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Referencing

When writing assignments it is important to reference your work properly.
There are three main reasons for doing this:

You need to acknowledge the work that is not yours, and so avoid committing plagiarism.
It enables other people to read the documents that you have read.
It shows the breadth of knowledge that you have consulted.

There are many different referencing systems and your subject Handbook (or your supervisor if you are a research student) will tell you which one to use. It is important to be consistent throughout your work. The most common system is the Harvard system, and this is detailed below. There are also systems which are specific to the subject area, eg APA which is from the American Psychological Association and MLA which is from the Modern Language Association. These are detailed in books listed in the Further information section. Law can be difficult to reference using these systems and the law department recommend using OSCOLA.

Harvard referencing system

What is referencing?
In the text
In the list at the end
Examples
FAQs

What is referencing?

There are two parts to referencing:

The citation is included in the text. It shows that what you have written is not your own idea (or research). If you do not correctly cite other people’s work, you are plagiarising.
The reference is included in a list at the end. It gives the full details of what you have cited, so that someone else can read what you have read.

In the text …

The following are examples of the three types of citations that you will need to use in the text to indicate that the work is not yours.

Citation

If you have read something and are using it in your own writing, you have to make it clear in your text the author(s) of this work, and when it was published. If you use your own words to describe the ideas then you do not need to use quotation marks.

Example: There is some dispute about who invented the Internet, but usually the same three names are mentioned (Jones, 2002).

This shows that this idea was by Jones and was published in 2002. The student has read the whole work, and has summarised it in their own words, so it is not a quote.

Direct quote

If you are using someone else’s work AND their words (not yours) then you have to make it clear in your text the author(s) of this work, and when it was published, just like a citation, but you must also use quotation marks. You should also include the page or section numbers where the quote is in the work – to help someone locate it easily (imagine having to look through a whole book to find a single sentence!).

Example: “The most important invention in Man’s evolution is not the Internet, but the bicycle.” (Brown, 1997, p.69).

This is a direct quote – it is copied exactly from the work of Brown. The student uses quotation marks to show this. The quote is from page 69 of the work published by Brown in 1997.

Secondary source

If you want to refer to something that you have not actually read, then you need to make it clear who did the work AND what you have read. This is actually not good academic practice, as you should always try to read the original work so you are not relying on someone else’s interpretation.

Example: If mathematicians had preferred drinking tea to coffee, the Internet may never have been invented (Watts, 1991 cited in Miller, 2000, p.228).

This shows that the idea was published by Watts in 1991. However, the student has not read Watts’s work – they read Miller’s work of 2000. Watts’s idea was used by Miller on page 228.

In the list of references at the end of the writing, you must only include the details of the work you have actually read – in the above example Miller (2000). The full reference of Watts’ work will be given in Miller’s reference list.

More than one author and other anomalies

The following applies to all the above types of citation:
Two authors – The earliest report (Smith & Jones, 1871)
Three authors - The earliest report (Smith, Grace & Jones, 1871)
More than three authors - The earliest report (Smith et al., 1871)
Two or more publications by the same authors in the same year - The earliest report (Smith, 1970a) was not supported by later research (Smith, 1970b)
The date is not known - The earliest report (Smith & Jones, n.d.).

In the list at the end …

The reference list at the end of your work must include every reference that you have used in the text. It must not include things you haven’t read (see secondary source above). You should only include items that you have referenced in the text. If you read things but have not explicitly referred to them in the text, these go in your bibliography. Sometimes you will be asked only for a reference list, not a bibliography, so check the instructions for each piece of work.

In each reference you must include all the information someone would need if they were going to find EXACTLY what you had read. You need to provide the following information

Who wrote it?
When did they write it?
How can I find it?

There are specific conventions for different types of work – these are shown below.

References are all listed alphabetically by author’s name. If there is more than one work by a particular author they are listed by date.

An example of a reference list is given below:

Camp, R.C. (1989), Benchmarking: the search for industry best practices that lead to superior performance. Milwaukee, Ill.: American Society for Quality Control Press.
Hradesky, J. (1995), Total Quality Management Handbook. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Oakland, J.S. (1993), Total quality management: the route to improving performance. 2nd edn. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann.
Oakland, J.S. (2003), Total quality management: text with cases. 3rd edn. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann.
Paulk, M.C., Weber, C.V., Garcia, S.M., Chrissis, M.B. and Bush, M. (1993), Key practices of the Capability Maturity Model, version 1.1. CMU/SEI-93-TR-025. Pittsburgh: Software Engineering Institute.
Shaughnessy, T.W. (1993), ‘Benchmarking, total quality management and libraries’, Library administration and management, 7 (1), pp.7-12.
Town, J.S. (2000), ‘Benchmarking: strife, theft or communion?’, Proceedings of the Northumbria international conference on performance measurement in libraries and information services. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Information North, pp.81-88.

