid of the use of text formats on the basis of laziness? I actually find your proposition very far from inarguable.

No, Dismayed, I'm advocating getting rid of required text formats - in citations - on the basis of practicality, not laziness. Any formal system of presenting text which relies on an aspect of text that disappears automatically whenever the text is reproduced is doomed to chaos and failure. Specifying italicisation seems to me no more practical than specifying that parts of the text should be a certain colour. This seems to me inarguable but if you can present an argument in favour of a system that uses such formatting, please do so.

Aspects of the text that disappear automatically whenever the text is reproduced? I've found that my formatting comes out quite well when my text is photocopied, photographed, transcribed by hand, printed in a journal... in fact it survives every form of reproduction except copying to some computer programmes (Notepad, for instance) and some forms of Internet text input (this comment box, for instance). It's not even a reciprocal relationship, as text from a web page copied into another computer programme will almost always retain its formatting. In essence, you're complaining about a problem which barely exists.

At the risk of turning this into a tedious back and forth, Dismayed clearly does not work in publishing. The reason why your formatting "comes out quite well" when "printed in a journal" is that some underpaid, overworked sub-editor, having copied and pasted the text from your original submitted document into a publishing programme such as Quark - a process which strips away all formatting - has then gone through the text carefully re-italicising, re-underlining, rebolding etc. This is a tedious process and inherently prone to error. The same process is required when material is published online. It is in the nature of modern publishing - in print and on the web - that the standard software usually requires raw, plain text, stripped of formatting. From this it can be seen that enforcing (or even recommending) a system of presentation which relies on such formatting is counter-productive since it will tend to increase errors and hence decrease clarity. This is how publishing software works; the ability of any individual to cut and paste text between applications on a desktop PC is irrelevant.

So, basically, the only reason why you don't want text formats is that you think that it's too much work for sub-editors. Well, tough, that's their job.

As a librarian working in higher education, I see many students struggling with referencing and so anything that would simplify matters would be very welcome. What I particularly like about this proposed system though is the way in which sources are labelled by type (book, eNewspaper etc). In my experience, very many of our students (both undergraduate and postgraduate) are confused as to what kind of source they are using e.g. they don’t know if the webpage they are looking at is an article in an online journal, government report, or just a webpage. I don’t believe they can make effective use of a source or assess its quality if they are unsure as to exactly what they are looking at. I think Alec’s system has the potential to really help with this problem. Firstly, students would become more aware of the different kinds of sources by seeing them on the reading lists given to them by academic staff and secondly, they would need to think about the types of sources they had used when presenting their own reference lists / bibliographies.

Dear All, (No.12) I will allocate this number to the dialogue between Mike Simpson and Dismayed. Are you a lawyer and/or a philosopher Dismayed? I like the way you ‘pick up’ on specific words (inarguable, whenever, etc) and then ‘pick their sentence to pieces’. However, I am very grateful Mike for adding to this debate a previously unseen (by me) aspect of the argument in favour of de-cluttering referencing styles. I have never used Quark myself, but recall a colleague pulling her hair out because of the way it does strip away all formatting. Actually, if my proposed system had to make over-worked sub-editors redundant, I would not lose any sleep. Type-setters have been thrown on the scrap heap with much of their thundering equipment. Today, we are the benefactors of the digital revolution and must adapt to the changed reality. Speed and practicality are an integral part of this exciting new process. I love our debate about punctuation. I fully accept the criticism that has been levelled against my new system – and I must adapt to that, thanks. In my eagerness to purge the Victoriana from referencing styles, I perhaps went too far (and hoped a space would serve as a good enough separater). Will you please allow me to change my mind and have another bash at how a revised citation might look? A few examples follow (and, as Dismayed pointed out, this Times Online website strips away any formatting). Anyway, here goes (I have added letters simply to separate each reference within this Times Comment page, NOT as part of a new style): (A) Cline, William R. 1992. eBook. The Economics of Global Warming. Peterson Institute. http://books.google.com/books?id=kTJvx2-fTYUC&printsec=frontcover. Accessed 2 June 2009. (B) Cavendish, Camilla. 2009. eNewspaper. Insane Spendaholics are Mortgaging our Future. The Times. 20 March. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/camilla_cavendish/article5941273.ece. Accessed 2 June 2009. And (C) Chalke, Steve. 2003. Book. How to Succeed as a Working Parent. Hodder & Stoughton. You will notice I have now begun to use the full-stop as a stronger separater (courtesy Mike Simpson) and first names (courtesy Gavin Moodie). Your comments upon this re-vised referencing style will be gratefully appreciated. Cheers, Alec. P.S. (No.13) Nicola Perry: Splendid! I have just read your heart-warming contribution and I am pleased you can see a variety of benefits of this new referencing style. I will come back to your remarks later (I must go now). Thanks again. AG.

