Tagging References

The publishing industry uses the words “citation” and “reference” both interchangeably and in two rather different senses. One meaning is a description of a work in a bibliography (bibliographic reference list). The other is as a pointer to a description of a work in a bibliography. There is no consensus on which word has which meaning, so this Tag Suite uses these (and other) bibliographic reference terms in the following way:
Reference List (<ref-list>)
A list of bibliographic descriptions of material, for example, descriptions of journal articles or books. The list typically has a title such as “References”, “Bibliography”, or “Additional Reading”. This Tag Set makes no distinction between lists of cited references and lists of suggested references; both would be tagged as <ref-list>. This Tag Library will refer to these lists as references lists or as bibliographic references lists.
Reference (<ref>)
One item in a bibliographic references list. Each item may (in the final publishing) be numbered, take a prefix symbol, or a prefixed designator such as [Lapeyre 2009]. The publisher is typically responsible for such numbering. A <ref> is not a textual description of cited material, but it may contain one or more such descriptions, or it may contain a note. A very typical <ref> contains the description of one work inside a citation element (<element-citation> or <mixed-citation>).
A <ref> does not contain text directly because some publishers place multiple works into a single numbered item in a bibliographic reference list. The <ref> is the element for that item. Each cited work will be contained in a citation element (<element-citation> or <mixed-citation>).
The bibliographic description of a single work, such as a journal article. This element will contain text, bibliographic elements, or a mixture of the two, for example, listing the title of a work, the author, the date of publication, the page in the journal on which the article starts, and similar information.
Single citations are almost never numbered or given a prefix designator because the publisher places the prefix and identifying attribute on the containing <ref> element. But citations are allowed to take numbers or designators to handle those cases where a single item in a reference list describes multiple works.
Pointer
Inside the text of a work, it is common to refer to (cite) external sources such as journal articles that were influential in forming the ideas expressed in that part of the text. These too are commonly called “citations”. This Tag Set will use the term cross-reference (the element <xref>) to name the text that points to the description of a cited work in a bibliographic references list. The @ref-type on the <xref> can be set to “bibr” to indicate that the cross-reference is pointing to an item in a reference list. Typically, the @rid attribute will point the unique identifier (@id) of a <ref>. But when a <ref> contains multiple citations, the @rid may point to the identifier of a particular citation (<element-citation> or <mixed-citation>).
Subsidiary section:

Two Citation Styles

The Critical Tags for Journals
Citations to journal articles should include elements that clearly identify the article. These identifying elements are used by citation matching services to make citations to the articles into live links and by citation indexes in determining which articles are being cited. The most useful of the references elements for identifying journal articles are:
source
For journal article citations, this is the title of the journal in which the cited article was published. (Publishers and archives typically establish authority lists of journal titles. For example, in PubMed Central processing, the journal title source is usually the NLM title abbreviation of the journal name: <source>Physiol Rev</source>.) For book citations, the source is the title of the book: <source>Moby Dick</source>.
article-title
Title of the journal article, typically in English. Usually this is the exact title as given in the print or display of the article: <article-title>The ethics of quackery and fraud in dentistry: a position paper</article-title>. Editorial added content, for example the word “[Retracted]”, should not be added to the title, but should follow the title as text or a <comment>.
volume
The volume number of the journal in which the article was published, if applicable.
issue
The issue number of the journal in which the article was published. The issue number element is typically just a simple counting number such as “4” or “35”, but some journals do simultaneous multiple issues, and in such cases both numbers should be placed inside the single <issue> element: <issue>4-5</issue>.
fpage
Page number on which the article starts. (Although many citations also list the last page on which the article can be found (<lpage>), current citation matchers place more emphasis on the first page.)
name
The name (typically the <surname>) of the first author or editor of the article.
year
The year of publication. Multiple publication years (“2009-2010”) can be recorded in two ways: as successive <year> elements:
...
<year iso-8601-date="2009">2009</year>&ndash;<year>2010</year>
...
or as a single combined year:
...
<year iso-8601-date="2009">2009&ndash;2010</year>
...
month
The month of publication (if present).
day
The day of publication if present. This is of lesser importance, but some citation matchers use it if it is available.
Cited Books
The majority of non-journal citations are for books, in whole or part. There are additional elements used in book citations that are rarely used for journals:
  • Publisher information (<publisher-name> and <publisher-loc>) is nearly always present for a cited book, and may be tagged to aid in identification.
  • Most modern books are assigned ISBN values (<isbn>). Occasionally a journal series will also have an ISBN.
  • Books series titles and other series information should be tagged in a <series> element.
  • The length or page count of books should be tagged as the <size> element (“250p.”, tagged in a mixed-citation as <size units="pages">250</size>p.). Citations to entire books should not use the elements <fpage>, <lpage>, or <page-range>.
  • Chapter titles (which may be called chapters, parts, modules, lessons, etc.) may be tagged with the <part-title> element.
Here is a typical book, tagged in both element- and mixed-citation styles:
<element-citation publication-type="book" publication-format="print">
 <collab>Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations</collab>
 <source>Are you prepared? Hospital emergency management checklist</source>
 <publisher-name>Joint Commission Resources</publisher-name>
 <publisher-loc>Oak Brook (IL)</publisher-loc>
 <comment>Forthcoming 2006</comment>
</element-citation>

<mixed-citation publication-type="book" publication-format="print">
 <collab>Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare 
 Organizations</collab>. <source>Are you prepared? Hospital emergency 
 management checklist</source>. <publisher-loc>Oak Brook
 (IL)</publisher-loc>: <publisher-name>Joint Commission Resources</publisher-name>.
 Forthcoming 2006.</mixed-citation>
Here is a book in a non-print format, tagged in both element- and mixed-citation styles:
<element-citation publication-type="book" publication-format="mpic">
 <source>Clinical tonometry</source>
 <comment>[motion picture]</comment>
 <collab collab-type="producer">Public Health Service Audiovisual Facility</collab>
 <publisher-loc>[Washington]</publisher-loc>
 <publisher-name>Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (US), 
  Public Health Service</publisher-name>
 <year iso-8601-date="1965">1965</year>
 <comment>1 reel: silent, black &amp; white, 35 mm</comment>
</element-citation>

<mixed-citation publication-type="book" publication-format="mpic">
 <source>Clinical tonometry</source> [motion picture]. <collab 
 collab-type="producer">Public Health Service Audiovisual 
 Facility</collab>, producer. <publisher-loc>[Washington]</publisher-loc>:
 <publisher-name>Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (US), 
 Public Health Service</publisher-name>; <year iso-8601-date="1965">1965</year>. 
 1 reel: silent, black &amp; white, 35mm.</mixed-citation>
Subsidiary sections:

Titles in Citations

Dates in Citations

Personal Names in Citations

Citation Attributes

Citing Data

Conferences in Citations

Length and Size

Tagging Ordinal Numbers

Abbreviated Citations

Citations in Multiple Languages

Language of the Cited Material

Sample Citations for Authoring