A little advice needed please. I've just finished writing a non fiction book, its on health and aimed at the genral public - so its not academic. This is the first book I've written and I am not sure what type of referencing style to use. Silly question, but do I have to use a particular style of referencing given that it is not an academic book. I was thinking about putting numbers within the text as my method of citing a reference and then at the end of each chapter placing the corresponding reference in a reference list. Would this be suitable? Also, would I need to write the references in the list at the end of each chapter in a certain way, i.e. must the Author and then date be written first followed by Title, publisher...? Finally, in terms of full stops, and colons, brackets and other punctuation marks within the references, can you please give advice on where these are to be placed. I know that in academic writing that getting this wrong can amount to plagiarism, so I just need to make sure that I am doing this correctly even though the book is not academic. Many thanks. Bob
Hi, Bob! Generally speaking, there are dozens different ways to write references. When publishing research, each publisher has their own preferred reference style (similar to how each publisher of fiction has their own preferred manuscript style). Footnotes and endnotes using super-scripted numbers (¹,²,³, etc.) is a common approach in some fields. Now, I'm not a non-fiction writer (but I do have an academic background, as a biologist) so I don't know if there are any set norms for how to do it in that field. However, I would expect it to be up to the publisher which style they want you to use, and up to yourself to choose a style if you plan to self-publish. Either way, to make sure you have correct references in your manuscript I suggest you take a look at some common referencing styles like APA, Harvard and Oxford. You can easily find examples and guides by searching for it. (PS. I moved the thread to the Non-Fiction section, where it fits better. "New Member Introductions" is meant for new members to introduce themselves, maybe by saying what or why they write, rather than for asking questions. )
Thanks for that feedback Komposten, that was very helpful. Thanks for moving the thread to non-fiction too
