Take it from someone who is now paying for their sloppy reference-keeping ways: KEEP ON TOP OF YOUR REFERENCES. Over Christmas, I've had to track down hundreds of the blighters and life would have been so much easier if I'd just have written them down as I went along. So, if you've got time to spare as you go along, dedicate it to maintaining your references.

Hi Walminskipeas,

I'm curious to know why is it so important to maintain your referees during the PhD? I understand that its needed only at the time of selection into a PhD programme but is it also important to maintain the references during the 3 years of the PhD? How is it useful towards the end of the PhD? Are we needed to provide references again?

Thanks

AJ

Pretty sure he means references as in citations. Keep full references (citations) as you write as it is a nightmare if you have a paper written (or even your full thesis) but then have to go searching for the full citation details for the myriad of sources you will have utilised.

A:-)

It is also important to have your reference list in more than one place! When my last computer died I thought I had managed to keep my endnote ref list intact, but it won't open now even though I had the content in several places it won't recognise it. Luckily I had also saved it as a word doc, because I'm not a fan of endnote, so all were intact. What I have done though is when I start reading a new journal, book etc. which I think may be useful, I add it to my ref list, but I put it in red rather than black. This means I have the ref if I eventually use it, in which case I change it to black in the list, but if it turns out to be something I don't use, I can just remove it at the end.

Sorry guys, I understood it completely different due to the hangover :p I shall keep it in mind to write the references when Im writing my thesis (up) thanks Ady!

Yeah, sorry, I meant citations. I did maintain an Endnote reference library, but the problem is it doesn't always save the references properly and not in the correct format. The worst references to do are for chapters in edited books!

Do you have any reading material for how to do citation for thesis or is that something I can google and find? And is that something you learnt when you started your PhD?

Well, it's just Harvard referencing, and there's plenty of guides online. This site will give you the full picture of what's involved: http://libweb.anglia.ac.uk/referencing/harvard.htm

I'm pretty sad in that myself and a colleague compiled a booklet (21 pages!!) on the Harvard referencing system for our department in September 2010. It has since been picked up by another department at my university:-). We had great fun compiling references with oblique movie references which thus far nobody has spotted :-(.

My advice would definitely be to 'cite it right' from the start (right down to the page number for quotes) as it can take hours to tidy things up at the end and can result in you having to drop a reference, or two, or three, or four if you can't source them properly. If you know what referencing/citation style your department prefers general online guides are available via Google or similar. Even within colleges and universities referencing and citation styles differ (from Harvard, to APA, to Chicago, to Cambridge, the list goes on) - it normally depends on individual departments. If you are starting your PhD somewhere you haven't worked before it would be well worth your time checking out if it has a referencing guide available. Most departments have at least some sort of rudimentary guide on their website. Whatever the style keep it consistent and keep it!

There is referencing software available as others have mentioned, EndNote being one of the most common. There is also open source software, www.zotero.org - haven't used it myself but a colleague of mine swears by it!!

Happy Referencing(up)

I also currently swear by Zotero! It seems much more user-friendly than EndNote, judging by peoples' comments. However, I'm only in the early days so perhaps I won't be saying this at the end...

And Walminskipeas, you have my sympathies - I received wise counsel from colleagues and peers before I started that made me determined to get referencing right from the start. So far, so good - every time I loan something or download an article, I put it straight into Zotero. I can tell which I've read because there'll be a file attached to the reference with my notes and it'll be tagged with key words. Seems good so far but it is a methodological thing to have to do, so I bet I don't do it religiously throughout the process. Hope you track down the rest of the blighters soon!