That is looking much clearer, Mr G! I would make two further suggestions regarding web citations. Addresses of specific pages can often be very, very long (at my own university, despite my best efforts to educate colleagues, there are some running to 200 characters!). The use of TinyURL and similar services should therefore be encouraged. Secondly, I don't think there's any need to add the date when a webpage was accessed. Most webpages at specific URLs remain constant, at least of the type that is likely to be uased as a citation. Pages such as staff contact lists and other examples of variable data may (certainly should) change on a regular basis. But an article in an online newspaper or journal or a blog entry usually remains unchanged unless corrected for typos (usually irrelevant) or legal reasons (rare). Including date of access seems unnecessary as it would only be relevant if the article had been significantly rewritten since then and if the person reading the citation was aware of this. They are unlike to do so unless they have been to a site like archive.org and compared old versions of the page - and who has the time to do that for every web-reference they want to check?

Dear Alec, Dismayed, Mike and Co I am a librarian working in HE trying to plan and revise our guidelines to referencing for our students, both UG & PG. There are a confusing array of systems and some which might be usefully deployed like the legal Oxford standard OSCOLA system are not adopted by academics as they are too wedded to their own methodologies as it might require them to re-write their reading list. The issue around consistency is a real problem and trying to get agreement either locally, nationally or internationally is a huge challenge. Alec's idea is user-friendly and I agree with Nicola Perry's notion of encouraging students to engage with different materials is an excellent method of broadening awareness. I catalogued and classified materials for most of the first 20 years of my career using British Museum Cataloguing Rules and then AACRII. The imposition of this art or science on to students constructing a bibliography or conveying a paper trail for others to follow does not require such detail in my opinion and is punitive. I would like to adopt Alec's far more forgiving idea today! I have just looked at Zotero Beta 2 which looks like it might solve lots of problems for students but I'm wondering if it will create a sense of de-skilling towards standard scholarly tasks.

Here we are again. I have just a bit more catching up to do. (13) Nicola Perry: Glad you like the new author-year-type style and that you too appreciate referencing from the student perspective. In addition, you think that the new style would help widen both the students’ and academics’ awareness of the rich diversity of source material that is available today. Sadly, some academics seem to have a phobia and are against their students using web-based source material. (14) Mike Simpson: Thank you again. I am glad that the updated version is looking much clearer. It is a bit like any written work: the new referencing style will take a number of re-drafts before it is finished and fully functioning for global use! You raise two interesting points about extra long URL addresses. (A) I did not know about TinyURL – but I do now – thanks (seems very easy at first glance). (B) Access date – I suppose I have simply followed the tradition here of putting it down because that has become standard practice. It is good that you question this. I will think about this aspect. Thanks for now and keep in touch. (15) Daphne Chalk-Birdsall: Great to hear from another librarian. Yes, any agreement over consistency is a huge (and global) challenge. But we must start somewhere and the advent of multi-media resources seems a good starting pistol for me. I am pleased to see you class my system as “user-friendly”. A referencing style should be for the benefit of users today and we should not still have to bow to our ancestors from the long-gone print industry and their chapels. I will take a look at the British Museum Cataloguing Rules and the AACRII as part of my on-going education in this field (I am a psychologist by degree, not a librarian). Finally, I have very serious doubts about the two dozen or so reference management software packages that are available – but that is a topic I will return to later. They are certainly no answer for the typical undergraduate struggling to meet an essay deadline. Yes, I too wish you could “adopt Alec’s far more forgiving idea today!” – but it will take time (years). Thanks to all so far. More comments are welcome. The work is making great progress – thanks to your involvement. AG.

Alec, you seem to cast doubt on the ease of use of the referencing system built into Word 2007. These things are relative. It is easier to use than RefWorks. My 17-year-old daughter chose to use it when writing her coursework for her Advanced Highers (one extended essay of 4000 words and one of 3000 words). She was new to the concept of acknowledging sources and took to using the Word 2007 system with little help from me.

The main problem with the referencing system built into Word 2007 is that it only supports "in text" forms of references. Notwithstanding whether this is a good way of providing references for academic text (and there are reasons to be dubious of this approach, despite its popularity), some disciplines require footnoted references, which aren't supported by Word.

