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Referencing with ISO 690

ISO 690

INTERNATIONAL STANDARD ISO 690

Third edition, 2010-06-15

Information and documentation - Guidelines for bibliographic references and citations to information resources

ISO Reference number: ISO 690:2010(E)

item ISO 690, 2010. Information and documentation - Guidelines for bibliographic references and citations
*.pdf ISO-690.pdf Size: 2.2M
What to type into each field for User and PW: The abbreviation of the journal in upper case letters

item DIN ISO 690, 2013. Information und Dokumentation - Richtlinien für Titelangaben und Zitierung von Informationsressourcen
*.pdf DIN-ISO-690.pdf Size: 0.8M
What to type into each field for User and PW: The abbreviation of the journal in upper case letters

The standard is quite general. This page provides further guidance on what rules to select from ISO 690:

author-date system

the author-date system applying the Harvard system

the Harvard system according to ISO 690, Appendix A.2, B, and C

Citation in Text

"The creator's name and the year of publication of the resource cited are given in the text in a name and date system. If the creator's name occurs naturally in the text, the year follows in parentheses, but if not, both name and year are in parentheses. In citations to particular parts of an information resource, the location of that part (e.g. page number) may be given after the year within the parentheses. If two or more information resources have the same creator and year, they are distinguished by lower-case letters (a, b, c, etc.), following the year within the parentheses." (ISO690, A2.1)

EXAMPLE (ISO690, A2.1):
The notion of an invisible college has been explored in the sciences (Crane 1972). Its absence among historians is noted by Stieg (1981b, p. 556). It may be, as Burchard (1965) points out, that they have no assistants, or are reluctant to delegate (Smith 1980; Chapman 1981).

References

"The references to the information resources cited in the text are arranged in a list in the alphabetical order of the creators' surnames, with the year of publication and lower-case letter (if the same author has more than one item in the List of References published in the same year) immediately following the creator's name." (ISO690, A2.2)

Some EXAMPLES from ISO690, A2.2 (slightly adapted):

BAUM, L. Frank, 2005. The Journey to the Tin Woodman [audiofile]. In: The Marvelous Land Of Oz - Reading by Roy Trumbull, 2005-12-29. eBook #17426. Available from: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/17426/17426-mp3/17426-mp3-chap10.mp3

BURCHARD, James E., 1965. How humanists use a library. In: OVERHAGE, Clement F.J. and HARMAN, Jonathan R., eds. Intrex: Report on a planning conference and information transfer experiments. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1965-09-03, pp. 41-87.

CHAPMAN, Josua, 1981. Report to the British Library Research and Development Department [microfiche]. Birmingham: University School of History. S1/9/281.

CRANE, David, 1972. Invisible Colleges. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

MYERS, Michael P., Jay YANG, and Per STAMPE, 1999. Visualization and Functional Analysis of a Maxi-K Channel (mSlo) Fused to Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP). In: EJB: Electronic Journal of Biotechnology. Valparaiso (Chile): Universidad Catolica de Valparaiso, 1999-12-15, vol. 2, no. 3 [viewed 2006-06-28]. ISSN 0717-3458. Available from: http://www.ejbbiotechnology.info/content/vol2/issue3/full/3/3.pdf

SMITH, Chris, 1980. Problems of Information Studies in History. In: STONE, S., ed. Humanities Information Research, Sheffield: CRUS, pp. 27-30.

STIEG, Mike F., 1981b. The information needs of historians. In: College and Research Libraries, vol. 42, no. 6, pp. 549-560.

SCHOLZ, Dieter, 2020. Publishing in "Aircraft Design" with a Continuous Open Access Special Issue. In: Aerospace, vol. 7, no. 1 art. 5. Available from: https://doi.org/10.3390/aerospace7010005.

Explanations:

Journal issues and pages of publications are listed as given in the last two examples above:
vol. for volume
no. for number of the journal (also called: issue)
art. for the article number of the paper in the volume or the issue (in case the journal starts every article with page no. 1)
pp. for a page range
p. for a single page (or start page)
ch. for a chapter

The FAMILYNAME is given in capital letters. The Givenname is given in normal print. The Middelname is abbreviated like M.

