Writing the References

• The references section goes last in the report (but before any appendix).

• You only need to included cited sources, not necessarily any source you read.

• Style/format does not matter (e.g., APA or MLA). But be consistent within your own format. e.g., 1) if you italicize publishing venue, do so every time, 2) if titles are in quotes, make them always in quotes, 3) if authors have full names versus initials, do so every time.

Tip: Double-check capitalization of paper titles. Have either "Title words are not in caps" for all entries or "Titles Words are in Caps" for all entries but not both.

• If you find a document on the Web, don't just use the URL for the citation. Follow through to get as much information as you can about the original source. See below.

• Include full bibliographic information from the original source. The intent is to make it clear where the source came from in the References section itself and make it likely someone else can find it.

  • Conferences should have venue (city, state, country)

  • Books should include publisher

  • Journals should have volume and number

  • Web pages identified by a URL are the worst documents to cite since they are ephemeral. But if you need to cite them, include as much information as possible:

    • author
    • web page title
    • date accessed
    • date modified
    • publisher/source company
    • ...

  • All print sources should include page numbers/counts, where available

  • Everything should have a year

• Cited sources should appear in numeric order (if using numbering) or alphabetic order (if using an alphabetic scheme).

• Citing games - ACM CHI Play has recommendations on citing games as scholarly work. For example: "Nintendo R&D1 and Intelligent Systems. 1994. Super Metroid. Game [SNES]. (18 April 1994). Nintendo, Kyoto, Japan. Last played August 2011."

  The @Misc tag should be used for BibTex. Below is the same example as above:

        @Misc{game,
          Address = {Kyoto, Japan},
          Author = {"Nintendo R\&D1 and Intelligent Systems"},
          Month = {April},
          Day = {18},
          Howpublished = {Game [SNES]},
          Note = {Nintendo, Kyoto, Japan. Last played August 2011.},
          Publisher = {Nintendo},
          Title = {\emph{Super Metroid}},
          Year = {1994}
        }