" "

XV

PREPARATION OF REPORTS BYBAE AUTHORS

September 1978

ABSTRACT

A diver.sity of sty~es has been used in BAE publd.oat.ione over recent years. Thispaper has been prepared with a view to reducing this diversity. The conventionselaborated are essentiaUy those of the Style Manual. An effort is made to reso~ve

satisfactorily the particuwr styListic questions confronted by authors of BAEreports and of artdolee in agriau~tura~ economics [ournale .

FOREWORD

The orlgln and scope of the study are usually stated in a foreword.Although this appears with the Director's name, a draft should be preparedby the author of the research paper.

This paper has been modelled on a similar one prepared by J.R. Andersonand J.B. Hardaker in the Department of Agricultural Economics and BusinessManagement at the University of New England. The guidelines have beenprepared by the Editorial Staff to simplify the tasks both of authors andof editors. I hope that the introduction of new stylistic inflexibilitiesis more than compensated for by the convenience of a ready statement onBureau conventions. Needless to say, it is to be hoped that authors willtake care to conform with these conventions when preparing manuscriptsintended for publication by the Bureau.

JOCK ANDERSONActing Director

Bureau of Agricultural EconomicsCanberra, A.C.T.

September 1978

(ii)

..

Foreword

CONTENTS

Page

(ii)

Part 1: General Considerations 1

1.1 Introduction 1

1.2 Specific Suggestions for Drafting 1Notes, annotations and referencee 2Footnotes to the te~t 2TerbZes and figu:res 2Headi11fJs 3Grammar, spe~~ing and punatuation 3Abbreviations 4Numbepe , au:rrenay and years 5

1.3 Producing the Final Manuscript 6

Part 2: Preparing Reference Lists 7

2.1 Introduction . 7

2.2 The Harvard System 7

2.3 References as Footnotes 11

2.4 Abbreviations in References 11

Appendixes

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

References

Checklist

Spelling - Perennial Problems

Metrication

Mathematical Expressions in Bureau Papers

Significant Digits

A4 and B5 Frames

(iii)

12

14

15

17

21

23

25

Part 1

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS

1.1 Introduction

These guidelines are intended to assist the authors of journal articlesand reports published by the Bureau of Agricultural Economics. It ishoped that the gUidelines will facilitate the achievement of consistencyand uniformity in the appearance of Bureau research reports. Theseguidelines should lighten the tasks of supervisors and referees, shouldserve as a simple ready reference for authors of research reports andshould simplify the work of the Editorial Section. Authors can thusaddress their original thinking to the content of the work rather than toinventing yet another consistent layout ·for the report of the work.

A research report is an art form on which two general types of stylisticconsideration impinge. At the most·general level, a report should berecognisable as such, should embody clear, good use of the language and,to the extent that it purports to be 'scientific', should be presented ina manner that gives an impression that the scientific method has beenfollowed. These guidelines contain little information at this level ofgenerality. However, prospective authors are strongly encouraged to seeksuch information in one or more ·of the several good texts on the subject(e.g. Turabian 1963; Anderson, Durston and Pool 1970; Lester 1971).

The second level of stylistic consideration is the more trivial one ofspecific guides and suggestions to form and detaiL It is hoped thatthese considerations are clearly exemplified in this mock report. Pleasetake particular care to note the detail illustrated in this report. Forinstance, the heading of this section is '1.1 Introduction' and is not,for example, '1.1. Introduction. '. Note, however, that authors need notconcern themselves with the choice of typeface as this is theresponsibility of editorial staff of the Bureau or outside journals.Furthermore, authors should not request right-justification typing oftheir manuscripts.

1.2 Specific Suggestions for Drafting

It would be pretentious, if not impossible, to offer general advice onEnglish writing style. However, the observation can be made that thefirst (and, sadly, sometimes subsequent) drafts of research reports in theBureau are all too often of poor quality. While it may be difficult, itis definitely not too late in life to start improving your Englishexpression. Why not start now and read a good general book oncommunication, such as Reader's Digest Services (1975)· or a moretechnically oriented book such as Mitchell (1968)? Improve yourvocabulary and expression by reading widely, preferably after havingperused some guide to efficient reading such as Anderson, Durston andPoole (1969) and by making frequent reference to a good dictionary, e.g.The Concise Oxford Dictionary (1976), and to supplementary aids, such as aguide to modern usage, e.g. Fowler (1926) or Partridge (1973), and athesaurus, e.g. Roget (1953). On questions of style not covered herein,refer to the Style Manual (1978) or, if necessary, Turabian (1967).

1

Notes, annotations and references

Index cards are very useful for recording references (one per card usingthe format for referencing given in Part 2), annotations and quotations(perhaps on the backs of the respective reference cards) and miscellaneousnotes on details and thoughts that come to mind at various stages ofpreparation. If references are written carefully, correctly and clearlyon cards, the typist can use them directly for preparing the finalreference list. As indicated in the Contents, such a reference listshould be the last thing included in the research report because of theadded ease of access.