The first author is given with the FAMILYNAME listed first followed by the Givenname and the Initial (if any). This is necessary for the alphabetical order required for the List of References by the author's family name.

According to ISO 690, the last author in the sequence is given in the form "and ...". "and" indicates that this is the last author in the list and that no author has been omitted. This rule should be ignored. Do not use "and"!

ISO 690 inspires that all authors are listed. If this is not possible, because the list is just too long, only the first author is given. The other authors are replaced by "and others" or - more commonly used - abbreviated in Latin as "et al."

ISO 690 shows subsequent authors given in the order Givenname FAMILYNAME (here the order of the name is now reversed). The family name is clearly identified by the capital letters. Advantage: The number of commas is reduced. BUT use rather this:

ISO 690 allows also to keep the same order of FAMILYNAME, Givenname for all authors - as long as it is used consistently in the List of References. This could lead to this template (PREFERRED! Also according to DIN 1505): FAMILYNAME1, Givenname1, FAMILYNAME2, Givenname2, FAMILYNAME3, Givenname3, yyyy. Title. Location: Publisher.
This means, authors are seperated by ",". Family name and given name are seperted by ",". According to ISO 690, the year is separated by ",".

The organisation (as author) can be given with the abbreviation. Only the abbreviation is then used for the Citation in Text. Examples: ROYAL AERONAUTICAL SOCIETY (RAeS), DEUTSCHE GESELLSCHAFT FÜR LUFT- UND RAUMFAHRT (DGLR)

The author's name may be followed by his/her affiliation (company, organization) in brackets, if this is of importance: FAMILYNAME, Givenname [Companyname],

The title should be capatilized for a unified look of the List of References (no matter what style the original title has). In a capatilized title almost every word starts with a capital letter - except some minor words. But what are minor words? Just convert each title with https://titlecaseconverter.com/ where you select "Chicago" and "Title Case".

ISO 690 requires the "medium designation" in brackets after the main title (i.e. the title of the book or journal) "if the item is not a print". Since we have today mostly online references. The "medium designation" [online] should be avoided, because "Available from: https://..." already shows the medium as "online".

Other examples of the "medium designation" are [CD], [DVD], [film], [map], [photograph].
Electronic media may be differentiated [audiofile], [computer program], [digital image], [database], [electronic mail], [podcast], [video].
More media types from ARU: [e-book], [e-journal], [blog], [press release], [TV programme], [letter].
More media types: [forum], [public lecture], [unpublished report], [personal communication].

The ISO690-requirement to specifiy [viewed yyyy-mm-dd] for online references should be ignored and be replaced by one statement at the bottom of the List of References: "All online references have been downloaded on yyyy-mm-dd or later.". This means, the author of the document can certify, that the references were online at the given date, when a full final scan was done of all online references quoted in the document.

For all online references (which are not given with a DOI) also a link to an archived version should be given in addition to their URL. This is written as such: Available from: https://...de. Archived at: https://perma.cc/aaaa-aaaa.

According to ISO 690, the use of "In:" for articles in journals is optional. However, it is required for chapters in books. To keep matters simple, "In:" should be used in every such case: for books, journals, proceedings, ...

"Location" should be given as "city, country" e.g. "Hamburg, Germany". If the city is part of the name of the organisation (publisher), double mention can be left out. For larger countries the federal state is added "city, state, country", where "state" is officially abbreviated e.g. "Houston, TX, USA" or "Washington, D.C., USA" (only D.C. with dots). Other examples: "London, UK"

If the organisation (as author) is abbreviated at the start of the reference, it may be spelled out at the end with the abbreviation given. Example: FAA, 2008. Aviation Maintenance Technician Handbook. Washington, D.C., USA: Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

