Appendix I: Referencing
Introduction
Acknowledging the sources of other writers’ words and ideas is important for two reasons. Firstly, it informs the reader who might wish to consult
the source for himself and, secondly, it avoids plagiarism by discharging a moral and legal obligation to the original writer. But referencing is not
always necessary. When another writer’s work has merely been consulted rather than quoted or paraphrased, no text reference is required; it
need only be acknowledged in the bibliography.
Deceased people are usually referred to in the past tense if their ideas are mentioned only briefly (The early Greek philosopher, Thales, believed
all matter to be composed of water), and in the present tense if their ideas are to be the subject of analysis or development (Plato argues that the
political rulers, the Guardians, should lead lives of austerity and forbearance).
Finally, the choice of referencing system will rarely be the writer’s. Most universities or their faculties will stipulate the system required, sometimes
with their own house variations, so that students should prefer the advice of their tutors to anything that follows here.
Page contents:
oxford referencing
harvard referencing
vancouver referencing
abbreviations
The oldest of the three main systems, Oxford referencing is traditionally associated with the humanities. It uses superscripted (or less commonly
bracketed) numbers in the text that correspond to full citations found either in footnotes at the bottom of the page or in a list called Notes located
between any appendices and the bibliography. In texts with chapters, a separate list is given for each chapter, either collectively at the end of the
script or separately at the end of each chapter.
Text example –
Trevelyan writes: ‘The days that followed the flight of James saw even
greater confusion in England than the months which preceded the
Restoration or those which ushered in the Civil War. Then there had
been too many claimants to legal authority; now there was no legal
authority at all’.1 As Carr points out, however, writing history ‘is a
process of selection in terms of historical significance’.2
The two superscripted numbers direct the reader to the full citations. If footnotes are used, these citations appear in a smaller font beneath the last
line of text on the page, sometimes separated by a horizontal line.
Full citations –
Assume this sentence to be the last line of text on the page.
1 G. M. Trevelyan, England Under the Stuarts, Methuen, London, 1977, p. 429.
2 E. H. Carr, What is History?, Penguin, London, 1976, p. 105.
Or –
Assume this sentence to be the last line of text on the page.
____________
1 G. M. Trevelyan, England Under the Stuarts, Methuen, London, 1977, p. 429.
2 E. H. Carr, What is History?, Penguin, London, 1976, p. 105.
Each text reference on a single page is assigned a new number, even if the source has been referenced earlier. For example, were a second
reference to Trevelyan to appear on our sample page following the reference to Carr, it would be numbered 3. Text numbering begins anew on
each page.
If Notes are used instead of footnotes, the full citations appear in the same font size as the text. The Notes appear at the end of the script
immediately before the bibliography or (optionally in the case of books) at the end of each chapter –
NOTES
1. G. M. Trevelyan, England Under the Stuarts, Methuen, London, 1977, p. 429.
2. E. H. Carr, What is History?, Penguin, London, 1976, p. 105.
3. etc.
When the Notes appear in one list at the end of the script, numbering in the text does not begin anew on each page but continues throughout
the script. When the Notes are sectioned into chapters, numbering begins anew with each chapter.
The Oxford system has three advantages over Harvard. Firstly, it creates minimal disruption to the text by allowing no other words to interrupt it;
any additional information, including authors’ names and page references, appears in the footnotes or Notes. Secondly, in the case of footnotes
(but not Notes), citations are quickly consulted without the need to turn pages. And thirdly, the system allows the writer to do more than merely
reference sources by enabling her to transfer parenthetic information of her own out of the text.
Text example –
Trevelyan writes: ‘The days that followed the flight of James saw even
greater confusion in England than the months which preceded the
Restoration or those which ushered in the Civil War. Then there had
been too many claimants to legal authority; now there was no legal
authority at all.’1
____________
1 G. M. Trevelyan, England Under the Stuarts, Methuen, London, 1977, p. 429. Clearly, no
historian can record every event, even assuming there is concurrence on what constitutes
an event. He must necessarily, therefore, choose those events he considers to be significant.
Among the disadvantages, however, is that the reader has no way of knowing which kind of note has been made until he consults it. He might, for
example, be uninterested in the sources but will want to read the author’s own comments. This is an easy enough task with footnotes, when all he
has to do is glance down the page, but highly inconvenient when the notes are at the end of the chapter or script. As we shall see, with the Harvard
and Vancouver systems, all authorial asides are kept in the text.
Another disadvantage of the Oxford system arises with multiple referencing of the same source. For while the Harvard and Vancouver systems give
citations only once, the Oxford practice is to include a new citation every time a source is referenced. For example, the first reference to Trevelyan
might have appeared on page ten and the second on page 550. All the reader finds on the latter page is, Trevelyan, op. cit., p.128. If he cannot
remember the title of Trevelyan’s book, he then has to search back through the numbers, a particularly irksome task in the case of footnotes.
