Version 1.2, Last updated: 22/03/2021 Citing References Advice for Students of the Florence Nightingale School of Nursing, Midwifery and Palliative Care on the consistent acknowledgement of print and electronic resources In any piece of research or written work you need to acknowledge or cite your sources of information. A list of references usually appears at the end of a piece of work. Each reference describes an item, usually published (for example a book, report or thesis) or part of an item (a chapter, journal article or electronic document). The reference will also provide essential details which enable the reader to locate the cited publications with ease. A bibliographic reference should, at a glance, answer several questions about the item cited: Who wrote it? Who published it? Where was it published? When was it published? The examples in this guide have been informed by APA Citation Style (6th Edition) available online from the Naval Postgraduate School’s Dudley Knox Library. The list of examples is not exhaustive as there are many more kinds of information available to students than those below. The APA have produced a great deal of guidance on using the APA 6th referencing style which we recommend you consult when needed. The importance of references The literature review and the process of compiling a comprehensive list of references about the items you have consulted are both important elements of the research process. An incomplete or inaccurate list of references reflects on the quality of your work and may devalue its impact. A detailed list of references is used to: • • • • • give proper credit to other people’s work and ideas, and to avoid plagiarism show that you have consulted widely, have recognised and acknowledged the relevant debates, arguments and practice in a given field substantiate any statement that you make signpost others to related works and prior publications enable others to check the evidence and accuracy of your information, and to consult texts which you have found relevant and useful Plagiarism Referencing your work correctly enables you to avoid plagiarism. The term plagiarism describes the act of taking and using another person’s thoughts, words, judgements or ideas as your own, without any indication that they are those of another person. It is a serious academic offence and can result in severe disciplinary action. The College statement on plagiarism can be found in King’s’ Governance Zone. Referencing Software Referencing software such as EndNote, Mendeley, Zotero, etc. will do most of the formatting of your citations and bibliographies on your behalf, significantly reducing the amount of time you spend on this aspect of your academic work. Libraries & Collections recommend students adopt a piece of Referencing Software as close to the start of their studies as possible. You may still need to tidy up some of your references, but this will be nowhere near as much work as typing them out manually. You can find examples of Referencing Software on the King’s Guide to Referencing, along with links to online tutorials and technical support for each software. APA 6th is usually part of the ‘standard’ styles available across all referencing software. Citation Conventions There are recognised conventions for citing the work of others when writing essays and journal articles, etc. In-text citations are placed at the point within the text at which reference is made to another’s work, and these refer the reader to the reference list (sometimes called a bibliography) which is usually placed at the end of the essay/article. Reference list or bibliography The terms reference list and bibliography are sometimes used interchangeably, but here we define bibliography as a list of consulted readings – for example a list of sources that you have studied but have not specifically cited in the text. A bibliography is not required for essays. By contrast, the reference list is defined as a list of cited sources. The sources listed in a reference list must match against the in-text citations and similarly, the in-text citations must have a matching entry in the reference list. Quoting In scientific writing the use of direct quotations is inappropriate, whereas in some subject areas in the Humanities or Social Sciences it is a recognised practice. In Nursing and Midwifery direct quotations should rarely be used. To make it clear when you are directly quoting from a source, use double quotation marks for short quotations or indentations for longer extracts, and include the page number in the citation. Paraphrasing Paraphrasing the words of others does not make them your own. It must always be clear that the ideas being expressed are those of the original author. Read the passage until you thoroughly understand it, and then write your own version without looking back too often to the original. A citation must still be given to acknowledge the source of the ideas Secondary Referencing The use of secondary referencing in scientific writing is strongly discouraged. You should never cite an article you have not seen in full. If it is impossible to read the original article, but you wish to include the findings of that research as reported in a review or textbook, then you must cite the article or