Footnotes

Avoid text footnotes' as much as is possible. If the point is reallyworthy of mention, embody it in the text. If not, discard it. Whenfootnotes cannot be avoided in the text, identify them by consecutiveArabic numerals. The figure indicating a note should be set after thefull, stop at the end of a sentence but before punctuation marks elsewhere.To assist typists and editors, draft manuscripts should have textfootnotes listed separately at the back. These footnotes will beincorporated in the text (at the bottom of the relevant page, set off by asingle unbroken line) when the manuscript is prepared for publication bythe Editorial Section.

Footnotes to tables should be identified by the lower case roman letters,to avoid confusion with numbers. Footnote symbols should be inserted inalphabetical order beginning with the title and proceeding left to rightfrom the upper left of the table (including column heading) to the lowerright, row by row. (1) ,

Tables and figures

Attached as Appendix VI are examples of the A4 and B5 size typing framesused for 'camera-ready' copy for printing. Authors should draft allfigures within the confines of the appropriate frame. If the figurerequires less than the full page it should be drawn upright, notlandscaped. It is desirable that all figures should be correctly plannedand scaled by authors. The Illustrator should not be expected'to rescalefigures disproportionately presented in original form by authors. Draftsshould be channelled to the Illustrator through the Editorial Section.

To ensure consistency with Bureau style, tables should also be submittedto the Editorial Section before typing. Tables and 'figures should beplaced on separate (if possible, single) pages as soon as possible afterthe first text reference to them. Two or more small tables which relateto the same part of the text may be placed on one page. Give each table

(1) For reports, which are printed from typed camera-ready copy, textfootnote numerals and table footnote letters should be enclosedwithin parentheses and typed on the line, as in this report. Forarticles to be set by a printer (generally those in journals) theyshould be typed as superscripts without parentheses.

,2

and figure a title, and number each typee.g. Table 2.4, Figure 2.3 for the fourth2. Type table headings as:

Table 1.1

consecutively within each part,table and third figure of Part

HEADING OF TABLE

Rule off the upper and lower extremes of tabular material with singleunbroken lines. Avoid vertical rules except where needed for clarity.

Figures, like tables, shouldThe heading should appear atfor table headings:

be intelligible when viewed in isolation.the top of the figure and should be set as

Figure 1.1

HEADING OF FIGURE

Headings

Title and part headings are centred, all in capitals and not underlined.Subheadings of the first level (as for Section 1.2) are underlined, typedin lower case with initial capitals except for articles, conjunctions andprepositions. Subheadings of the second level (as for 'Grammar, spellingand punctuation') should be in lower case italics with only the f i.rstletter (and the initial letters of any proper nouns) in capitals. Do notnumber any subheadings of second or lower levels. A list or furthersubdivisions in the text may be identified by letters or numbers in .thefollowing progression: (a), (b), (c), ... ; (i), (ii), (iii), ... However,if a list is not referenced elsewhere in the text it can be identified bya series of dots, as exemplified under 'Abbreviations'.

Gramnar, speUing and pUlWtuation

As suggested in Section 1.2, consult a good book.below refer primarily to problems that seem toreporting research in agricultural economics.

The random suggestionsarise frequently in

Keep sentences short and simple and avoid inversions· (i.e. generally putthe subject before the verb and any conditioning statements). For clarity

. and ease of reading, avoid multiple nouns (Leeper 1952) and do not befrightened to use 'of' several times to avoid the problem. Someillustrative howlers include 'short-term drought relief cash grant' and'probability distribution function estimates'. Note that single, notdouble, quotes are used.

Check spellings carefully and, if in doubt, consult a good dictionary suchas The Conaise Oxford Diationary (1976). When there are alternatives, beconsistent. The verbal suffix '-ise', rather than '-ize', is used in

3

Bureau writing. In most instances where there are alternative spellingsof a word the one to be used in Government publications is given in theStyle Manual. A list of words which frequently cause problems is attachedto this paper as Appendix II.

Match subject and verb in number. Difficulties commonly arise with wordslike 'criteria', 'data' and 'capita' which are plural, the respectivesingular forms being 'criterion', 'datum' and 'caput'. Note that 'none'and 'a number' can be singular or plural.

Write mainly in the past tense, since you areothers have done. Exceptions should occur whenyou are doing in the present section or what ispresently.

describing what you oryou are describing whathappening in the world

Avoid anthropomorphisms such as 'thisimply possession for inanimate objectspolicies etc. Whenever possible, useverb form. Rather than 'farmers were'field officers visited farmers'.

report attemptssuch as towns,the active rather

visited by field

to I Nevertables, reports,than the passiveofficers', say

The best single rule to follow to achieve a clear, crisp style is to leaveout all redundant words. Throwing out unnecessary words often betterexposes the underlying idea. When the screen of words is removed, theidea may sometimes be seen to be trivial, irrelevant or even wrong.

Underline foreign words and phrases, except those that have come intocommon English usage like c.f., e.g., etc., per annum, per caput (not percapita), per cent, prima facie, and those often used in professionalwriting like a priori, et al. (note that there is no stop after et),ibid., id. and op. cit. The latest edition of The Concise OxfordDictionary should be consulted to resolve any doubts. For example,underlining is presently retained for ad hoc, ad valorem, ceteris paribus,inter alia, pro rata and vis-a-vis.