In traditional Oxford referencing, moreover, the reader has to be acquainted with several Latin abbreviations such as ibid., loc. cit. and op.cit.
Yet another disadvantage of footnotes is that a page can use so many that they take up more space than the principal text.
The order of information
Book citations
• author’s initial(s) or first name(s)
• author’s last name
• title of book (italicised)
• edition (if not the first)
• publisher
• city of publication (if known)
• year of publication
• page number(s)
Subsequent citations of a book
• author’s last name
• the appropriate Latin expression (see abbreviations)
• page number(s)
Citations of additional books by the same author
Full citations are required.
Secondary citations
When citing an author’s work that has in turn been cited by another, a full citation of each work is required –
• initial(s) or first name(s) of cited author
• last name of cited author
• title of book (italicised)
• edition (if not the first)
• publisher
• city of publication (if known)
• year of publication
• page number(s) (if relevant)
This is followed by in, then precisely the same information on the citing author. For example –
1. James Fitzjames Stephen, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, Chicago
University Press, Chicago, 1991, in Jonathan Wolff, Political
Philosophy (Revised Edition), Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2006,
p. 121.
Citations of chapters in edited books
• initial(s) or first name(s) of author of chapter
• author’s last name
• title of chapter (in single quotation marks)
• ‘in’
• editor’s initial(s) or first name(s)
• editor’s last name
• ‘(ed.)’ (typed thus in round brackets)
• title of edited book (italicised)
• edition (if not the first)
• publisher
• city of publication (if known)
• year of publication
• page number(s)
For example –
1. Sir Isaiah Berlin, ‘Historical Inevitability’, in Patrick Gardiner (ed.),
The Philosophy of History, Oxford University Press, London, 1974,
pp. 161–86.
Citations of articles in journals
• author’s initial(s) or first name(s)
• author’s last name
• title of article (in single quotation marks)
• title of journal (italicised)
• volume number and issue number
• date of publication
• page number(s)
Citations of newspaper articles
• author’s initial(s) or first names(s) (if known)
• author’s last name (if known)
• title of article (in single quotation marks)
• name of newspaper (italicised)
• date of publication
• page number(s)
Citations of television and radio programmes
(a) interviews
• name and capacity of interviewee
• title of programme (italicised)
• broadcasting channel or station
• time of broadcast
• full date of broadcast
(b) documentaries
• name of presenter (if known)
• title of programme (italicised)
• title of series (if relevant)
• broadcasting channel or station
• time of broadcast
• full date of broadcast
Citations of internet sources
• author’s initial(s) or first names(s) (if known)
• author’s last name (if known)
• title of article or document (in single quotation marks)
• web site host (if other than author (italicised): e.g. Wikipedia)
• web address: www...etc.
• most recent date of site revision (if known)
• date accessed (in round brackets)
House variations
Some Oxford house styles no longer use Latin expressions. A second citation of Trevelyan’s book, for example, might simply be entered –
2. Trevelyan, p. 276.
Some house styles have also discarded quotation marks for the titles of articles, italics for the titles of books and most of the capitalisation of
both –
1. G. M. Trevelyan, England under the stuarts, Methuen, London, 1977, p. 429.
Internet (www) addresses might be bracketed.
The Harvard referencing system is characteristically used in the natural and social sciences, but has increasingly become the preferred method
of other disciplines. All that appear in the text are the author’s last name, the year of publication and, if relevant, the page number(s). The
author’s initials are used only when they are necessary to distinguish him or her from another with the same last name. The information is
enclosed in round brackets.
But the author’s name is not included in the brackets if it appears in the writer’s sentence –
Text example –
Trevelyan (1977: 429) points out that, while there had been multiple claims
to legal authority immediately before the Restoration, after the flight of
James there was none at all.
Trevelyan is part of the sentence and is not, therefore, bracketed. When the author’s name does not appear in the sentence, it must, of course,
appear in the brackets –
Text example –
While there had been multiple claims to legal authority immediately before
the Restoration, after the flight of James there was none at all (Trevelyan,
1977: 429).
Note that the year of publication and the page numbers are separated by a colon, and that no p. or pp. abbreviations precede the latter. Full
citations appear at the end of the script in a list headed References, Reference List or End-Text Citations and arranged alphabetically by
authors’ last names.
Full citations –
REFERENCES
1. Berlin, Sir Isaiah (1974), ‘Historical Inevitability’. In Gardiner, Patrick
(ed.) (1974), The Philosophy of History, London: Oxford University Press.
