Reference Guide
We request that all members use the Harvard referencing style in their articles to help standardise the reference structure. The Harvard referencing system is outlined below, and further examples and links are provided on the right.
Many people, other than the authors, contribute to the making of a book, from the first person who had the bright idea of alphabetic writing through the inventor of movable type to the lumberjacks who felled the trees that were pulped for its printing. It is not customary to acknowledge the trees themselves, though their commitment is total.
In-Text Citations
A typical in-text reference in an author/date (Harvard) system might look like the one below. Note that the full stop comes after the reference to include it in the sentence to which it refers:
In contrast, only 13 percent of the children’s parents were aware of the data being publicly posted (Vine, 2008).
The basic principle is the same in all Harvard styles of referencing; you just need to include the author’s surname (or organisation's name if the author is not indicated) and the year of publication. If the author's name occurs naturally in the sentence, the year is given in parentheses, for example:
The Sophos Facebook survey (2007) showed that this is not the case …
When an author has published more than one cited document in the same year, these are distinguished by adding lower case letters (a, b, c, etc.) after the year and within the parentheses, for example:
During 2006, it is reported that 12% of the UK's net users had experienced online fraud with an average loss of £875 (BBC News, 2007b).
If there are two authors, the surnames of both should be given for example:
The outcome of qualitative methods is a process rather than a product (Bogdan and Biklen, 1992).
If there are more than two authors, the surname of the first author only should be given, followed by ‘et al.’ (Latin for 'and others', and usually written in italics). It should preferably be used in both the text and the reference list, and followed by a full stop as it is an abbreviation, for example:
This can often lead to further physical materialisation, such as deliberate self-harm or suicide (Hawton et al., 2006).
If a number of different authors are essentially saying the same thing or agree on a particular issue, you can include all the different authors in one reference and incorporated using the example below:
… research should be guided by the principles as outlined through professional judgement or past experience (Roberts et al., 2004; Allen, 1996).
If essential information is needed to illustrate a point but you are unable to find the original source, you may need to reference a reference. This is not recommended, but sometimes cannot be helped as the original publication may be extremely rare and hard to locate. After all, referencing should make it easy to find and verify the foundation of the work.
Cochran’s representative sample size formula (1977, cited in Bartlett et al., 2001).
Reference list
The reference list is a list of the actual references cited in the work. You are not needed to include references for sources that you have consulted but not directly used. If you omit a reference list, it is likely that your work will not be accepted. The most frequently used reference is that of a book. If you are using the first edition of a book you do not need to note that it is the first edition. However, you must always note subsequent editions of a book:
Bryman, A. (2008) Social Research Methods (3rd Edition Ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.
Furnell, S. (2005) Computer Insecurity. London: Springer.
If there are more than two authors, you must print each name, for example:
Ess, C. and Jones, S. (2002) ‘Ethical Decision-Making and Internet Research: Recommendations from the AoIR Working Committee’, Association of Internet Researchers. [Online] http://www.aoir.org/reports/ethics.pdf [Accessed 1st December 2007].
Hawton, K., Rodham, K. and Evans, E. (2006) By Their Own Young Hand: Deliberate Self-Harm and Suicidal Ideas in Adolescents (1st Edition Ed.). London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
If the book is an edited publication, use 'Ed' to distinguish the editor from contributing authors. If your material has come from a specific chapter, reference that chapter as part of the book, for example:
Lawson, D. (2004) ‘Blurring the Boundaries: Ethical Considerations for Online Research Using Synchronous CMC Forums’. In Buchanan, E. (Ed.) Readings in Virtual Research Ethics: Issues and Controversies (pp. 80-100). Hershey: Information Science Publishing.
For journals, the journal title is normally written in italics, not the article title, in the same way as chapter titles in books. The volume and issue numbers are usually included, with the issue number given in round brackets followed by the page number (p.) or numbers (pp.).
Ellison, N., Steinfield, C. and Lampe, C. (2007) ‘The Benefits of Facebook "Friends:" Social Capital and College Students’ Use of Online Social Network Sites’, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 12 (4): pp. 1143-1168.
For conference paper, follow the example below:
Gross, R. and Acquisti, A. (2005a) ‘Information Revelation and Privacy in Online Social Networks’, Workshop on Privacy in the Electronic Society, 7 November 2005 Alexandria. New York: ACM Press, pp. 71-80.
Since newspapers are published regularly you need to give the exact date of publication. Many newspaper articles do not have an author. When no author is named, reference the newspaper article with the newspaper name as the author.
Lanchester, J. (2006) ‘A Bigger Bang’. The Guardian. 4 November, The Guardian Weekend, pp. 17-36.
For web pages and electronic documents, it is important to include the access date as web based information is prone to constant change and sometimes disappears altogether. For example, the reference for a web page or document would appear in your reference list as follows:
Boyd, D. (2007) ‘Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace’, Apophenia Blog Essay. [Online] http://www.danah.org/papers/essays/ClassDivisions.html [Accessed 18th January 2008].
Evans, M. (2008) ‘ProBlogging: Money, Metrics and Mentalism in the Long-Tail world of the Web’ BCS South West Branch Meeting Presentations. [Online] http://www.bcs-southwest.org.uk/presentations/MikeEvans2008.pdf [Accessed 5th May 2008].
Facebook (2007a) ‘How does Beacon work?’. [Online] http://www.facebook.com/beacon/faq.php [Accessed 1st December 2007].
* References extracted from Davey, R. (2008) 'Assessing the Risks of Plymouth’s Presence on Social Networks', MRes Thesis, University of Plymouth.
Further Help
If you find any part of this guide confusing or feel that it is missing crucial information, please contact us and let us know.
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