Abbreviations

As far as possible, eschew abbreviations, except (a) when necessarybecause of lack of space, for example in table stubs, or to avoid frequentrepetition of cumbersome phrases and (b) when words have standard 51abbreviations (e.g. in text write kt not ki10tonnes, ~m not micrometres or(the obsolete) micron etc.). The following rules then apply.

Abbreviations should not be carried beyond the point of easyidentification.

Abbreviation can be achieved by:omitting unimportant words;omitting trailing letters of a word;contracting a word.

One word titles are not abbreviated.

4

An abbreviated word is generally terminated by a full stop unlessthe terminal letter remains, e.g. Co. Pty Ltd; exceptions includethe standard abbreviations for SI units (see Appendix III).

Modern usage is to omit the full stops from abbreviations wherethe. contraction .is to single letters for each word, e.g. BAE,lAC, USA, FAa, UNESCO, SI etc., but, in Bureau writing, there aresome exceptions to this rule, e.g. N.Z., U.K., W.A., S.A.;N.S.W., A.C.T., Lo.b., f.a.q., p , a.

To avoid confusion with possessive forms,apostrophe to denote missing letters (e.g. Qld,plurals such as LDCs or 1970s ..

Numbers, currenoy and years

donot

not use anQ'ld) or in

Numbers in the text should generally· be written in Arabic numerals, e.g.0.6, 11.5, 0.03, 21. If no other number appears in a sentence, spell outinteger numbers between one and·nine. For other details on writingnumbers, especially in metric units, consult Appendix III. Metric unitsshould be used exclusively.

In reporting all types of statistical results, avoid spurious accuracy.Few studies in the social sciences yield results that reasonably can beheld to be accurate·to more than three or four significant figures. Referto Appendix V for notes on significant digits, and to Appendix IV fornotes on setting mathematical expressions in Bureau papers.

Express currency units in the following ways:

Dollars: use $, not 8; write $lm, not $1 million or $1 000 000; butwrite $2 345 600, not $2.3456m. Do not use billion.

Cents: use c, not ¢; write 3c, not 3 c or 3 cents; but write 3 c/kg,not 3c /kg or 3c/kg.

Abbreviations for most commonly quoted currencies: $a (Argentina),$A (Australia), Can$ (Canada), OM (Germany, F.R.), Y (Japan),£stg (U.K.), US$ (USA), R (USSR). A full list of foreign currenciesis contained in Appendix VIII of the Style Manual.

When quoting years in reports use the following conventions: a 5-year orfive-year period; mid-1980; this years study (no apostrophe); 1 September1978; and use 'past' decade etc. rather than 'last' decade. Writefinancial or harvest years as: e.g. 1975-76 and year ranges as: e.g. forthe three years 1967-69; but note that a two-year range is written 1975and 1976 to distinguish it from the financial year 1975-76. A range offinancial years is written as: e.g. 1975-76 to 1977-78.

The conventions concerning financial years in the previous paragraph arethose which must be adhered to in all Commonwealth Governmentpublications. However, in wr1t1ng articles for journals like theAustralian Journal of Agricultural Economics, authors should use thealternative convention of a solidus to denote financial or harvest years,e.g. a single harvest year 1975/76 and a range of three such years:

5

1970/71 - 1972/73. With this convention, the hyphenated form is used todenote unambiguously a range of years: e.g. 1975-76 denotes the two-yearrange 1975 and 1976.

1.3 Producing the Final Manuscript

You will doubtless go through several drafts of your material before youand your supervisor are more or less content with the result. Typically,the patience of both parties wears rather thin as successive revisions aretediously embarked upon, but persistence does have its rewards.

The point may seem trite but the process of upgrading your drafts will begreatly aided by good careful handwriting - even if this proves difficult.Progress is also aided by writing drafts in double spaced lines.

You should aim, in successive revisions, to tighten up presentation,style, clarity, argument and content. The checklist included in AppendixI may prove helpful in this regard. .

If, at any stage, an author is in doubt about the Bureau's preferred stylefor text, tables or figures, he/she should contact the Editorial Section.Furthermore, authors should consult the Typist Supervisor beforerequesting minor modifications to Wang drafts. These changes may causeunne·cessary delays and can be easily incorporated at the editing stage.

6

Part 2

PREPARING REFERENCE LISTS

2.1 Introduction

There is no one method of glvlng references which is generally recognisedas 'correct'. Standard procedures have been proposed from time to time,but no such standard procedure has been generally accepted in the socialsciences. Modern usage tends to emphasise convenience and utility ratherthan formal rules. However, there are merits in the adoption of a more orless standard system for Bureau writing. The principles underlying theproposed system include the following:

The information included in a citation should enable any readerto find the article or book in a library (or bookshop) with theleast amount of difficulty.

The system should be efficient from the point of view of author,reader, typist and printer. It should be as ·easy as possible toprepare a bibliography. in the recommended style and should reducethe risk that an individual may adopt a 'personal' style ofreference citation which is inadequate. Similarly, it should bepossible for the reader .to determine readily which reference isbeing cited at any given point in the text, and typing ortypesetting should be as simple as possible.

