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Referencing Styles

APA | HARVARD | MLA | VANCOUVER | OTHER

What is referencing?

What is referencing?

Referencing is a standardised method of acknowledging the sources of information and ideas you have used in an assignment. At the end of your essay, you need to include a list of references or bibliography of materials used in writing the assignment.

The most important aspects of using any style are consistency and accuracy.

Why do I need to reference?

  • to acknowledge the work of others and to avoid plagiarism

  • to allow the reader to verify quotations and use your sources to find further information

  • to enhance the credibility of your information

What do I need to reference?

  • direct quotations

  • ideas you have summarized

  • statistics

  • electronic sources, e.g. web pages, emails

Which style do I need to use?

There are two main systems of referencing, with variations within each system.

Author-Date, often called Harvard.

  • APA is a specific style of this system.

  • Harvard has many variations; differences are often very minor, concerning mainly punctuation and capitalisation.

Documentary-Note.

  • This system, which uses footnotes, is used mainly in the humanities, especially History.

  • A variation, the Vancouver system, is widely used in the medical sciences.

The styles used most frequently at JCU are explained here.

N.B. It is important that you find out from your lecturer which style you are required to use as it may vary from one School or one subject to another. There may also be variations within styles.

Before referencing

Take down the full bibliographic details including the page numbers from which the information is taken. Remember to do this as you use each item - it can be very time consuming to follow up references later.

  • For a book this refers to:
    author or editor
    year of publication
    title
    edition
    place of publication and publisher

  • For a journal article this refers to:
    author of article
    year of publication
    title of article
    journal title
    volume number
    issue number
    page numbers for the article

  • For electronic information this refers to:
    author or editor
    year of publication
    article title
    journal title
    the type of medium (e.g. CD-ROM, online)
    pages or length
    where available (e.g. URL, name of database, email address)
    access date

    (You may find some details are not available.)

Order of References in the Reference List or Bibliography

  • The list is arranged in alphabetical order of authors' surnames.

  • If a reference has no author, list it alphabetically according to the title. Ignore the words 'A' and 'The' at the beginning of a title.

  • If there are two references by the same author, list them in order of publication date with the older one first.

  • If references by the same author have been published in the same year, list them alphabetically by title. Letters a, b, etc. are placed after the year, e.g. (2001a), (2001b).

JCU Guides

Australian History

The Mariner Bachelor of Nursing Science Handbook 2006 : On-Campus [.pdf file, p.50-59] | External [.pdf file, p.56-65]

Occupational Therapy [.pdf file]

JCU Study Skills Online: APA Referencing

Other Web Guides

APA Style

Harvard and Vancouver Systems

CBE (Council of Biology Editors) Style

MLA Style

Documentary-Note

Chicago Style

The Chicago and Turabian styles use the note system, placing the bibliographic citations at the bottom of a page or at the end of a paper.

Turabian Style

  • Turabian referencing style
    Monash guide to the style based on Kate Turabian's A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations

Assorted Referencing & Style Guides

Guides to Online / Electronic Resources

Glossary

Bibliography See also Reference List
The bibliography contains sources cited in the essay, plus other sources that you consulted in your research but didn't quote, or material for background or for further reading.

Citation
This means indicating the sources used in writing an assignment. Citations are given at the end of the assignment as a list of references or bibliography. You also need to insert information into the text of your essay to show when you have used information from other people - this is known as citing in the text, by means of numeric references and footnotes or endnotes, or by the author-date or Harvard system.

Plagiarism
The theft of another author's work.

Reference List See also Bibliography
A reference list contains sources cited in the essay.