Choosing a referencing system
You will not get to choose a referencing system if the PhD
regulations in your university specify a format which your thesis
simply has to follow. However, the most common situation is
that the doctoral thesis rules are vaguer, only requiring full ref-
erencing to be provided in a particular recognized and consis-
tent format or in one of several commonly used formats. Here
you still get a choice of system. There is an extensive literature
of reference books dedicated to informing you in great detail
about the very many different referencing formats that exist, all
of which come in subtly complicated varieties. In addition
many influential professional associations produce style guides
for their areas, some of which are helpful, such as the Modern
Languages Association guide.^12 If your university regulations
do not specify a particular system then check whether the
professional association for your discipline and your country
has a recommended format.
Even if you are studying outside the USA, you should none
the less carefully consider whether the equivalent American
association has a preferred format – because this will commonly
be used also by many journals in your field. American referenc-
ing has certain basic features which people from smaller coun-
tries may need to take into account. Virtually all American
references include the first names of authors and the initial of
a second forename, as well as the family name (surname), as:
Alvin B. Stiegler. In a country of over 260 million people much
more specificity in citation is required than in smaller coun-
tries, where reference lists often only include one forename ini-
tial. The advent of the World Wide Web means that citation
searches are now frequently global in scope, and with only a
surname and initial they will generate thousands of ‘confuser’
references. So the American convention is the only feasible one
now, and it should be universally adopted. You can always
abbreviate to one or two initials later on if that is what a par-
ticular journal demands. But finding author first names to fill
out dozens of references where you only have initials is a good
example of a referencing ‘time bomb’ which can blow up in
your face later on. In addition, most US journals will require
details of both volume and issue numbers for journals, whereas
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