Nancy Brown from Nebraska called my author today and reminded him^* about the reference (me) missing from his manuscript. Do you know how embarrassing it is to be the only reference excluded from a bibliography? Your content was obviously good enough to be included, but your author just didn’t have enough respect to keep track of your complete identity or address, depending on how you look at it. It is kind of like saying that someone is one of your best buddies, but when you can’t remember his name or where he lives.

I actually know a lot about the publishing process as I’ve tagged along with quite a few manuscripts. In fact, I’ve lost count of the number of times that I have been cited through the years. My author doesn’t really understand the important role that referencing plays in the editorial review process. Experienced reviewers and editors make several judgments about manuscripts by surveying the reference list. Remember that manuscripts are assigned to reviewers who are knowledgeable in the content area of the article, so they review the references to determine whether or not authors (1) have included important references and (2) have excluded references that are marginally related or not related to the topic at hand. Appropriate referencing provides reviewers with evidence that authors are aware of the area in which they are working.

Missing citations are more important than my author thinks. Carefulness of the referencing says a lot to the experienced reviewer about the carefulness of researchers and writers. If authors can’t even reference the manuscript accurately, reviewers wonder if they conducted the research carefully and accurately.

My friend, Citation #5423, urges me to try not to take this personally, but that is easy for her to say; her favorite author stores references in one of those new computerized referencing systems. She happens to use Endnote, but there are many other choices.

Although it makes me feel even worse, my friend insists on telling me the whole routine. Her author has linked Endnote to her word processing application. You get the picture: when one is working, the other is waiting in the wings, and vice versa. Anyway, references can be entered into Endnote in several ways. Whenever her author receives a new journal, book, videotape, or software package, she enters the COMPLETE reference into Endnote. She could enter the abstract also, but my friend thinks that her author is a little too lazy for that. I say, "Don’t talk to me about lazy; my author didn’t write my address down anywhere." Wrong! That is not quite true. He wrote my first name on a napkin. Big deal! He thinks that he has such a great memory that he will remember me when he needs me. Of course, when that time comes, his memory fails, and he gets mad and says things like "Where is that dumb reference?" Me dumb! Give me a break. Sorry.

My friend’s author also enters references into Endnote when she is doing research for a writing project. Imagine that—actually entering the COMPLETE citation right away. Sometimes, when she is writing a manuscript and she comes across an interesting quotation, she enters it as well as the reference into Endnote. My friend’s author is so cool that she sometimes imports references into Endnote directly from the computerized search program such as Medline, Psychological Abstracts, or ERIC. That way she even eliminates the typing mistakes. These systematic strategies for building the reference file are so efficient, but that is just the beginning.

When writing an article, she inserts the references into the manuscript by placing the cursor in the desired location within a document and clicking on the "Insert Citation" command. A shorthand version of the citation (Beukelman, 1996, #5923) is entered into the manuscript. When the manuscript is completed, it contains many of these shorthand links to the reference file, and then the fun begins. Her author reminds Endnote of the writing style for the manuscript (such as APA, AMA, Chicago, or IEEE) and activates a "Format Bibliography" command. Oh my, you have to be there to fully appreciate it. For a moment there is silence and then the citation notations in the text of the manuscript are inserted CORRECTLY. Then comes the really nifty part, as the bibliography for the manuscript is built automatically. COMPLETE references are ordered ACCURATELY—alphabetically, numerically, or by order of occurrence in the manuscript—all determined by writing style designation. I know this may be a little difficult to grasp from my description, but you get the picture—no retyping the references once the manuscript is complete, no typos, no missing page numbers, and no missing author’s initials. And, most important, no looking for lost references and losing your temper about it. It almost brings tears.

If that weren’t enough, the referencing system makes my friend’s author look like a genius. Let me set the scene. A student or colleague comes by and asks for information about a topic. Her author pretends to think, turns to her computer, activates the "Find" function, types in part of the reference—an author’s name, date, word in title, word in abstract—and a list of references is generated that can be reviewed on screen, edited, printed, or copied and pasted for export into a document or over the Internet.

Several authors in my building simulate a referencing program by maintaining a master reference file using their word processing programs. Actually, most of them seem to have several of these reference files, one each for the different topics in which they are interested. To build the bibliographies for individual manuscripts, they simply cut and paste individual references from the master file. These authors actually manage their reference files much the same way as my friend’s author manages her Endnote system by entering references when journals arrive or during the research phase of a project.

Now back to my situation. The AAC editorial office is delaying my author’s manuscript because of a missing reference (me). My author is in a panic. I am scrawled on a napkin in his upper desk drawer (unfinished manuscripts are in the lower drawer) where he puts all the stuff from his desk at the end of the day. He wants to look organized, you know. He digs through the drawer every hour or so but never thinks to unfold the napkin. It’s gonna be a long week.

Electronically printed with permission from ISAAC (http://www.isaac-online.org/isaac.html)