Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Referencing is the practice of letting the reader of any written work know the source of
any idea, opinion or information included in the text. It is an acknowledgement of a piece
of writing by another author which has been referred to or quoted directly in a written
piece of work. Referencing enables the student to identify whose ideas or arguments they
are using. There are three specific reasons for using referencing:
To let the reader know whose ideas are being used. In the academic system, ideas are
a kind of property of those who develop them. To not acknowledge the source of
information, opens the student to accusations of plagiarism.
To enable the reader to check the information. The reader might want to go back to
that author’s original work for her/ himself and check the accuracy of the information.
To provide information for the reader. The current research into a topic might
produce an interesting book or journal article which may be new to the reader. If
referenced accurately, the reader will be able to find that book or article to get a fuller
grasp of the original material.
How referencing is done?
Different institutions and publications have different ways of citing references. We
suggest that all students use the Harvard System of referencing described here. Some
advantages of this style are:
It ensures one alphabetical list of all references in the text, facilitating easy
identification of sources.
Last minute additions and deletions can be made without having to renumber all
references.
Only one entry is necessary in the list even though the work may have been referred
to more than once.
There are two parts to the Harvard System, one relates to the in-text references and the
other to the reference list at the end of the text.
In-text references
General requirement for in-text references is that the writer must insert the surname of
the author whose idea/ information/ argument is being used, the year in which the work
was published, and the page number/s where the information is located. The underlying
principle here is that ideas and words of others must be formally acknowledged. The
reader can obtain the full source citation from the list of references that is supplied at the
end of the text.
When there are two authors, the names of both authors occur in every in-text reference.
For multiple author citations (three to five authors), the names of all authors must be
noted with the first reference, and then the reference is shortened to the name of the first
author with et al.
Thus, in the case of example (c) above, all later uses in the text would be:
For references with six or more authors, students must use et al. with the first reference
and provide the final citation in the references list:
(e) Jones et al. (1996:101-102) state that work stoppages often reflect ….
If two or more multiple author references shorten to the same et al form, making it
ambiguous, the student must give as many authors as necessary to make them distinct
before et al. Below is an example:
Occasionally the student may want to write about one author’s research (primary
reference) which is mentioned by another author (secondary reference). Both need to be
identified:
(g) Smith’s research in 1982 (cited in Hanson, 1998:55) found that ……; or
(h) Hanson (1998:55) in reporting Smith’s 1982 research maintains that …..
If the author that the student wants to reference has published more than one text in a
particular year and he/ she wants to reference more than one item from the same year in
the dissertation, then he/ she must add a, b or c after the date to distinguish the
publications both in the text and the reference list at the end:
(k) Strategic planning…. and is often not a systematic process (Robertson, 1998:210).
If the student is citing multiple works by the same author at the same time, they should be
arranged in date order:
(l) Several studies (Johnson, 1988; 1990a; 1990b; 1995) came to a similar conclusion
about the impact of management styles.
In example (l) there are no page references. This suggests that the writer is referring to
each publication in its entirety. Where several writers are referred to in the same context,
they should be listed by date and then alphabetically by first authors surnames, each
citation being separated from the next by a semi-colon:
(m) Reviews of research on religion and health have concluded that at least some type
of religious behaviours are related to higher levels of physical and mental health
(Ronald and Smith, 1992; Gortner, Larson and Allen, 1991; Levin and Vanderpool,
1991; Palomarana and Pendleton, 1991; Payne et al., 1991; Benner et al., 1987;
Appleton, Smith and Jones, 1984).
References with multiple authors cited in full imply that this is the first reference to those
citations in the study.
Online references
When acknowledging information obtained from a website and the author is unknown,
the following is used:
Larger quotations
Larger quotations should be indented in a separate paragraph in block format:
If part of the quotation has been omitted then this can be indicated by using three dots:
(q) Weir and Kendrick (1995:88) state that “networking is no longer solely within the
male domain … but is part of general staff interaction.”
It needs to be stressed that the student must use only three dots when omitting material
from quotations, four if the omitted material includes the end of the sentence.
Mitchell, J. and Smith, D. (2000) Decision theory: conduct, critique and utilization. 3rd
Edition. New York: Bantam Books.
An edited book
Swanepoel, B.J., Slabbert, J.A., Erasmus, B.J. and Nel, P.S. (eds.) (1999) The
management of employment relations: organizational level perspectives. Special student
edition. Durban: Butterworths.
