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Reference
and bibliography |
To
wrap up this multi-part series on thesis writing, here is an overview
of how to list the bibliography and references. |
A bibliography
is an alphabetical list of all the sources such as books, journal
articles, or other materials from which you have derived information
for your research and the preparation of the thesis. The citation
has to be in a standard format. The listing is usually arranged
by author, date or subject. There are accepted forms of citing authors,
papers, and books in the bibliography part of your thesis. You have
to follow them. Some of these are indicated below.
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Books
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When
a book is cited, you should indicate the author's full name, full
title, edition, number of the volume if it runs to two or more volumes,
place of publication, publisher's name, and the year of publication.
The author's name is reversed; the last name comes first, then a
comma, then the first name, and a period after the complete name.
Titles such as Dr, Sir, and Ph.D may be omitted. The title (name
of the book) is underlined. The sequence for the publication can
be as follows: place of publication, a colon, name of the publisher,
a comma, and the date, and then a period.
Rao, Krishna. The future of floriculture in India. Bangalore: Pioneer,
2006.
If a book has been written by two or more authors, show their list
in the same order as given on the title page. The name of the first
author alone need be reversed; the other names may be given normally.
If there are more than three authors, it is sufficient if you name
only the first, and use ``et al'' to indicate the remaining authors.
However, there is no harm in listing all the authors. In such a
case, separate the names with commas and put an ampersand (&)
before the last author.
You should show the author's name, title of the article, title of
the journal, volume number, year of publication, and page numbers.
The title of the article may be shown in quotation marks. Put a
period before closing the quotes. The name of the journal may be
underlined. The year of the publication is given in parenthesis.
It is followed by a colon, the inclusive page numbers and then a
period. |
| Effective
use of library |
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While using a library, it would be of great advantage
to you if you were familiar with the style of classification adopted
there. One popular style is the Dewey Decimal Classification System,
in which the basic classification of titles is as follows:
000 Generalities
100 Philosophy
& Psychology
200 Religion
300 Social
sciences
400 Language
500 Natural
sciences & mathematics
600 Technology
(Applied sciences)
700 The arts
800 Literature
& rhetoric
900 Geography
& history
Further sub-classification has been made systematically. The full
details cannot be covered here for space constraint. However, the
following examples indicate the approach.
000
Generalities
001 Knowledge
002 The
book
003 Systems
004 Data
processing Computer science
005 Computer
programming, programs, data
006 Special
computer methods
010 Bibliography
064 General
organisation & museology In France & Monaco
098 Prohibited
works, forgeries, hoaxes
103 Dictionaries
of philosophy
155 Differential
& developmental psychology
222 Historical
books of Old Testament
325 International
migration & colonization
415 Structural
systems (Grammar)
521 Celestial
mechanics
672 Iron,
steel, other iron alloys
798 Equestrian
sports & animal racing
873 Latin
epic poetry & fiction
959 General
history of Asia Southeast Asia
Another
popular system is Universal Decimal Classification that was developed
by the Belgian bibliographers Paul Otlet and Henri la Fontaine at
the end of the 19th century. It is based on the Dewey Decimal Classification,
but is much more powerful and is used especially in specialist libraries.
In
UDC, every number is thought of as a decimal fraction with the initial
decimal point omitted, which determines the filing order. A great
merit of UDC is that it is infinitely extensible. When new subdivisions
are introduced, they would not disturb the existing allocation of
numbers.
Main
categories in UDC:
0
Generalities. Informatics and Information Sciences
1 Philosophy.
Psychology
2 Religion.
Theology
3 Social
Sciences. Statistics. Politics. Government. Economics. Law. Administration.
Military. Folklore
4 Unassigned
5 Natural
Sciences. Mathematics
6 Applied
Sciences. Medicine. Technology
7 The
Arts. Recreation. Entertainment. Music. Sports
8 Languages.
Linguistics. Literature
91 Geography
92 (Auto-)
Biography
93 / 99
History. Archaeology
The full
version of the UDC has more than two lakhs of subdivisions. Whatever
is the system followed in a library, it will certainly be of great
advantage to you if you get yourselves familiar with it, as otherwise
a lot of time would be wasted in searching for the titles. Modern
libraries offer the facility for computerised search of the titles
available at any point of time, based on author, subject, title,
etc. Even then, knowledge of the classification system followed
in your library will be of help.
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