Using Numerical References in Your Thesis or Dissertation

Using Numerical References in Your Thesis or Dissertation
If you are writing a thesis or dissertation in the medical or biological sciences, you will probably need to use numerical references such as those required for a Vancouver style of referencing. Numerical references are extremely easy to produce in running text, since in most cases all that is needed for each citation is a number, and they are certainly unobtrusive for readers, but this simplicity hides a significant potential for errors that must be carefully avoided while recording references in a numerical system.

For instance, numerical references can become problematic if a source is missed when the sources you use in your thesis or dissertation are numbered and added to your reference list. This is because numerical references are arranged in numerical order according to when they are first cited, so the first source cited in a text becomes reference 1, the second, reference 2, the third, reference 3 and so on. Each number is assigned to one source only and each source bears only one number, which it retains throughout a document. This means that if you miss a source while numbering your references and adding them to your list, the missing source will have to be numbered and added when the error is discovered, while all sources that follow it will need to be renumbered both in the main text and in the list. If, for example, you missed the third source you cited, it will need to be numbered 3 when it is added, and what was reference 3 will need to be renumbered as reference 4, what was reference 4 will need to be reference 5 and this will continue to the end of both your list and your document.
PhD ThesisEditing Services
While it is always imperative to record every reference accurately in scholarly writing, this is nowhere more important than when you are using numerical references. If you miss a source, your numbering will be incorrect and your readers will be led to the wrong sources, a situation that misrepresents the work of your colleagues and predecessors and may well confuse and frustrate your mentors and examiners. Unless you happen to mention author names and publication dates in your discussion, your readers will not have the information they need to guide them to the correct sources as they would with other referencing systems.

The numerical order required in numerical references means that the best time to number and arrange your citations is when your thesis or dissertation (or perhaps each chapter of it) is virtually complete so that it is unlikely that changes altering the order of your references will take place. While the document is still in progress, you can use short tags (perhaps in parentheses or square brackets to separate them clearly from the rest of your text) such as author surnames, shortened titles, publication dates or whatever will efficiently lead you back to the correct sources. When you check your citations as you finish your work, which is always advisable, you can then remove these tags and number your references, adding them to your list in the correct order.

Whenever you directly quote a source, you should include a page number along with the reference number to indicate exactly where you found the passage. Your university or department may provide specific guidelines for theses and dissertations that include details about exactly how page numbers should be recorded. If so, these guidelines must be followed with precision and consistency, but if you are working without such instructions, the key is to distinguish page numbers from reference numbers, which can easily be done by using the abbreviation ‘p.’ (singular) or ‘pp.’ (plural) before the numbers that represent pages.
PhD ThesisEditing Services
Why Our Editing and Proofreading Services?
At Proof-Reading-Service.com we offer the highest quality journal article editing, phd thesis editing and proofreading services via our large and extremely dedicated team of academic and scientific professionals. All of our proofreaders are native speakers of English who have earned their own postgraduate degrees, and their areas of specialisation cover such a wide range of disciplines that we are able to help our international clientele with research editing to improve and perfect all kinds of academic manuscripts for successful publication. Many of the carefully trained members of our expert editing and proofreading team work predominantly on articles intended for publication in scholarly journals, applying painstaking journal editing standards to ensure that the references and formatting used in each paper are in conformity with the journal’s instructions for authors and to correct any grammar, spelling, punctuation or simple typing errors. In this way, we enable our clients to report their research in the clear and accurate ways required to impress acquisitions proofreaders and achieve publication.

Our scientific proofreading services for the authors of a wide variety of scientific journal papers are especially popular, but we also offer manuscript proofreading services and have the experience and expertise to proofread and edit manuscripts in all scholarly disciplines, as well as beyond them. We have team members who specialise in medical proofreading services, and some of our experts dedicate their time exclusively to PhD proofreading and master’s proofreading, offering research students the opportunity to improve their use of formatting and language through the most exacting PhD thesis editing and dissertation proofreading practices. Whether you are preparing a conference paper for presentation, polishing a progress report to share with colleagues, or facing the daunting task of editing and perfecting any kind of scholarly document for publication, a qualified member of our professional team can provide invaluable assistance and give you greater confidence in your written work.

If you are in the process of preparing an article for an academic or scientific journal, or planning one for the near future, you may well be interested in a new book, Guide to Journal Publication, which is available on our Tips and Advice on Publishing Research in Journals website.



topbanner errow