Word 2007 - Reference Ribbon: I am at a disadvantage here because - unlike the two previous contributors - I have not used this facility. I did, however, as part of my work for the Study Advice Service at the University of Hull, take a brief look at it to see if we could recommend it to our students (as a remedy for their referencing problems). After a brief examination, I found it difficult to see how to get into it easily. Added to this, I wondered which of the several inbuilt styles were near to or the 'Harvard' system. Whilst consulting colleagues on this matter I was directed to RefWorks. I took to this instantly and was delighted to be able to access ready-made citations already 'out there' (in the cloud) ready to use. The RefWorks software also seemed very user-friendly. Therefore, your daughter did well Kay (obviously a chip off the old block!) and thanks Dismayed because I did not realise about Word's lack of ability to deal with footnoted references - that would be a serious limitation too. I am, by the way, a fan of MicroSoft software (having recently obtained my seven-module ECDL qualification), but it is disappointing to find that they have big gaps. They seem to have been caught out in a variety of ways to their Web 2.0 savvy rivals - especially Google et al. Generally, things are moving ahead and my own blog 'Academic Reflexions' is also getting a good response and feedback. I have a long-term strategy for moving ahead with my author-year-style academic referencing system and will keep everyone posted (with the good and bad news) as things progress. Thanks, again, for all your help so far in re-shaping and evolving the ideas. Cheers, Alec Gill.

What a delight to agree to a great academic friend, Alec. Let us hasten to welcome ourselves into the 21st Century and join the digital and cyber age. Our current age is seeing timely and substantial changes and reforms in all fields of human life. Surely, it is time to change Academic styles of referencing to a more unified, standard and simplified formula. The 'author-year-type' is a welcome concept during our current fast-track life. I really liked the citation in the bibliography openly telling the reader what type of resource used. This shows the modernity of Alec's reformed system. Following the Bradford Symposium, with Alec's bright suggestions now it is up to the worldwide academic theatre to be intelligent and sensible to embrace this reformed version. We must welcome any fine tuning by commentators and critics in achieving the final type.

Part 1 of 3 (in 3 parts because there must be a word limit on this website) ACADEMIC REFERENCING: New Style = Second Version. Thank you to everyone for your helpful feedback on my Times Higher Education (THE) article (25th June 2009). It proposed a unified academic referencing system – especially to simplify the complex formatting found in over 3,000 different bibliographic styles. Feedback flooded in from three primary sources: (A) THE website - http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=407112; (B) my Academic Reflexions blog http://academicreflexions.blogspot.com/; and (C) LDHEN: Learning Development in Higher Education Network – a membership only discussion group. Librarians in particular made a valuable contribution to the whole debate. Feedback was entirely constructive. In essence, most comments were highly positive, agreed with the notion that there is an abundance of academic referencing styles and that something needs to be done to improve the situation – especially for students. Criticism was primarily aimed at my punctuation. I must confess that - with the benefit of hindsight and your comments - I was a bit ‘colon crazy’. It was also pointed out that the full-stop is a far superior separator – as against the more confusing colon or comma (thanks especially to Mike Simpson and Dan the Librarian –full name not given). I have embraced the various strands of advice, re-formulated the whole academic referencing style and produced a second version. I now rely upon the full-stop to give the reader a bold, clear signal that the medium has changed and a new element of the citation has been reached. Indeed, as I re-framed this new version, I began to recognise that most citations comprise five major elements: author (who), year (when), type (what), title (which) and location (where) - plus a few variations here and there depending upon the type of material being cited. In essence, that is all the information a scholar needs to trace the source of any writing. Therefore, I will now re-present a revised A-Z list of citations using the full-stop as the principal separator. Any colons that have survived are those that exist ‘naturally’ within the title of a piece. Here then is my updated list in its second incarnation:

