Wednesday, July 07, 2010

TRB (Transportation Research Board) Bibliography Style for Word 2007/2010

A wonderful citation manager was introduced in Microsoft Word 2007 (found on the ‘Reference’ tab, see below).
It allows one to add sources to a paper or report as it is being typed in a nearly automated fashion and will then compile your reference list too. For me, it’s been a godsend; I like writing papers (well enough, anyway) but get annoyed when ‘minor’ details, like what referencing styles should be used, start taking up major time. Great as it is, the one problem that remained was Word was limited to a few built-in styles; if the required style wasn’t on the list, you were just out of luck. Well, it turns out that the Word system is actually quite extendable. The open source project BibWord has provided a framework to quickly add new styles and has generated a number of new ones. Based on that work, I here present my version of the TRB reference style based on their Guide for Authors (PDF).

In-text references are numberic, based on reference order. Repeated references reuse the original number.
... Different pedestrian behaviour is associated not only with different physical characteristics but also the differing purpose of pedestrians (1, 2). Studies have been carried out for crowds associated with transportation systems (3, 4, 5), sporting and general spectator occasions (6), holy sites (7, 8), political demonstrations (9), and fire escapes (10).
The bibliography output is as follows:
1. Polus, A., J.L. Schofer, and A. Ushpi. Pedestrian flow and level of service. Journal of Transportation Engineering Proceedings, ASCE, Vol. 109, 1983, pp. 46-57.
2. Toshiyuki, A. Prediction system of passenger flow, in Engineering for Crowd Safety, Smith, R.A., and J.F. Dickie. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1993, pp. 249-258.
3. Smith, R.A., and J.F. Dickie. Engineering for Crowd Safety. Amsterdam, 1993.
4. Tanaka, T. A study for performance based design of means of escape in fire, in Fire Safety Science – Proceedings of the 3rd International Symposium, Cox, G., and B. Langford. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1991, pp. 729-738.
5. Wikipedia contributors. List of metro systems. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, June 17, 2010. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_metro_systems&oldid=368658114. Accessed June 17, 2010.
To use this, download the file below and place it in the
<winword.exe directory>\Bibliography\Style
directory. Reopen Word and it should show up in the list of available styles as "TRB [Minchin.ca]". This remains a work in progress, and so if you find this useful or find something that needs to be corrected, please contact me!

TRB Bibliography format for Word 2007/2010 (right-click and select "Save Link As...")
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13 comments:

  1. AnonymousJuly 22, 2010

    This is great, thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousJuly 29, 2010

    this is not quite working for me.
    i downlaoded the file, then i put it in the Bibliography folder under program files, microsoft office, office 12, 1033 (there was no style folder). the style did not show up when i reopened word... so i went back and created a style folder under bibliography. at this point, all the referencing features stopped working (the menu commandes showed as grey so they could not be clicked... any ideas??? TRB deadline is in 2 days!!!!

    ReplyDelete

  3. Great to see the interest. :)

    For me the folder is: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office12\Bibliography\Style

    (I'm running Windows 7 & Office 2007)

    You'll know you have the right one because there should be a list of the other styles that come with Word (APA.XLS, CHICAGO.XSL, MLA.XLS, etc). The 'Styles' folder should already exist!

    Best of luck, let me know if it's still not working...

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousJuly 30, 2010

    Thanks. A friend helped me out with this and fixed the problem. We discovered that there are two Bibliography folders under Office12: one is at
    Office12/Bibliography, and the other is under Office12/1033/Bibliography. The correct one is Office12/Bibliography.

    This is very helpful, thanks

    ReplyDelete

  5. I have created my initial bib. with zotero. It looks like it does not have the right format for TRB. I wanted to use your format. Are you aware of any way to import it.

    ReplyDelete

  6. The basic problem is you need to move your citations from Zotero to Word's database. Once that's accomplished, you can apply my style. If you get this far, you may still need to recreate the inline references [(3), etc.] in Word again. A pain, but possible...

    I've never used Zotero, so I am unable to test this myself, but it seems that (based on what I read online) that Zotero allows you to export your citations. If you can export as an XML file, try importing that file directly into Word. If that's not possible, export the file in the EndNote formate (you should get an RIS file) and then import that into Word using Reference Manager, and add-in for Word, to import your RIS file.

    Hopefully that helps. Let me know how it works out!

    ReplyDelete

  7. completely revolutionized. Thanks for sharing this with me!
    Transportation Resume Templates

    ReplyDelete
  8. AnonymousJune 13, 2012

    Link is not working can you chek it?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    1. Thanks for bringing that to my attention. The link has been updated and should now work!

      Delete
    2. AnonymousJune 14, 2012

      Thanks for link activation now it is working. it is a big help for publication in TRB.

      on question, does it comply with TRB guide for authors 2013?

      Delete

    3. I put this together in 2010 and haven't updated it since. So it will match the 2013 style guide as much as it is similar to the 2010 guide; I don't know what (if any) are the changes between the two. If there's something significant that needs changing, let me know and I can look into updating it.

      Delete

  9. Can you please check on the link again. I tried with Chrome and Firefox and both said: "This XML file does not appear to have any style information associated with it. The document tree is shown below." Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    1. That means that Firefox is trying to show you the contents of the file instead of downloading it. Right-click on the link and select "Save Link As..."

      Delete

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