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Quoting, citing sources, and referencing

Whenever you decide to use the words of another or other authors, you must adopt the conventions involved in quoting the work of other writers, and in citing and referencing the sources used. To cite sources and to reference are to provide the reader with the details of the sources used in preparing for the written work. The citations and the references in a piece of written work allow the reader to locate the sources. By locating the sources, the reader is able to check their own interpretation of the evidence and establish whether their conclusions agree with those of the writer. By providing a reference list at the end of the written work, any reader is able to locate the sources. It is important to distinguish between a bibliography (which is every source that has been read) and a reference list (which includes a complete list of sources cited in the text, but no other sources).

Using a common referencing system is part of the shared language of any discipline. Different disciplines use different referencing systems. Among the most widely used systems is the Harvard system, which is also used by the American Psychological Association (APA), and is often referred to as the APA system. The APA system is the one used by psychologists.

A crucial part of any written assignment is the careful documenting of all source materials at the time of reading and note-taking. To not acknowledge the sources for your writing is to plagiarise. Plagiarism is stealing other people’s ideas and presenting them as one’s own. Plagiarism is considered a serious form of academic misconduct.

Citing sources throughout the text

An important feature of the APA (or Harvard) referencing system is that each time you refer to a specific source throughout the text of your written work, you must identify the author’s surname and year of publication. Wherever the surname appears as a natural part of the sentence, the year is provided in brackets immediately after. If it does not fall easily into the sentence, the surname and the date are both included in brackets, as the examples below indicate.

• Sternberg (1990) gathered lay perspectives on the nature of intelligence…
  
  Lay people give a new perspective on the nature of intelligence (Sternberg, 1990)

Where there is more than one author, the first time the source is cited should include all of the authors’ surnames; subsequently, only the first author’s name is used, followed by "et al".

• Brown and Smith (1990) …..
  
  Brown, Smith, Torrenson, Harris, & Jones (1990) ….

If more than one citation of the same author is indicated, the sources should be referred to in chronological order.

• Sternberg (1985; 1988; 1990) …

Quoting directly

Whenever you wish to quote directly from a source, as well as the author’s name and date, you must include the page number, and include quotation marks around the quote if it is short.

• For example, "Whatever theoretical perspective one adopts, … dieting is a necessary but not sufficient condition" (Huon, 2001).

Note that an ellipsis (or three dots) is used to indicate an omission from the original text.

Where there is a longer quote, it is better to indent the quoted passage, without quotation marks.

Referencing sources

The reference section comes at the end of your written work. References can be primary (which refers to a text that you have read, such as a journal article or a book) or secondary sources (which are those that have been referred to by other authors whose work you have read). It is usually preferable that you consult the primary sources, at least as often as that is possible.

The conventions for listing sources in a reference list depend on the nature of the source consulted. The most likely ones are articles in a journal, books, book chapters. Details for referencing those are therefore outlined below.

Journal articles

The format is as follows

• Author(s) surname, and initial(s)
• Date (in brackets)
• Title of article (initial capital only)
• Full name of the journal (underlined or italicized)
• Volume number in italics
• Page numbers.

The following examples illustrate

• Huon, G.F. (1998). The prevention of dieting. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 20, 55-78.
  
  Oliver, K. (2000). Affect and overeating. European Eating Disorders Review, 7, 22-39.

Books

The information for referencing books is as follows

• Author(s) surname followed by initial(s)
• The year of publication (in brackets)
• The full title of the book, including a subtitle where it exists
• The place of publication, followed by a colon, and the name of the publisher.

The following example illustrates

• Huon, G.F., & Brown, L.B. (1988). Fighting with Food. Overcoming Bulimia. Sydney: UNSW Press.

Chapter(s) in edited book

To reference book chapters, the following is required

• Chapter author’s surname followed by initial(s)
• Date of chapter (in brackets) (usually but not always same as book date)
• Titles of chapter in full
• The word "In" followed by the initial(s) and then surname(s) of book editor(s)
• The abbreviation (Ed.) or (Eds.) in brackets, followed by a comma
• The year of publication of the book
• The full title of the book, using capitals only for first word
• Place of publication, and publisher, separated by a colon.

The following example illustrates

• Brown, L.B. (1988). Religious experience. In G. Smith and Y. Ivanov (Eds.) The nature of religious experience. New York: Wiley.

• Now try this activity on Quoting, citing sources, and referencing

Acknowledgements: Hefferman’s (1997) "A Student’s Guide to Studying Psychology" provided the starting point for the material in this module.

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Last updated September 12, 2016
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