• Abbreviations
• Buddhist Works
• The United States
• Books of the Bible
• Referencing by Acronyms and the Like

Some special markers are explained briefly on another page: [Link]

List of Abbreviations

REMINDER: 'Hum', 'Mod', and 'With' are extensively covered on another page: [LINK]

Buddhist Works

The United States

The names of states, territories, and possessions of the United States should be given in full when standing alone. The ordinary practice is to spell them out, but not in lists, bibliographies, mailing addresses, etc. In such cases the first abbreviation form is preferred in lists and bibliographies, and the two-lettered form is for use with the zip code addresses in mailing, and is often useful otherwise too.

The "little extra" is the population from an estimate in 2000. Its source is the Department of Commerce, Bureau of Census, The data were had in May 2001.[http://www.ipl.org/youth/stateknow/popchart.html]

Books in the Christian Bible

Here and there we may come across still briefer abbreviations, like Mt, Jn, Lk, and Mk for Matthew, John, Luke, and Mark, because the Bible abbreviations are not standardised. The ones above are much common, though.

Referencing by Acronyms and the Like

Referencing work can be made easy by acronyms etc.

"AN ACRONYM is a word that is formed from the initial letter or letters of each of the successive parts - or major parts - of a compound term." That is a definition. The acronym is a special sort of abbreviation that consists of code letters.

Books of the Bible tend to be referred to in much the same way, as shown above. Also, where the bulk of works referred to are of some corpus and tradition, one may see that acronymised titles appear. For example, "BriUp" means "Brihadaranyaka Upanishad", an ancient Sanskrit work of philosophy teachings. There are many dozens of upanishads, and some have long names too, such as the Brihadaranyakaopahisad and the Nrisimhapurvatapaniya Upanisad. In the light of that, abbreviations are not so bad . . . [So xxxiv]

If you are working with a limited amount of books and articles, the unintruding code letter system - a few letters each time we refer to such as the "Nrisimhapurvatapaniya Upanisad" - can ease referencing considerably. Otherwise, in cases when others insist that you conform to some other referencing system, listen well and follow suit. It is not wrong to refer in less concise ways either on the way to getting an education, and not rewarding to get stubborn. Where customs differ, we should adapt locally. Journals tend to have their own standards of reference too.

There are, in fact, many different systems of referring in different traditions, and it has taken much skill, time and effort to develop any of them. Some of the outcomes, such as style guides, can be viewed on the Internet. For example, the so-called Harvard system of references uses the last name or surnames of the author or authors, adding the year of publication for each entry in the text, and perhaps the pages referred to.There is far more to the complete reference system than this.

"Code letters", where they fit, have the advantage of being simple space savers compared to the "names and years" of such as the Harvard System, but either system can be quite easily translated (converted, decoded) into the other.

Attuned to the Harvard System of Referencing

The author's last name is put before the first name, separated by a comma. The book title is given next, in italics. The place of publication comes after the title or after the edition information. Publishers are placed right after the place of publication, after a colon, and after the publishers comes the year or date of publication after a comma.

That is the basic outline for books. Journal articles and book chapters referred to are put in quotation marks.

Study the examples.

In some cases the use of annotated references is fine. In such cases you give information about who is the writer, his position and rank, and other interesting details that can serve readers or a cause well.

Common Abbreviations

Common abbreviations help us to gauge well. If there are many of them, there is a risk of getting cryptical, which may not be so good. So compute a little to use abbreviations with skill and fluency - adhering to the rules as found in manuals of style. There are books on abbreviations, and abbreviations may pop up in dictionaries too.

From the "rules of the game": You normally do well to avoid abbreviations in section heads; in sentences or paragraphs with (too) many abbreviations already; in texts aiming at common audiences, and so on.

Cms: The University of Chicago Press. The Chicago Manual of Style. 16th ed. London: The University of Chicago Press, 2010.

Ebu: Encyclopaedia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica 2010 Ultimate Reference Suite DVD. London: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2010.

So: Deussen, Paul, tr. Sixty Upanishads of the Veda, Vols 1-2. Varanasi: Banarsidass, 1980.

Wrh: Rampolla, Mary Lynn. A Pocket Guide to Writing History. 4th ed. Boston: Bedford/St Martin's, 2004.

Xm: Radhakrishnan, S., ed. The Cultural Heritage of India, Vols 1-5. Rev. ed. Calcutta: Ramakrishna Institute. Vol 1: 2nd ed. 1958. Vol 2: 2nd ed. 1962. Vol 3: 2nd ed. 1953. Vol 4: 2nd ed. 1956.