Part 2 of 3: This Comments section of THE website does not allow any paragraph formatting. Therefore, I have had to insert an * sign to indicate the start of another citation: * CAVENDISH, Camilla. 2009. eNewspaper. Insane Spendaholics are Mortgaging our Future. The Times. 20 March. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/camilla_cavendish/article5941273.ece accessed 2 June 2009. * CHALKE, Steve. 2003. Book. How to Succeed as a Working Parent. London. Hodder & Stoughton. * CLINE, William R. 1992. eBook. The Economics of Global Warming. Peterson Institute. http://books.google.com/books?id=kTJvx2-fTYUC&printsec=frontcover accessed 2 June 2009. * HALLIDAY, Jim. 1995. Report. Assessment of the Accuracy of the DTI's Database of the UK Wind Speeds. Energy Technology Support Unit. ETSU-W-11/00401/REP. * HORAN, David. 2002. Painting. Kipper in the Cat's Mouth. Watercolour. 20x30 cm. London. National Gallery. * JONES, J. 1994. Paper. Polymer Blends Based on Compact Disc Scrap. in Proceedings of the Annual Technical Conference. Society of Plastics Engineers. San Francisco. 1-5 May 1994. Brookfield, CT. 2865-2867. * KNIGHT, C.J. 1997. Email. Cumbrian Windfarms. 29 May to J.Q.Parker-Knoll. * MACKAY, C. 2002. Newspaper. Alert over Big Cat. Daily Mirror. 4 July. 28. * MACLEOD, D. 2007. eNewspaper. Oxbridge Trainee Teachers 'twice as likely to get jobs'. Education Guardian. 3 August. http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2007/aug/03/schools.uk1 accessed 28 August 2008. * MASON, R. 1994. Chapter. The Educational Value of ISDN. In Mason, R. and Bacsich, P. (eds) ISDN: Applications in Education and Training. Exeter. Short Run Press. * MORISHITA, M. 2003. Thesis. Empty Museums: Transculturation and the Development of Public Art Museums in Japan. Unpublished PhD. Milton Keynes. Open University. * NHS (National Health Service) CHOICES. 2009. Web. Jet Lag. http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Jet-lag/Pages/Introduction.aspx?url=Pages/What-is-it.aspx accessed 21 March 2009. * OPEN UNIVERSITY LIBRARY. 2005. Web. Welcome to the Open University Library. http://library.open.ac.uk/ accessed 2 February 2006. * OPEN UNIVERSITY. 1984. Text. T281 Basic Physical Science for Technology. Unit 9. Thermochemistry. Milton Keynes. Open University. * OPEN UNIVERSITY. 2008. DVD. T320 E-business Technologies: Foundations and Practice. DVD 1. Video Case Studies. Milton Keynes. Open University. * SLONIOWSKI, L. 2005. Blog. Information Literacy in Canada - Because Sharing is Nice. 30 June. http://blog.uwinnipeg.ca/ilig/archives/learning_objects/ accessed 2 February 2006. * SPITZER, K.L., EISENBERG, M.B. and LOWE, C.A. 1998. Web. Information Literacy: Essential Skills for the Information Age. ERIC Clearinghouse on Information and Technology. Syracuse University (ED 427 780). http://ericit.org/toc/infoliteracytoc.shtml accessed 28 October 2003. * STRANG, W. 1903. ePainting. Neil Munro 1864-1930. National Galleries of Scotland. http://www.nationalgalleries.org/index.php/collection/online_az/4:322/results/0/3342/ accessed 2 February 2006. * THE APPRENTICE. 2008. TV. BBC1. 11 June. * THE LORD OF THE RINGS: The Two Towers. 2003. Film. Directed by Peter Jackson. New York. Newline Productions Inc. * THE WINGS OF A BUTTERFLY. 2005. Podcast. ABC Radio National. Sydney. http://www.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/default.htm#mind accessed 16 September 2005. * THOMPSON, K. 2003. Journal. Fantasy, Franchises, and Frodo Baggins: the Lord of the Rings and Modern Hollywood. The Velvet Light Trap. 52.Fall.45-63. * VIRKUS, S. 2003. eJournal. Information Literacy in Europe: a Literature Review. Information Research. 8.4.159. http://informationr.net/ir/8-4/paper159.html accessed 28 October 2003. * WILLIE, S.S. 2003. eBook. Acting Black: College, Identity and the Performance of Race. Taylor & Francis eBook Collection. http://library.open.ac.uk/linking/index.php?id=311027 accessed 10 April 2006.

