GES essay-writing guide (3)
Reference List or Bibliography
There is a subtle difference between a reference list and a bibliography. A
bibliography compiles, in alphabetical order of the author's surnames, all books,
articles, etc. used in the preparation of the essay. A reference list, by contrast, lists
only those books, articles etc. that have been cited and/or referred to in the essay
text. For the purpose of an essay, it is a minimum requirement that you have a
reference list.
Reference
list
Bibliogra
phy
Reference
expectation
s
A reference list should appear at the end of the essay, on a separate page, listing
in alphabetical order the author’s surnames, books, articles that have been cited,
and referred to in your essay.
The bibliography at the end of the essay should list on a separate page, in
alphabetical order of the author's surnames, all books, articles, etc. used in the
preparation of the essay. You must include all works referred to in the text. Works
read but not actually referred to in the essay can be listed under a heading such as
"other readings" or "references" if you consider that they were influential in your
writing.
As a guide, we would expect a first year, 2000 word essay to have about a dozen
references in either a reference list or a bibliography. We don’t think it too much
to expect that you can find a couple of useful references per week until your essay
is due in. As you progress to second semester, and then second and third year,
you should aim to expand the list and incorporate more relevant journal articles.
The suggested form for a bibliography is as follows (note that variations in
bibliographic form exist between different publishers - what is important is that
you are consistent in the style you adopt):
Books: Author's name(s), surname first, then initials, year of publication (and
they don’t have to be in brackets), book title underlined or in italics, details of
publisher and place of publication, (and number of pages - optional), e.g.:
Avery, T. E.
Minneapolis.
1977 Interpretation
of
aerial
photographs. Burgess,
Learmouth, N. & Learmouth, A.
Australia. Angus &Robertson, Sydney.
(1971) Regional
landscapes
of
Articles: Author's name and initials, date of publication, title of the article, name
of journal underlined or in italics, volume number, beginning and ending page
numbers of the article, e.g.:.
Friedman, J. R. P. (1991) ‘The concept of a planning region’.Land
Economics. 32: 1- 13.
Dodson, J. R. (1974) ‘Vegetation and climatic history near Lake Keilambete’,
Western Victoria. Australian Journal of Botany. 22: 709-717.
Internet sites: must include the full site address; date and time of access; along
with any citation internal to the document (e.g. author).
Miscellaneous: give
documentaries, etc.
full
details
of
figures,
tables,
reports,
interviews,
For more detailed information, please refer to the following sources:
Harvard
Guides
1. Monash University Harvard (in-text) citation guide found here
2. Hay, I. 2012 ‘Referencing and language matters’, in Hay, I. Communicating in
Geography and the Environmental Sciences, 4th edition, Oxford University Press,
Australia