INTRODUCTION
There are many different styles of referencing and each journal article and book you have read may have used a different one. Even here at the University the different Schools and Departments use lots of different styles. More confusing still, they sometimes use different variants of the same standard! The School of Education use a version of Harvard British standard.
It may have been a while since you had to submit a piece of work with a fully referenced bibliography – it may be you have never had to do it before! Whichever it is this guide is to try and help you make sense of referencing. We have tried to pull together information which shows you how to reference different formats (books, chapters, journal articles, web pages and so on) within the text of your assignment and at the end in a bibliography. Please note though that you should check with your tutor or course handbook to make sure you know which style you are to use.
The most important thing to remember is to not panic! We are here to help you and if you want someone to speak to about your referencing just contact the Librarian for Education and Social Science – Claire Molloy, c.a.l.molloy@abdn.ac.uk her office is on Floor 1 of Queen Mother Library.
In addition to this guide on how to manually reference there is a web based bibliographic software package available to all University staff and students called RefWorks. This software will allow you to search our library catalogue and electronic resources and save details of references. You can then automatically create a bibliography in the style of your choosing using all or some of the references you have saved. For full details, or to organise a demonstration please contact Claire Molloy c.a.l.molloy@abdn.ac.uk
Why Reference?
Though at first glance it may be really obvious, it does help to understand why we reference using a particular style when we write a piece of academic work. It isn’t just more annoying bureaucratic red tape – there are some very practical and important reasons for following a style and sticking to it.
Whilst reading you are going to come across many different ideas and theories. You will use these to expand and develop your own arguments but you must give full credit to those that you have read. If you do not acknowledge those authors you could be accused of plagiarism – taking the ideas of others and trying to pass them off as your own. This is considered a very serious matter at this University.
Referencing correctly also shows you are well read and knowledgeable about your subject – it may even get you better marks! Your tutor will use your referencing to check what you have read; they may even use it to find something you have referred to that they haven’t read themselves! Put simply, correct referencing allows any reader of your work to find easily exactly what you have been reading.
What is the difference between a reference, a citation and a bibliography?
When you quote from something you have read, either directly (i.e. word for word) or indirectly (i.e. paraphrase/put it into your own words) you must make reference to the fact it is not your work but someone else’s. You put the author and year of publication in parenthesis () after your direct or indirect quote (in Harvard Style); examples are given later in this handout. This can be called referencing or citing. Your bibliography is where you list all the titles you read or referred to whilst compiling your assignment – see the note below! This will go at the end of your assignment.
What is Harvard British Standard?
Harvard British is the style in which when we quote from an author in our writing we place his/her name in parenthesis with the year. In the bibliography the author's name is in capitals (though it is not when quoting in the text!) and the title of a book or journal in italics (a journal article is not in italics). Some like to place the year of publication in parenthesis. This is not a requirement of Harvard British standard and is a personal preference of some tutors. You would be best to check this with your own tutor. In the examples in this handout the year has been placed in parenthesis.
Do I put in my bibliography everything I have read?
This depends very much on your individual tutor. Some say that you should list in your bibliography everything you read during your research whether you directly refer to it or not. Others say that you should only put in your bibliography what you directly refer to – or put another way, you should refer to everything in your bibliography to prove you have read it!
What does ibid mean?
There are certain abbreviations that are used in referencing that make sit easier to refer to the same quote, author or piece or work again without having to type out the whole reference.
et seq and (the) following
ibid, ib (ibidem) in the same place - this is similar in intention to op cit, but applied to CONSECUTIVE references to the same work
op cit` in the work previously cited - saves writing the full details out each time
q.v. which see - a reference to see the work mentioned, usually for further detailed information
et al and others - used when referring to more than one writer, eg see Bush et al (eds) 1981)
CITING A REFERENCE WITHIN YOUR ASSIGNMENT
The instructions below refer to citing from a book, a journal article, a report, a website and so on though the examples given are from books.
Indirect Quotations
If you decide to indirectly refer to an author within your essay there are two ways you can do this. For example:
The author’s name can be included within the sentence:
'It has been said by Schon (1991) that professionals are beginning to experience a crisis in confidence.'
or it can be put in brackets:
'Teachers should be aware of the context of their class and what outcomes they wish to achieve.' (Kyriacou, 1997)
NOTE: the year of publication is always referred to along with the author's name. Both of these combined will allow anyone reading your work to refer to your bibliography and find the complete details of the relevant reference. Remember every published item referred to in your text should be listed in the bibliography at the end of the assignment. Examples are given later in this guide.
