Referencing

The purpose of a reference is to show that you are referring to someone else’s work, and to enable
your readers to find the original if they wish to check up on the information and find out more about it.

There are two common methods of referencing that we recommend you use in your essays and other
assignments; the Harvard system and the numbered system. Please follow the format and
punctuation specified below.

Havard System
Reference to a book should include:

Author(s) including initials, (year of publication), title, edition number if relevant, publisher, and
inclusive page numbers.

Referencing
The purpose of a reference is to show that you are referring to someone else’s work, and to enable
your readers to find the original if they wish to.

e.g. Marshall C. R. and Schopf J. W. (1996), Evolution and the Molecular Revolution, Jones and
Bartlett, 1-30.

Reference to an article in a book of edited articles by different authors should

include:

Author(s) including initials, (year of publication), title, in Editor, title, edition number if relevant,
publisher, and inclusive page numbers.

e.g. Whitehouse D. (1992), Principles of Genetics in Jones S., Martin R. and Pilbeam D. (Eds), The
Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Human Evolution, Cambridge University Press, 255-259.

Reference to an article in a journal should include:

Author(s) including initials, (year of publication), title of article, journal title, volume number, month or
week of publication or ‘part number’, date, and inclusive page numbers.

e.g. Saul H. (1996), Year of the Rat, New Scientist, 152, 2050, 32-38.

Reference to a Video, CD-ROM, or Internet item:

There isn’t - yet - a standard format for these: the aim should be to provide sufficient material for a
reader or librarian to trace the item quickly. We suggest the following format:

Title, writer or director (if known), publisher, (or TV Channel) date, VIDEO (or CD-ROM).
 For Internet material indicate at least the Author/Institution/Organisation, Internet Site (http://... or
gopher://.... etc.), and date of access.

Reference to a thesis:

Author(s) including initials, (year of publication), title of thesis. PhD thesis, University name.

e.g. Smith, A. B. (1995). Investigations on my favourite topic. PhD thesis, University of Brighton.

Bibliography

A bibliography is a listing of books, articles and other material generally relevant to the topic of the
article, but not otherwise used as a specific reference. Its purpose is to indicate to the reader books
etc that can be consulted for more information. The listing is made in exactly the same way as for your
reference list, but without page numbers.

Numbered System
 Insert numbers in the text to represent the reference e.g. At the top of Mount Everest the air
pressure is 0.28 bar1. You can use superscript numbers or numbers in square brackets [1]
 The reference list at end of the document is in numerical order and use the Havard system
(see above) to write it in the correct format
 Repeated references are given the earlier number and shown once in the reference list.
 When using authors names directly within the text put the number after the name e.g. Blake
et al.1 state that the air pressure at the top of Mount Everest is 0.28 bar.