Wellington, J.J. (ed.) (1986) Controversial issues in the curriculum. Oxford: Basil
Blackwell.
Basford, L. and Slevin, O. (eds.) (1995) Theory and practice of nursing: an integrated
approach to patient care. Edinburgh: Campion.
A chapter in a book
Capra, F. (1983) The systems view of life. In: Kendrick, K. and Jonathan, Y. (eds.)
(1983) The turning point: science, society and the rising culture. London: Fontana Press,
pp. 285-322.
Weir, P. (1995) Clinical practice development role: a personal reflection. In: Smith, A.
(ed.) (1995) Innovations in nursing management. London: Edward Arnold, pp. 5-22.
Phillips, E. R. (1957) The South African labour market. South African Journal of
industrial relations, May, 1(3), pp. 25-39.
Chopra, R (1998) Frustration and despair [letter to the editor]. The Daily News, Durban,
Monday, 21 June, p. 21.
Government publications
Department of Health (1996) Choice and opportunity: primary care: the future. CM 3390.
London: Stationery Office.
A thesis or dissertation
Ngubane, M.E. (2000) An investigation of the impact of affirmative action policy as a
strategy for removing discrimination in the workplace. Unpublished MBA dissertation.
High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire: Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College.
A secondary reference
Fidler, F. and Chemers, M. (1974) Leadership and effective management. Glenview,
Illinois: Scott Foresman and Co. Cited in: Lawrence, D. (1996) Leadership and
management. New York: Wiley.
Referencing electronic sources
References must be correct, complete and consistent.
Barnett, M. (1996) Management issues for the contemporary office [online]. London:
Eastern Highlands University. Available from:
http//easternhigh.ac.uk/busfac/resources/mico.html [Accessed 27 September 2000].
The term [online] indicates the type of medium and is used for all Internet resources.
[Accessed Date] is the date on which the document was viewed. This allows for any
subsequent modifications to the document. The term publisher can cover both publishers
or printed sources as well as organizations responsible for maintaining sites on the
Internet, such as the University of the Witwatersrand. If no specific author is cited ascribe
authorship to the smaller organizational unit:
Page, screen, paragraph or line number where the features are a fixed feature of the
online source (e.g. 5-21 indicating that it is page 5 of 21 pages; lines 100-150)
Labelled part, section, table, etc.
Any host-specific designation.
If the document does not include pagination or internal referencing system, the extent of
the item may be indicated in such terms as the total number of lines, screens, etc. (e.g. [35
lines] or [approx. 12 screens])
Allen, A. (1993) Changing theory in nursing practice. Senior Nurse, 13(1), 43-5.
Basford, L. and Slevin, O. (eds) (1995) Theory and practice of nursing: an integrated
approach to patient care. Edinburgh: Campion.
Burns, N. and Grove, S.K. (1997) The practice of nursing research: conduct, critique &
utilization. 3rd edition. London: Saunders.
Canetti, E. (2000) Crowds and power. Translated from German by C. Stewart. London:
Phoenix.
Department of Health (1996) Choice and opportunity: primary care: the future. Cm.3390.
London: Stationery Office.
Department of National Health (1990) National Health Service and Community Care Act
1990. pp. 20-37. London: HMSO.
Fiedler, F. and Chemers, M. (1974) Leadership and effective management. Glenview,
Illinois, Scott Foresman and Co. Cited in: Douglass, L.M. (1996) The effective nurse:
leader and manager. 5th Edition. St. Louis, Missouri: Mosby.
Marieb, E. (2000) Essentials of Human anatomy and Physiology: AWL Companion Web
Site [online]. 6th Edition. San Francisco: Benjamin Cummings. Available from:
http://occ.awlonline.com/bookbind/pubbooks/marieb-essentials/ [Accessed 4th July
2001].
Osman, S. (1998) R68m to cut NHS waiting lists. Guardian, Monday May 18 1998, p.8.
Proctor, P. (1998) The tutorial: combining asynchronous and synchronous learning. In:
Banks, S. et al. Networked Lifelong Learning: innovative approaches to education and
training through the Internet: Proceedings of the 1998 International Conference held at
the University of Sheffield. Sheffield, University of Sheffield. pp. 3.1 - 3.7.
Weir, P. (1995) Clinical practice development role: a personal reflection. In: K. Kendrick
et al. (eds) Innovations in nursing practice. London: Edward Arnold, pp. 5- 22.