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Introduction – Checking APA and Harvard citations

I want to talk to you about references — the bibliographic sort that almost every academic paper and book contains at the end — and citations, the callouts for their reference partners. They’re not even a new invention, so at the dawn of the 21st century, I remember thinking: “Why have I had to check these for so long? Why hasn’t anyone tried to make it easier to check them?” I’d sought in vain to find a simple and affordable program to help with checking references and citations. In the information age, there must be something out there to do this, but my searches drew a blank. There were a small number of in-house and commercially available programs to work on references, but these seemed prohibitively expensive, inflexible, and restrictive in their functionality. Most seemed to be bibliographic authoring software to help authors compile reference lists and citations as they prepared their work prior to submission for publication, but none provided a simple solution to check references and citations after the text had been written.

Challenges

With a growing number of in-house and freelance copy-editors, there seemed to be a niche in the market for this type of software. After lengthy discussions with a programmer colleague, we came up with the name “ReferenceChecker” with the following desiderata:

• It should be affordable
• It should be easy to install and use, with minimum prior knowledge of using add-ins in Word
• It should be flexible yet require minimum input from the user
• It should be fast to use
• Its user interface should be clean, simple, and easy to understand
• It should present clear results and point the user directly to the exact place in the text where the discrepancies can be found
• It should understand the character sets of most European languages, including letters with diacritics that are variations on letters in the Latin alphabet
• It should recognize and check the most commonly used referencing systems, APA, Harvard, and Vancouver, and their numerous variants.

Could all this be done? Would it prove too much for a machine, to be able to carry out the manual checking tasks of an experienced copy-editor? We set about programming the code, testing, retesting, and reconfiguring the code many times to produce a working prototype. It worked in the early stages, and with the variety of examples of references and citations, but we soon found variants of names, years, punctuation, ordering, and so on that would warrant revisions to the software. Testing and development took about 5 months; finally, in early 2005, we were ready to unleash the beast into the Wild World Web.

It has been a considerable challenge, though not insurmountable, to iron out problems along the way. Things arose that we didn’t think would arise, and there were less-than-straightforward elements in bibliographic referencing that would require sophisticated code. Talking of code, the software comprises a Visual Basic application implemented in several thousand lines of code. Its size and complexity belie its simple interface and experience for the user; the user shouldn’t have to worry about how big or complex the software is, only how quick and easy it is to use.

Throughout its development, we introduced a number of additional useful features in ReferenceChecker:

• hyperlinked results that could be clicked on or scrolled through to take the user to the exact place in the text where the mismatch was found: either a reference item with no matching citation or a citation with no matching item in the reference list;
• the option to check with or without case sensitivity in author names;
• a feature to copy and paste the results;
• the option to view the results as a list of either (a) every single citation and reference item listed and checked or (b) mismatches only.

21st-century editing

In conceiving the idea for ReferenceChecker, I admit I had a few qualms. Would the “brain” of a machine perform as accurately and intelligently in this case as the brain of a human? When a human checks references and citations, they have learned how to recognize and compare the separate elements that constitute each reference and citation. My underlying apprehension was that if software could do the amount of work that would normally take a human, say, 15 minutes in an average-sized paper in a small fraction of the time, i.e. a few seconds, could this open a Pandora’s box of expectations? The answer is quite complex. By using, and still being in full control of, software to check the parts of a text that can be processed more quickly than by the laborious manual method, the copy-editor can concentrate on other, more important tasks that cannot be done by a machine, while maintaining a high level of accuracy. We’re still a long way off from machines being able to do the complete work of a copy-editor on a text, because of the vast complexities of human written language. With automated grammar, consistency, spell-checking, and text-analysis software, there are frequently false errors highlighted, because the software hasn’t been programmed to “look around” either side of a word or phrase to detect and understand the specific context and meaning intended by the author. In some cases, the software can’t possibly know if a spelling or punctuation is correct or not in a specific context, because it doesn’t have a human’s life experience.

