Referencing styles

• Using references
• Reference styles

Using references

Referencing is acknowledging the sources of information that you have used in your written work at university (for example, in an essay or a report, or in your thesis.) You add references in the body of your work (as footnotes) and in the bibliography at the end. A reference acknowledges the work of the author you have consulted and enables another researcher to locate the item that you have cited.

Sources: their use and acknowledgement provides information on why, when and how to cite print and electronic sources, and will remind you that "the failure to provide proper acknowledgement of your use of another's work constitutes plagiarism." (See also Plagiarism information for students, University of Adelaide.)

To write clear and understandable references, you need to use a referencing style: this is simply a standardised way of writing down the elements of a book or journal article, or another source of information such as a web site.

Most university departments ask you to use a specific referencing or citation style, such as MLA or Harvard (the author-date system.) The most common types of referencing styles, with links to instructions on how to use them, are listed below. Check with your department to see if they recommend a particular style.

Reference styles

MLA style

For the MLA style, use this link to the MLA formatting and style guide (at the Online Writing Lab at Purdue University) or consult the print MLA style manual and guide to scholarly publishing in the library.

Harvard author-date system

There is an introduction to the Harvard system style on the library's website or you can use the Style manual for authors, editors and printers (6th ed.) Several copies of this book are held in the Barr Smith Library and the branch libraries. You can also consult Harvard system: in-text references (citations), reference lists and bibliographies (prepared by the Swinburne University of Technology.)

Other styles

Chicago manual of style
Includes "examples of Chicago style documentation" under Tools.

Vancouver style (University of Queensland Library guide)

Turabian citation guide (provided by Ohio State University)

CBE citation guide (provided by Ohio State University)

Research and documentation Online is useful because it provides sample papers, showing when and how to use references (using different styles, in a variety of different areas of study: Humanities, Social sciences, History and Sciences.) And Citation Machine is a website that formats your citations, in different styles, for you

The Columbia guide to online style / Janice R. Walker and Todd Taylor (1998) ; summary available here.

ONLINE! Citation Styles covers several different citation styles (e.g. CBE, Chicago) regarding the citation of electronic resources.

Citing maps - a useful website that explains how to cite maps, either from print or from the web

Updated by Jennifer Osborn (Jan 2008)