The SAO Referencing and Citation Style Guide V2

1. Introduction
This is a guide to the required way to cite and reference scientific sources in your SAO work (in
particular, in essays and projects). Correct and consistent referencing is an integral part of scientific
writing. It clearly shows where you have sourced information, and allows readers to easily find this
information for themselves.

For scientific sources, we require you to use the style adopted by the Astrophysical Journal (ApJ),
one of the main astronomy research journals. Astronomers often refer to this as the ApJ style.
The full detailed guide is available at http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/page/apj/instruct.html
under the References section. To become more familiar with the style, we suggest you read some
articles of interest from ApJ, available online through the Swinburne library.

For more general sources such as periodicals, magazines, print media, websites, film, video and so
on, and for unpublished materials (which really should be avoided!), please adopt a consistent and
common sense approach. Remember that you are referring to these materials in order to substantiate
or augment your arguments and that the readers should therefore be able to locate and verify the
information for themselves.

The examples in Sections 26 illustrate how you should refer to (cite) the work of others within
your written text. In Section 9 below is a guide to formatting the complete source details as they
appear in the References list (Bibliography). Compare each example of a citation with its complete
source details as listed in the final References list below.

Note: All sources cited in the text must be listed in the References, and every entry in the
References must be referred to in the text (with the exception of personal communication, which,
although mentioned in the text, would not be listed in the References).

2. Scientific sources: journals, textbooks, conference proceedings, theses, etc.

In brief, within the text of your assignment, you should refer to the work of others by the last name
of the first author and the year of publication, as shown in the following examples in the ApJ style.
single author: (last name and year, without a comma, or year only if the name is part of the
sentence)
The new data provided by Bloggs (2004) clearly showed that the answer was 42,
confirming his earlier theoretical work (Bloggs 1996). The data were analysed using
the IRAF data analysis package (Tody 1993) developed at NOAO.
two authors: (names joined by an ampersand)
More recently, extensive N-body simulations have derived an answer of 42.007 0.009
(Fluke & Maddison 2008).
three or more authors: (first author followed by et al.)
Sunshine et al. (2006) analysed the comets surface water ice.
Note in this example that et al. is used in the text when there are three or more authors, but all
authors (if no more than 8) are listed in the References. However, if there are more than 8 authors,
name just the first author and use et al. in the References listing.

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 authors with the same last name: (include initials to distinguish)
citing two or more papers: (citations separated by a semicolon)
More recent studies on small isolated galaxies (Jalali & Hunter 2005; Hinshaw 2008)
revealed that
two or more papers, same author(s): (dates separated by a comma)
Recent studies on spiral galaxies (Brainy 2006, 2007) showed that
two or more papers, same author(s), same year: (use a, b, c, etc to distinguish papers)
Recent studies on cluster galaxies (Johns 2008a, 2008b) suggested that
two or more papers, three or more authors, same year: (as above, a, b, c, used to distinguish
papers; note that the letters are assigned by their order in the References, which may not necessarily
be the same order in which they are cited in the text).
Tammann et al. (2008b) propose a more extensive TRGB calibration of Type 1a
supernovae, and have also argued that the Cepheid period-luminosity relation may not
be unique (Tammann et al. 2008a).
thesis: (cite in the same way as above)
In an analysis of the distribution of hydrogen in the local universe, Kilborn (2000)
searched the HIPASS data.

2. E-prints/Preprints
Many research papers are initially published on the Web prior to being refereed these are called
electronic preprints (e-prints for short) or preprints. The authors are cited in your text in the
same way as above, but note how they appear in the References. See the examples for Aloisio
(2008), Maddison et al. (2008) and Hinshaw et al. (2008).

3. Websites
We note that a number of SAO students incorrectly reference web sites. To avoid lengthy URLs
(web addresses) in the text, create a unique reference instead (with the suffix web). For example,
SAOweb would be appropriate for the Swinburne Astronomy Online Home Page and could be
used as follows:
Swinburne Astronomy Online, clearly the best online graduate astronomy program in
the world, teaches into over 35 countries around the globe (SAOweb).

4. Other non-refereed periodicals and general sources

For newspaper and magazine articles, films, videos, unpublished seminar presentations, etc., please
adopt a consistent and common sense approach to referencing, as these types of sources will not be
found in ApJ articles! References to well regarded but non-refereed journals such as New Scientist,
Astronomy Now, Sky & Telescope and so on can be made in the ApJ style.
James Peebles wrote an article for Scientific American (Peebles 2001) which many
people have read and enjoyed.

A very comprehensive style guide, for sources not covered by the ApJ instructions, is available
from the APA at: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/10/ .

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5. Personal communication
Letters, emails, personal interviews and communications, and other unpublished and unverifiable
material should be cited in the text as (B. Rabbit date, personal communication), but not be listed in
the References. Remember that these sources are rarely useful in a scientific paper.

6. Quotations
If you quote text taken from the internet or any other source, place it in quotation marks and give
the reference from where you obtained it.
According to Norris (2000),

While quoting material in this way is fine, you must be sure to make it clear that it is a
quote. If you quote material but do not make it clear, the person marking it may treat
[it] as plagiarism and reduce your marks accordingly. Note that those people marking
assignments routinely use search tools to check for plagiarism.

Think carefully about using quotations. Does the quotation add strength to your arguments? A
quotation by itself will be unlikely to add much quality to your submission (or marks to your
grade!). Overuse of quotations will impact the originality of your work and graders may assess
your submission less favourably.

