Personal Citation Hygiene

Experienced writers of dissertations and books know that keeping an accurate list of books and articles used in the process of writing can save enormous amounts of time at the end of the project. There is nothing more frustrating than having to spend many days or weeks in the library laboriously looking up all your references again in order to chase missing elements in your footnotes. As this suggests, one should always maintain personal citation hygiene by keeping full and accurate notes, in a systematic manner, of the books and references associated with any project.

Some personal citation hygiene systems:

  1. Card index files – once the sign of the true scholar, but an art now dying out.
  2. A dedicated bibliography notebook – some people have found success by repurposing alphabetised address books to organise their references as they encounter them.
  3. A dedicated bibliography file on your laptop – use the automatic sort function to put them in order (can also be automatically searched using the search function).
  4. A full bibliographical database programme.
  5. Proprietary referencing systems such as End-Note or Pro-cite.

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