A standard bibliographic style for GEUS' publications: a guide for authors and editors. Publications Committee: Report No. 4

A vital part of scientific writing is the documentation of the sources of information that have contributed to the study. All original research is to some degree based on previous data sources, and it is obvious that research results are only meaningful if data sources are admitted, and credit given to previous work. Thus, a foremost duty of an author is to accurately and unambiguously refer to his/her sources. Standardisation of bibliographic style helps to achieve this.

Since its establishment in 1995, GEUS has operated with several bibliographic styles. For example, the scientific series has adopted one style, a different style is used for the institution's official annual reports, while the open file-type reports produced departmentally (the Danmarks og Grrzmlands Geo/ogiske Unders0ge/se Rapport series) have shown varying styles, but now follow that given in the recommendations of Katz (1997).

This report proposes a standard bibliographic style for all GEUS publications, thereby rational ising authorial, secretarial and editorial effort. It will be adopted from January 1998.

The report is written for both the hardened old-timer, with a hundred or more titles under the belt, and the youngster just starting out on the publication trail. It can be said with conviction that inexperience of publishing is not the main reason for sloppy handling of data sources. Regrettably, complacency about references all too often creeps in with experience.

The report will seem frightfully long to many, particularly those who have never seen references as a problem. However, in view of our increasing electronic work style, much space is given to define and illustrate the categories of reference types that are vital for computer generated reference lists. Part 4 of the report deals with computer help and the electronic reference programme EndNote.

Also voluminous is a catalogue (part 5) giving the main publication types of DGU, GGU and GEUS with examples written in GEUS style. This easy-to-use listing must be good news for authors; the not-so-good news is that with this report at hand, authors have no excuses for other than accurate referencing.