SHORTER PAPERS Stephen C. Jett University of California, Davis Suggestions for Improving Reference Citations in Geographical Publication Most geographical publications employ the traditional system of footnotes for citation of references. However, because footnotes present difficulties in typing, are costly to set in type, and are often difficult to trace back through a maze of ibid.'s, op. cit.'s, and loc. cit.'s, several disciplines have adopted simplified systems of citation. One partial solution has been to put all footnotes into a single section following the text. A second type of simplification, adopted by disciplines such as geology, botany, and anthropology, involves in-text citations, giving in parentheses the name of the author, the date of his publication, and the page number(s ) referred to. An example is: (Bowman 1911: 129-30). An alphabetical listing of the authors and references cited follows the text. This system not only provides a complete and easy-to-use method of citation but also furnishes, in one place, a complete and uninterrupted bibliography of the references cited; it is much easier to search such a list for articles of interest than to leaf through a text, looking for pertinent footnotes. A further disadvantage of footnotes is diat, in addition to fulfilling their primary function of providing references, they are often used to give supplementary or parenthetical information. Actually, except when dealing with historical or literary texts, any such footnote that is not important enough to include in the body of the text should, in most cases, be omitted. However, the fact remains that footnotes are often so used, and upon seeing in the text a reference to a footnote, the reader tends to be distracted from the main stream of the passage and to glance down at the foot of the page, often finding only an ibid, or some equally uninformative footnote. 141 142association of pacific coast geographers The simplified, in-text type of citation described above also has disadvantages. A citation such as (Harshbarger, Repenning, and Irwin 1957: 59-60) also interrupts the flow of the text. In addition, it takes up valuable space. For these reasons, the following compromise system of citation is proposed: 1. Utilization of a post-text alphabetical bibliography, but with the addition of consecutive numbers, one number preceding each reference. 2. In-text citations, consisting of the number of the reference, a colon, and the page number(s) cited: (9:6). If, in a particular instance, it should be deemed desirable to mention the author, title, or date at this point, it would be done as part of the text and not as part of the citation. In the bibliography, it is desirable to give as much information as is useful but to use no more space than necessary. The following style is proposed: 1. Bryan, Kirk 1941. Pre-Columbian Agriculture in the Southwest, as Conditioned by Periods of Alluviation. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 51: 3: 219-42 The full title of the article and the full name of the periodical or series should be given. Because of potential ambiguity or difficulty of interpretation, abbreviations should be avoided except in the case of unusually long bibliographies in which abbreviations can be used for periodical titles if a listing of the full titles with the equivalent abbreviations appears above the bibliography. Following the title of the serial is the volume number ( or equivalent), a colon, the number (s) of any further subdivision(s) such as number, part, etc., and another colon, followed by tìie page numbers of the article (given in the most compact form possible, as 1123-9). In the case of book titles the name of the publisher should be included. Place of publication could be omitted, since this information is seldom of use and can normally be obtained, if desired, by referring to a listing of publishers or periodicals. It might be informative, however, to give the number of pages of monographs and non-serial items as well as of articles. In the case of additional bibliographic listings by the same author, a short line can be substituted for the author's name in all listings other than the first. ...