In-Text Referencing

What is citing?

Citing involves acknowledging the source of the information that one uses in their own work. Some general rules are presented below.

• The citation in the text should include the author(s) and, the date of publication. (e.g. Donald, 2009), except where the citation applies to the whole article, chapter or book.

• When the source is written by two authors, refer to both (e.g. Schooney & Martell, 1979; or Schooney and Martell, 1979 – just be consistent).

• When there are three or more authors use the convention et al. (e.g. Schooney et al., 1979). Note that et al. is written in italics.

• Do not give the authors initials in the citations, unless you are referring to one of two authors of the same surname.

• The author may be an organisation such as the World Bank, a Government Department or a newspaper.

• If you cannot find the author replace the name with 'Anon'.

• If you cannot find the date, replace the date with 'n.d.', short for no date.

• Personal communications, which include private letters, memos, personal interviews, telephone conversations, email, and messages from online discussion groups, etc. Where they do not provide recoverable data, personal communications are cited only in the text and not included in the reference list. Include the initials as well as the surname of the communicator and provide as exact a date as possible, e.g. T. K. Lutes (personal communication, 18 April 2019); or (V. -G. Nguyen, personal communication, 28 September 2018).

• Do not give the title of the publication in the citation. This should be contained within the Reference List.

• An author cited at the end of a sentence relates to that sentence only, not the whole paragraph. The full stop should follow the citation; there should be no full stop between the citation and the sentence to which it refers.

• You must reference the sources of figures and tables. Place the reference after the figure or table caption. The page number of the source should appear after a colon. Some examples are:

  • Figure directly copied from source: "Source: Schooney et al. (1999: 78)".

  • Figure modified from source (if you have changed the way the information is presented): "Source: Modified from Schooney (2003: 54)".

  • Figure based on source data (if you have constructed your own map/table/diagram based on secondary data): "Source: Based on data from Schooney (2001: 25)."

• Web-based references must be cited as conventionally published material i.e. give the author and date. DO NOT include the web address in the citation.

• Use quotation marks to denote quotations and cite the reference at the end of the quote e.g. "Chemical weathering is an unseen enemy of buildings" (Schooney, 1994: 5). For a direct quote, the page number MUST be written in the text reference.

• You may find when writing an essay that much of the material comes from one or two sources and it is tedious for both you and the reader if you constantly cite the source throughout the essay. One way around this is to make a general statement in the introduction of the essay or the first sentence of a paragraph with information sourced from one author.

  • e.g., Plate tectonics is now a well-established theory and many texts deal with this important topic. One such work is that by Skitter and Ponting (2002), which provides most of the background to the following discussion. Thereafter you need only refer to Skitter and Ponting when making a specific assertion.

  • e.g., According to Skitter and Ponting (2000: 23-24), the Yangzte, Amazon and Ganges- Brahmaputra rivers deliver 20% of the water and dissolved matter entering the oceans. This citation tells us that this information is found on pages 23 to 24.

To help you to understand this process, examples of in-text citations within this paragraph are shown:

According to Schooney (1998), chemical weathering is the fundamental factor that accounts for 56% of the building damage in Schoonville. This claim has been disputed by others; for example, Jackson (2000) points out that, although chemical weathering is a factor, it is the lack of application of rigorous building codes that is at the root of the problem. This claim was subsequently tested by Mdaweni and Jackson (2001), who compared the damage to buildings of the same vintage but built by different contractors in Schoonville. They found that buildings constructed by one contractor showed a much higher incidence of damage compared to those built by other contractors, regardless of the size and location of the building in the town (Mdaweni and Jackson, 2001). They concluded that "building practice and proper adherence to building codes are fundamental factors influencing weathering damage to buildings" (Mdaweni and Jackson, 2001: 45). A study by Booysen et al. (2002) in the neighbouring town of Skalkberg, which involved the same contractors, yielded similar results. Most of the damaged buildings were located along the Dwarsrivier (Council for Geoscience, 2009).

Key to the use of colours above:

• Specific assertions.

• Thesis/findings/conclusion of the entire paper/article/book.

• Direct quotation.

• Map.