Examples

(a) Books

Books are one of the easiest items to reference, as all the information that you need is usually included in the title page of the book. For each reference, you should include the following information in the following order:

Author(s) / Editor(s) - surname first, followed by initial(s) of given name(s). If the book has an editor or editors, this must be signified by using (ed.) after their name.
Year of publication in rounded brackets.
Title - use the full title, including sub title if there is one, as given on the title page of the book. The title should be written in italics or bold or underlined in order to distinguish it from other information (it doesn’t matter which, as long as you are consistent).
Edition – only if it is not the first.
Place of publication, followed by a colon (:) then the publisher. Example: Pilcher, J. (2002) Age and generation in modern Britain. 5th edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

(b) Chapter of a book

To reference the chapter of a book you should include the title, author(s) and date of the chapter, and the full details of the book.

Author(s) of the chapter - surname first, followed by initial(s) of given name(s).
Year of publication in rounded brackets.
Title of the chapter - use the full title, including sub title if there is one. The title should be enclosed in single quote marks (‘ ‘).
‘in’ followed by the author(s) or editor(s) of the book - surname first, followed by initial(s) of given name(s).
Title of the book - the title should be written in italics or bold or underlined in order to distinguish it from other information (it doesn’t matter which, as long as you are consistent).
Edition – only if it is not the first.
Place of publication, followed by a colon (:) then the publisher.
‘pp.’ followed by the page numbers of the chapter.
Example: Smith, P. H. (1951). ‘The overall allocation of resources’, in: Chester, D.N. (ed) Lessons of the British war economy. Westport: Greenwood Press, pp.34-57.

(c) Journal article

Author(s) of the article - surname first, followed by initial(s) of given name(s).
Year of publication in rounded brackets.
Title of article – use the full title of the article, as given at the beginning of the article. The title should be enclosed in single quote marks (‘ ‘).
Title of Journal - use the full title of the journal, as given on the front cover. Do not use abbreviations. The journal title should be written in italics or bold or underlined in order to distinguish it from other information (it doesn’t matter which, as long as you are consistent).
Issue information – volume, issue number/month/season. The volume number should be as given on the journal, and the issue number/month/season (if there is one) should be in brackets.
‘pp.’ followed by the page numbers of the article.
Example: Matthews, H. (1999)’The geography of children: some methodological considerations for project work and dissertation work’, Journal of geography in higher education, 22 (3) pp.311-324.

(d) Electronic book

Author(s) / Editor(s) - surname first, followed by initial(s) of given name(s). If the book has an editor or editors, this must be signified by using '(ed.)' after their name.
Year of publication in rounded brackets.
Title - use the full title, including sub title if there is one, as given on the title page of the book. The title should be written in italics or bold or underlined in order to distinguish it from other information (it doesn’t matter which, as long as you are consistent).
[Online]
Name of supplier
Available at: URL
Accessed date in square brackets.
Example: Ball, M. (2001) An economic history of London, 1800-1914. [Online] Taylor & Francis. Available at: http://brunel.etailer.dpsl.net/home/html/viewbooks.asp?category=SB150000 [Accessed 12 December 2006].

(e) Electronic journal article

An electronic journal article should be referenced in the same way as a paper journal article, but make it clear that you consulted the electronic version.

Author(s) of the article - surname first, followed by initial(s) of given name(s).
Year of publication in rounded brackets.
Title of article – use the full title of the article, as given at the beginning of the article. The title should be enclosed in single quote marks (‘ ‘).
Title of Journal - use the full title of the journal, as given on the front cover. Do not use abbreviations. The journal title should be written in italics or bold or underlined in order to distinguish it from other information (it doesn’t matter which, as long as you are consistent).
[Online]
Issue information – volume, issue number/month/season. The volume number should be as given on the journal, and the issue number/month/season (if there is one) should be in brackets.
‘pp.’ followed by the page numbers of the article.
Example: St. Clair. G. (1993) ‘The future challenge: management and measurement’. Special libraries, [Online] 84(2), pp.151-154.

(f) Internet-only electronic journal article

If the journal is only published on the Internet – with no print issues available the reference is slightly different.

Author(s) of the article - surname first, followed by initial(s) of given name(s).
Year of publication in rounded brackets.
Title of article – use the full title of the article, as given at the beginning of the article. The title should be enclosed in single quote marks (‘ ‘).
Title of Journal - use the full title of the journal, as given on the front cover. Do not use abbreviations. The journal title should be written in italics or bold or underlined in order to distinguish it from other information (it doesn’t matter which, as long as you are consistent).
Issue information – volume, issue number or month or season. The volume number should be as given on the journal, and the issue number/month/season (if there is one) should be in brackets.
Available at: URL.
Accessed date in square brackets.
Example: Beresford, P. (2007) ‘Web Curator Tool’, Ariadne, 50. Available at: http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue50/beresford/ [Accessed 9 March 2007].

(g) Website

If you have used information from a personal or corporate website you should follow these guidelines. If you have used a document, report, presentation, or similar, you should follow the guidelines for (i) below.

