Graduate students may come in all shapes and sizes, but one thing most of us have in common is that we're not awash with cash! Hence, we tend to buy only the Style Guide most relevant to the journals we would typically write for. But what happens when we want to submit an article to a publication that is outside our normal domain? How do we ensure that our written materials conform to unfamiliar, current formats, whether that's APSA, APA, MLA, Chicago, or individual journals, such as Nature? Here are a couple of suggestions for those times when you need to check the correct way to write citations and bibliographies, and you don't own that current Style Guide:
One of the best Web sites we've found, that walks you through the formats for headings, notations, citations, and bibliographies of major styles such as most of those mentioned above, is that of Research Haven. Go to: http://www.researchhaven.com/ and click on "Style Guide" on the top navigation bar.
Don't forget, too, that you can switch output styles within bibliographic
software packages such as Endnote. Endnote offers over 1,000 bibliographic
styles; if you own this software and haven't yet discovered all its features,
check out the "Make bibliographies with Endnote" classes offered
through the Library (you'll find their current schedule at:
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/services/instruction/classes/).
Noodlebib, an alternative to Endnote that's downloadable free through the Library (http://www.lib.utexas.edu/noodlebib/), is useful if you need to generate copy that conforms to rules of the most recent MLA Handbook or APA Publication Manual.