2. Carr, E. H. (1976), What is History, London: Penguin.
3. Trevelyan, G. M. (1977), England Under the Stuarts, London: Methuen.
The Harvard reference list is easier to manoeuvre through than the footnotes or notes of the Oxford system, each source having only one citation
no matter how many references are made to it. Moreover, the reader is guaranteed immediate access to the author’s name in the text, information
that is provided by the Oxford system only if the writer chooses to include it. The drawbacks are that (a) the reader always has to turn pages to find
the citations, (b) the text suffers greater disruption by including the author and date, rather than simply a number, and (c) the system cannot
accommodate the writer’s own incidental comments in the references. It is also a system more suited to the sciences than the humanities, where
original publication dates are less important (as, for example, with the works of Livy, Hobbes or Jane Austen).
The order of information
Book citations
• author’s last name
• author’s initial(s) or first name(s)
• year of publication (in round brackets)
• title of book (italicised)
• edition (if not the first)
• city of publication (if known) followed by a colon
• publisher
Subsequent citations of a book
No subsequent citations are required in the References; there is one reference only. In the text, a second reference to a work would be written
in the usual way: author, year of publication and page number(s).
Citations of additional books by the same author
If a second book by the same author is cited and it has been published in a different year, the text references indicate the years in the usual way:
(Smith, 2007: 317) then (Smith, 2002: 46). The full citations in the References are listed in order of their appearance in the text, regardless of the
dates of publication. If the second work was published in the same year as the first, the years are suffixed by sequential letters in the text: (Smith,
2009a: 218) then (Smith, 2009b: 173). Each requires a full citation in the References. For example –
REFERENCES
1. Jones, J. (2011a), Cultural Identity and the Global Economy, Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
2. Jones, J. (2011b), One World, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard
University Press.
Secondary citations
When citing a work that has in turn been cited in another, only the first work is referenced in the text. Both sources, however, require full
citations in the References. For example, if Jones has quoted Smith, only Smith's work is cited in the text (author and date). In the References,
Jones's full citation appears after Smith's –
• last name of quoted author (i.e.Smith)
• initial(s) or first name(s) of quoted author
• year of publication (in round brackets)
• title of book (italicised)
• edition (if not the first)
• page number(s) (in round brackets)
• city of publication (If known) followed by a colon
• publisher
This is followed by a full stop, the word In, then precisely the same information on the work in which the original citation appeared (i.e. Jones's). In
such cases, note that the page numbers are transferred from the text to the References.
Citations of chapters in edited books
• last name of author of chapter
• author’s initial(s) or first name(s)
• year of publication (in round brackets)
• title of chapter (in single quotation marks)
• ‘In’
• editor’s last name
• editor’s initial(s) or first name(s)
• ‘(ed.)’ (typed thus in round brackets)
• year of publication (in round brackets)
• title of book (italicised)
• edition (if not the first)
• page number(s) (in round brackets)
• city of publication (if known) followed by a colon
• publisher
Citations of articles in journals
• author’s last name
• author’s initials
• date of publication (in round brackets)
• title of article (in single quotation marks)
• title of journal (italicised)
• volume and issue numbers (if applicable) (issue number in round brackets)
• page number(s)
Citations of newspaper articles
• author’s last name
• author’s initial(s) or first name(s)
• date of publication (in round brackets)
• title of article (in single quotation marks)
• name of newspaper (italicised)
• page(s)
Citations of television and radio programmes
(a) interviews
• last name of interviewee
• initial(s) or first name(s) of interviewee
• capacity of interviewee
• date and time of broadcast (in round brackets)
• title of programme (in single quotation marks)
• broadcasting channel or station
(b) documentaries
• last name of presenter (if known)
• initial(s) or first name(s) of presenter
• date and time of broadcast (in round brackets)
• title of programme (italicised)
• title of series
• broadcasting channel or station
Citations of internet sources
• author’s last name (if known)
• author’s initial(s) or first name(s)
• title of article or document (in single quotation marks)
• web site host, if other than author (italicised): e.g. Wikipedia
• ‘Internet’ or ‘Online’
• ‘Available from www... etc.’
• ‘[Accessed (date)]’ (typed thus in square brackets)
House Variations
House styles are abandoning the practices of italicising book titles and enclosing the titles of articles in quotation marks. The capitalisation of
titles is also often minimised, with the initials letters of all but the first word in lower case. Internet (www) addresses might be bracketed.
The Vancouver referencing system was established by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) which formed in that city
in 1978 and has become the standard system for medicine and clinical science. But it has also been adopted by other disciplines where multiple
referencing is common. Such disciplines see a great deal of authorial collaboration, so that the contributors to one medical article might number
as many as five or six. Since the inclusion of all the authors’ names in the text would be highly disruptive, the Vancouver system, like the Oxford,
uses numbers in the text rather than the names and dates of the Harvard system. Each cited text is assigned a reference number in order of its
appearance and keeps that number for all future citations. Full citations are listed at the end of the script in a numerical Reference List.
