REFERENCING
Why should you reference?
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Referencing provides evidence that you have researched your topic thoroughly and have found sources
that support your argument or the information you are providing in your document. Your document
appears more authoritative.
Referencing is an acknowledgement of another person’s intellectual work, which rightfully belongs to
that person.
If you use another person’s work without acknowledgement it is called plagiarism. Plagiarism is the
taking, using, and passing off as your own the ideas or words of another.
When to reference
You should reference if you:
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quote (use their exact words)
copy (use their figures, tables or structure)
paraphrase (use their idea in your own words)
summarise (give a brief account of their ideas)
How to reference
You identify your source of information by making reference to it:
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in the text of your report or essay (called in-text referencing)
in a list at the end of your report or essay (called a reference list or citation list).
In-Text Referencing
When you cite (identify) references in the text of your report or essay using the Harvard Style, you should include
the following pieces of information.
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Surname(s) of the author or authors
Year of publication
Pages numbers if appropriate
Include page numbers when you quote, paraphrase, summarise or copy from a particular page or group of
pages. If including page numbers, put a comma after the year and the letter p. (or pp.) before the numbers.
Example: A table in a recent study shows the weekly totals for road accidents in 2003 (Smith & Brown
2003, p. 123).
This peculiar species was first described in 1980 (Young 1981, pp. 76-78).
Do not include page numbers when the information comes from a larger proportion of the author’s work than can
easily be identified by a page number or page range.
Example: A recent study has shown that more road accidents occur during the school holidays (Smith &
Brown 2003).
If there is more than one publication by that author cited for that year, include a lower case letter after the year
to distinguish them.
Example: (Smith 2001a), (Smith 2001b, p. 71).
If there is more than one author with that surname, include their initials as well. Example: (Smith, A. B. 2002),
(Smith, L. 1999),
If you are including the author's name as part of you sentence, then put the initial in front of it. Example: L.
Smith (1999) argues that ...
If you are citing two or more sources in the same place in your text, separate the references with semicolons.
Example: (Smith 1999; Brown 2000).
Two ways of citing your reference
There are two ways in which you can put your reference into your text.
1. Give prominence to the information
Example:
It has been argued that the relative seriousness of the two kinds of compilation error differs
from situation to situation (Smith & Jones 2001, p. 45).
2. Give prominence to the author
Example:
Smith and Jones (2001, p. 45) have argued that the relative seriousness of the two kinds of
compilation error differs from situation to situation.
Either way is acceptable and your use of these two approaches will depend on how you want to structure your
sentences.
What if there is no author, or the author is not known?
If the document was published or sponsored by a corporate body, government agency or some other
organisation, then use the name of that organisation.
For example: (The Examiner 10 Jul. 2004, p. 7), (UNESCO 1999).
If the document has an editor rather than an author, then put the abbreviation 'ed.' in front of the name.
For example: (ed. Smith 2004), or: edited by Smith (2004).
If none of these are known, then use the title of the document.
For example: (The Yeti is real 2004).
What if there are lots of authors?
For two or three authors, enter all the surnames.
For example: (Dark, Maclean & Weatherhead 2003).
If there are more than three authors, enter the first surname only, followed by the expression et al. which
means and others.
For example, a book with authors K. Adams, R. Grose, D. Leeson and H. Hamilton, published in 2003 would be
cited as: (Adams et al. 2003).
What if there is no date?
If you know roughly when the document was published, put a 'c.' (an abbreviation for circa or about) before the
date. Example: (Peal c.1860).
If you think you know the year but are not sure and have no way of checking, put a '?' in front if it. Example:
(Swift ?1922).
Lastly, if there is no way you can establish the publication date, then use 'n.d.' (no date). Example: (Frederick
n.d.).
Your Reference List
The reference list is arranged alphabetically and placed at the end of your report or essay.
It includes full details of all the sources that you cited in your text. It does not include any sources you consulted
but did not cite in your text.
The list will be alphabetical by author's surname, except where the author is unknown. In this case the entry is
by title, with the titles interfiled between the author entries and with any leading 'A', 'An' or 'The' ignored in the
filing.
Separate each piece of information in the citation with a comma, except title and subtitle. If there is a subtitle,
separate this from the title with a colon. End each citation with a full stop.
All entries will include a title and most will have an author and a publication date, along with other information.
The other information will vary, depending on whether your source is a book, journal, video, web page or
something else. Details for the more common media are listed on the following pages.
Books
For a book, you should include the the following pieces of information in the order given below.
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author’s surname(s) and initials
year of publication
title of book, in italics or underlined. Only use upper case for the first letter of the title and for proper
names in the title
series title and volume number, if any
edition, if not the first, e.g. 2nd edn, 3rd edn
publisher
place of publication
page numbers, if applicable, preceded by p. or pp.
