Taking the Guesswork Out of Abbreviations

When you are searching indexes or looking at the references for a journal article or conference paper, you may notice that the journal titles and  conference proceeding titles are abbreviated.  These abbreviations can make finding journals and conference proceedings very difficult.

Would you guess that Proc Inst Mech Eng Part D J Automob Eng is the abbreviated form of Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. Part D, Journal of Automobile Engineering?  You might be tempted to think that Inst is short for Institute when it is really Iinstitution in this case.  Eng could be the abbreviation for Engineering as well as Engineers. If you tried to find this proceedings as the Proceedings of the Institute of Mechanical Engineering, you would not have much luck.

The abbreviation Chem Eng News could be short for Chemical Engineering News or perhaps Chemical Engineers News. If you did a title search in UTNetCAT for Chemical Engineering News  or Chemical Engineers News you would not find anything.  The real title of this journal is Chemical and Engineering News.

If you come across references or citations with abbreviated journal or conference proceeding titles and you need to know what the full title really is, stop by the library, give us a call or send us e-mail.  We can help take the guesswork out of these abbreviations.