Referencing correctly

Referencing something correctly is a VITAL component of academic writing. There are TWO
related components that are necessary for successful referencing. These are (1) citing
(=name-checking) a reference source within the main text of an essay or report that you
are writing, if you are using information from that source, and (2) listing the full reference
in the Reference List of your essay or report. You need to ensure that both of these
elements match each other – i.e. that references you cite in the text appear in the
Reference List, and references that appear in the Reference List are cited in the text.
Before you submit any work you much check your references to make sure you are not
missing anything.

All the reference works cited in an essay or report are grouped together at the end in a
Reference List. This is a single list that includes all books, journal articles, websites etc
that you have used in the work you are submitting. Do NOT use the term ‘bibliography’,
which refers to something rather different. The way in which a Reference List is arranged is
given at the end of this document.

(1) Citing references in the text

When you make a statement which provides information, or which gives someone’s
opinion, you HAVE to tell the reader where that information came from. This is so that the
information can be traced to an original source, and to ensure that you have interpreted or
used that information correctly. Giving the source of information you have used in an
assignment (including any written or visual work or on a Powerpoint slide) is called
referencing. When you give a statement that provides information, the source of that
information is given in brackets at the end of that sentence.

For example:
Human interaction with the coast has changed over time (Carter, 1988).

This tells the reader that you got this information from that particular source. Note the
structure of this sentence: the reference comprises the last (or family) name of the author
of that study. This is followed by a comma (,) and then the date of publication of that
article or book. All this is then contained within brackets (….) at the end of the sentence.
Note that this reference citation is contained WITHIN the sentence and is then followed by
a full stop/period (.)
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If you use a direct quotation of passages from books/articles, this must be in quote marks
(‘….’) and the page number from where that quotation comes from

For example:
‘Man has had a long, but often uneasy relationship with the coast’ (Carter, 1988, p.2).

Although quotations may be common in the social sciences, I do not recommend that you
use lots of direct quotations – this is lazy academic practice because it shows that you do
not understand what the author is trying to say and so you rely on their own words to do
the talking. Quotes are also difficult to remember for exams. They also represent a
statement of opinion, and not the facts/figures upon which that opinion is based. You
should always put forward your own opinion based on evidence (=facts), not someone
else’s. Therefore it is more useful to paraphrase information from your different reference
sources rather than use direct quotations. (Please see the accompanying document on
paraphrasing.)

If you are using several reference sources for the information contained in any one
sentence, they must be cited in date order (not alphabetical order) in the text, for
example: (Jeje, 1993; Brunsden, 2001; Clifford and Richards, 2005; Murray et al., 2009;
Church, 2010). Please note where commas (,) and semicolons (;) are located in the
reference. The punctuation must be done correctly. The et al. bit is an abbreviation for the
Latin term et alia which simply means ‘and others’. This abbreviation is used where there
are more than two authors, and is always in italics (because it is a Latin phrase, just like
the species name of a plant or animal).

(2) Citing references in a Reference List

All reference sources used in the written text or cited in figures and tables must be
contained in the Reference List.

Referencing a journal article in the reference list generally follows the Harvard system:

Author(s) - Year - Title of article – Journal name – volume number – page numbers of
the first and last page of the article.

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For example:
Church, M. 2010. The trajectory of geomorphology. Progress in Physical Geography, 34, 265-286.
Clifford, N. and Richards, K. 2005. Earth System Science: an oxymoron? Earth Surface Processes
and Landforms, 30, 379-383.
Jeje, L.K. 1993. Contributions on the physical geography of tropical Africa. Singapore Journal of
Tropical Geography, 14, 191-211.
Murray, A.B., Lazarus, E., Ashton, A., Baas, A., Coco, G., Coulthard, T., Fonstad, M., Haff, P.,
McNamara, D., Paola, C., Pelletier, J. and Reinhardt, L. 2009. Geomorphology, complexity, and
the emerging science of the Earth's surface. Geomorphology, 103, 496-505.
The authors are named in the order in which they appear in the original source. Please look
carefully to identify what is the family name of the author, and what is their first name
(which should be given as initials only, as in the examples above). Please note the position
of punctuation in this list and make sure that you follow this exactly. The journal name is
always given in italics (or is sometimes underlined).

Some journals do not use a page number system, but instead use a unique code for every
different article which is known as the article’s Digital Object Identifier (doi). This is used
most commonly for journals where hard copies of individual journal volumes are not
published, or where articles in journals are continually being published. The doi is often
located in the footnotes at the bottom of the first page, please look carefully. To correctly
cite an article that uses a doi, you need (1) the volume number, (2) the unique article
number (this is the number after the volume number in the list), and then (3) the doi. Note
that this can be expressed as doi:…… or by https://www.doi.org/......