Also in contrast to (the - in this respect - rather old) ISO 690, identifiers should always be given together with their resolver to form a URL. Well known is e.g. the resolved form for a DOI as in this example: https://doi.org/10.15488/4462. This is in accordance with this quasi standard at Crossref. Read it here: https://doi.org/10.13003/5jchdy

Presentation of References

Information on how to present references is given in ISO 690 (Appendix B). When using the author-date system we have to observe that the sequence of elements in Appendix B has to be adapted. Referencing has to be done (according to ISO 690) in this way:

Name of creator(s) (of the cited item): Required
Year: Required
Title of the item: Required
...
...
...
Date of publication: In the name and date system, the year should not normally be repeated (in the date of publication element), unless a fuller date [consiting of year, month, and day] is necessary. [If a fuller date is given it should be presented according to ISO 8601 as year-month-day e.g. 2013-03-31.]

Accordingly, the standard templates may look like this:

FAMILYNAME, Givenname, yyyy. Title. Location: Publisher.
FAMILYNAME, Givenname, yyyy. Title: Subtitle. Location: Publisher.
ORGANIZATION, yyyy. Title. Location: Publisher.
FAMILYNAME, Givenname, yyyy. Title. Location: Publisher. Available from: https://...de. Archived at: https://perma.cc/aaaa-aaaa.
FAMILYNAME, Givenname, yyyy. Title. 5th edition, Location: Publisher.
FAMILYNAME, Givenname, yyyy. Title. Location: Publisher. ISBN 978-3-12-732320-7.
FAMILYNAME1, Givenname1, FAMILYNAME2, Givenname2, yyyy. Title. Location: Publisher.
FAMILYNAME1, Givenname1, FAMILYNAME2, Givenname2, FAMILYNAME3, Givenname3, yyyy. Title. Location: Publisher.
FAMILYNAME1, Givenname1 et al., yyyy. Title. Location: Publisher.
STIEG, Mike F., 1981a. Title. Location: Publisher.
STIEG, Mike F., 1981b. Title. Location: Publisher.
FAMILYNAME, Givenname, yyyy. Title. Location: Publisher, yyyy-mm-dd.

Example:
LINKE-DIESINGER, Andreas, 2008. Systems of Commercial Turbofan Engines: An Introduction to Systems Functions. Berlin: Springer. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-73619-6 (Closed Access).

FAMILYNAME, Givenname, yyyy. Title. Project. Location: University.
FAMILYNAME, Givenname, yyyy. Title. Bachelor Thesis. Location: University.
FAMILYNAME, Givenname, yyyy. Title. Master Thesis. Location: University.
FAMILYNAME, Givenname, yyyy. Title. Dissertation. Location: University.
Note: If the location (city) is part of the name of the university, "Location:" may be ommitted. Example:
FAMILYNAME, Givenname, yyyy. Title. Master Thesis. Hamburg University of Applied Sciences.

FAMILYNAME, Givenname, yyyy. Chapter Title. In: Book Title. Location: Publisher, pp. xxx-xxx.
FAMILYNAME, Givenname, yyyy. Chapter Title. In: FAMILYNAME, Givenname, ed. Book Title. Location: Publisher, pp. xxx-xxx.

FAMILYNAME, Givenname, yyyy. Magazin Article. In: Magazin Name, yyyy-mm-dd.

FAMILYNAME, Givenname, yyyy. Journal Article. In: Journal Name, vol. xx, no. xx, pp. xxx-xxx.
FAMILYNAME, Givenname, yyyy. Journal Article. In: Journal Name, yyyy-mm-dd, vol. xxx, no. xx, pp. xxx-xxx.
FAMILYNAME, Givenname, yyyy. Journal Article. In: Journal Name. Location: Publisher, vol. xxx, no. xx, pp. xxx-xxx.
FAMILYNAME, Givenname, yyyy. Journal Article. In: Journal Name, vol. xx, no. xx, pp. xxx-xxx. ISSN 1544-9173.
FAMILYNAME, Givenname, yyyy. Journal Article. In: Journal Name, vol. xx, no. xx, pp. xxx-xxx. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1784/insi.2017.59.8.424, Open Access at: https://bit.ly/3fyqHKa.
If the DOI leads to a paywall, an Open Access link should be given. If the link is too long, it is shortened with bit.ly. If no Open Access version is available, this should be indicated with: (Closed Access).