For example, if the first reference is a book by Trevelyan, all subsequent references to it will be indicated in the text by (1). If it is cited only once,
the page reference appears in the Reference List; if more than once, the page references appear in the text (otherwise a new number would have
to be assigned to the source every time it is cited).
Text example of only one citation of a work –
Trevelyan (1) points out that, while there had been multiple claims to
legal authority immediately before the Restoration, after the flight of
James there was none at all.
There is only one citation, so the page reference will appear in the Reference List.
Text example of multiple citations of a work –
Trevelyan (1, p. 429) points out that, while there had been multiple claims
to legal authority immediately before the Restoration, after the flight of
James there was none at all. He further maintains (1, p. 512) that…
There is more than one citation, so the page references appear in the text.
The full citations in the Reference List at the end are then arranged numerically in order of appearance rather than alphabetically –
REFERENCE LIST
1. Trevelyan, G. M., England Under the Stuarts, London: Methuen, 1977,
p. 429.
2. Carr, E. H., What is History?, London: Penguin, 1976, p. 105.
3. Berlin, Sir Isaiah, ‘Historical Inevitability’. In Gardiner, Patrick (ed.),
The Philosophy of History, London: Oxford University Press, 1974,
pp. 161–86.
As already mentioned, the most important advantage of the Vancouver system is its minimisation of text disruption with multiple referencing. Instead
of writing out the authors’ names every time they occur, as is required in the Harvard system, they are represented by their reference numbers –
Many authorities (3, 7, 9) argue that…
The Oxford system, on the other hand, would require three more footnotes or three more entries in the Notes.
The order of information
Book citations
• author’s last name
• author’s initial(s) or first names
• title of book (italicised)
• edition (if not the first)
• city of publication (if known) followed by a colon
• publisher
• year of publication
• page number(s)
Subsequent citations of a book
Subsequent citations of a source are indicated in the text by the page number(s) after the reference number –
(4, p. 374)
No subsequent citations are necessary in the Reference List.
Secondary citations
As for book citations above. Then In followed by the same information on the citing source.
Citations of articles from edited books and journals
• author’s last name
• author’s initial(s) or first name(s)
• title of article or chapter (in single quotation marks)
• ‘In’
• last name(s) of editor(s) (if applicable)
• ‘(ed.)’ (typed thus in round brackets)
• title of book or journal (italicised)
• volume and issue numbers (if applicable)
• date of publication
• page number(s)
Citations of newspaper articles
• author’s last name
• author’s initial(s) or first name(s)
• title of article (in single quotation marks)
• title of newspaper (italicised)
• date of publication
Citations of internet sources
• author’s last name
• author’s initial(s) or first name(s)
• website title
• access date
• latest date of website
• page title if applicable
• web address: ‘www...etc.’
House variations
Text reference numbers might be bracketed, superscripted or both, internet (www) addresses might be bracketed and the titles of articles might
be written without quotation marks.
Most of the following abbreviations, especially those in Latin, are used mainly with Oxford referencing, but others are common to all systems.
Cf. or cf. – (confer) ‘compare’. Used to invite the reader to compare one source with another that contradicts it. If Smith is quoted claiming that
the economy is improving but Jones claims that it is not, we can write after Smith’s quotation (cf. C.Jones,…). The expression is often wrongly
used merely to mean ‘consult’.
ch. / chs. – chapter(s).
ed., Ed. – editor, edition.
et al. – (et alii.) ‘and others’. Used to indicate multiple authorship. When more than two authors have collaborated on the same work (some
referencing systems insist on more than six), only the first author is cited followed by et al.
et seq. – (et sequentia) ‘and the following pages’. For example, p.321 et seq. Less common today than f. (see next entry).
f. / ff. – and the following page(s).
Ibid. or Ib. – (ibidem) ‘in the same place’ as the last referenced work. Used to avoid duplicating a full citation when the work is the same as the one
immediately before. For example, if a book by Jones is cited on two consecutive occasions, the second citation is indicated by Ibid. followed by the
page number(s), if different. But if one or more citations by other authors intervene, loc. cit. or op.cit. is chosen (see below).
loc. cit. – (loco citato) ‘in the passage already cited’. Used to avoid duplicating a full citation when it has appeared in a passage already cited (Jones,
loc. cit.), but only if other sources intervene (see Ibid.).
n. d. – no date.
n. p. – no place of publication.
n. pag. – no pagination.
op. cit. – (opere citato) ‘from the work already cited’. As loc. cit. but in reference to a complete work (e.g. a book) rather than a passage.
p. / pp. – page(s).
q.v. – (quod vide) ‘which see’. Used in cross referencing to indicate that a word or an idea is explained elsewhere in the text (e.g. in a glossary).