OrgSynAssistant

We are interested in comments on what is the best way to cite articles in Organic Syntheses. There are two questions. First, we have noticed that in many references in Wikipedia the collective volume is cited first, prior to the annual volume reference, and sometimes without an annual volume reference at all. Collective volumes of Organic Syntheses are simply republications of articles that appeared previously in annual volumes. The collective volumes were published mainly as a means of providing a large number of articles in a single printed volume with a common index. Citing the collective volume (especially as the sole reference) is not ideal for several reasons. First, the year of the collective volume is misleading with regard to the date of publication of the article since the year of the collective volume is always later, sometimes as much as 10 years later than the actual publication date. Second, with the Organic Syntheses open access website having become the principal means through which users access the journal, the collective volumes have lost their main purpose and are being phased out. In view of these points, we suggest that all references to Organic Syntheses should cite the annual volume, and reference to a collective volume, if included, should come after the reference to the annual volume. Is there any reason why this doesn't make sense?

A second question we have concerns the template for citing articles in Organic Syntheses. We noticed that the template creates references in an unusual style quite different from most references in the field of organic chemistry in ACS journals, etc. For new references to Organic Syntheses that we propose to write, we would prefer to use one of the following formats and wonder what objections if any there are to this.

Schleyer, P. von R.; Donaldson, M. M.; Nicholas, R. D.; Cupas, C. Org. Synth. 1962, 42, 8; Org. Synth. Coll. Vol. 5, 16 (1973).

or (if title is included): Schleyer, P. von R.; Donaldson, M. M.; Nicholas, R. D.; Cupas, C.; "Adamantane"; Org. Synth. 1962, 42, 8; Org. Synth. Coll. Vol. 5, 16 (1973). OrgSynAssistant (talk) 22:17, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Firstly, welcome to Wikipedia, and thank-you for your interest in our project: Thank-you as well for correcting the factual error on our Organic Synthesis article! I am the person who designed the template you're "complaining" about, so I hope I can be of assistence.

It is probably simpler to address your second point first, the fact that Wikipedia does not use ACS, RSC, Elsevier or Wiley-VCH style in citing references. This is, of course, true; it may well be seen as a Bad Point from the view of a professional publisher. However, we do attempt to keep a single reference style within a given article, which is, in itself, not simple given the number of subject areas that we cover. In practice, we have two major reference styles, one based on commas and the other based on full points, because the debate as to whether the comma or the full point was a better method of separating bibliographical material threatened to overwhelm the much more necessary effort to add the bibliographical material in the first place! The template that we encourage for Org. Synth. references will give a reference in one of the two main "Wikipedia styles", which I think is perfectly clear bibliographically.

To come to your first point, our maximum priority is to to have references that are correct in the sense of being accurate and unambiguous. To have a consistent style is a bonus, but one soons runs into the law of diminishing returns. I agree with you that the annual volume is the "primary" reference for a paper in Org. Synth. and so should be listed first, although I note that several other reference works in organic chemistry only cite the Collective Volume references. I guess what is happening is that many articles do not use the formatting template {{OrgSynth}}. I'll have a think to see if we can improve these references, but it is not a trivial problem: in the meantime, feel free to complete them as you think best should you come across them. Physchim62 (talk) 14:30, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks very much for the clarification and for taking the time to respond to our questions. We appreciate the point you make about the desirability of having the same reference style apply to all references within a given article. We had noticed, however, a number of articles where the style used for references to Org. Synth. differed from the style used for references to other journals, all of which followed the standard organic chemistry format (i.e., the nearly identical style used in ACS journals, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., Tetrahedron Lett., Chem. Commun., etc.). The current template yields references in the format Whitmore, F. C.; Hanson, E. R. (1925), "o-Chloromercuriphenol", Org. Synth. 4: 13; Coll. Vol. 1: 161. We'll follow your instructions and use this style; we don't think anyone will have a problem understanding this, though it does look very peculiar to organic chemists! I guess our only real objection is that many students use Wikipedia for information on organic reactions and this may confuse some with regard to the proper style for references that they are required to use themselves.

By the way, with regard to your comment that several other reference works in organic chemistry only cite the Collective Volume references - this is unfortunately true and is a holdover from the days before there were web version of journals. At that time the Collective Volumes often contained corrected versions of articles and of course the printed annual volumes contained the original versions. Now, however, there is only one version of each article (the corrected one) on the website, and that one version is accessed via the reference to the annual or the collective volume.OrgSynAssistant (talk) 19:03, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

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