The system should contain sufficient information to allow cardsto be exchanged readily between researchers and to allow derivedlists of references to be readily drawn up to meet therequirements of any journal. (In this regard, the Review ofMarketing and AgricuZtural Economics is most demanding.)

The system should be unambiguous.

It can be deduced from these principles that the manner in which aparticular citation is . given can be varied according to the obscurity ofthe reference itself and the nature of the reference (j ournal article,book etc.) For example, when a book is published by one of thewell-known publishing houses it will be sufficient to shorten thepublisher's name. By contrast, the full name of a relatively little-knownpublisher might be included. Similarly, if the place of publication isrelatively obscure, the State and/or country might be added to the name ofthe town or city.

2.2 The Harvard System

In the Harvard system, references are identified by the name of the authorcoupled with the year of publication. The style of citation in the textdepends on whether or not the author's name is embodied in the structureof the sentence. Some illustrative examples of text references are:

7

'Smith (1963) reported ... ', 'It has sometimes been argued (e.g.Thomas 1961, Ch. 4; Smith 1963, pp.2l-3) that ... ', 'Thisphenomenon, which has been reported previously lA. Brown 1969, 1970;D. Brown 1970; Green 1971a, b; Black and White 1974) has ... ','Smith, Brown and Jones (1974) noted that ... '. Later in the text,after the first mention of this last reference, it may be abbreviatedas 'Smith et al. refuted ... ', provided such abbreviation leads tono ambiguity.

Note the following points about the above examples~

Authors' surnames only are used. Initials are included only ifrequired to distinguish authors of the same surname.

Page numbers or chapter numbers may be included if appropriate.

If the author's name is part of the sentence, the year ofpublication is included in parentheses. Otherwise the wholecitation is given in parentheses.·

I~ere several citations are includedencompass all the citations, which areorder, separated by semicolons.

in a list the parentheseslisted in chronological

If there is more than one reference by the same author in oneyear, each is distinguished by adding a, b, ... to the year ofpublication.

References are not normally included as footnotes to the text but areplaced in a list at the end of the report. The list should bear thetitle REFERENCES unless a special effort has been made to prepare anexhaustive list of references on a particular topic, when the titleBIBLIOGRAPHY may. be used. The list of references should be arranged inalphabetic order according to the surname of the first-mentioned author.Use a consistent scheme for alphabetic ordering (e.g. take all namesstarting Me ... as being spelt Mac ... , ignore the prefixes de, van, von,etc. in determining the order). Given names may be condensed to initials.When two or more authors have the same surname, order alphabetically byinitials. If there are two or more works by the same author(s), orderchronologically.

In a finished publication, a reference to the title of a book or journalis normally printed in italics. However, in the following examples ofreferences this convention has not been followed. Underlining has beenused to indicate to authors the manner in which references should appearin their manuscripts.

The basic style of citation for a book in a reference list is:

Author's surname, initials (Year of publication), Title ofBook, Publisher, Place of Publication.

Similarly, the basic citation style for an article in a journal is:

8

Author's surname, initials (Year of publication), 'Title ofarticle', Title of Journal Volume number (Issue number),page numbers.

For little-known journals, or-to avoid confusion between-journals with thesame title, the place of publication may be included after the name of thejournal, followed by a comma. - The titles of books and journals should begiven with initial capital letters for all words except articles,conjunctions and prepositions. Titles of articles in journals or chaptersin books should be given in lower case apart from initial capital lettersfor the first word and for any proper nouns.

As far as possible the principles set out for books and journal articlesshould be extended to cover other citations not falling into these twocategories.

Some illustrative examples of various kinds of references are now given.

A book with one author:

Black, J.D. (1951), Agricultural Reform in the United States,McGraw-Hill, New York..

A book with two authors:

Wold, H. and Jureen, L. (1964), Demand Analysis, Wiley, New York.

A book with four or more authors, either:

Bierman, H. Jr, Bonini, C.P., Fouraker, L.E. and Jaedicke, R.K.(1965), Quantitative Analysis for Business Decisions, Irwin,Homewood.

or less desirably:

Bierman, H. Jr, et al. (1965),Decisions, Irwin, Homewood.

An edited collection:

Quantitative Analysis for Business

Blake, C.D. (ed.), (1965), Fundamentals of Modern Agriculture,Sydney University Press.

Chapter in an edited collection:

Parish, R.M. (1967), 'Marketing agricultural products I, inD.B. Willlams (ed.), Agriculture in the Australian Economy,Sydney University Press, pp. 278-98.

The second or later edition of a book:

Baumol, W.J. (1965),edn, Prentice-Hall,

Economic Theory and Operations Analysis,Englewood Cliffs.

9

2nd

A journal article:

Jess, E.V. andcontracts',545-55.

Johnson, A.C. Jr (1970), 'An analysis of vegetableAmerican Journal of Agricultural Economics 52(4),

An anonymous article:

Anon. (1966), 'Report of an informal committee', Farm Policy 5(4),122- 30.