For example:
Sundqvist, H.S., Holmgren, K., Fohlmeister, J., Zhang, Q., Bar Matthews, M., Spötl, C. and Körnich,
H. 2013. Evidence of a large cooling between 1690 and 1740 AD in southern Africa. Scientific
Reports, 3, 1767, doi:10.1038/srep01767.
In this example, the volume number is 3, the article number is 1767.

Referencing a book in your reference list:

Author(s) - Year - Book title - Publisher - Place of publication.

For example:

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Referencing correctly
Knight, J. and Rogerson, C.M. (eds) 2019. The Geography of South Africa: Contemporary Changes
and New Directions. Springer, Switzerland, 326pp.
Masselink, G., Hughes, M.G. and Knight, J. 2011. Introduction to Coastal Processes and
Geomorphology (2nd edition). Hodder, London.

Note that the book title is in italics, just like the name of a journal.

For a chapter in an edited book:

Author(s) – Year – Chapter title – Editor(s) – Title of book – Publisher – Place of publication
– first and last page of the chapter.

For example:
Dardis, G.F. 1987. Sedimentology of late Pleistocene drumlins in south-central Ulster. In: Menzies, J.
and Rose, J. (eds), Drumlin Symposium. Balkema, Rotterdam, pp. 215-224.
Knight, J. and Burningham, H. 2011. Sand dune morphodynamics and prehistoric human occupation
in NW Ireland. In: Brown, A.G., Basell, L.S. and Butzer, K.W. (eds), Geoarchaeology, Climate
Change and Sustainability. Geological Society of America Special Paper, 476, pp. 81-92.
Knight, J., Mitchell, W.A. and Rose, J. 2011. Geomorphological field mapping. In: Smith, M.J., Paron,
P. and Griffiths, J. (eds), Geomorphological Mapping: a handbook of techniques and applications.
Elsevier, London, pp. 151-187.

If there is one editor, please use the abbreviation (ed). If there are two or more editors,
please use the abbreviation (eds). Note that towards the end of the reference there is the
name of the publisher (e.g. Balkema, Elsevier), and the place of publication (e.g.
Rotterdam, London). This information is usually located on the reverse of the title page of
the book.

Websites are cited like this:

Website name or author – Title of individual webpage used – Year that the information on
the website was uploaded or updated (often this is given at the bottom of the page) – Full
URL of the webpage – Date that you accessed the information.

For example:

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Department of Science and Technology, 2011. SA Risk and Vulnerability Atlas. Available from
http://www.rvatlas.org, accessed 9 December 2019.

For online reports add the publisher and place of publication, for example:

CCSP, 2009. Coastal Sensitivity to Sea-Level Rise: A Focus on the Mid-Atlantic Region. A report by
the US Climate Change Science Program and the Subcommittee on Global Change Research, US
Environmental Protection Agency, Washington DC, USA, 320pp. Available from
http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/sap4-1/final-report/sap4-1-final-report-FrontMatter.pdf,
accessed 11 December 2019.

Note that this also includes the URL where this report can be found. I would strongly
recommend NOT to rely on websites except those from reputable sources (e.g.,
government agencies, NGOs), as you don’t know where their information is from. This
includes Wikipedia, which is NOT a valid reference source!!

All the bibliographic information that you need to cite an article correctly and fully is usually
given on the front page of the journal article, you just have to look for it. For example:

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Journal name, volume
number (year), page
numbers

Article title
Authors

The correct citation of this article is therefore:

Knight, J. and Evans, M. 2017. The sediment stratigraphy of a flood event: An example from the
Sabie River, South Africa. Catena, 151, 87-97.

Note the order in which this information is given in the reference citation. Note that you
must include all authors in the order in which they are given in the original source.

The bibliographic information on a particular journal article might also be located at the
bottom of the first page, or on a cover page (if present) so you need to look around very
carefully. If you want to reference any information source, whether an article, chapter or
book, (1) DO NOT rely on its citation that is given in another article, chapter, book or
website. Many times these citations are simply incorrect, and you MUST check it for
yourself against the original published hard copy or pdf. (2) Do not cite something that you
have not seen in full: IF YOU CAN’T SEE IT, DON’T USE IT. This includes where you see
only the abstract of the article and not the full article itself.

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I do NOT recommend that you use bibliographic software to store indexes of journal
articles. These often screw up all types of formatting, miss off information and cannot
display non-uniform text or symbols. (Such software is commonly used in human
geography however.)

References are given in the following order in the Reference List:

1. Alphabetically by the last (family) name of the author, or by the last name of the
first author where there is more than one author.
2. If two different first-authors have the same last name they are order alphabetically
by their initials – e.g. Smith, A. will come before Smith, C.
3. Works by the same author are ordered according to date, e.g. Jones, 2008 will come
before Jones, 2010.
4. Single-authored works by the same author come before multiple-author works, e.g.
Smith, 2004 comes before Smith and Jones, 2001.

If you are confused, simply follow to the letter the format

of the references given in any standard journal article.