Authoring a PhD

everything
quoted or cited, and provid-
ing a one-stop look-up, try to guard against a tendency towards
over-referencing. A classic ‘thesis paranoia’ symptom is insert-
ing supporting literature for every point, even ones that no one
in their right mind would dispute or need to do further reading
about, such as: ‘The United Kingdom is a country with a long
and chequered history (Davies, 1999; Trevelyan, 1966;
Chesterton, 1923).’ If you find this problem in your text, check
whether you are overciting more generally. Later on an exces-
sively overcautious referencing approach also signals ‘PhD thesis’
immediately to journal editors and reviewers, and to book pub-
lishers. So it may make it harder than it otherwise would be to
get your work published. Referencing details are also generally
unattractive, so if overdone they can detract quite a lot from
the ‘look and feel’ of your text.
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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.
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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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in Europe volume alone is usually given. Again the only safe
rule is to collect the fullest possible details from the outset.
Making a commitment to a particular referencing system
used to be a difficult decision. If you got it ‘wrong’ you could
find that you had a lot of extra work to do every time you
wanted to publish something, shifting the referencing over to
the format required by the particular journal you are targeting.
There was always a pretty dismal chance of picking an optimal
format here, since academic journals have remained quite stub-
bornly differentiated in the way that they handle references,
across countries and across disciplines. Somewhere along the
publishing line you are bound to have to redo your referencing
for one purpose or another.
However, much cheaper and easy-to-use PC software for stor-
ing notes and referencing on computer has now transformed
this problem. As early in your PhD studies as possible you
should consider adopting a well-known citations-handling
package like