A paper in the proceedings of a conference:

Kirby, M.J.L. (1970), 'The current state of chance-constrainedprogramming', in H.W. Kuhn (ed.), Proceedings of PrlncetonSymposium on Mathematical Programming, Princeton UniversityPress, pp. 93-110.

An unpublished thesis:

Duloy,J.H. (1963),sheep industry,

The allocation of resources in the AustralianPh.D. thesis, University of Sydney.

A report or bulletin in an irregular series with named author(s) :

Snider, G. and King, G. (1970), The California Feed-LivestockBalance in 1961-65, Giannini Foundation Research Report 310,California Agricultural Experimental Station.

A report or bulletin in an irregular series without named authors:

BAE (1968), Woolgrowing in the Hamilton District of Victoria,Wool Economic Research Report No. 14, Canberra.

An unpublished paper read at a conference etc.:

McCarthy, W.O. (1962), The Australian sugar industry, Paperpresented to the Australian Agricultural Economics SocietyConference, Melbourne, February 1962.

Other unpublished papers:

Cocks, K.D. (undated), Farm planning and stochastic linearprogramming: a review, University of California, Davis,(unpublished) .

A newspaper article with a named author:

Connors, T. (1967), 'Agricultural economists at last get mud ontheir boots', Australian Financial Review, 29 December, p.2.

A newspaper article with no named authors:

Anon. (1972), 'Statutory marketing authority opposed', The Land,27 April, p , 62.

10

Personal communications are not listed in the references but should appearin the text in the following form:

(R. Schlaifer, personal communication, 1974.)

2.3 References as Footnotes

When there are only a small number of references in an article, they maybe included as footnotes. The recommended style for setting is:

For books:

H. Wold and L. Jureen, Demand Analysis, Wiley, New York, 1964.

For articles:

E.V. Jess and A.C. Johnson, Jr, 'An analysis of vegetable contracts',American Journal of Agricultural Economics 52(4), 1970; pp. 545-55.

2.4 Abbreviations in References

Some general rules about abbreviationsfollowing additional comments relatereferences.

were given in Section 1.2. Theto the use of abbreviations in

When two or more consecutive references by the same author areincluded in the reference list, the author's name may be replacedby a dash.

The given names of authors may be abbreviated to initials, whichshould appear after the surname of each author. However, if thearticle appears in an edited publication, the editor's initialsshould appear before the surname.

When a book or other publication has a main title and subtitlethe latter may be omitted when there is no risk of confusion.

For the place of publication it is sufficient to give only thename of the city if this is distinctive and .well known (NewYork). More information, such as the State and/or country shouldbe inCluded if there are several cities of that name or if thecity may be obscure (Nedlands, W.A.). The place of publicationmay be totally omitted where this is self-evident ('SydneyUniversity Press', not 'Sydney University Press: Sydney').

The publisher's name may bereadily intelligible, e.g.Company, Inc.'.

11

given in as brief a form as is'McGraw-Hill', not 'McGraw-Hill Book

Appendix I

CHECKLIST

1. Has an outline been prepared?

2. Is the outline well organised?sections?

Does it contain the relevant

3. Have other manuscripts on related subjects been reviewed, to obtainsuggestions of effective writing style?

4. Is the outline detailed sufficiently to enable the writer to 'sitdown' and write a smooth flowing exposition from it?

5. Have data been placed into the proper tables and graphs?

6. Are table and figure titles and notations written briefly to indicatecontent clearly?

7. Are necessary and appropriate footnotes included on tables, toprovide any necessary supplementary explanation?

8. Has the author closed his/hermanuscript should appear 'onby someone else?

eyes and leaned back to imagine how thethe library shelf', if it were written

9. Has the introduction been 'thought through', to give a clear concisestatement of background and reasons for the study?

10. Has the manuscriptterse, leavinginterpretation?

beenout

checked, to see that it is not too brief andimportant parts of the analysis and

11. Has the manuscript been combed and deworded thoroughly?unnecessary discussions and explanations been eliminated?

Have

12. Has the expos1t10n been checked to ensure that sentences are shortand to the point, expressing thoughts in a clear, straightforwardmanner? Have long awkward sentences been 'broken down' into short,concise sentences?

13. Have 'scattered' adjectives, phrases, adverbs and other articles beenrearranged to make sentences read more smoothly and easily? Havethey been eliminated where necessary or possible?

14. Has punctuation been checked?

15. Is the system of subheadings consistent for sections? Are sufficientsubheadings used to guide readers?

16. Are short introductory sentences or paragraphs used to initiate newsections, to suggest their content and to tie them in with previoussections? Can the reader 'see the flow' as he/she reads from sectionto section?

12

17. Have all equations and tables been checked for accuracy, numbered andcited correctly?

18. Have figures (numbers) quoted in the text been checked against thosein tables?

19. ,In typed form, are Greek letters and other symbols clear anddistinct?

20. Are the results interpreted accurately and fUlly?implications of the findings explained to the reader? Inthe 'meat' of'the study presented?

