Referencing & Bibliography

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Referencing & Bibliographies

Asian 100, 2005

 

 

This document gives format and style notes to use in writing essays. First it covers reference notes, which are placed in footnotes or in the text of the essay. The format given here may differ in minor ways from that outlined for you in other classes or departments. The second part of this document gives proper citations rules for your bibliography.

 

REFERENCE NOTES

 

Reference notes are quite easy to do, and they are essential because they verify the evidence for your argument. You should always cite in a note the source from which you obtained:

            (a)        direct quotations

(b)        paraphrased quotations

(c)        very specific evidence such as statistics

(d)       information which might be considered obscure or contentious.

You do not need to cite the source of well-known information.

 

In your work for this course, references are to be made using a version of what is known as the Modern Language Association (MLA) author-date style. There are many different acceptable styles in use that vary by discipline, field, journal, and publishing house, but this is the one required for use in Asian 100. A very valuable online tutorial and ready reference with numerous examples for this style can be found at http://www.lib.monash.edu.au/vl/cite/mlaex.htm, and it is recommended that you take the time to work through the tutorial.[1] The following description and examples are taken from that website, with minor changes.

 

1. How do I put a book citation together?

In the MLA style, book details should be put together in the following order, with identical punctuation:

 

Author's full name. Title of the Book. Edition [if not first]. Place of publication: Publisher's name, year of publication.

 

 

Note: edition is not needed here, as this is a first edition. The title of the book is put in italics or is underlined. The second and subsequent lines must be indented.

 

 

2. How do I put a chapter citation together?

If you have quoted an author who has written a chapter of a book, the details should be put together in the following order, with identical punctuation:

 

Author's full name. "Title of chapter". Editor's full name. Title of the Book, pp. page numbers. Edition [if not first]. Place of publication: Publisher's Name, year of publication.

 

 

 

 

3. How do I put a journal citation together?

If you've quoted an article from a journal or magazine, the details should be put together this way:

 

Author's full name. "Title of article". Title of the Journal. Volume Number/issue number (date/month of publication, year of publication): page numbers of article.

 

 

 

 

4. How do I put a conference paper citation together?

If you have quoted an author who has written a conference paper, the details should be put together in the following order, with identical punctuation:

 

Author's full name. "Title of paper". Editor's full name, ed. Title of the Conference Proceedings. Date of Conference, Page numbers. Place of publication : Publisher's name, Year of Publication.

 

 

 

5. How do I put a webpage citation together?

Web pages can be tricky, because it is often hard to find all the information you need. If you can find the name of an editor or author use this format:

 

Author's full name [or Editor's full name, ed.] "Title of page". Title of site (dateline [if available]). URL (accessed date).

 

 

In this case, the online source (a newspaper) had a dateline, so that date is included after the title. Most online resources don't carry such dates.

 

If you can't find the name of an editor or author use the following format. Remember, consistency is what really counts:

 

"Title of page". Title of site (dateline [if available]). Available: URL (accessed date).

 

 

 

 

CITING USING THE MLA STYLE

 

MLA is an author-date style. Generally, when using MLA style, a citation in your paper requires only the name of the author (or authors), the date, and the page number. Citations should be, whenever possible, placed at the end of a sentence (before the concluding punctuation) For example:

 

...as one writer put it "the darkest days were still ahead" (Weston 2003, 45).

 

Alternatively, the author's surname may be integrated into the text, followed immediately by the year of publication and page reference in parentheses.

 

Scholtz (1987, 564) has argued that...

 

If there is more than one reference by an author in the same year they are generally distinguished by denoting publications with letters a, b, c etc.:

 

other researchers faced this problem (Stairs 1998a, 98; James 200, 107) while Stairs (1998b) recognised...

 

The use of a, b, etc. is determined in the bibliography of list of references at the end of your essay, usually based on the alphabetical ordering of the titles within the year.

 

If the author's name is unknown you should give the title of the article, book or webpage.

 

the worst election loss in the party's history ("Is this the end?", 1992, 2)...

 

The references made in the text are listed in alphabetical order by author(s) at the end of the paper. If the author is unknown use the title or first part of the title in its place, as above.

 

 

AN MLA STYLE BIBLIOGRAPHY OR REFERENCE LIST

 

A sample MLA style bibliography or reference list. Note indentation of second and subsequent lines.