book which refers to the original work, e.g.: Brown’s results cited by Jones (1999, p. 563) indicated that… Diagrams and Illustrations Scanned or electronic images included in written work should always be acknowledged by citation. If the work is to be published, permission must be sought from the original creator before inclusion of any graphic material. Formatting citations and references There are three main approaches to citing references: • • • in the author-date approach, the in-text citations are given using the author’s surname and the date (actually year) in brackets, while the reference list at the end of the document is arranged alphabetically the numeric approach uses numbers to indicate citations within the text, and the reference list at the end is ordered numerically the footnotes method uses superscripted numbers within the text to refer to footnotes at the bottom of each page, in which the references are given in full If you are writing a paper for publication, the citation style is dependent on the editorial policy of the journal in which the item is to appear. Refer to the publisher’s instructions for authors. For your academic work in the School of Nursing and Midwifery you will need to use APA 6th edition, an author-date style. This guide will explain the style in more detail using examples of commonly cited sources. The APA 6th style in action The references are cited in the main body of the text by inserting the author’s surname and the year of publication in brackets at the relevant point. The reference list contains the sources you have cited in alphabetical order by the author or primary author’s surname. An example citation within the text of the work: Probing was used to ensure the credibility of the data and reduced the risk of socially desirable answers (Gonzales & Ortiz, 2015). The same citation as a full reference in the reference list: Gonzales, G., & Ortiz, K. (2015). Health insurance disparities among racial/ethnic minorities in samesex relationships: an intersectional approach. American Journal of Public Health, 105(6), 1106-1113. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2014.302459 Note the Author’s surname is the only line not indented. This is to make it easier to pick individual references from a long list on a page. APA 6th’s Rules for citations in the text • • when two or more references to the same author have been cited together they should be arranged in chronological order and separated by a semicolon, e.g. (Brown, 2003; Brown, 2006) Remember that the reference list should also order them in chronological order by date of publication when two or more references to the same author have been cited from the same year, differentiate them by using the letters a, b, and c as annotations, e.g. (Smith, 2004a, Smith, 2004b). Keep each year distinguished in the same way in the reference list (e.g. (2010a). etc.) and keep them in the same order. • • • • if two authors have the same surname, add their punctuated initials in the citation, e.g. (Smith T.H., 2002, Smith W., 2002) and order them alphabetically if you refer explicitly to an author in the text you don’t need to repeat their name in the citation; stating the year in brackets is sufficient, e.g. ‘Cook’s key paper on Hepatocellular carcinoma (1985) is often cited in this area.’ when quoting directly from a text, the page number on which the quote appears should be given after the year and a comma, e.g. (Jones, 2005, p. 255) if you cite the same source multiple times in a single paragraph, you do not need to repeat the date of publication each time you use the author’s name in one of your sentences. You should give a full citation, however, if you do not use the author’s name in the sentence, e.g. Greenhalgh (2014) argues that bias against qualitative research is changing. Greenhalgh says it is no longer seen as the preserve of social science. Her study shows that a qualitative approach can be a prerequisite for quantitative research (Greenhalgh, 2014). Rules for citations depending on the number of authors Rules for the number of authors’ names to include in a citation and in the reference differ between referencing styles, but when using APA 6th edition you are expected to do the following: Citing a source with two authors: If the work you are referring to has two authors, use &, e.g. (Gonzales & Ortiz, 2015). Citing a source with three to five authors The first time you cite this source, you need to use all of the surnames, e.g.: Silverman, Meyer, Sloan, Raffel, & Pratt (1997), using an ampersand before the final author. Subsequent citations of the same source will use only the first author’s surname followed by ‘et al.’, meaning ‘and others’, e.g.: (Silverman et al., 1997) Citing a source with six or more authors Your citations will use ‘et al.’ from the first citation onwards, as listing all authors would take up more space than is necessary. How they should look in the reference list: For sources with up to seven authors All authors names should be included. The final authors should be joined not by a comma but by an ampersand, e.g.: Lykke, N., Brewster, A., Davis, K., Koobak, R., Lie, S., & PetÅ‘, A. (2016). Writing academic texts differently : intersectional feminist methodologies and the playful art of