Are theshort, is

21. Have precautions been taken against presenting a purely mechanical orclerical explanation' of results? Is the study other than a simpleroutine statement of: data used, numbers obtained, size of regressioncoefficients etc.?

22. Where necessary, is the abstract included and complete?

13

Appendix II

SPELLING - PERENNIAL PROBLEMS

abattoiracknowledgmentadviseradvisoryaffect (influence)agriculturistalternate (by turns)alternative (one or the other)arguablebenefitedbuoyantcarcasscarcassescentrecentredcentringchannelledchangeablecontractual (not contractural)corollarydata (pI.)deductibledependant (noun)dependent (adj.)developdevelopmenteffect (verb - bring about,

noun - result)eligibleensure (bring about)focusedfocusingforego (precede)foreword (of a book)forgo (surrender)formulasfulfilfulfilmentfulfilledgaugehomogeneous (same kind)homogenous (common descent)homogenise (milk)indexes (of a book)indices (powers)inquireinquiry

14

installinstalmentinsure (effect insurance)interstateintrastatejudgmentlive sheeplivestocklive weightlong term (noun)long-term (adj.)longer term (noun and adj .)matricesMerino (breed of sheep)merino (wool)modellermodellingmoneysnet (not nett)paralleledper centpercentagepermissiblepig meatpoultry meatprecedeprocedureproceedprogramreconcilablerun down (verb)run-down (noun)saleablesheep meatsizeablesolelytieingtotalledtowardt ransferab Letransferredturnoff (noun)turn off (verb)underlieunderlyingusageWholly

Appendix III

METRICATION

Some Basic Metric Units

Length

Mass

Area

Volume

Force

Pressure

Temperature

Energy

Power

Velocity

Electric current

metre m

gram g

tonne t (1 t = 1000 kg)2square metre m

hectare ha (1 ha = 10000 m2)

square kilometre km2 (1 km2= 100 ha)

cubic 3metre m

litre L (1L = 10- 3 m3)

newton N

pascal Pa

degree Celsius °cjoule J

watt W

metres per second mls

ampere A

Some· Prefixes for Fractions and Multiples of Basic SI Units

Fraotions Multiples

0.1 lO-l d (deci) 10 10 1 da (deka)

0.01 10-2 c (centi.): 100 102 h (hecto)

0.001 10- 3 m (milli) 1 000 103 k (kilo)

0.000 001 lO-6 J.1 (micro) 1 000 000 106 M (mega)

0.000 000 001 lO-9 n (nano) 1 000 000 000 109G (giga)

Rules for Writing Metric Units and Symbols

When a number is followed by a unit or its symbol, one. space is leftbetween the figure and the unit or symbol. Names of units (exceptCelsius) and prefixes are all written in lower case except where theybegin a sentence. Symbols are written in lower case except L (litre), theproper name symbols, C, Pa, W, N, A and J, and prefixes representing amillion or more, e.g. M (mega).

15

Symbols are not followed by full stops (except at the end of sentences).Unit names can be written in both the singular and the plural, but symbolsare the same in the singular and the plural.

1 kilogram1 kg

12 kilograms12 kg .

Decimal fractions rather than vulgar fractions should be used, e.g. 1.5kg, not l~kg. Numbers should be written with a small but constant spaceas the thousands separator in place of the comma previously used, e.g.11 320.672 05. Where only four figures are involved, the space isnormally omitted, e.g. 5729. The decimal point should be placed on theline, e.g. 3.9 g. When the number is less than one, place a '0' before thedecimal point, e.g. 0.03, 0.08.

Some· Agricultural Units

Crop yields, fertiliser and planting areas

Sprays

Grain density

Other densities

Irrigation water

Wire diameters

Dam and silo capacities

Velocity

Flow rates

Large masses

pipes

augers

channels etc.

16

kg/ha

L/ha or kg/ha

kg/hL

kg/L

ML

mm

m3: kL

km/h

L/s

t/h3/m s

. kt , Mt etc.

·.

Appendix IV

MATHEMATICAL EXPRESSIONS IN BUREAU PAPERS

The aim here is to suggest a standard for wr1t1ng mathematical expressionsin journal articles and reports published by the Bureau. Hopefully, thetime spent by authors, referees, editors, compositors and readers indeciphering notation and expression will be reduced by the adoption ofthese standards.

All .mathematical expressions should be written clearly in exactly the formin which they are to be typed or set by the compositor. The typist orcompositor is unlikely to be conversant with the mathematical significanceof an expression that is being set and therefore will attempt toreproduce, as closely as possible, the form being copied. To minimiseerrors and delays in having manuscripts typed, authors should not ask formathematical expressions to be set in italics. BAE or journal editorswill request italics when preparing the report for publication. As adirect guide to authors, the mathematical expressions in this report havenot been set in italics.

Recommended Guidelines

(a)

(b)

If there is a standard notation already in the literature, thisshould not be varied unless the modification that is beingproposed is considered vastly superior to the standard notation.Notation which is not generally recognised should be properlydefined at its first· occurrence in the text.