Part 3 of 3: This second version is still ‘work in progress’ and I need more of your practical feedback. You probably noticed that the first five authors were listed along with their first names. During the first-version debate, it was pointed out (by Gavin Moodie) that putting only the author’s initial(s) was not useful in our age of split-second search engines. He cleverly demonstrated this by using my name as an example to demonstrate his point. That is, by entering only “A.Gill”, a Google Scholar search found 26,000 hits; whilst “Alec Gill” yielded 17. Supplying both the first and last name greatly helps anyone who wishes to look into an author’s other work. Try this yourself using your own name. Once the decision is taken to add first names, then there needs to be clarity as to which is the author’s first and last name. An international student might be confused by various English names that are identical as either a first or last name; for example, Alexander, Charles, Gordon, James, Leslie, Neville, Scott or Wayne – the list goes on. Stating the last name in capitals avoids the problem of mistaken identity. Much has happened since the Times article was published. For those new to this debate, I would like to reiterate the purpose of this new style: * By explicitly and simply stating the ‘type’ of source material that is being referred to, it automatically eliminates most of the traditional formatting that adorns contemporary citations. The key aim is to discard punctuation such as brackets, italics, underlinings, colons, single or double quotations marks and commas here, there and everywhere. * The present-day permutation of punctuation is then made largely redundant. Ideally, the 3,000+ (and growing) referencing styles will soon become extinct. * The old print industry is dead. We now have the benefits of the digital age. Added to that, and as a result of that, young students today have a vast number of electronic resources to cite (DVDs, eBooks, blogs, websites, YouTube, podcasts, etc). * It is primarily because the range of source material has grown far beyond the conventional printed publications that I argue for a uniform universal academic referencing style. The new system is a direct response to the demands of the digital technology and the speed that it brings. * Finally, I am not a minimalist in my everyday life, but I strongly recommend that this philosophical approach be embraced when it comes to a future academic referencing style. That is, the citation is stripped down to its fundamental features. I have deliberately omitted any consideration of whether the ‘place of publication’ should or should not be replaced by a book’s ISBN as a more accurate means of identification. Equally, it is beyond my brief to urge that all websites adopt the simpler and shorter ‘tinyurl’ system to replace the long, ugly URL addresses. Although I can see value in both these ideas, I feel enough suggestions have been made for one day. I need to know the merits and de-merits of what I have re-proposed above. Once I feel there is some degree of academic consensus upon how a new referencing style is formulated, it will be time to push this issue forward into more powerful decision-making domains. Many Thanks for all your help, Alec Gill (Sept 2009).

Very interesting article generating good feedback. I agree with your argument that the type of source ought to be incorporated - a simple and very effective idea. A couple of additions if I may: websites ought to be treated as if they are magazines or journals; the date of publication ought to be taken as one of the following: the date given if available - which includes any notification of when it was updated (see below); if not the latest year shown on any copyright statement often at the bottom of the page; if there is no indication of any date whatsoever then the date of publication is the instant it appears on the screen - that is the 'first' time of publication of that page - the next time it is accessed is also the 'first' time, it's in the nature of the beast - virtual means virtual. The last option therefore requires that not only is the date of access (or retrieval) given but the time also since website can, and do, alter very swiftly. Look at the homepage of your University which may change a number of times in one day; ditto the Times On Line. One of your examples (and I mean no disrespect) is incorrect: NHS Choices 2009 Web: Jet Lag http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Jet-lag/Pages/Introduction.aspx?url=Pages/What-is-it.aspx accessed 21 March 2009. This ought to have read: NHS Choices 2008 Web: Jet Lag http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Jet-lag/Pages/Introduction.aspx?url=Pages/What-is-it.aspx accessed 21 March 2009. My own particular preference for the citation of that page would read: NHS Choices 2009 Web accesssed at Jet Lag http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Jet-lag/Pages/Introduction.aspx?url=Pages/What-is-it.aspx on 21 March 2009 at 06:30. No real biggie save there was a review date given on the page. That point made I will use the basis of your method this year. Thank you for an interesting debate.

Oops, just lost a mark in the assignment lol - my preference ought to have read: NHS Choices 2008 Web: Jet Lag accessed at http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Jet-lag/Pages/Introduction.aspx?url=Pages/What-is-it.aspx on 21 September 2009 at 06:30. I'll fetch me coat........

Dear Graham Orr, Thanks for your support and the fact that you recognise the value of stating the Type of source material near that start of the reference. It seems such a simple solution to cut out the needless typography that has accumulated over the decades - from a pre-digital age. This 'innovation' seems to have been overlooked by some. >>>> WEBSITES: I see what you mean - using the NHS example. Webpages (and especially blogs) do get stagnant and dated. You raise a valid point and if there is a date given (14 May 2008 in the NHS case), then that is worth stating. I never explored this dimension when compiling my original list. I simply followed the present-day norm. Web URLs are long, messy and need to be sorted. Whether tinyurl.com is a solution is not easy to say or impose. Thanks for highlighting this web aspect. One of the joys of being alive today is that we are the generation who has to grapple with the early internet days and issues. The technology is a blessing. We can work it out. It will take time and effort, but it will be worth it in the long run. Cheers and have a good weekend. Alec Gill.