OK Librarians and English Wonks, I need help!

[Fenris]

Alright break out your Writing manuals and lend an ENWorlder some help here folks.

I am writing up my dissertation and one of my committee members dislikes repeated parentheses. He wants them all within the same parentheses, seperated by a semi-colon.

Now is he right? If not, do you have a reference for me to refute him with.

Now some background. This is in science, so we use our own rules. But the cases that are arising revole around references. I am using EndNote (which I love!) and that places my references within parentheses. But I will often need to refer to a figure or appreviation right before or right after, leading to consecutive parentheses. But they are refering to different things.

Some examples:

metallopeptidase LAP-A (EC 3.4.11.1) (Gu et al., 1996b).

by salicylic acid (SA) (Chao et al., 1999).

fungal pathogens (Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato, Phytophthora parasitica) (Walling, 2004a).

proteins in control plants (Figure 3.1A) (Gu et al., 1996b).

So any thoughts?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

What you showed me looks nearly correct to my eyes. Nesting those parantheticals would lead to incorrect groupings of data.

About the only change I'd make would be a period after the first paranthetical, and some of your data in the second set should probably be italicized.

 

[Templetroll]

I would look at it as a test - do you accede to one person-in-power's desire or do it right and take the consequence of possibly offending that person? As Dannyalcatraz pointed out it would likely be an error that some other committee member(s) might fault you on.

Is there a style guide for the writing your dissertation involves? I'd recommend doing it correctly so that you have a basis for discussion if that one member faults you for it.

On another point, I could see missing a keystroke for the lost v in revolve; but, did you mean abbreviation instead of appreviation?

 

[Umbran]

But I will often need to refer to a figure or appreviation right before or right after, leading to consecutive parentheses. But they are refering to different things.

Okay - you're writing a technical paper, possibly for publication. That's highly relevant. Technical journals have varying style guidelines on such things. You should probably be following those standards most commonly used within the field. Take on the standards of the most popular journal, or the one in which you hope to publish.

In general, my own thoughts as a technical writer:

If you are taking one point in the paper, and referring to multiple outside sources for support, it would be appropriate to have the references in one list, within one set of parenthesis.

If you are taking multiple points in the paper, and referring to separate outside sources for each, putting them in the same list would lead the reader into thinking the references are logically grouped together, which would be bad.

Personally, I prefer foot or endnotes for such things, rather than in-line references - the in-line reference has a tendency of distractign the reader, breaking the logical flow of your reporting.

 

[Darth K'Trava]

Alright break out your Writing manuals and lend an ENWorlder some help here folks.

I am writing up my dissertation and one of my committee members dislikes repeated parentheses. He wants them all within the same parentheses, seperated by a semi-colon.

Now is he right? If not, do you have a reference for me to refute him with.

Now some background. This is in science, so we use our own rules. But the cases that are arising revole around references. I am using EndNote (which I love!) and that places my references within parentheses. But I will often need to refer to a figure or appreviation right before or right after, leading to consecutive parentheses. But they are refering to different things.

Some examples:

metallopeptidase LAP-A (EC 3.4.11.1) (Gu et al., 1996b).

by salicylic acid (SA) (Chao et al., 1999).

fungal pathogens (Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato, Phytophthora parasitica) (Walling, 2004a).

proteins in control plants (Figure 3.1A) (Gu et al., 1996b).

So any thoughts?

This looks totally confusing, IMO. Personally, although not an English Major, I would prefer footnotes. Making numberings during the document and then putting the number with the correct source, either at the bottom of each page or a separate bibliography page(s).

Perhaps you should see what the other committee members think about their styles for quoting source materials.

If you're going to have a diagram on the same page, then you can put (Figure 3.1A) in the same sentence to refer to that particular diagram.

 

[Ilium]

Okay - you're writing a technical paper, possibly for publication. That's highly relevant. Technical journals have varying style guidelines on such things. You should probably be following those standards most commonly used within the field. Take on the standards of the most popular journal, or the one in which you hope to publish.

In general, my own thoughts as a technical writer:

If you are taking one point in the paper, and referring to multiple outside sources for support, it would be appropriate to have the references in one list, within one set of parenthesis.

If you are taking multiple points in the paper, and referring to separate outside sources for each, putting them in the same list would lead the reader into thinking the references are logically grouped together, which would be bad.

Personally, I prefer foot or endnotes for such things, rather than in-line references - the in-line reference has a tendency of distractign the reader, breaking the logical flow of your reporting.

If I understand correctly, in each case the first set of parentheses isn't a reference at all, it's a clarification of what came immediately before. For example:

by salicylic acid (SA) (Chao et al., 1999).

(SA) is just an abbreviation for salicylic acid, not a reference. This is then followed by the appropriate reference.

Looks right to my untrained eye. Though I agree that the period should probably come before the reference, unless the accepted style is otherwise. They should definitely NOT be in a single set of parentheses, since they are completely different bits of data. That would be very confusing to me.

 

[adwyn]

When I was a grad student I found that professor right was often different than real world right. If in doubt check with your department secretary for the official department rules.

Of course you could face reality and just prepare slightly modified papers for each professor.

 

[Umbran]

If I understand correctly, in each case the first set of parentheses isn't a reference at all, it's a clarification of what came immediately before.
...
Looks right to my untrained eye.

Yes. My specific answer to the issue was to look to some standard - all major publication have them. Then I stepped off to more general discussion...

But, to stay more specific - one should avoid using the same form for in-line references for different things. Consider that when you refer to books and short stories, you are supposed to use different styles of type formatting? Same idea. An internal reference to a diagram should be readily and distinguishible from a reference to an external paper.

The more normal form I've seen in physics papers is that references to other parts of the the same paper can be done in-line. But references to external documents should be as footnote or endnote. In-line references are to things one can check almost immediately, or to jog the memory. That's not something you are going to do with entire separate papers.