Greek letters should be avoided unless they are standardnotation, e.g. (12 for variance is acceptable. If used, Greekletters should be clearly identifiable and distinct in shape fromevery other. letter (see (c)). The full set of Greek lettersalong with their English equivalents is listed below:

GREEK ALPHABET

Greek Greek English Greek Greek Englishletter name equivalent letter .name .equivalent

A CIt alpha a N v nu nB B beta b - ~. xi xr y gamma g 0 0 omicron 0/::, Ii delta d IT 11 pi PE E epsilon e P p rho rZ ~ zeta z E (1 sigma sH n eta e T T tau to e theta th T u upsilon uI t iota i ~ 4> phi phKK kappa k X X chi chA A lambda 1 'l' 1jJ psi psM IJ mu m n w omega 0

17

(c) Ambiguities may arise unless the following are clearly specified:

a (number) and 0 (letter)

1 (number) and 1 (letter)

a, a (i talic) , " (alpha) and '"

K, k (italic) and K (kappa)

w, w (italic) and w (omega)

t, t (italic) and T (tau)

p, p (italic) and p (rho)

n, n (italic) and Tl (eta)

v, v (italic) and v (nu)

x, X, x (italic) and X (chi)

d (italic), a and 0 (delta)

Note that a is used rather than 0 in the expression for partialderivatives as in af/ax while d is used for the total derivativeas in df/dx.

The, dimensions of vectors andwith vectors represented byupper case letters, e.g. yvectors, a is a (kxl) vector

(d) matrices should be clearly defined,lower case letters and matrices by= XS + u, where y and u are (nxl)

and X is a (rixk) matrix.

(e) The letters i, j, k, m and n (and, if you are desperate, 1)should be used to denote integers that are allowed to take any ofa set of values. Their upper case equivalents should denoteupper or lower ranges or a fixed value of integer, e.g. i is aninteger between 1 and M. However, t is often used to denote theindex for a time sequence.

(f) A sequence of integers should be written in the form 1,2, ... , Nas in i=l, 2, ... , N while a sequence of variables should bewritten in the form xl' x2' ... , xn'

(g) Subscripts should be used to indicate position in a sequence, setor matrix. The pos~t~on of the subscript should be ~ a linebelow the level of type and adjacent to the letter as in Xl andYij' They can also be used to distinguish' variables and havebeen used to denote derivatives as in f x and f i i.

(h) Superscripts should not be used for indexing unless they areclearly distinguishable from a variable raised to a power. They,are often used to denote the order of differentiation as in f ,r", ... ,f(n). Superscripts should appear l;; a line above thelevel of type and usually adjacent to the letter. It isdifficult and expensive to set (and to type) a superscript andsubscript on a letter. Accordingly, this should be avoidedwhenever possible. When it is imperative, the characters shouldbe aligned so that no backspacing is required. This means that

18

an orderingfirst, e.g.

isX *

t

needed and, in most cases, subscripts will comeand pi 3 .

(i) Footnotes should be appended to words rather than symbols toavoid confusion with mathematical settings.

(j) The following examples indicate the forms of expression foraddition, multiplication and integration, respectively.

NI x. i + l

i=l 1 '

MIl y.

j=lJand

00

Iw sin wx dw.

o k2

+ w2

(k) Brackets should be used to remove ambiguities or to specify theorder of operations in an expression. For instance (a+b)x(c+d)should be used rather than a+bxc+d which, if the rules for theorder of operations are followed, is a+(bxc)+d. Ensure that eachopening bracket has a corresponding closing bracket and if theseare nes ted ; check that they match. The following symbols can beused to differentiate levels of nested brackets, (), [J and{ }. .

(1) Avoid complicated formulas which are difficult to type and read.These can add. to the cost of setting up type. As a general rule,formulas which are to be included in the text and which can beclearly and unambiguously written on a single line are preferred.The elegance and appearance of the formulas should also be takeninto account when deciding on the appropriate form. Bars, dots,hats and tildes above letters should be avoided although they canbe used above short letters, e.g. x, y. A more detailed set ofguidelines is given ·in London Mathematical Society (n.d.);however, the following· examples give a flavour of theserecommendations '.

Instead of

lax2 + 2bx + c

Wnte

l(ax2 + 2bx + c) or (ax2 + 2bx + c)~

e 2 2 2·exp[-(x + y )/a ]

cos ~h

,f a + bh

1

[cos(l/h*)J/(a+b/h)~

(m) Equations or complex mathematical expressions should not appearin the solid part of the text but should appear on a new line.If equations are numbered, -the number should be inserted inbrackets near the left-hand margin as in:

(3) PW = 36.5 + 73.9QW.

19

(n) In reporting results of regression analyses, as much informationas possible should be given to allow the reader to assess them.For instance, the following would be satisfactory:

(5) y= 21.1 +(10.3)

R2 = 0.83

0.76x(0.24)

o.o013i(0.0027)

where figures in parentheses are standard errors.

An alternative would be to give t-values rather than standarderrors. Be consistent in the number of significant digitsreported for different·· coefficients and match the number ofdigits after the decimal point for standard errors· with thenumber given for t he. corresponding coefficient. For time seriesdata, the Durbin-Watson statistic (OW) should be given ifappropriate and, if autocorrelation has been corrected, thestructure imposed on the residuals and the method used inestimation should be mentioned.

