The task took vision, determination, and perhaps some figurative glue on the chair seat, but at last you’ve finished drafting IMRAD, the core of a scientific research paper. Now it’s time to include the somewhat automatic details that will complete your first draft. Let’s get started with the lengthiest section left to do – the reference list.

Compile a careful and complete reference list

As you’ve been developing the basic storyline of your paper, you’ve come upon many places where you have explicitly relied upon the work of others to help develop your message. Text citations and reference lists exist to acknowledge that reliance. Notice that there are two places in a scientific paper where referenced citations are crucial – the Introduction and the Discussion, and two other places where they rarely appear – the Abstract and the Results.

In developing a Reference section for your paper, most of the challenge lies in maintaining a high and consistent level of attention to detail. When at last you feel ready to submit your paper, check the references and citations, one by one. Ensure that sources have been listed for every important idea that is not your own.

Verify each of your references against the original document (not someone else’s list!), both to correct any inadvertent errors and to ensure that you have not misrepresented the authors’ intent. Then check every entry one more time to make sure that its style and format are consistently correct for your intended publisher.