What Is a Reference Page?

What Is a Reference Page?

Unit 2: References

2. References

What Is a Reference Page?

A ‘reference page’ is an alphabetical list of all the sources that a person has used in his/her writing.

Any professional or academic writing should have this information because whenever anybody else’s ideas or information is used, it must be credited. Otherwise, one can be accused of ‘plagiarism’ or copying somebody else’s ideas.

How to List Sources on a Reference Page

There are a number of different styles. In this course, you will learn the American Psychological Association (APA) style, which is probably the most common style in academic writing.

Task 1: Look at the sources below and answer the questions that follow.

References
Brenstein, T. M. (1965). The careful writer: A modern guide to English usage.New York: Athenaeum.
Craner, P. M. (n.d.). New tool for an ancient art: The computer and music. Computers and the Humanities, 25(3), 303-313.
Falter, J. S. (1984). Lighting in underwater photography. In Encyclopedia of photography (Vol. 3, pp. 128-129). New York: Crown.
Gibbs, J. T., & Huang, L. N. (Eds.). (1991). Children of color: Psychological interventions with minority youth.San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
ColumbiaUniversity. (1998, September 1). Basic CGOS style. Retrieved March 26, 2000, from the World Wide Web: idx_basic.html
  1. How are the entries ordered?

______

  1. What is special about the titles of the book, journal, and encyclopedia?

______

  1. What is special about the second line of the entries?

______

  1. What is the title of the page? What is special about it?

______

Information in References

It is important that you know what kind of information you give in references.

What different kinds of sources can you use for writing your report?

Are they all written in the same way?

Task 2: Use the words below to label the information in the references.

Journal title
Article title
Author
Page number(s)
Publishing year
Volume number
Book title
Publishing place / Sponsor
Last updated
Publisher
“Editor”
URL (web address)
Date the source was visited
Article or entry in an encyclopedia

Maher, B. A. (1974). Editorial. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 42, 13.

Reisman, S. J. (Ed.). (1962). A style manual for technical writers and editors. New York: Macmillan.

Jupitermedia Corporation. (2002). Operating System. Retrieved March 10, 2003 from the World Wide Web:
operating_system.html

Reference Form for Books

In titles of books and articles, capitalize only:
1)the first word of the main title;
2)the first word of the subtitle;
3)proper nouns (e.g., English). / initials only / year, period outside parenthesis

Katz, S. M. (1998). The dynamics of writing review: Opportunities for growth and change in the workplace. Greenwich, CT: Ablex.

Task 3: Look at the example above and fill in the missing words in the rules. The words and phrases are given below.

colon (:) city / initials italicize / copyright date period (.) / publisher last name
Author and Date /
  • Put the ______of the author(s) first, followed by ______.
  • Put the ______in parentheses, followed by a/an ______.

Title /
  • ______or underline the book title.

Publisher /
  • Give the ______(and the state, if the city isn’t well known). Follow it with a/an ______.
  • Give the ______in the shortest form that will be clear.

Reference Form for World Wide Web Sites

American Express. (1998). Creating an effective business plan. Retrieved April 24, 1999 from the World Wide Web: com/smallbusiness/resources/starting/biz_plan/ / Break Web page addresses at a slash, period, or hyphen if possible.
no punctuation at the end

Task 4: Look at the example above and use the words in the box to fill in the missing words in the rules.

URL title organization date visited period
Sponsor /
  • Begin with the ______or individual responsible for the site.

Date /
  • Give the ______the site was last updated and the date you ______the site.

Title & URL /
  • Give the ______of the site.
  • Give the ______. You may put it in angle brackets: < >.
  • Don’t put a/an ______at the end of the URL.

Reference Form for Articles in Journals, Magazines, and Newspapers

In titles of journals, magazines, and newspapers, capitalize the first and all main words. / comma, even when only two authors / comma
No ‘pp.’ when journal has a volume number.
Pagel, S., & Westerfelhaus, R. (1999). Read the book or attend the seminar? The Journal of Business Communication, 36(2), 163-193.

volume, issue numbers
Petzinger, T., Jr. (1999, April 2). New business leaders find greater profit mixing work, caring. The Wall Street Journal, p. 81.
‘p.’ or ‘pp.’ for newspapers and magazines without a volume number

Task 5: Look at the example above and fill in the missing words in the rule. Use the words and phrases given in the box.

lower case month initials issue number capitalize
period comma (,) italicize page numbers
Authors’ Names /
  • Use ______, not first and middle names.
  • Put a/an ______after the first author before the ampersand (&).