Author - surname first, followed by initial(s) of given name(s) OR corporate author if there is no personal author. IF YOU CANNOT IDENTIFY THE AUTHOR, THINK VERY VERY CAREFULLY ABOUT WHAT THE QUALITY OF THE INFORMATION IS LIKELY TO BE.
Year the website was published OR last updated date in rounded brackets.
Title of the site. The title should be written in italics or bold or underlined in order to distinguish it from other information (it doesn’t matter which, as long as you are consistent).
Available at: URL.
Accessed date in square brackets.
Example: BBC (2007) BBC news: Business. Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/default.stm [Accessed 9th March 2007].

(h) Report etc available on the Internet

Author(s) - surname first, followed by initial(s) of given name(s) OR corporate author if there is no personal author.
Year of publication in rounded brackets.
Title - use the full title, including sub title if there is one The title should be written in italics or bold or underlined in order to distinguish it from other information (it doesn’t matter which, as long as you are consistent).
Available at: URL
Accessed date in square brackets
Example: Woodland, R. (2007) Finding literature to review. Available at: http://intranet.brunel.ac.uk/library/help/workbooks/BBSFYP.pdf [Accessed 9th March 2007].

(i) Conference paper or proceeding

Author(s) of the paper - surname first, followed by initial(s) of given name(s).
Year of publication OF THE PROCEEDINGS in rounded brackets.
Title of the paper - use the full title, including sub title if there is one. The title should be enclosed in single quote marks (‘ ‘).
Title of the conference, including the location and date of the conference if this is included in the conference proceedings title - the title should be written in italics or bold or underlined in order to distinguish it from other information (it doesn’t matter which, as long as you are consistent).
Place of publication, followed by a colon (:) then the publisher.
‘pp.’ followed by the page numbers of the paper.
Example: Bremser, W.B. (2000) ‘Using the Balanced Scorecard’, Proceedings of the 3rd Northumbria International Conference on Performance Measurement in Libraries and Information services : held at Longhirst Management and Training Centre, Longhirst Hall, Northumberland, England, 27-31 August 1999. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Information North, pp.241-263.

(j) Referencing Archive material/Special collections

Author (s) - surname, initials of given name(s) OR corporate author if there is no personal author.
Year of publication in round brackets.
Title-in italics or underlined.
Material type in square brackets.
Collection, shelfmark.
Archive/Library.
City.
Bibliography Example:
Bellamy, H. (1892). Early Memories [Manuscript]. Burnett Working Class Autobiography 3/9. Brunel University Library Special Collection, Uxbridge.
In-text Example:
(Bellamy, 1892) “Direct quotations are placed in double quotations marks” (Author’s Surname, Year of Publication, p. – followed by page number – in brackets)

FAQs

Q: Do I have to reference everything?
A: Yes, unless it is ‘common knowledge’. Common knowledge is facts, dates and information that are known by ‘an educated public’. For example, John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963 – this is common knowledge. Each academic discipline has its own common knowledge, and what can be considered common knowledge depends on a number of things, including level of experience with the subject. You should ALWAYS talk to your tutor, lecturer or supervisor about whether a piece of information can be considered common knowledge. If in doubt, reference it.

Q: Do the references in the text always have to go in brackets?
A: No, as long as the citation clearly refers to the relevant information you can put this in a way that works best for the sentence. Some examples are:

Smith (2002) argues …
In a recent study (Smith, 2002) …
Smith conducted his first study in 2002. He found that …
Much work followed (Smith, 2002; Jones, 2002; Nash, 2004; Bo, 2005)

Further information

The following give guidelines on how to cite a variety of information:

American Psychological Association (2001) Publication manual of the American Psychological Association. 5th ed. Washington, D.C.: APA. Library shelfmark: BF76.7.A43

And the associated summary available at http://www.docstyles.com/apacrib.htm

Gibaldi, J. (1999) MLA handbook for writers of research papers. 5th ed. New York: The Modern Language Association of America. Library shelfmark: LB2369.G53

Pears, R. and Shields, G. (2010). Cite them right: the essential referencing guide. 8th ed. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. E-Book available: http://intranet.brunel.ac.uk/library/electronic/citethemright.html (users must enter their Brunel University Network username (eg: me11ikb) and password to access this e-book off campus); print also available at Library shelfmark: PN171.F56P43 2010 (also 2008 and 2005 eds.)

How to cite electronic sources, from the Modern Language Association (MLA).

OSCOLA tutorial produced by the Law department at Cardiff University.

There are also books which deal specifically with citing electronic resources. For example:

Li, X. and Crane, N.B. (1996). Electronic styles: a handbook to citing electronic information. 2nd ed. Melford, N.J.:Information Today. Library shelfmark: (Ref) PN171.F56L3

Walker, J. R. and Taylor, T. (1998). The Columbia guide to online style. New York: Columbia University Press. Library shelfmark: PN171.F56W33

WebCite®?
An on-demand archiving system for cited webpages and websites, or other kinds of Internet-accessible digital objects, which can be used by authors, editors, and publishers of scholarly papers and books, to ensure that cited material will remain available to readers in the future. WebCite® is a member of the International Internet Preservation Consortium