Some examples:

• “man eating shark” or “man-eating shark”? Which is correct in the context of the subject matter? Either could be used, depending on the context. Should the software flag either of these as being incorrect?
• “It’s one mistake” or “Its one mistake”? Either could be correct, with or without the apostrophe, depending on the surrounding text.
• “… his parents, John Allen, and Rose Wood” or “… his parents, John Allen and Rose Wood”? Does this refer to two or four people? It could be either.
• “principal was investigated” or “principle was investigated”? Either is acceptable, but would it be appropriate for an automated checker to question the usage of either of these? Would it be remiss for it not to report a possible spelling error?

We encountered a few challenges while developing ReferenceChecker, and to deal with these, several sets of rules were implemented. There were rules to detect references and citations; rules to parse the references and citations; and rules to extract author surnames and years of publication. A number of “post-processing rules” were then incorporated to clean up the extracted references and citations, ignore spurious names, and make sense of all surnames and years of publication. A final set of rules compared references and citations, and generated the list of mismatches for the user to look through. In so doing, ReferenceChecker has been developed with intelligent design, working in a way as close as possible to how a human would recognize references and citations, that is, if it looks like a citation or reference to the human eye, ReferenceChecker will recognize and check it. It’s heartening to know we’ve saved many people many hours of working time, and to receive feedback and suggestions from our users. For the average full-time copy-editor, who might work on, say, 15 average-sized papers in a working week (e.g. 30 pages of A4 with five pages of references), and estimating about 15 minutes of reference-checking time per paper, we’ve calculated time savings of up to 174 working hours per year—that’s almost five working weeks!

About the author

Paul Sensecall is a full-time freelance (www.pseditorialservices.com) with over 20 years’ experience of copy-editing and proofreading academic material in the areas of science, technical, medical; social sciences and humanities. 

If you’re a freelancer, you probably have a website. And if you advertise with Find a Proofreader, you may wish to link your website to your Find a Proofreader listing. For instance,  you may want to forward your site visitors to your  listing so that they can read your positive customer reviews. Or you might want to encourage your existing customers to write a positive review for your business.  Of course, you may just like the look of our shiny buttons! Whatever the reason, it’s very easy to add a Find a Proofreader button to your site. Read on to find out exactly how!

At present there are four buttons for you to choose from. Each one is coloured differently and has a different call to action on. Once you’ve decided which button best suits the look of your website, just copy and paste the code into your site or blog.

Please note: To make the button link directly from your website to your Find a Proofreader page, you’ll need to insert your listing URL in place of the bold text.  If you encounter any technical issues, let us know and we’ll endeavour to help!

For the above badge, add this code to your site: 

<a href=”INSERT YOUR LISTING URL” title=”Click to rate my service on Find a Proofreader” target=”_blank”><img src=”http://findaproofreader.com/Rate-my-service.png” alt=”Link to Find a Proofreader” border=”0″ width=”250″ height=”55″></a>

To see our other badges, click on the Link to Us tab in the navigation bar,  or click here. Alternatively, if you would prefer to link to us with a text link, you can insert this code on your site instead (remember to insert the full URL of your listing where instructed):

<a href=”INSERT YOUR LISTING URL/” title=”Link to Find a Proofreader” target=”_blank”>Check out my listing on the Find a Proofreader directory</a>

The link should look like this on your website:

Check out my listing on the Find a Proofreader directory

These buttons are proving to be a real hit and many of our advertisers have already adopted them. Don’t be left behind – follow the instructions above and add your button today!

An editorial portfolio to your website gives potential clients confidence that you’re a good fit for them.

Imagine this scenario: Mr Indie Author has spent 7 years thinking about his debut novel, 19 months writing it, and 3 days trawling Google and various directories like the SfEP’s Directory of Editorial Services and Find a Proofreader in order to find someone to put the final polish on his masterpiece. He has a headache. Who should he trust to do the job? It’s personal to him. It’s taken 7 years, 19 months and 3 days to get this far and he doesn’t want to blow it. There are thousands of proofreaders out there. He wants someone who knows what they’re doing, who has experience, but there are so many to choose from who fulfil his criteria. It’s like an editorial minefield. Lots of them say they proofread fiction, even the particular genre of fiction that his novel falls into, so how’s he going to make a decision? And how are you going to help him?

Why should you include a portfolio?

