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When you cite a reference in the text of your document, use the author surname and the year of publication. This is called an in-text reference. For example:

The theory was first propounded in 1970 (Larsen 1971), and was confirmed two decades later (Williams & Jones 1991).

If there are 4 or more authors, list the first author and abbreviate with et al. (Note that all the authors must still be listed in the reference list at the end of your document).

This has also been shown experimentally (Brown et al. 1983).

If the author name is already in the text immediately in front of the in-text reference, you can use just the year. For example:

Larsen (1971) was the first to propound the theory. This was subsequently investigated by Brown et al. (1983) and then confirmed by Williams and Jones (1991).

If you have a group of references cited together in the text, they should be ordered alphabetically by first author surname: eg (Brown et al. 1983; Larsen 1971; Mueller 1997; Williams & Jones 1991).

If you have no date for a reference, use n.d. (for 'no date') instead of the year. If you only have an approximate date, put c. (for 'circa', meaning around) in front of the year: eg (White n.d.) and (Beethoven c. 1813).

All in-text references must be included in a single list of full references at the end of your document.

This list must be arranged alphabetically by author surname. It should begin on a new page, and can be either single or double spaced. If single spaced, when a reference is more than one line long the extra lines are indented by a tab space (this is called a 'hanging indent'). The preference for single or double spacing varies across faculties so you should consult your lecturer or faculty assignment writing guide about this.

What each full reference looks like depends on what kind of reference it is (book, journal article, website etc). The sections of this guide show how different types of references should look in your reference list.

If a reference has two or more authors, use & between the last two. If more than three authors, list only the first author in the in-text reference, and abbreviate the others by 'et al.' (Latin for 'and others'). However, all the authors must be listed in the reference list.

Sometimes an author can be an organisation such as a government or university department, or a company. In this case treat the name of the organisation as the author surname.

If a reference has no author, use the book title, chapter title or article title instead, both in text AND in the reference list. The title should keep the same formatting as it has normally, ie for books it should be in italics, for chapters and articles it should be in single quotes (see Rules about titles below).

If you are using two or more works by the same author, published in the same year, distinguish them by adding a, b, c and so on after the year, both in-text and in your reference list. For example (Dickinson 1990a) and (Dickinson 1990b). In your reference list, works by the same author, in the same year, are ordered alphabetically by their title: the year of the first one then gets an "a", the next one a "b", and so on if necessary.

If your author's name has 'Junior' or 'Senior', eg W. Strunk Jr, cite with just the surname in the text, eg (Strunk & White 1979), and in your reference list place Jr or Sr after the final initial of the author's first names, eg: Strunk W. Jr & White E.B. 1979, The elements of style, 3rd edn, Macmillan, New York.

Book titles, journal names and website titles should be in italics.

Chapter titles from books, article titles from a journal or magazine, and theses titles are not in italics but single quotation marks.

All major words in the names of journals, newspapers and magazines should start with a capital letter. In other titles, all words should start with a lower case letter (except the first word and proper nouns).

If your URL is excessively long, use a cut-down URL (for example the URL of the web page that contains the link to the page you used), as long as it is clear how to get to the actual page used.

If you are using a short quote, your in-text reference must give the page number(s) where the quote comes from. Use p. for a single page or pp. for several pages. For example:

It has been suggested that 'the taxation advantage enjoyed by superannuation funds, relative to private investment in shares, was somewhat neutralised in 1988' (McGrath & Viney 1997, p. 137).

Quote of more than 30 words

When making a direct quote of more than about thirty words do not use quotation marks but include the quote as a separate paragraph, indented from the text margin and set in smaller type.

Quote from a work citing another author

Sometimes a work you are using quotes a work from another author. For example, on page 17 of an article or book by Thorne, written in 2003, you find a quote from a 1906 paper by Albert Einstein. To cite the quote by Einstein you should mention it in the text and use Thorne as your in-text reference, with page number from Thorne. For example (and there could be many other variations):

Einstein stated in 1906 that 'time is relative' (Thorne 2003, p. 17).

Thorne (2003, p. 17) notes that in 1906 Einstein stated that 'time is relative'.

According to Thorne (2003, p. 17) it was Einstein who stated that 'time is relative' in 1906.

         Einstein (1906, cited in Thorne 2003, p.17) stated that time is relative.

'Time is relative' according to Einstein (Thorne 2003, p. 17).

In your reference list you must have the full reference for Thorne. If you wish, you may also include the reference for Einstein (you can get this from Thorne's reference list); but this isn't normally recommended because you haven't actually consulted the Einstein paper directly.

Paraphrasing

If you are merely summarising or paraphrasing, rather than directly quoting, you do not need to give page numbers. However, you can if you wish, and it is strongly recommended to give page numbers when paraphrasing from a work of many pages such as a book, or a lengthy article or report (so that a reader can easily locate the section that you paraphrased).