This page contains information on how to compile a reference list in your dissertation. Please remember that whatever you cite in your reference list has to have been read by you directly. Information about 2nd hand references (paper cited in other papers) need to be explicitly acknowledged (see below for format style). Inappropriate referencing is a form of plagiarism, a major Academic misconduct.

Guide to the Harvard Style of Referencing

This guide has been compiled with reference to the BS 5605:1990, BS ISO 690:2010 and BS 1629:1998 for referencing published material, using the Harvard style examples. The BS ISO 6902:1997 standard has been consulted for guidance on details of referencing electronic sources since there is no British Standard for electronic resources in the Harvard style.

I listed the referencing notes for five most often-used materials:

A reference to a journal article has the following structure:

• Author's surname followed by a comma.
• Author's initials in capitals, with full-stop after each and a comma after the final full-stop.
• Year of publication followed by full-stop.
• Full title of the article - not in italics - with capitalization of first word and proper nouns only - followed by full-stop unless there is a sub-title. If there is a sub-title, this follows a colon at end of full title, with no capitalization except for proper nouns - followed by full-stop.
• Full title of journal, in italics, with capitalization of key words - followed by comma.
• Volume number
• Issue/Part number in brackets, followed by comma.
• Page numbers preceded by “pp.” for a range of pages and “p.” for a single page - followed by full-stop.

Example:

This is an example of a full reference to a journal article.

… Alpha-Beta pruning (Knuth & Moore 1975) is a technique …

How to Reference a Conference Paper

Brin, S. & Page, L., 1998. The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine. In: Seventh International conference on World-Wide Web (WWW 1998), April 14-18, 1998, Brisbane, Australia.

A reference to a conference paper has the following structure.

• Author's surname followed by a comma.
• Author's initials in capitals, with full-stop after each and a comma after the final full-stop.
• Year of publication followed by full-stop.
• Full title of conference paper - not in italics - with capitalization of first word and proper nouns only - followed by full-stop unless there is a sub-title. If there is a sub-title, this follows a colon at end of full title, with no capitalization except for proper nouns - followed by full-stop.
• Full title of conference, in italics, with capitalization of key words - followed by comma.
• Location followed by a comma.
• Date followed by a comma.

• Publisher (company name) followed by colon.
• Place of publication (town or city name) follow by full-stop.

This is an example of a full reference to a conference paper.

… The concept of page rank (Brin & Page 1998) is …

How to Reference a Book

Russell, D.E. & Norvig, P., 2009. Artificial Intelligence: a modern approach, 3rd ed., Prentice-Hall.

A reference to a book, thesis or dissertation has the following structure.

• Author's surname followed by a comma.
• Author's initials in capitals, with full-stop after each and a comma after the final full-stop.
• Year of publication followed by full-stop.
• Full title of book in italics with capitalization of first word and proper nouns only - followed by full-stop unless there is a sub-title. If there is a sub-title, this follows a colon at end of full title, with no capitalization except for proper nouns - follow by full-stop.
• Edition number followed by the abbreviation “ed.” - followed by full-stop. Only include this if not first edition.
• Place of publication: Town or city, follow by colon.
• Publisher - company name followed by full-stop.

This is an example of a full reference to a book.

… Semantic networks (Russell & Norvig 2009) are often …

For books where there are more than four authors, use the first author only with surname and initials followed by et al. The required elements for a reference are: Author, Initials.and et al, Year. Title of book. Edition. (only include this if not the first edition) Place: Publisher.

Where there are several works by one author and published in the same year they should be differentiated by adding a lower case letter after the date. For multiple works the required elements for a reference are:

Author, Initials., Year. Title of book. Place: Publisher.

How to Reference a Website

Creaney, N., 2008. Legal Issues for IT Professionals [Online] (Updated 26 September 2008) Available at: http://knol.google.com/k/n-/-/1hzaxtdr9c09g/7 [Accessed 30 January 2009].

A reference to a website has the following structure.

• Authorship or Source - followed by comma
• Year - followed by full-stop.
• Title of web document or web page - in italics - followed by ”[Online]”
• Date of most recent update - within round brackets.
• Available at - followed by the URL (underlined)
• Date of most recent access - in square brackets - followed by full-stop

This is an example of a full reference to a website.

… Creaney (2008) discusses a range of …

For chapters of edited books the required elements for a reference are:

Chapter author(s) surname(s) and initials. Year of chapter. Title of chapter followed by In: Book editor(s) initials and surnames with ed. or eds. after the last name. Year of book. Title of book. Place of publication: Publisher. Chapter number or first and last page numbers followed by full-stop.

References

Smith, J., 1975. A source of information. In: W. Jones, ed. 2000. One hundred and one ways to find information about health. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ch. 2.

Samson, C., 1970. Problems of information studies in history. In: S. Stone, ed. Humanities information research. Sheffield: CRUS, pp. 44-68.