I’ve lost count of the number of times that people who’ve selected me over other proofreaders told me that they liked the fact that they could see a list of projects I’d worked on in the past – my portfolio. When a political science student visits my website because she wants her Master’s dissertation proofread, I can show her a list of 17 books that I’ve worked on in the same field. If a publisher is looking for a proofreader with experience in proofreading business and organization studies titles, they can peruse a list of 28. For law, I currently have 15 titles listed, though I’m due to add a couple more in the next two weeks. If Mr Indie Author, whom we met earlier, wants his novel worked on, he can see that I’ve done the job on 30 previous occasions. All this gives the potential client confidence in your ability to do the task you claim you can.

Google Analytics tells me that (my blog aside) the #1 page on my website in terms of page views is my home page – 13,000 this year. The #2 page on my site is the one entitled Qualifications, with 2,831 hits. Coming in at #3? It’s Portfolio, with 1,976 hits. So around 15% of visitors to my website are interested enough to want to know what I’ve proofread (though they’re even more interested in where I trained). Many of these visitors are curious colleagues who read my blog, but some are authors, students, business people and publishers who turned into clients because what they saw there matched their requirements.

Where should you put it?

If your portfolio is extensive, I’d advise placing it somewhere other than on your home page. Your home page should be clean and crisp; it should help the visitor navigate their way around your site easily. If you work in different market segments you might consider following my lead and including buttons on your home page that link to different portfolios – I chose academic, fiction, and commercial non-fiction but you might decide to do it by subject area or client type. It doesn’t really matter as long as the information is clear and easy for your visitor to locate.

How should you do it?

Simple web-text lists: My preferred way is simply to put the list in full view on a dedicated page. This will make it easy to find for your visitors and ensures the information they seek is right in front of them. If you have a large, rather unwieldy portfolio (my Academic Portfolio page is a good example), it’s worth embedding jump-to instructions to help your readers navigate. For more information see my article Website Tips for Editorial Pros: Using Jump-to Instructions.

PDF: Another option is to upload PDFs – if you have a large portfolio this will ensure your website is less cluttered, but it means visitors need to have PDF reading software. Some of your less tech-savvy clients might not have this or might be nervous about downloading files.

File-sharing tools: You can also use a file-sharing tool like Box or DropBox. Again, however, this is making things even more complicated for your visitors because they have to have Box/DropBox accounts. Keeping things simple is often the best way.

What if you don’t have a large portfolio?

While you’re building your business and your client base, your portfolio may look a bit on the thin side. In that case, call the projects “selected works”. Flesh out the page with testimonials. If you haven’t received any, then ask your clients if they’d consider writing one for you. Most are more than happy to oblige. You can also create a client list to show visitors who you are working with. Consider the portfolio a work in progress and add to it as you go along.

Ideas for you to try

Take a look at the different approaches some editorial freelancers have taken to promote their portfolio online.

• An Eye for Perfection: Editor and proofreader Jennifer Hinchliffe includes a “Portfolio” tab on her menu ribbon. With one click her visitors can access a portfolio that is sharp, easy to read and really attractive to the eye. Jennifer’s elected to limit her portfolio to the past couple of years’ worth of work. She’s gone for clarity over clutter.
• Louise Harnby | Proofreader: I, too, have a “Portfolio” tab on my ribbon menu that links to three separate portfolios: academic, fiction and commercial non-fiction. I have a large portfolio of work in a number of academic specialties. I’ve elected to compromise on the issue of clutter in order to provide a really comprehensive overview of my experience.
• Biomedical science editor and journals specialist Anna Sharman lists all the periodicals she’s worked on in the “Freelance experience” section of her website Sharmanedit. There’s a link from each journal title to its publisher. This is clever because Anna makes her portfolio into a resource centre for her potential clients and maximizes her SEO while promoting her own expertise.
• Beth Cox at Without Exception also uses a “Portfolio” tab, but this time the projects are presented article-style. This gives the visitor a real sense of Beth’s commitment to inclusion issues, a core focus of her business, by telling the story of her editing work past and present.

A cautionary note … ask first

Always ask permission. There are some big-name businesses who forbid their freelancers to use their names or products for self-promotion purposes. A student may prefer you to wait until they’ve been awarded their Master’s or doctorate before being listed, while a journal article author may prefer their paper to have been accepted for publication first. Publishers tend to be fairly relaxed about this because their marketing lead times are so long, but an independent author may not want you listing their book two months before they have a major blog tour arranged! Ask first.