Direct Quotations
Although you should do it sparingly, you can quote directly from an author within your text. In other words take exactly word for word what s/he said in their text and put it into yours. You must quote as you do with an indirect quote but in addition add the page number the exact quote came from:
"Young learners learn the functions of negation very early. However, it takes some time before they learn the grammar rules which enable them to express the variety of negative functions." (Siraj-Blatchford and Clarke, 2000, p.55)
You will notice in the above reference there are two authors. If there are more than two you will name them all individually in your bibliography (see later for examples) but within the text you will name two authors followed by et al. e.g. (Joyce, B., Calhoun, E. et al., 2002)
Directly or indirectly citing from a website
To quote directly or indirectly from a website you follow the previous instructions for a book, journal article etc. A common issue with quoting websites is that there is often no author or date. If that is the case you should quote the title of the website and year, or say undated. So in the example given in this handout under ‘writing your bibliography’ number 12 – ‘referencing a website’, if we didn’t know the author was the BBC we would refer to it in our essay as:
…the centurion lay down his arms and told his men to do the same. (The Romans website, undated)
There are no hard and fast rules, so as long as you are consistent and follow the general Harvard rules, your bibliography and references will be fine.
Secondary Referencing - citing work referred to by another author
It may be the case that you refer to work that has been cited by another author. In other words you may read in Janet Moyle's The Excellence of Play (1994) that she has quoted Hale-Benson (1982) but you have not read that work. You should quote as follows:
Moyles (1994) cites the work of Hale-Benson (1982) where he has stated…
Or,
Hale-Benson (1982, cited by Moyles 1994) stated that…
Or,
Moyles (1994, citing Hale-Benson 1982) states that…
You will then put the Janet Moyles book in your bibliography as you have read and referred to that, but not the Hale-Benson as you have not read it.
WRITING YOUR BIBLIOGRAPHY
Do I need to say I read an electronic version?
There is currently some debate as to whether you need to show the journal article or report you have read came from an electronic version by giving the URL and date accessed details. Your tutor will be able to advise on this but as a rule, unless told otherwise, journal articles and reports can be referenced as if you had read them in paper, even if you did access them electronically. Items such as conference proceedings/papers should be referenced as such but have URL details added if they have been accessed online.
Referencing Personal Communications, Emails etc.
There may be occasions when someone has communicated with you and there is no published source from which you can cite his or her comments. As there is no published work that your reader can use to find the item and read it for themselves it is not referenced at the end of the work in a bibliography. You only cite the personal communication in the text. For example:
Teachers find it increasingly difficult to get support from their headteacher's over matters of discipline. (Joe Bloggs 18th January, 2004, personal email to the author.)
Referencing Lectures
There is some debate over whether or not you should cite lectures in your work. In theory your lecturer should provide details of where s/he got his or her details from, in other words reference their work. Often in a lecture this does not happen. They should give you a reading list and the materials on that should have been used to provide the lecture. You should speak to your tutor if you wish to quote from a lecture and remember to follow the general rule of referring to the author and dating the piece. If you do have to reference a whole lecture in your essay you should make sure you have the following – the author, title and or course, institution and date of lecture:
Joe Bloggs. BEd 4 Lecture on Learning Styles. University of Aberdeen, 20th January, 2004.
Referencing Acts of Parliament
You may quote from Acts of Parliament within your text and you do so by quoting the title of the Act and the year; (Special Educational Needs and Disability Act, 2001). In your bibliography the reference should look like:
Great Britain Special Educational Needs and Disability Act, 2001 (c.2) London: HMSO
The author is always the country of origin, the short title of the Act should appear in italics with the year and the chapter number (or running number as sometimes called) should be given in brackets. The place of publication and publisher should also appear.
Referencing non-English authors
From time to time you will have to reference non-English names. The following is a general guide:
German Names
Sometimes German names are preceded with 'von' or 'van'. In general, the particle is dropped in favour of citing the family name alone e.g. Beethoven is not normally referred to as 'van Beethoven'.
In a bibliography you can use:
Beethoven, L. van (1817) or,
Beethoven van, L. (1817)
Dutch and Belgian Names
Dutch names can have a variety of particles though the most common is 'van' or 'van der'. They normally appear with a lower case e.g. Ruud van Nistelrooy. In comparison, in Belgium the particle almost always has a capital e.g. Paul Van Look. In contrast to German names the Dutch particle is used when commenting in the text e.g. 'van Nistelrooij scored a cracker against Arsenal', but as with German names the particle is dropped in an alphabetical list:
Gogh, V., van (1891) or,
Gogh van, V. (1891)
Look, P., Van (2002) or
Look Van, P. (2002)
American names of Dutch descent often have been assimilated within the surname e.g. Ray DeVries and would be referenced as DeVries, R. (2000).
Referencing translations
Translations of works should include the translator as well as the original author. In your bibliography this will look like:
Stein, E. (1989). On the Problem of Empathy. (W.Stein, trans) Washington D.C.: ICS Publications. (Original work published 1916.)
