Referencing your coursework

When researching for your coursework, it is important you keep a record of the sources of information you are using and corrently cite and reference them within your work. If you do not, this counts as plagiarism and your work can be disqualified.

A short citation is embedded within your essay, briefly highlighting which information comes from which source.

A reference is placed at the end of your essay in a reference list (examples below) to show the full details of the sources you've used.

You only need to reference sources you have directly taken information from. If you have read an article/ book etc. but haven't used any of the information from it, you do not need to reference it.

Use the website http://www.citethisforme.com/harvard/source-type as a starting point, but be aware that this will not always accurately reference for your work.

Neil's Toolbox is a very useful cite for learning how to reference your work accurately http://www.neilstoolbox.com/bibliography-creator/ You can also use the information below.

✨ ✨ harvard referencing ✨ ✨

You are required to present your references using the Harvard Referencing system.

Each piece of coursework you produce should have a minimum of 5 references.

Please follow the guide below on how to present your references:

Referencing screencastify .webm

A practical guide via screencast

Watch the screencast as Becci explains how to use both in text and bibliography references

Harvard Referencing

Referencing guidance slides

Please use these slides to understand how to use reference lists and in-text citations properly using the Harvard system.

These slides also give guidance on how to use the site 'Cite This For Me'

Referencing a BOOK

To reference a book, you would use the following format in your bibliography:

Author(s) surname, Author(s) initial(s). (date of publication) Title of book, Place of publication: Name of publisher.


For instance, the course textbook would be referenced as:


Within your essay, you need to write a citation for this reference. You put the citation at the end of the sentence, to show where the information from that sentence is from. E.g.,

Healthcare provides diagnostic, preventative, remedial and therapeutic services (Ferreiro Peteiro et al., 2016).


As you can see from the example, the citation is the author surname(s) and the year it was published. If there are more than three authors, you only write the surname for the first author, then write 'et al.' -- this means 'and others'.

Referencing a website

To reference a book, you would use the following format in your bibliography:

Author(s) surname, Author(s) initial(s). (date of publication or last edit). Title of Web Page. [online] Available at: (URL) [Accessed DD Month. YYYY]

Note… the author may just be an organisation’s name.


For instance, the college’s page for Health and Social Care would be referenced as:

The citation format remains the same: (author's surname, date)

In this example, the author is an organisation, so the citation would be: (Barton Peveril Sixth Form College, 2018)

Referencing an article

✨ Structuring your bibliography ✨

Your bibliography goes at the end of the piece of coursework.

It should be in alphabetical order by the first author's surname.

Have a look at the example below.

✨ duplicate citations ✨

If you have two or more references that have the same citation, you need to differentiate between them.

E.g., these references would all be cited as (National Health Service, 2016) --

  • National Health Service. (2016). Schizophrenia. [online] Available at: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/schizophrenia/ [Accessed 09 Sept. 2019]

  • National Health Service. (2016). Clinical Depression. [online] Available at: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/clinical-depression/ [Accessed 09 Sept. 2019]

  • National Health Service. (2016). Obsessive Compulsive Disorder OCD. [online] Available at: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/obsessive-compulsive-disorder-ocd/ [Accessed 09 Sept. 2019]


In order to differentiate between these, you need to label them a-b-c etc. in the order they first appear within your coursework.

I.e., if you discussed depression first, schizophrenia second and then OCD last - your references would be:

  • National Health Service. (2016a). Clinical Depression. [online] Available at: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/clinical-depression/ [Accessed 09 Sept. 2019]

  • National Health Service. (2016b). Schizophrenia. [online] Available at: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/schizophrenia/ [Accessed 09 Sept. 2019]

  • National Health Service. (2016c). Obsessive Compulsive Disorder OCD. [online] Available at: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/obsessive-compulsive-disorder-ocd/ [Accessed 09 Sept. 2019]


Your in-text citations would then be:

  • (National Health Service, 2016a) for depression

  • (National Health Service, 2016b) for schizophrenia

  • (National Health Service, 2016c) for OCD