Date /
  • The ______or season goes after the year.
  • Put a/an ______outside the parentheses around the date.

Article Title /
  • Put the article title in ______. Capitalize only the first word and the word after the colon.
  • Don’t put the title in quotation marks.

Journal Title, Volume Number /
  • ______or underline the journal title and the volume number.
  • ______the first and all major words of the journal title.

Issue Number, Page Numbers /
  • Put the ______in parentheses (in regular, not italic, type).
  • Give the ______on which the article starts and ends.

Categories of Sources

You may use different types of sources for your work, for example, magazines, books, WWW, etc. Each category should be written in a slightly different way.

Task 6: Match the references below with the right categories.

REFERENCES

1 / Beckman, L., & Harvey, S. M. (Eds.). (1998). The new civil war: The psychology, culture, and politics of abortion. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
2 / Wilson, W. J. (1996). When work disappears: The world of the new urban poor.New York: Knopf.
3 / Adler, J. (1995, July 31). The rise of the overclass. Newsweek, 126, 33-34, 39-40, 43, 45-46.
4 / Biber, D., Conrad, S., & Reppen, R. (1998). Corpus linguistics: Investigating language structure and use. Cambridge, England: CambridgeUniversity Press.
5 / Wurzbacher, K. V., Evans, E. D., & Moore, E. J. (1991). Effects of alternative street school on youth involved in prostitution. Journal of Adolescent Health, 12(7), 549-554.
6 / New drug appears to sharply cut risk of death from heart failure. (1993, July 15). The Washington Post, p.12.
7 / Frary, R. B. (n. d.). A brief guide to questionnaire development. Retrieved August 8, 1998 from the World Wide Web: upiques3.htm
8 / Boas anniversary volume: Anthropological papers written in honor of Franz Boas. (1906). New York: Stechert.
Example







 / Categories
a)Book by a single author
b)Book by two or more authors
c)Edited book
d)Book, no author or editor
e)Journal article
f)Magazine article
g)Newspaper article
h)World Wide Web Site

Order of References

References should be written in alphabetical order.

Task 7: Look at the entries in Task 6 again and put them in the correct order.

Practicing Full References

Task 8: Look at the entries below. Each entry has a mistake. What are the mistakes and what are the correct forms? There is also one overall mistake. Can you find it?

REFERENCES
Sperling, D. (1998). Internet Guide. New York: Prentice Hall Regents.
Wong, R., Glendinning, E., & Mantell, H. (1987). Becoming a writer. Longman: New York.
Haines, S., & Stewart, B. (1996). New first certificate, masterclass. Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press.
Headway. Soars, J., & Soars, L. (2001). Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press.
Gitsaki, C., & Taylor, R. P. (2000). Internet English. Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press.
Ashmore, K. (2001). Using the Web: Writing skills. 14(3), 19-20. CALL Review.
Freck, K. (2001). Alienation on the Web. Retrieved December 20, 2002 from the World Wide Web: index.html

Task 9: Create a reference entry for this source.

The text was taken from the book called Oxford English for Electronics

The book was written by Eric H. Glendinning and John McEwan

The date of publication is 2000

The name of the publisher is Oxford University Press

It was published in Oxford.

______

Task 10: Create references for the sources below. Pay attention to what kind of source each one is (e.g., book, newspaper, journal, etc.) and whether the different parts should be written in italics, in brackets, short form, etc.

Lake Forest, IL
1992
The Gregg reference manual
William A. Sabin
7th edition
Glencoe Press
Ageist language in psychological research
Kate W. Schaie
American Psychologist
Pages 49-51
Volume 48
1993
2000
Amelia Jane Walter
Editor
3rd edition
Words into type
CambridgeUniversity Press
Cambridge, MA
January 4 1989
The Washington Post
Page 19
W. Raspberry
When ‘black’ becomes ‘African American’

Technical Report Writing1

Unit 2 - References

Technical Report Writing1

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