In your essay you should quote the original author but the translated date so:
"the problem of empathy is…" (Stein, E. 1989, p24)
"the problem of empathy is…" (Stein, E. 1989, p24)
EXAMPLES OF REFERENCING BOOKS, ARTICLES, REPORTS, WEBSITES ETC.
1. A book with one author
SCHON, D. A., (1991). The Reflective Practitioner. How Professionals Think in Action. Aldershot: Ashgate Arena.
2. A book with two authors
SIRAJ-BLATCHFORD, I. and CLARKE, P., (2000). Supporting Identity, Diversity and Language in the Early Years. Buckingham: Open University Press.
3. A book with more than two authors
JOYCE, B., CALHOUN, E. and HOPKINS, D., (2002). Models of learning - tools for teaching. 2nd ed. Buckingham: Open University Press.
4. When there is more than one book by the same author in the same year
If there is more than one book by the same author published in the same year you will need to differentiate between them by adding a letter after the year as below:
AINSCOW, M., (1999a). Effective practice in inclusion and special and mainstream schools working together. London: Department for Education and Employment.
AINSCOW, M., (1999b). Understanding the development of inclusive schools. London: RoutledgeFalmer.
5. A corporate author
SCOTTISH OFFICE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT (SOED)., (1991). National Guidelines Mathematics 5-14. Edinburgh: SOED
6. Referencing a report
A report is referenced just as if it were a book by either an author or corporate body e.g.
HM INSPECTORATE OF EDUCATION., (2002). ICT: into the classroom of tomorrow: an interim report by HM Inspector of Education on the implementation of the New Opportunities Fund ICT training of teachers and school librarians in Scotland. Edinburgh: HM Inspectorate of Education.
7. A chapter from a book or contribution to a book
FIELDING, S., (2002). No one else to vote for? Labour's campaign. In: A. GEDDES and J. TONGE, eds., Labour's second landslide. The British General Election 2001. Manchester: Manchester University Press. pp 28-44.
8. A journal article
CARR, M., and KURTZ, B.E., (1991). Teachers’ perceptions of students’ metacognition, attributions and self-concept. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 61 (2), 197-206.
9. Newspaper Article
It should be relatively easy to reference a newspaper article if you have the newspaper to hand. Sometimes it is difficult to attribute an author to the piece and in such cases the name of the newspaper should be quoted:
WARD, L., (2004). Parents 'should pay for schools'. The Guardian, Wednesday 4th February, p.10
If you can find the issue number of the newspaper this should be placed between the newspaper title and the date. If you have accessed this online you should give the URL and date accessed details as in the ‘reference from a web page’ below.
10. Reference to a Thesis
FINLAY, G., (2003). Perceptions of Circle Time. Thesis (BEd Honours). University of Aberdeen.
11. Reference to a Conference Paper
When you have a paper from a conference it may or may not have come from an official published collection of the whole conference. More often than not you will have got the paper from a web site and you can add the URL and when you accessed it as you would for any other website (see 'A Reference from a Web page') below.
AINSCOW, M., (1995). Education For All: Making it Happen. In: M. AINSCOW ed. International Special Education Congress (ISEC) 1995, April 10-13. Birmingham, UK.
Or,
KISANJI, J. (1999). Historical And Theoretical Basis Of Inclusive Education. Keynote address for the Workshop on "Inclusive Education in Namibia: The Challenge for Teacher Education", 24-25 March 1999, Rossing Foundation, Khomasdal, Windhoek, Namibia
Available:
[Date Accessed: 23/11/2005]
12. A reference from a web page
With web addresses it can be very difficult to attribute authorship, publisher or a publication date. Reference what you can and put the author as Anon. If you don't know the date just say undated and if the publisher and place of publication cannot be found simply leave blank:
BBC. (Undated). The Romans. BBC Schools.
Available:
[Date Accessed: 05/02/2004]
It is always a good idea to keep a paper or electronic copy of the page you referred to just in case it has disappeared when your marker goes back to find it!
13. Multimedia such as CD-ROM and DVD
There is no one standard style for referencing multimedia. You must make sure you give enough detail for any reader of your work to be able to find the same material. You reference a CD-ROM when it is a work in its own right, not when it is a database.
AHLBERG, J. and AHLBERG, A., (1997). The Jolly Post Office. CD-ROM. London: DK Multimedia.
14. Reference to a broadcast on TV, Film, DVD or Video
As with other unusual media, just make sure you have all the details written down to allow someone else to find the item you are referring to:
How we used to Live: All Change, Episode 4 Leisure. TV. Channel 4 Schools. 29th January 2004.
Awakenings. Film. Directed by Penny Marshall. USA: Columbia/TriStar, 1990.
Etre et Avoir. DVD. Directed by Nicholas Philibert. France: Maia Films, 2003.
A Guide to Referencing for Education Students - March 2006
