Academic papers in the field of linguistics are often written folowing LSA style, which is the style used in Language, the journal of the Language Society of America. One of the aspects of style that is fairly unique to linguistics writing is the way linguistic data is presented. The following quatation is from the Language style sheet:
7. NUMBERED EXAMPLES, RULES, AND FORMULAS
a. Type each numbered item on a separate indented line with the number in parentheses; indent after the number; use lowercase letters to group sets of related items:(2) a. Down the hill rolled the baby carriage.
b. Out of the house strolled my mother’s best friend.b. In the text, refer to numbered items as 2, 2a, 2a,b, 2(a- c).
The Problem
One of the problems I run into when writing long papers, is keeping the numbered examples synchronized with my references to them in the text of the paper. If I add an example, remove an example, or change their order, then I have to go through the whole paper and update the references.
Birds' Words 