style guide - references

Subject: style guide - references
From: Miki Magyar <MDM0857 -at- MCDATA -dot- COM>
Date: Mon, 13 Jan 1997 12:42:12 -0700

Sharon Belville asked about "the best way to cite my sources. in a
research paper" within a commercial environment.

My experience - I've done some Technical Notes (a.k.a. app notes or
reference papers) for consulting clients who wanted to put in all the
references to add weight to their arguments. I used an annotated
bibliography, which satisfied their need for lots of citations, didn't clutter
up the paper for people just wanting the facts, and provided a good
reference bibliography for those wanting more info. In some cases I've
added a 'Recommended Reading' attachment for the same purpose.

I think that the academic format of using footnotes is not often used in
commercial documents. As always, ask who's going to be reading it and
why, then design accordingly. I suspect that in commercial docs,
someone looks at the notes (foot- or end-) either to see if the writer
knows what they're talking about, or to look for sources of more info.

Miki
mikim -at- mcdata -dot- com

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