writing: New York : Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. For sources with eight or more authors The first six authors are written normally, followed by a comma, then an ellipsis, followed by the name of the final author. This does mean that some authors’ surnames will not appear in print, e.g.: Woodcock, J., Pothecary, J., Poole, K., Porter, J., Lockheart, G., Koestle-Cate, J., . . . Farrier, V. (2019). The KLaSS Framework: Developing student information literacy skills at King's College London. The International Journal of Information Literacy, 9, 34-39. Citing a source authored by an institution or organisation When the publication is not written by an individual but is accredited to an organisation or institution, use the organisation’s name and the year of publication the first time it is cited, e.g. (British Medical Association, 1990). Subsequent citations can be given as, e.g. (BMA, 1990). Citing the NMC Code of Practice The first time the Code is referred to, the title should be cited in full and in italics, e.g. …according to the Code: Professional Standards of Practice and Behaviour for Nurses, Midwives, and Nursing Associates, hereafter referred to as the Code (Nursing and Midwifery Council [NMC], 2018). Subsequent citations can be given as, e.g. …according to the Code (NMC, 2018). Reference list examples for different document types Use single spacing within a reference entry and 1.5 spacing between entries. Journal Articles Gonzales, G., & Ortiz, K. (2015). Health insurance disparities among racial/ethnic minorities in samesex relationships: an intersectional approach. American Journal of Public Health, 105, 11061113. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2014.302459 Notice the page numbers are not prefaced with p. or pp. The doi is not always present in every reference, so if you can’t find one you should complete your reference without it. Book references Personal author/s Oostindie, G. (2003). Decolonising the Caribbean : Dutch Policies in a Comparative Perspective. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Edited book Brettell, C. & Sargent, C. F. (Eds.). (2001). Gender in cross-cultural perspective. (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall. Where the organisation is the author British Medical Association. (1990). The BMA guide to living with risk. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Referencing a chapter in a book Peach, L. J. (2001). Gender and War: Are Women Tough Enough for Military Combat? In C. Brettell & C. F. Sargent (Eds.), Gender in Cross-Cultural Perspective (3rd ed., pp. 22-32). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Online documents and websites Web Documents Do not italicise the title of a page within a website. But you should italicise the title of an individual online document, e.g. pdf document. Department of Health. (2010). Recognised, valued and supported: Next steps for the Carers. Retrieved from https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_ data/file/213804/dh_122393.pdf Websites A standard reference to an internet source should include the author, the date the information was published or updated (either year or full date) the title of the work, and the URL (including ftp://, telnet://, https://). Do not include the date you retrieved electronic information from a website unless the actual content you are citing could change over time. Where this information is needed, add the date you viewed, downloaded or printed the web source. Cochrane. (2020, 11 December). Cochrane vs. COVID-19. Retrieved January 5, 2021 from https://cochrane.org/news/cochrane-vs-covid-19 If your source has no date, use n.d. in place of the year. Conference Papers McCarthy, M., & Beins, B. C. (2005, January). Sharing the commitment to learning: Working toward a common goal. Paper presented at the National Institute on the Teaching of Psychology, St. Petersburg, FL. Reports and Consultation Papers If there is no individual author, reports and consultation papers will name the organisation as the corporate author. The reference may include a code, e.g.: British Council of Health Carers. (2011). Foundations of anti-oppressive practice. Leicester: BCHC (EG2 – 11/BC/22). Regulations and Guidelines For regulations and guidelines the year specifies their first implementation or publication. UK regulations always end with London: HMSO (Her Majesty’s Stationery Office), e.g.: The Care Homes Regulations 2001. London: HMSO. For guidelines, such as RCN guidelines, end with the name of the body that issued them, e.g.: Royal College of Nursing. (2021). Modern ward rounds best practice: the process. London: Royal College of Nursing. Codes of Practice Health & Health Care Professionals Council. (2016). Standards of conduct, performance, and ethics. London: HCPC. The NMC Code of Practice Nursing and Midwifery Council. (2018). The code: Professional standards of practice and behaviour for nurses, midwives, and nursing associates. London: NMC. Further information The authors of this guide gratefully acknowledge the use of the APA Citation Style (6th Edition) available online from the Naval Postgraduate School, linked on the King’s Guide to Referencing’s section on the APA style, or via Library Search by using the link above.