Examples:
Smith, J. & Brown, F. 2002, Road kill: the modern epidemic, 2nd edn, Angus & Robertson, Sydney.
De Rosa, C., Dempsey, L. & Wilson, A. 2004, The 2003 OCLC environment scan: pattern recognition,
OCLC, Dublin, Ohio.
Samuels, W. 1994, 'The War of the Roses', Encyclopedia Britannica, 16th edn, vol. 9, Encyclopedia
Britannica Inc., Chicago, p. 687.
Richardson, S. 2002, 'The Linux challenge' in R. Flannigan (ed.) The business impact of operating
systems, O'Reilly, Cambridge.
In the last two examples we have cases where the author is responsible for only a part of the book being cited.
Samuels has written an article for an encyclopedia and Richardson one chapter in a book. In these cases we put
the article or chapter title in single quotes, to distinguish it from the title of the book, which is in italics.
Periodical Articles
For a periodical (journal, magazine or newspaper) article, include the following pieces of information in this order:
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author’s surname(s) and initials (or full given name)
year of publication
title of article (in single quotation marks)
title of journal or periodical (in italics or underlined)
volume number (if applicable)
issue number or dates or other identifier (if applicable)
page number(s), preceded by p. or pp.
Examples
Smyer, T. 1999, 'A typology of consumers of institutional respite care', Clinical Nursing Research, vol. 8,
pp.26-51.
Houde, S. C. 2002, 'Methodological issues in male caregiver research : an integrative review of the
literature', Journal of Advanced Nursing, vol. 40, no. 6, pp. 626-640.
'Out of the shadows, into the world' 2004, The Economist, June 19-25, pp. 26-28
Oakes, L. 2004, 'Campbell's scoop', The Bulletin, 9 March, p. 18.
Sutherland, L. 2004, 'Staunch republican ever controversial', The Advocate, 10 Aug. 2004.
CD-ROMs, videos and other media
The references for video recordings, films, sound recordings, broadcasts, electronic media and so on are very
similar to those for books, but with the addition of medium (e.g: videorecording).
In most cases there will not be a clearly identifiable author for these media.
Citations of broadcast material should also include the date of broadcast after the place.
Examples
Dolphins and the environment 2002, videorecording, BBC, London.
Learning to Live 1964, motion picture, Fine Films Inc., London.
The search for truth 1999, radio program, ABC Radio, Sydney, 16 June.
World War II 2001, CD-ROM, World Book, New York.
World Wide Web pages
For Web pages the following pieces of information should be present.
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author – the person or organisation responsible
for the source
year of publication
title, in italics or underlined
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name and place of the sponsor of the source (if
available)
date of viewing
URL (Internet address) in angle brackets
If the document title is hard to identify then the title appearing in the title bar at the top of the screen may be
used.
If there is no date on the document then it may be that the date is present in the document metadata. You can
see the metadata in Internet Explorer by going to the View menu and selecting Source. In Mozilla (Netscape) you
can often find the page file date in Tools menu, Page Info.
Examples
Lee, I. 2004, A research guide for students, viewed 16 July 2004, <http://www.aresearchguide.com>.
Bournemouth University 2004, Guide to citing Internet sources, viewed 30 Feb. 2004,
<http://www.bournemouth.ac.uk/library/using/guide_to_citing_internet_sourc.html>.
Terraforming Mars n.d., viewed 12 Jan. 2004, <http://www.geocities.com/~/1885/Terraforming.html>.
SUDftw 2004, The Jackalope conspiracy, viewed 18 July 2004, <http://www.sudftw.com/jackcon.htm>.
Articles on databases accessed via the Web
These are usually periodical articles that have been published electronically. They should be cited in the same
way as conventional periodical articles, but with the addition of the date viewed and the name of the database
they were viewed in.
If the article is identified in the database by a unique document or article number, it may be useful to include
this also.
Examples
Hensiak, K 2002, ‘Abuse in nursing homes : consumers are being left in the dark’, Elder’s Advisor, vol. 4, no.
2, pp. 73-80, viewed 10 Feb. 2003, available from InfoTrac OneFile, A93454297.
Haig, J. & Fitzgerald, A. 2001, 'It's birthday time', Taxation in Australia, vol. 36, no. 1, pp. 6-14, viewed 10 Feb.
2003, available from Informit Search, 200112626.
Bush, S. 1998, 'The digital picture', Electronics Weekly, July 15, pp. 20-21., viewed 11 Aug. 2004, available
from InfoTrac OneFile, A21034934.
http://elearning.tafe.tas.edu.au/library/referencing/index.htm accessed on 4 July 2011