How to write the format of English references?

English references should be formatted according to certain rules, so that readers can quickly locate, identify and consult the cited documents.

The specific writing is as follows:

1, standard format element

When compiling English references, we must include standard format elements such as author, publication time, title of book or article, publication place and publisher. These elements can be adjusted according to different types of literary works.

2. Typical reference format

One of the two formats, APA or MLA, is usually used in reference collections. References in APA format include author's name, publication year, document name, periodical name, volume number, number of issues and page number. MLA format is simpler, there is no volume number and issue number, but it needs to be included in the publishing agency. There are other differences between the two formats, and the application scenarios that are particularly suitable are also different.

3. The format of a specific type of document.

In addition to standard reference format elements, it is necessary to provide additional information for different types of documents. For example, e-mail needs to include sender, subject and date, while website literature must provide elements such as title, URL and retrieval date. The citation modes of SCI and IEEE formats are also different from APA and MLA formats.

4. Some general reference format rules.

Although each citation format has its own rules, there are some common rules worth noting. For example, the font should be consistent with the text, and appropriate punctuation should be used to indicate the separation between different elements. In addition, you need to sort all list items alphabetically and highlight specific elements in italics or bold.

5. How to manage referees?

In the process of scientific research, managing references is an important task, which can be realized by various softwares. Among them, the popular softwares are EndNote, Zotero and Mendeley, which can help users to create and organize reference libraries, generate references and insert papers, and save tedious steps such as manual document processing.