20

Regressionrecorded incan be made.

Appendix V

SIGNIFICANT DIGITS

Listed below is a general guide for determining the effects whichparticular operations have on the error component of variables (and henceon the number of figures that accurately flow through operations). Theserules apply to the final published figure; during the calculations atleast one more figure should be retained to avoid accumulating errors.

(x ± e 1) ± (y ± e Z) "" (x ± y) ± (e 1 + e Z)(x ± e 1) x (y ± eZ) "" xy ± (elY + ezX)

(x (y e z) (x/y)2

± ell 7 ± "" ± (elY + ezX)/y

a(x ± ell "" ax ± ae l

where x, yare variables with errors e l, eZ respectively and a is a fixedconstant, e.g. in the calculation:

(3.01 x 3.14159) + 1.17990 = 10.6.

The 3.01 could be 3.005 through to 3.014 using the usual roundingrules(Z), with an answer of from 10.6Z04 to 10.6487 at these extremes.This illustrates the lack of accuracy in including a fourth digit in theresult. In the cases where the operations are complex, such as matrixinversion, a working rule of using the number of significant digits of theleast accurate of the initial data should be used.

Regression Analysis and Survey Results

analysis and survey'results are the two areas most frequentlyBureau publications and some general observations about them

Regression analysis

A rule of thumb for regression analysis is to include no more than threesignificant digits for coefficients and their standard errors if these arequoted. For t, F and Durbin-Watson statistics, no more than t~o digitsafter the decimal point should be included. Similarly, RZ and R2 shouldbe reported with no more than two digits after the decimal point exceptwhere this would require rounding up to 1.00, when three places should bestated.

(Z) When rounding a number to a given number of digits, the next digit inthe number is considered, and if the digit is 4 or less the precedingfigure is maintained, while if the digit is 5 to 9 the precedingfigure is increased by one.

e.g. 1.349 to Z significant digits is 1.31.995 to 3 significant digits is Z.OO.

21

Survey resu~ts

Survey estimates are calculated as weighted averages of individual farmdata and hence the derived value could follow the above rules based on theaccuracy of the individual data; however, when considered as an estimateof a population variable, the estimate has a sampling error associatedwith it, which generally implies less accuracy in the variable.

Consider a financial variable of $32 350 with a relative standard error of10%. The estimate at the 95% level of confidence lies in the range$26 010 and $38 690. The second significant digit is clearly doubtful.However, if the estimate were rounded to $30 000 the range becomes $24 000to $36 000 and to avoid this loss of information at least the doubtfulfigure and preferably one more should be stated.

Alternative Rule

An alternative rule for. the choice of the number of significant digits isrecommended by Schultz (1978, p.16). This is to state all digits that arecertain, plus one that is doubtful. He suggests that including onedoubtful digit as the last one reduces the likelihood of falsifying any ofthe digits considered correct by rounding. Following this rule, $32 000would be the appropriate value in the above example.

The conventionthroughout theused.

that is followed in any report should bework and the reader should be informed of the

22

consistentconvention

Appendix VI

A4 FRAME

.- _.__._._---...,----------

23

REFERENCES

Anderson, J., Durston, B.H. and Poole, M.E. (1969), Efficien~

Reading: A Praotii.aal: Guide, 'McGraw-Hill, Sydney ,

Anderson, ,J., Durston, B.H. and Poole, M.E. (1970), Thesis andAssignment Writing, Wiley, Sydney.

The Concise Oxford Diationary of Current EnglishOxford University Press; London.

(1976), 6th e dn ,

Fowler, H.W. (1926), A Diationary of Modern English Usage, OxfordUniversity Press, London.

Lester, J.D. (1971), Writing'Researah PapersScott, Foresman, Glenview, Illinois.

A Complete Guide,

Leeper, G.W. (1952), 'An index of ease of reading', Australian, Journal of scienoe 15(1), 31-2.

London Mathematical Society (n.d.), Notes on the Preparation ofMathematiaal Papers, Hodgson, London.

Mitchell, J.H. (1968), Writing for Frofessional and TeahniaalJournals, Wiley, New York.

Partridge, E. (1973), Usage and Abusage, Penguin, Harmondsworth.

Reader's Digest Services (1975), How to Write and Speak Better,Reader's Digest, Sydney.

Roget, J.L. and Roget, S.R. (1953), Thesaurus of English Wordsand Phrases, abridged edn, Penguin, Harrnondsworth.

Schultz, W.M. (1978), 'On accuracy and precision in statisticalestimates', Canadian Journal of Agriaultural Eaonomias 26 (1),15-26.

Style Manual for Authors, Editors and Printers of AustralianGovernment Publiaations (1978), 3rd edn, Australian GovernmentPublishing Service, Canberra.

Turabian, K.L. (1963), Student's Guide for Writing College Papers,University of Chicago Press.

Turabian, K.L. (1967), A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Thesesand Dissertations, 'University of Chicago Press.

25