Referencing your ideas

Student with headphones in studying on tablet device

When you start university, you become part of a community that exchanges and builds on research and ideas. To be fair to yourself and others, you must acknowledge the source of your ideas and the information you've used in your writing. You do this by providing references so that others know where your research came from.

It's not that hard if you follow the rules.

Keeping track

Keep an exact record of what you have read. Ask yourself, "Do I have enough information to find this again?". You'll need the following information to put in your list of references at the end of your work:

Surname and initials of author(s) or editor(s).
Year of publication.
Title of book or article.
Name of journal (for an article) with the volume number and the part number, or publisher and place of publication (for a book). If there is more than one place of publication, use the first one. Only use the publisher's name, not the full title of the company.
Relevant page numbers (especially if you have a direct quote). Use 'p.' for one page and 'pp.' for more than one page.
You can also include the ISBN of the book if you wish.

Referencing authors

If there's just one author to refer to, you put the full details of the book or article in your list of references, e.g. the author's Surname. Initial (year) Name of the work. Publisher.

In the body of your text, put the author's surname and date in brackets like this: 'This is a quotation (Surname, Year).'

If the author's name is part of your sentence, just add the date in brackets. Then your reader can see it's a reference: 'Surname (Year) claims that ....'

If you use a direct quotation (i.e. exact words of the author), include a page number in case your reader needs help to find the quote: "Exact words as written by the author" (Surname, Year, p. XXX)'.

The first time you mention a source with multiple authors, give the surnames of up to two writers: 'Smith and Jones, 2007)'. If there are more, you can add the useful phrase 'et al.' to cover the others. If you mention them again, just name the first writer: '(Surname et al., 2006)'.

If the author is an organisation or a company

The first time you mention the source in your assignment, use the organisation's name and its abbreviation: '(Another Organisation Incorporated [AOI], date).'

This makes life easier if you mention the organisation again because you can shorten it to '(AOI, date)' and your reader will know exactly what you mean.

Web references and software

In general, when referring to a web or software source, you should include the following information:

Author (if known) or source (e.g. name of website)

(Year) (often at the bottom of the web page)

'Document or page title'

[Type of medium: in this case, online]

(Date of update if available)

Online at: web address

[Accessed date]

Sometimes documents appear in paper form as well as on the web, so reference the paper form and add '[online at: web address, accessed date]'.

Need more information?

There are lots of different referencing styles, so we've just provided you with the basics for now. Don't worry - you will get much more guidance on this from your university and your course tutor will tell you exactly which style to use.

There are also some useful online referencing resources and software that can help you.

The key thing for you to think about is how to keep a track of your sources when doing research so that you can reference well when you write up your lab report or essay.