Writing references

Easy Examples

You must record various pieces of information from your sources for your bibliography or reading list.

Examples of Harvard references are shown below in blue

Books

Give the author surname, forename inital(s) , the year of publication in round brackets, the title of the book in italics, using capital letters for only the first letter of both the first word and any proper nouns, edition number if 2nd or subsequent edition, and publisher. (Use the book's title page and reverse to find most of this information).

Include up to three contributing authors in the order they appear on the title page.

If more than three, record the first followed by et al. ("and others").

If the book is edited, signify this by using ed. after the appropriate name. If quoting a specific section include the pages where that quote falls. In order to avoid confusion, insert the abbreviation p. before the page number.

Examples:

Reference materials

(dictionaries, encyclopaedias, serials, bibliographies and indexes)

Often reference materials do not have an obvious author or editor. They are usually known by their titles. The order in which you list information for your references reflects the amount of detail you need to include depending upon the works you have used.

To cite the entire work:

If you are citing just one volume of a serial publication follow this format:

If you are citing more than one volume follow this format:

If you are citing the complete set:

Cumulative Book Index 1898- . (1898-) New York:H.W.Wilson.

Electronic Books

Electronic books are treated similarly to printed ones. Give the author, the year of publication in round brackets, the title of the book in italics, the name of the e book supplier, the word [Online] in square brackets, the phrase "available at:" and the URL, and the date accessed in round brackets eg:

Example:

Grahame, K. (1917) The wind in the willows. Netlibrary [Online]. Available at: http://www.netlibrary.com (Accessed: 14th July 2005).

Internet Pages

You should give your reader enough information to be able to find the web pages for themselves.

Give the author of the site (if available), the year it was published or last updated in round brackets, the title of the site in italics, the phrase "available at:" and the URL, and finally (Accessed: date).

Examples:

Yau, T. (2001) Dragon Project. Available at: http://www.geocites.com/dragonproject2000/(Accessed:14 June 2005).

Where no author or title can be identified use the web page's URL. eg:

http://www.geocites.com/dragonproject2000/(Accessed:14 June 2005).

If the web page does not have a clear date of production give the URL, the phrase "no date" in round brackets and the date that you used the page eg:

http://www.geocites.com/dragonproject2000/(no date) (Accessed:14 June 2005).

Electronic Journal Articles

These are usually available through library web pages as part of a journals collection and you should mention the collection in your reference as it may be different from the printed version. Give the article's author (surname, then initial/s, the year of publication in round brackets, article title in quotation marks, journal title in italics, the volume, issue, part and page numbers, the word "Online" in square brackets, the phrase "available at: URL of collection" and the date accessed.

Examples:

Bright, M.(1985) "The poetry of art," Journal of the history of ideas,46 (2), pp. 259-277 Infotrac [Online]. Available at: http://uk.infotrac.com/ (Accessed: 16 June 2005).

Some journals are now published solely on the internet with no printed version at all. In these cases follow the same guidelines as above, omit the collection name and give the appropriate URL.eg:

Cox, A & Currall, J. (2001) 'Do they need to know?' Ariadne, issue 30, December [Online].Available at http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue30/(Accessed: 16 June 2005).

Hard copy Journal Articles:

Give the author's name - surname first and then the initials of the first name or names; give the year of publication in round brackets; the title of the article in quotation marks; the title of the journal in italics; the issue information (which may include volume, part number, month, date); page numbers.

Example:

Murdoch, J. (2007) 'Give consumers a green option', Marketing Week, 6 (5). 31 May, pp.6-8.

 

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