Writing a list of references

At the end of all pieces of academic writing, you need a list of materials that you have used or referred to. This
usually has a heading: references but may be bibliography or works cited depending on the conventions of the system
you use. This consists of a list of materials that you have used at the end of the piece of writing and references to this list
at various points throughout the essay. The purpose of this is to supply the information needed to allow a user to find a
source.

When writing a biography a great depth of research will be needed, even if the writer is writing about someone
they know or knew. In addition to primary evidence such as birth and death certificates, private diaries and unpublished
interviews, writer will almost always need to take information from, use as a reference and maybe quote from the work
of others.

Therefore, at the end of your assignment you need a list of the materials you have used - a bibliography or a
reference list.

There are many ways of writing a list of references - check with your department for specific information.

1. The most common system is called the Harvard system. There is no definitive version of the Harvard system and
most universities have their own. But the one used here - the American Psychological Association style - is well
known and often used (American Psychological Association, 1983, 1994, 1999, 2001, 2010).
2. Gibaldi (2003) and Modern Languages Association (1998) are another ways.
3. Many scientists use a numerical system, often called the Vancouver style or BS 1629. [ref.] See International
Committee of Medical Journal Editors (1991) for more information.

What to Include in a Reference or Bibliography???

All of the sources you used in your research should be listed in the reference or bibliography. Write the list
alphabetically by author surname. The bibliography may include;

Books
Newspapers
Magazines
Journals
Reference works
Interviews
Online resources

GENERAL GUIDELINES
 Use heading: References.
 Page numbers should be included for all articles in journals and in collections.
 Use italics (or underlining in handwriting) for titles of books, periodicals, newspapers etc.
 Use alphabetical order. Alphabetise works with no author by the first significant word in the title.
 All co-authors should be listed.
 Indent second etc. lines
 Use (n.d.) if no date is given.
 If the author of a document is not given, begin the reference with the title of the document.

Punctuation—Periods are generally used between elements in reference lists. Commas separate the date from any page
reference in notes. A colon separates titles from subtitles, the place of publication from the publisher, and volume
information from page numbers for journal articles.
Fonts—Use italics for titles of periodicals (i.e., Journal of Social Activism) and books (i.e., Molecular biology in cellular
pathology). Use roman for journal article titles (do not use quotation marks).

Capitalization—Use sentence-style capitalization in titles and subtitles of works and parts of works such as articles or
chapters (i.e., Biology: Science for life). Use headline-style capitalization for titles of periodicals (i.e., Journal of Social
Activism).

Authors’ names—In reference lists, the first author’s last name is inverted (last name first). First names should usually
be provided, when available.

Abbreviations—Use ed. Or trans. For “editor” or “edited by” or “translator” or “translated by.” University may be
abbreviated Univ. Months may be abbreviated. Be consistent.

Publication Place—If more than one place is given, the first is generally sufficient. Do not abbreviate place names. Give
the city and state or country if the city is not well known for publishing or is ambiguous.

Electronic Resources—As much as possible, follow the same rules that apply to equivalent parts of print resources.
When in doubt, avoid italics and quotation marks and give as much information as may be useful. Too much is better
than too little.

Referencing Books
Books will be used in most research. To reference a book use the following style;

Books: Writer last name [comma] Writer first name [period] Full title of work (underlined)[period] City or country
where the work was published [colon] Name of publisher [comma], Date of publication [period]

Referencing Articles
In many cases periodicals, newspapers, journals or magazines may be used for research. To reference an article
use the following style;

Articles from Periodicals/ Newspapers/ Journals/ Magazines: Writer last name [comma] Writer first name [period]
[quotation mark] Article title [quotation mark][period] Name of journal/ periodical/ magazine and date of publication
(all underlined)[colon] Page numbers [period]

Referencing the Internet

In today's cyberspace world more and more official documents are becoming available online. It is also
increasingly acceptable to use the article based websites for research in addition to official home pages of celebrities
and news service websites. The majority of writers will use the internet for research to some degree so here is how to
reference it in a bibliography;

Internet Resources: Writer last name [comma] Writer first name [period] [quotation mark] Title of piece or article if
possible [quotation mark][comma] Title of website (but not the URL)[period] Name and location of the company/
organization/ website owner (look in the “Contact Us” section on the website for this information)*period+ Date the
source was accessed or printed followed by the full URL in brackets [period]

So do not shy away from writing a reference out of fear that it looks like too much of other people's work has
been used. A good researcher actually creates the opposite effect as it shows the world at large quite how much
research has gone into creating the topic and establishes it as a credible work.
Examples
References