FAMILYNAME, Givenname, yyyy. Conference Article. In: Name of Proceedings. Location: Publisher, pp. xxx-xxx.
FAMILYNAME, Givenname, yyyy. Conference Article. In: Name of Proceedings (ConferenceName, ConferenceLocation, ConferenceDuration). Location: Publisher, pp. xxx-xxx.
FAMILYNAME, Givenname, yyyy. Conference Article. In: ConferenceName (ConferenceLocation, ConferenceDuration). Location: Publisher, pp. xxx-xxx.
FAMILYNAME, Givenname, yyyy. Conference Article. In: FAMILYNAME, Givenname, ed. Name of Proceedings. Location: Publisher, pp. xxx-xxx.
FAMILYNAME, Givenname, yyyy. Conference Article. In: ORGANIZATION. Name of Proceedings. Location: Publisher, pp. xxx-xxx.
FAMILYNAME, Givenname, yyyy. Conference Article. In: ORGANIZATION. Name of Proceedings. Location, pp. xxx-xxx.
FAMILYNAME, Givenname, yyyy. Conference Article. In: Name of Proceedings. Location: Publisher, pp. xxx-xxx. Available from: https://doi.org/10.25967/490252.

NameOfSender, EmailAddress, YYYY. Message or subject title from posting line [electronic mail]. NameOfRecipient, EmailAddress. Date sent: YYYY-MM-DD, hh:mm:ss. Available from: https://...

Patent
FAMILYNAME, Givenname, yyyy. Title. US Patent, US821393.
FAMILYNAME, Givenname, yyyy. Title. US Patent, US821393, yyyy-mm-dd.
FAMILYNAME, Givenname, yyyy. Title. Application: yyyy-mm-dd. US Patent, US821393, yyyy-mm-dd.
ORGANIZATION, yyyy. Title. US Patent, US821393.
ORGANIZATION, yyyy. Title. Inventor: FAMILYNAME, Givenname. EU Patent Application, EP3406862A1.
ORGANIZATION, yyyy. Title. Inventor: FAMILYNAME, Givenname. EU Patent, EP3406862B1.
ORGANIZATION, yyyy. Title. Inventor: FAMILYNAME, Givenname. Application: yyyy-mm-dd, EP3406862A1. EU Patent, EP3406862B1.

Standard
zzzzz Number, yyyy. Title.
zzzzz Number, yyyy. Title. Publisher.
zzzzz Number, yyyy. Title. Publisher, yyyy-mm-dd.
zzzzz Number, yyyy. Title. Location: Publisher.
zzzzz Number, yyyy. Title. Technical Committee.
zzzzz: DIN, EN, ISO, DIN EN, prEN, CEN, CEN/TR, MIL, ...
Example:
DIN 1304, 1978. Allgemeine Formelzeichen.
ISO 9000, 2015. Quality Management Systems: Fundamentals and Vocabulary. Geneva, Switzerland: International Organization for Standardization (ISO).
MIL-L-7808L, 1997. Lubricating Oil, Aircraft Turbine Engine, Synthetic Base. Department of Defense (DoD), 1997-05-02.
CEN/TR 17904, 2022. Cabin Air Quality on Civil Aircraft - Chemical Compounds. CEN/TC 436 - Cabin Air Quality on Commercial Aircraft - Chemical Agents.

Report
FAMILYNAME, Givenname, yyyy. Title. Report: xxxxxxxx. Location: Company.
FAMILYNAME, Givenname, yyyy. Title. Report: xxxxxxxx. Location: Sponsoring Agency.
FAMILYNAME, Givenname, yyyy. Title. Report: xxxxxxxx, Department: abcdefg. Location: Company.

