How to cite and reference - first principles

It is a good idea to get into the habit of keeping some kind of organized record of the books, journal articles, electronic sources and whatever else you may use in your research at the time that you use them. If you only keep half a reference, you may not be able to trace the full details of that piece of work at a later date.

Whenever you refer to either the works or ideas of someone, you must acknowledge this. Similarly, when you make a direct quotation from someone's work, it should be noted accurately. You will need to acknowledge your source in TWO places:

• in the main body of the text (the citation)

• in the bibliography/list of references at the end of your piece of work (full reference in the reference list)

There are many styles of referencing but you must stick to the reference style indicated in the assessment criteria for your course. Other courses may specify different referencing styles. The following author and date reference style is based on the 'Harvard' method. This is commonly used in dissertations, essays, research articles in journals and in text books. The Harvard method uses author and date citations, with full references listed alphabetically in the bibliography at the end of the work.

Other styles, such as numeric systems can be useful for reports and are described later.

Author and date citations

When you refer to someone's work or ideas in the body of your dissertation, this can be acknowledged with a citation using author's surname and the date of the work in brackets:

"Brown (1995) suggested that the effectiveness of this method was..."
or

"It has been suggested (Brown, 1995) that the effectiveness of this method was..."

If you wish to quote directly from someone's work you should include the author's name, date and page number in your text:

"Jones (1990, p 88) asserted that 'contrary to popular belief the world is in fact flat' However, this is not a commonly held belief…"

If your source has multiple authors (more than two) you do not need to list all of them in text. You may use et al which means and others. For example, "Dibb et al (1994) explore the importance of segmentation..." However, you should include ALL authors' names in the list of references.

Citations should always be introduced in your work, rather than placed in your work as a series of quotations without any discussion. Citations should support discussion or build argument. It is good practice to introduce an idea then support it using the citation. In this example, the idea is introduced first;

"There are two types of people; those that believe the world is spherical and those that believe the world is flat."

The ideas are then supported by the citations;

"Hargreaves (1989) supported the idea that the world is spherical, whereas Jones (1990) provided evidence for the world being flat."

You might have identified that there are many authors who have a similar view. You may want to show the breadth of your research, but it is important not to be repetitive. Rather than repeating the same idea several times, which would be detrimental to your work, try to consolidate ideas;

"Judge (1950), Simmons (1967) and Dibson (1999) all believe that the world is flat."

You might then show how your work contributes to the debate. Your work may not be about whether or not the world is spherical or flat, but about why people believe the things they do. You state this in your discussion;

"This research project evaluates the importance of education level on peoples' belief systems"

One of the more complex issues when using citations to build a discussion or debate, is when you want to use the work of an author who has been cited by another author. That is, you want to use the ideas of Stamp (1997) that you found in a book by Leonard (1999). As it is the work of Leonard (1999) that you were using when you found the idea by Stamp (1997), it is Leonard (1999) that you acknowledge in your bibliography. Your citation in text may look something like this;

"Stamp (1997) cited by Leonard (1999, pg24) explores the importance of close coupling…"

You would not reference Stamp (1997) unless you had followed up and read the article, in which case you acknowledge both authors in your bibliography.

Some people like to present their work so that direct quotations are highlighted by indenting them or by bolding them. How your work is presented and laid out is largely a matter of personal style, but it is essential that all your citations correspond to the list of references (otherwise termed bibliography) at the end of the dissertation.

Bibliography

The main items you need to note are: author, year, title, publisher & page(s).

The list of references at the end of your work should be by authors' surnames in alphabetical order. The following illustrates (they are not all real sources!) the approach:

Bloggs, J., (1998) Essay Writing, Penguin, p. 24

Dobb, S., Sims, L., Plodd, W., and Wilde, O., (1994) Creative Expression, 3rd Ed Houghton Mifflin Company p.53

Simon, S., (1998) The Art of Essay Writing, Journal of Literature, Vol. 30 No. 2: Harcourt Brace, pp 27-34.

Zimmer, F., (2000) The Effects of Age on Creative Writing, Journal of Geriatrics, Vol.1 No.1. Blidwell Publications pp275-290

Note that the title of the book or journal is italicized for clarity. The title of the journal article itself should not be italicized so that it is distinct from the title of the journal. You should also include the page number(s) used.

It is increasingly common for information to be published in electronic form. These should be referenced as carefully as any other source. Citations still use author and date in text, but your bibliography may look like this;

Reference to a CD-ROM:

Drummer, B., (1992) Rhythmic Noise: on compact disc, [CD-ROM], 2nd edition, available from Oxford University Press

Reference to a Website:

Daniel, R.T., (1995) The History of Western Music, In: Britannica online: Macropaedia [online]. Available from: http://www.eb.co.uk [accessed 14 June 2000)

Reference to an electronic journal:

Smith, L., (1996) Keynesian economic policy in France, Journal of Economic Analysis [online], Vol.35 No.2 pp19-27. Available from: European Business ASAP< Information Access Company. http://www.searchbank.com/eurobus/ [accessed: 21 July 2000)

Without named author:

Sometimes publications such as government reports are without a named author. The reference may look like this:

Reference to an official report:

Department of the Environment (1995), Annual Report 1995, The Government's Expenditure Plans 1995-6 to 1997-8, London, HMSO p22

The citation in text would use 'Department of the Environment' as the author. It should be made clear in your citation that it is 'Great Britain Department of the Environment' that is being cited.

Numeric citations

The broad principles of numeric systems for citations and referencing are similar to author and date systems. You should have read the section on author and date citations before reading this section. If you haven't, then go back to the beginning of the chapter!

Numeric systems of referencing can be particularly useful for reports, where data may be presented in tables and bullet points. Numeric citations often look neater and simpler for this type of work. This does not mean numeric systems cannot be used for other types of work such as essays and dissertations. Unless the style of referencing is specified by your tutor/course then you must decide which style of referencing is best for your work.

In numeric systems of referencing, the in-text citation takes the form of a number that relates to the full reference in the reference list or bibliography (depending on your use of terminology). The citation looks like this:

"Hargreaves (1) supported the idea that the world is spherical, whereas Jones (2) provided evidence for the world being flat."

OR

"There is evidence for the world being spherical (1), but also support for the world being flat (2)."

The reference list should be arranged in consecutive numerical order:

1. Hargreaves, S., (1998) The World, Journal of Science, Vol. 30 No. 2: Harcourt Brace, pp 27-34.

2. Jones, F., (2000) The Flat Truth, Journal of Philosophy, Vol.1 No.1. Blidwell Publications pp275-290

In common with most styles of referencing, your reference list for the numeric system of referencing would normally be at the end of your work. Occasionally, (particularly in reports) full references are put in footnotes at the bottom of the page. This is for ease of reading. If you adopt this approach, it is still good practice to have a full list of references at the end of your work.