Referencing your sources

WMG expects students to use in-text citation of sources and to collate these sources in a Reference List. Please note a Reference List is NOT a Bibliography. Your list should only contain the sources you use in the assignment.

Harvard System

WMG’s preferred method of citation is called the Harvard System. This method uses the author(s) family name(s) and date of publication of the source in the text. Either of the forms shown below can be used, but please be consistent:

Narrative citation: In a recent study Madnick (1986) showed that . . .
Parenthetical citation: In a recent study (Madnick 1986) it was shown that . . .

Multiple authors: If there are three or less authors, all names are used, separated with a comma or “&”. If there are more than 4 authors, the terms “et al” is used after the first author’s family name. For example, Chandler et al (2019)

Multiple publications: Where an author has more than one publication in the same year, a lowercase letter is used after the date. For example, (Lusch and Vargo 2006a; Lusch and Vargo 2006b)

Use of initial letter: Initial letters are only be used, to avoid confusion when two or more authors have the same surname and published in the same year.

Anonymity: Anonymous works are exceedingly rare. Often in the case of Internet sources (see below) the publishing organisation or website can be used instead. However, in exceptional cases anonymity may be shown using Anon. in place of the author's name.

Book’s individual page(s): If you wish to refer to individual pages of a particular book or article the page number(s) should be given after the date, separated from it by a comma or colon:

(Ward and Griffiths 1996, 236) or (Ward and Griffiths 1996:236)

Either system can be used, but not in the same document.

Reference list entries: The format of entries in the Reference List may vary slightly depending on the type of source (e.g., books, journals, newspapers, etc.). However, the following example of a book entry illustrates the typical information required for references in most cases (further information à Warwick University Library Referencing pages):

Author’s first name (or initial), middle initial (where known) and last name. The surname should be listed first, followed by the first name and initial. If the author is in fact an editor, the term “ed.” should follow the name.
Date of publication; in the Harvard system the date of publication appears in parentheses immediately after the author’s name
Title of the book (usually underlined or in italics)
Place of publication

Volume number, in large Roman numerals

Page number (sometimes, rather than having many citations to a single reference source, a supervisor will prefer the page number to be included in the citation itself, rather than in the reference listing.)

Please be consistent with your use of punctuation and font.

Internet sources

When citing Internet references, the following information is required:

Author/editor (if known)
Revision or copyright date, if available, in parentheses
Title of page, followed by a comma then the term [Online], in square brackets
Page publisher
<URL> (Web address)
Date of citation (i.e., when you accessed that page), in square brackets

Note the following;

If no author is credited then use the smallest identifiable unit within the publishing organisation, or use the title of the page
If no date is given, then write "No date"
Include the word "online" in square brackets for ALL Internet sources. This may be the company or organisation responsible for hosting the web site if no other information is available

NOTE 1: Consider using reference management tools like EndNote and Mendeley to efficiently organise, store, and cite your scholarly sources, streamlining your writing and publication process.

NOTE 2: Further information on source citation (electronic and paper) can be found on the "Warwick University Library Referencing pages”