7. Final comments
Do not merely summarise the writings of others: present your arguments in your own words using
references unless quoting directly (see above). A list of references, in alphabetical order by first
author, is essential at the end of the work, but must only include references referred to in the work.
A supplementary reading list is not required. Do not separate your reference list into sections such
as texts, journals, web sites, etc. Usually, statements that are about common knowledge which
can be found in general astronomy textbooks do not require a reference, e.g. The Sun is a star.
Your references should not heavily rely on your Unit textbook, SAO Course Content or Wikipedia
entries. For high marks you should be making use of higher-standard resources (conference texts,
journal papers, e-prints, reputable websites and the like).

8. Listing your references

References are listed alphabetically by the last name of the first author (and then chronologically).
The names of frequently cited scientific journals can be abbreviated and a list of these acronyms is
provided in the Appendix at the end of this guide, together with more general information about
finding the abbreviations used for other publications.
The general ApJ format for journal papers is:
Lastname, I. Year, Journal abbreviated title, Volume, First page of article
If the volumes are divided into numbers in which the page numbering recommences from 1 with
each issue, then the number of the volume will need to be included:
Lastname, I. Year, Publication, Volume (Number), First page
For articles with 28 authors, all names should be listed, with a comma between authors and an
ampersand before the final name:
Firstauthor, F., Secondauthor, S., & Thirdauthor, T. Year, Publication, Volume, First page
If there are more than 8 authors, name just the first author, followed by et al.

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 Papers submitted but not yet accepted for publication should be listed with the journal name and
submitted. Papers accepted for publication should be listed as in press. If the article is available
as a preprint, these details can be added. Once the article has been published, the pre-publication
details are superseded, and the journal reference must be used. For example, the paper by Maddison
et al. (2007) listed below has now been published. Prior to publication, it had been referenced as a
preprint (arXiv:0706.4248v1 [astro-ph]).
Where the same author details are listed in sequential references, the second entry can be
abbreviated using a long dash.
Please read the ApJ guide for more extensive details about the correct referencing of books,
collections, conference proceedings, star catalogues, newsletters, instrument documentation, etc.

References
Aloisio, R. 2008, preprint (astro-ph/0807.0151)
Bloggs, F. 1996, MNRAS, 283, 1287
2004, AJ, 128, 45
Brainy, V. 2006, ApJ, 652, 279
2007, Nature, 449, 868
Fluke, C., & Maddison, S. T. 2008, ApJ, 42, 7
Hinshaw, G., et al. 2008, preprint (arXiv:0803.0732)
Jalali, M. A., & Hunter, C. 2005, ApJ, 630, 804
Johns, J. J. 2008a, A&A, 479, 311
2008b, MNRAS, 389, 502
Kilborn, V. A. 2000, PhD thesis, Univ. of Melbourne
Maddison, S. T., Fouchet, L., & Gonzalez, J.-F. 2007, Ap&SS, 311, 3
Norris, R.P. 2000, The Bright Student Almanac, Vol. 3 (Sydney: Galactic Press)
Peebles, P. J. 2001, SciAm, 284(1), 54
SAOweb: Swinburne Astronomy Online Home Page, http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/sao/
(accessed 12 Aug 2008)
Sunshine, J. M., et al. 2006, Science, 311, 5766
Tammann, G., Sandage, A., & Reindl, B. 2008a, ApJ, 679, 52
2008b, A&A Rev., 15, 289
Tody, D. 1993, in ASP Conference Series 52, Astronomical Data Analysis Software and Systems II,
ed. R.J. Hanisch, R.J.V. Brissenden and J. Barnes (San Francisco: ASP), 173.

Swinburne University of Technology

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Appendix: Journal Abbreviations

a. Abbreviations to use for frequently cited journals

A&A Astronomy & Astrophysics

A&AR The Astronomy and Astrophysics Review
A&AS Astronomy and Astrophysics Supplement Series
AcA Acta Astronomica
Adv. Sp. Res. Advances in Space Research
AJ Astronomical Journal
Ap&SS Astrophysics and Space Science
ApJ Astrophysical Journal
ApJL Astrophysical Journal Letters
ApJS Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series
ARA&A Annual Review of Astronomy & Astrophysics
ASP Conf. Ser. Astronomical Society of the Pacific Conference Series
Astron. Lett. Astronomy Letters
Astron. Rep. Astronomy Reports
Astropart. Phys. Astroparticle Physics
BAAS Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society
Int. J. Mod. Phys. D International Journal of Modern Physics D (Gravitation; Astrophysics and Cosmology)
JA&A Journal of Astrophysics & Astronomy
MNRAS Monthly Notices of the RAS (Royal Astronomical Society)
Nature Nature
New Astron. New Astronomy
New Astron. Revs New Astronomy Reviews
PASA Publications of the Astron. Soc. of Australia
PASP Publications of the Astron. Soc. of the Pacific
PASJ Publications of the Astron. Soc. of Japan
Phys. Rep. Physics Reports
Phys. Rev. A Physical Review A.: General Physics
Phys. Rev. D Physical Review D.: Particles, Fields, Gravitation, and Cosmology-1
Phys. Rev. Lett. Physical Review Letters
Science Science
Solar Phys. Solar Physics
Space Sci. Revs Space Science Reviews

b. IAU abbreviation rules

If in doubt for other journals, please use the full title or refer to the IAU standard abbreviation rules:
http://www.iau.org/science/publications/proceedings_rules/abbreviations/ .

c. Guide to ADS abbreviations

Abbreviations for the journals and conference proceedings contained in the ADS Abstract Service
can be found here: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs_doc/journal_abbr.html .

To see the ADS abbreviation for a particular journal, go to http://adsabs.harvard.edu/bib_abs.html

and type in the name and click on Send Query.

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