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full stops and commas plus Harvard

J

I had a discussion about this with my supervisor recently. What do you do if you have an abbreviation, such as etc. at the end of a sentence, or if you want to follow it by a comma? They say only put the one full stop so it goes...etc. or ...etc, not a full stop to indicate it is an abbreviation and then another full stop or a comma. They said this is convention. Is that so? Both look a bit strange.

Also, Harvard referencing. Do you write Changing job boundaries and workforce reform or Changing Job Boundaries and Workforce Reform some say do it the first way, some say the other way at this rate I will be producing alternative versions of my ref list!

A

http://www.savethecomma.com/game/ - show this to your supv team and see how they get on!!

Personally I would agree with your supvs comments about not putting in additional punctuation such as two full stops, i.e. (!!) one stop after etc. and then another for the full stop. However, I know 'etc.' was your example but I wouldnt' use it; I prefer 'and so on'.

Re: Harvard - as far as I am aware it's a matter of personal preference and house rules of the publisher concerned. I only capitalise the first word of a title, unless it's a proper noun so I would go with 'Changing job boundaries' but the other method is also used. The key thing is consistancy, not a bit of this, and a bit of that ;-)

J

Thanks for that, it does tend to be after things like et al. - etc. was just the thing I had in my head at the time. My super says capitalise everything that moves, yesterday at a group meeting someone else said that she thinks the single capitation is right and penalised her students who use capital death. Sometimes you just can't win :-(

A

Quote From joyce:

Sometimes you just can't win :-(


Completely agree! My supv said to put the bios and key features of four main people involved in my philosophical orientation 'in a handy table'. It took me WEEKS to get everything in one table which made sense and fit on one page. Last week he looked at it and said it was great 'but why is it all in a table; surely it would be better in the main text?" :-s

D

Yipee! 10 out of 10!

K

Quote From delta:

Yipee! 10 out of 10!

hello there

hi i just finished my masters degree in united kingdom with a pass grade .but i have 73% marks in my B tech. i am too interested to do research .my question is can i get studentship of in anywhere in the world

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