How to write a reference

When you are writing a research paper or article you will probably find yourself needing to look at other people’s work. It is important to explain the background knowledge on the topic you are researching, and to explain why you are researching it! When you mention other people’s work it is essential that you give them credit for what they’ve done. When other people read your work, they might want to understand more about the other research in the field, so it is crucial to reference the other papers. They can then see who has written it and when, as well as other information. It also gives them the credit they deserve for their work, and ensures you don’t plagiarize anyone.

There are multiple methods of referencing. These will all include an in-text citation and a reference list at the end, but the format and structure of these vary slightly. As well as these, different materials will need to be referenced in different formats. Here I will run through the Harvard referencing style, which is quite a common style to use.

 

 

Book:

Author, A., Author, B., Author, C., (Year), Book Title. Edition. Place published, Publisher

In text citation would be (Author et al., Year).

An example would be “Oates, M., (2020), His Imperial Majesty, A Natural History of the Purple Emperor. London, Bloomsbury Publishing” and the in-text citation would be (Oates, 2020).

If you come across an e-book you would do it in a slightly different way where you would add the link in that you found it at, as well as whereabouts the part you are referring to is in the book. For this you would structure it in the following way:

Author, A. and Author, B., (Year), Book Title. Available at: https://link_to_where_you_found_the_book.com (Accessed 12^th September 2024)

The in-text citation would look like this: (Author and Author, Year, ch. 7, p. 108), which notes the chapter and page number or numbers you were looking at.

 

 

Online Research Article

If the journal is only available on the internet you will need to include the URL in the full reference. These will not have page numbers, or if they do then they will start from 1. These should be formatted as:

Author, A., Author, B., Author, C., and Author, D., (Year), ‘Title of Paper’, Journal, Volume Number (Issue Number), Available at: https://DOI_Link.com

The in-text citation is (Author et al., Year).

An example of this is:

Carilli, J., Norris, R., Black, B., Walsh, S., McField, M., (2009), ‘Local Stressors Reduce Coral Resilience to Bleaching’, PLoS ONE, 4(7), Available at: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0006324

In-text this would be (Carilli et al., 2009).

 

 

Printed Research Article

Articles were historically all published in print within in journal volumes. Some articles will have the volume, issue and page numbers on them still even if they are online, in which case you can reference them differently to online-only articles using the following format:

Author, A., (Year), ‘Title of Article’, Journal, Volume Number (Issue Number), pp. Page range.

In-text this would be (Author, Year).

An example of this is:

Montgomery, C., Reed, R., Shaw, H., Boback, S., Walker, J., (2007), Distribution, Habitat, Size, and Color Pattern of Cnemidophorus lemniscatus (Sauria: Teiidae) on Cayo Cochino Pequeño, Honduras, Southwestern Naturalist, 52(1), pp. 38-45.

In-text this would be (Montgomery et al., 2007).

 

These are the main three formats of resources that you might need to reference. There are ways of referencing other materials such as websites, pieces of art, videos and more, however for scientific articles it is unlikely that you would want to! Hopefully this guide will help you to easily reference anything you need to for your article in a Harvard-style reference.