Referencing

Academic Writing

When writing an essay, a report or any other written document, it is necessary to acknowledge correctly all sources of information and ideas. We do this for three reasons:

• To acknowledge the author of the material;

• To provide supporting evidence for our statements; and

• To allow the reader to follow up points of interest.

This means that in the body of the essay or report (the text) we need to make clear links between the information and its source. The citing of the source must be integrated into the normal flow of the text and this can be accomplished in a number of ways as is illustrated in the examples given below.

At the end of the document we provide a Reference List that lists, in alphabetical order, all works that have been cited in the text, together with their full publication details: author, initials, date of publication, title of article or chapter if relevant, title of book, journal, publisher and place of publication. Examples are given in the section on 'Compiling a Reference List'.

There are many different referencing styles. In the Geography Department, we have adopted a modified version of the Harvard Style that is similar to the one in the South African Geographical Journal (i.e. the Taylor & Francis Style from the American Psychological Association):

https://www.tandf.co.uk//journals/authors/style/reference/tf_APA.pdf.

It is important that you apply the rules for this style in your work. Never mix styles in one task.