Web Content (find as much information as possible)
ORGANIZATION, yyyy. Title. Available from: https://...de. Archived at: https://perma.cc/C76K-TA4C.

PDF on the Web (find as much information as possible):
FAMILYNAME, Givenname, yyyy. Title. Available from: https://...de. Archived at: https://perma.cc/JBG8-BS77.

Further examples of bibliographic references are given in ISO 690 (Appendix C). Adapt these examples to the author-date system as explained above.

Guide to the Harvard System of Referencing

This section helps to understand the Harvard System of Referencing as used by Anglia Ruskin University. The information is given systematically and with much detail. However, it is not according to ISO 690. As such, the information given needs to be adapted to fit to ISO 690 as explained above.

Anglia Ruskin University, 2013. Guide to the Harvard System of Referencing pin

item ANGLIA RUSKIN UNIVERSITY, 2013. Guide to the Harvard System of Referencing
*.pdf Harvard_referencing_2013.pdf Size: 0.8M

How to cite multiple authors?

CITING IN-TEXT (not apparent from ISO 690, different from Anglia Ruskin University):
Only the first author is citated in the text. Use "Lastname Year" (without comma) as the standard format.

CITING IN THE REFERENCE LIST:
If the source has multiple authors, all the names should be included in the order they appear in the document. (Anglia Ruskin University 2013)
Use the sequence "LASTNAME, Firstname". (Anglia Ruskin University 2013)
Use the abbreviated first mane only if nothing else is given: "LASTNAME, Initial." or "LASTNAME, Initial.Initial."
Use "and" to link the last two multiple authors. (ISO 690)
Write the Lastname in capital letters in the reference list. (ISO 690, Appendix C)

If there is no human author, the name of the organization is given instead.

EXAMPLE:
Citing in-text: Adams (2010) or (Adams 2010)
Citing in the reference list: ADAMS, Ron J., WEISS, Tod D. and COATIE, Jefferson J., 2010. The World Health Organisation, its History and Impact. London: Perseus.

Background: Forms of Citations

An overview of the different forms of citation is given in Wikipedia. A summary is provided here.

There are two fundamentally different families of styles:

Vancouver referencing styles: A group of styles that use sequential numbers. The numbers refer to either footnotes (notes at the end of the page) or endnotes (notes on a page at the end of the paper) that provide source detail. They are either bracketed or superscript.
Parenthetical referencing styles (also known as Harvard referencing style): Full or partial, in-text citations are enclosed within parentheses and embedded in the paragraph. The notes system may or may not require a full bibliography, depending on whether the writer has used a full note form or a shortened note form.

Leading US American organizations in engineering recommend the Vancouver referencing style:

The Council of Science Editors (CSE) recomments the Vancouver style with superscripts.
The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) recomments the Vancouver style with numbers in square brackets.
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) recomments the Vancouver style with numbers in square brackets. Numbers appear consecutively in the text, with numbers repeated throughout the text as needed.

Recommended: Harvard referencing style because it is more efficient:

Readers can better remember what reference is repeatedly cited if it is attached with the "authors name and date" instead of merely a number.
Authors can easier write their articles including "author names and dates" as they build up their text.
Authors can edit their list of references easy based on "author name and date" form their text.
Authors can add citation easy during writing without the need to change numbers (to keep them in a proper sequence).
For reasons given above, the "author name and date" style of in-text citation was already standardized in Germany with DIN 1505-2:1984-01. DIN 1505 was replaced by DIN ISO 690:2013-10. The international standard ISO 690 offers more options, however it still includes the established and proven style of citation from DIN 1505.

STAND: 01 August 2024
AUTOR: Prof. Dr. Scholz
IMPRESSUM (PDF)

  Prof. Dr. Scholz
  Aircraft Design and Systems Group (AERO)
  Studiengang Flugzeugbau
  Department Fahrzeugtechnik und Flugzeugbau
  Fakultät Technik und Informatik
  HAW Hamburg