Brian Shackel has argued that the system of referencing used in Applied Ergonomics has certain advantages that were not considered in an earlier article in this journal. Evidence is presented which is contrary to Prof Shackel's views and which, in fact, supports the original conclusions.
In a previous article (Hartley eta/, 1979) my colleagues and I presented the results from a study of the preferences of experienced British and American journal readers for various ways of presenting references at the end of a journal article. It appeared that preferences were clearly affected by the spatial arrangement of the elements within and between each reference list, and that typographic cueing took a secondary role. It was also apparent that there were differences between the preferences of the British and the American readers. The British, for example, preferred to see the date of publication after the name of the author(s), whereas the Americans preferred the date of publication after the title of a journal, or following the name of the publisher of a book. We concluded, therefore, that a compromise solution was probably best where the main elements would be separated from each other, each starting on a new line, and the date would appear in both positions.
The following reference is given as an example in each of three styles: (i) British, (ii) American, (iii) compromise.
(i) Broadbent, D.E. (1977) Language and ergonomics.