Referencing Techniques 

WRITING A BIBLIOGRAPHY

What is a bibliography?
At the end of any piece of work (from an essay to an article for publication), you need to include a bibliography (list of references) of the materials used in writing it. Referencing is a standardised method of acknowledging the sources of information and ideas you have used. Usually you will identify these sources in the text (either with the author's surname and date in brackets, or with a number) and then include the full references as footnotes and/or as a list at the end of the work.

Why should I reference?
It is important to acknowledge the inclusion of ideas and quotations from other people to avoid charges of plagiarism. Including references allows the reader to locate and verify the original sources and to further their own research.

What should I reference?
You should reference all direct quotations, any ideas that you have summarised and any statistics that you have used. These may be found in any medium, e.g. book, journal, newspaper, webpage, email message, etc

What information do I need?
Whenever you take notes, or make a photocopy/print-out of information that you intend to use in your work, make sure that you make a full record of its source. It is always far more difficult and time-consuming to look up references later. The information that you will generally need is:

For a book Author or editor Title of book Year of publication Place of publication Publisher

For a journal article or book chapter Author of article/chapter Title of article/chapter Year of publication Journal title/Book title (and editor) Volume number Issue number Page numbers for the article

For electronic media Author or editor Year of publication Article title Type of medium Location (e.g. URL, database) Date accessed

How to set out a bibliography
Whichever style you use, you will usually set out a bibliography in the following way:
Alphabetically, according to the author/editor's surname If there is no author/editor, list the work alphabetically by title (missing out The/A/An) If there is more than one work by the same author/editor, list them chronologically (by date with the oldest first) If there is more than one work by the same author/editor