I. Abercrombie, D. (1968). Paralanguage. British Journal of Disorders of Communication, 3, 55-59.

II. Barr, P., Clegg, J. & Wallace, C. (1981). Advanced reading skills. London: Longman.
III. Chomsky, N. (1973). Linguistic theory. In J. W. Oller & J. C. Richards (Eds.), Focus on the learner(pp. 29-35).
Rowley, Massachusetts: Newbury House.
IV. Fromkin, V. & Rodman, R. (1983). An introduction to language. London: Holt-Saunders.
V. Guiora, A. Z., Paluszny, M., Beit-Hallahmi, B., Catford, J. C., Cooley, R. E. & Dull, C. Y. (1975). Language and
person: Studies in language behavior. Language Learning, 25, 43-61.
VI. GVU's 8th WWW user survey. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.cc.gatech.edu/gvu/usersurveys/survey1997-10/
VII. Kinsella, V. (Ed.). (1978). Language teaching and linguistics: Surveys. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
VIII. Lipinsky, E. & Bender, R. (1980). Critical voices on the economy. Survey, 25, 38-42.
IX. Oller, J. W. & Richards, J. C. (Eds.). (1973). Focus on the learner. Rowley, Massachusetts: Newbury House.
X. Longman dictionary of contemporary English. (1978). London: Longman.
XI. Smith, F. (1978). Reading. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
XII. Stern, H. H. & Weinrib, A. (1978). Foreign languages for younger children: Trends and assessment. In V. Kinsella
(Ed.), Language teaching and linguistics: Surveys (pp. 152-172). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Writing a reference list

Exercise
Write a list of references for an essay from the information given below.

We don't know who wrote this newspaper article. It was in the Guardian newspaper on Saturday November 6th
this year. The title is: Divorced couple fight for frozen embryos. It is on page 18.

Someone called Andy Gillett wrote this web page, which is very useful, and he works at the University of
Hertfordshire. It was published on May 6th this year. The title is: Using English for Academic purposes. The URL
is http://www.uefap.com/ and I copied some information from it for this exercise on Sunday November 7th at
11.00 at night.

This was published in 1991 in Oxford and is a book by Professor John Sinclair. The tritle of the book is: Corpus,
concordance and collocation and the publisher was Oxford University press.

This small book is called: learning purpose and language use. It was written by Henry George Widdowson and
published in 1983. Like all his books it was published in Oxford by Oxford University Press.

This newspaper article was written by Jane Martinson in New York. The title of the article is: Microsoft faces
defining moment, and it was in the Guardian on page 10 on Saturday November 6th, 1999.

This book, like many dictionaries, does not say who wrote it. The title is: Collins COBUILD English language
dictionary and it was published in 1987 by HarperCollins in London.

An article in the journal: Applied linguistics. It was written in 1985 by E Bialystock and M Sharwood-Smith. The
title of the article is: Interlanguage is not a state of mind: An evaluation of the construct for second-language
acquisition. It was published in volume 6 and it is from page 101 to page 117.
 An article in a collection of articles edited by John Lyons. The title of the article is: the study of language
acquisition, and it was written by Robin Campbell and Roger Wales. It was on pages 242 to 260. The book of
articles was called: new horizons in linguistics and it was published in 1970 by Penguin in London.

An article by Robert Cooper called: What do we learn when we learn a language? It was published in 1970 in the
journal TESOL Quarterly. It is on pages 303-314 in volume 4.

A very important book written in 1965 byW F Mackey. It was called: Language teaching analysis. It was published
in London by Longman.

A book written by Noam Chomsky, who was professor of linguistics at MIT in Cambridge Massachusetts. It was
written in 1965 and the title of the book is: Aspects of the theory of syntax. It was published by his own
university.

A book by Lyle Bachman and Adrian Palmer written in 1996. The title is: Language testing in practice. It is
published by Oxford University Press in Oxford.

References Exercise - Answers

 Bachman, L. F. & Palmer, A. S. (1996). Language testing in practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
 Bialystock, E. & Sharwood-Smith, M. (1985). Interlanguage is not a state of mind: An evaluation of the
construct for second-language acquisition. Applied Linguistics, 6, 101-117.
 Campbell, R. & Wales, R. (1970). The study of language acquisition. In J. Lyons (Ed.), New horizons in
linguistics (pp. 242-260). London: Penguin.
 Chomsky, N. (1965). Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
 COBUILD English language dictionary. (1991). London: HarperCollins.
 Cooper, R. L. (1970). What do we learn when we learn a language? TESOL Quarterly, 4, 303-314.
 Divorced couple fight for frozen embryos. (1999, November 6th) The Guardian, p. 18.
 Gillett, A. (2005, May 6th). Using English for academic purposes. Retrieved November 7th, 2005 from World
Wide Web: http://www.uefap.com/
 Mackey, W. F. (1965). Language teaching analysis. London: Longman.
 Martinson, J. (1999, November 6th). Micosoft faces defining moment. The Guardian, p. 10.
 Sinclair, J. (1991). Corpus, concordance and collocation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
 Widdowson, H. G. (1983). Learning purpose and language use. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Further Study. (More guidelines and research can be found in zip file.)
o Best Link: (http://www.uefap.com/writing/)
o Also see: http://www.sgul.ac.uk/services/library/services/library/guides-help-sheets/help-sheets-pdfs/hscs-
referencing-2009-final.pdf,
o Google search: Pears & Shields (2008).
o See also: http://liblearn.osu.edu/tutor/les7/guide.html