References and bibliographies
When you are writing a report or paper you should state clearly what you have not thought out yourself. Using somebody else’s ideas or thoughts, without naming the source, is not allowed. Readers of your text may also have an interest in getting deeper into the subject you are writing about. Then it is helpful if there are clear references for further reading.
Let us start by clarifying some concepts:
Source
The source is where you got the information. Sources can be printed, like books, articles and reports, but also interviews, films and information on the web can be used as sources.
Text reference
In the text you are writing, you should state if something was taken from a source, this is done with a text reference which is often woven into the text.
Comfort (1997, p. 58) claimed that…
Reference
The source you describe in your text reference should be described in a more detailed manner in the reference. This is an example of a reference for a book:
Comfort, A. (1997). Budgets of parliaments : what are the procedures involved?. Luxemburg, EUROP.
Bibliography
The bibliography is sometimes also called a list of references and consequently it is a list of your references, which is placed at the end of your paper.
You can find an example of a bibliography at:
http://www.library.uwa.edu.au/education_training_and_support/guides/harvard_citation_style#reference
There are several different generally accepted styles which are used in order to refer to sources, write references and bibliographies. Some of the most frequently used styles at universities and university colleges are Harvard, MLA, APA and IEEE. Ask your teacher which style is used in your subject. It is important that you include enough information for the readers to be able to go from the reference to the books, articles, etc. that you use as sources.
Author, title and year are examples of information that should be included. What else should be included varies a little depending on what type of source you are referring to.
Below you will find some examples of how references can appear in a couple of different styles.
Book (MLA)
Henningsson, Kennet. A Fault Classification Approach to Software Process Improvement. Blekinge Institute of Technology Licentiate Series, 2005:03. Karlskrona: Blekinge Institute of Technology [Blekinge tekniska högskola], 2005.
Book (APA)
Henningsson, K. (2005). A fault classification approach to software process improvement. Karlskrona: Blekinge Institute of Technology [Blekinge tekniska högskola].
Journal article (MLA)
Jia, Lin, and Jing-qi Yuan. “Nonlinear Dynamic Compensation of Sensors and Its Realization Based on Dsp.” Journal of Data Acquisition & Processing 20.1 (2005): 96-9.
Journal article (APA)
Jia, L., & Yuan, J.-q. (2005). Nonlinear dynamic compensation of sensors and its realization based on DSP. Journal of Data Acquisition & Processing, 20(1), 96-99.
Documents on the web (APA)
Lacy, W. (2002). An introduction to geology and hard rock mining.
Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation. Science and Technology Series. Retrieved 2002-07-25, from the World Wide Web: http://www.rmmlf.org/SciTech/Lacy/lacy.htm
More information
See a film on how to interpret and use citations, references and bibliographies.
We have also created a “reference machine” where you can see how different references will appear depending on what you refer to (book, article, webpage) and what style you want to use.
There are several reference management programs which can help you to collect, write and use references. Read more in the Search guide section on reference management.
Many have written extensively about how to write references and how to cite sources, see this link collection:
Style guides and resources (2005). [Online] The Hague : IFLA. Available from: http://www.ifla.org/I/training/citation/citing.htm [2006-01-12]
Here you find a generator that will help you to create references which you can work further on and copy into your list of references:
Anna Stockman
2011-07-28
