An in-text citation is required if you paraphrase (use someone else's ideas in your own words), summarise (use a brief account of someone else's ideas), quote (use someone else's exact words) or copy (use someone else's figures, tables or structure). When citing references within the text of an assignment, you need the author’s surname/family name or organisation name plus the year of publication and potentially a page number:
(Oliver, 2003) (Cruttenden, 2014, p. 89)
Over-citation, for example using the same citation in multiple sentences when the topic and source have not changed, can be distracting to the reader and is not necessary.
It is best practice when citing the same source throughout a single paragraph to cite it in the first sentence where it is used, and while the source remains clear and unchanged i.e. you don't refer to another source, do not repeat the citation. However, although the citation is not repeated it must be clear from the context of that writing that the same source is being used.
As Cottrell (2011) suggests, it is important to appreciate the difficulties that students can sometimes face when trying to order their thoughts in a more reasoned and logical way. Consequently, critical thinking is a skill which may have to be developed over a long period of time, and which will require a great deal of practice to fully grasp (Foundation for Critical Thinking, 2013).
N.B – notice how you can use in-text citations in different ways depending on whether you want the emphasis on the author (the first in-text citation above) or whether you want the emphasis on the idea (the second in-text citation).
Critical thinking is argued to be the skill “to make careful judgements about information and to evaluate its quality" (Drew and Bingham, 2001, p. 282).
N.B – notice that with a direct quotation you need to use double quotation marks and, where possible, you must include the page number so that your quotation can be verified.
When a book or other source you want to cite has two authors, cite both authors.
Examples:
Drew and Bingham (2001) explained that ...
OR
Research has found that ... (Drew and Bingham, 2001)
If there are three or more authors, cite the first author only followed by ‘et al.’ (from the Latin meaning ‘and others’).
Harris et al. (2006) have argued that …
OR
It has been argued that ... (Harris et al., 2006)
In your reference list, you should list all authors shown, and you should list these in the same order they appear on the publication.
Example:
Harris, A., Robinson, K., Smith, P. & Turner, G. (2006) Management skills. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
There may be times when you have to cite two publications by an author published in the same year. To do this, you need to distinguish between the items in the text and the reference list by allocating letters.
Example:
The results of the survey showed that the standard of living was higher in the coastal regions (Williams, 2004a). Further research revealed that employment figures were also higher (Williams, 2004b).
In your reference list, the publications would be shown as:
Williams, A. (2004a) Survey of living standards in the coastal regions. London: Survey Press.
Williams, A. (2004b) Employment figures for the coastal regions. London: Survey Press.
If you need to cite multiple sources in a sentence, then you can put them all in brackets, separated by a semi-colon:
(Kyenti, 2019; Smith et al. 2020; Townes and Brown, 2018).
There are a number of strategies you can use when you have missing information in your references.
1. No date
The date is often difficult to find on web-based material. If no date is available, use n.d.
E.g.
(Sword, n.d.)
Sword, H. (n.d.) The writing base. Available at: https://writersdiet.com/base/ [Accessed 19 July 2021].
2. No Author
If you can’t find the name of a person as the author, it is likely that there will be an organisation that you can use instead. In this case use the organisation’s name as the author. E.g.
(Royal Literary Fund, 2018)
Royal Literary Fund (2018) Writing Essays. Available at: https://www.rlf.org.uk/resources/writing-essays/ [Accessed 10 June 2015].
In the rare cases where there is no person or organisation that can be used as an author, consider carefully whether the source is suitable for an academic assignment. If you still want to reference it, then you can use the title of the work in place of the author.
3. Missing title
If there is no title present, then you can describe the work in square brackets instead of the title.
4. Publishing information
If you are struggling to find the publishing information of a book, such as the place of publication or the publisher, check OneSearch, the library catalogue. You can also find publishing information on the websites of book sellers, publishers and other libraries.
Be cautious when citing works where the author is not obvious, because this can sometimes mean that the work is not suitable to include as an academic source. However, if you do need to cite a work which appears to have no author, use either the title of the work, the name of the publication or the website instead. In some disciplines, you can use the abbreviation Anon (for Anonymous). If you are unsure, please check with your tutor.
Example:
The Times (2007) stated that...
How to cite a website
To cite a website or web page within the text of an assignment, cite by the author if there is one clearly stated. If there is no author you should cite by the website name or organisation name.
Example:
A common misconception around critical thinking is that you need to be negative (Royal Literary Fund, 2018).
The publication of a source is usually a strong indication of the source’s validity. However, there may be occasion when you want to cite unpublished materials. You can indicate this by adding ‘unpublished’ at the end of the full reference, particularly if it is not apparent from the reference that the source is unpublished.
Name of author, initial. Year (in brackets). Title. Unpublished.
Some types of unpublished sources, including letters and diaries may have additional information available that you should include within your full reference. For example, if you are citing an unpublished document from within an archive or collection you should include this information. The below example is a correspondence.
Rigby, G. (1637). Rigby to H. Sherbourne, 13 July [Letter]. Held at: The Peele Collection of Letters, Lancashire Record Office. DDKE9201.
This is when you are citing the work of an author which is mentioned in a book or journal article by another author. You should always try to read the original work where possible, but if not, you must make it clear that you have not read the original work by using the phrase ‘cited in’ and then include the reference for the source from which the information is taken.
Within the text you would present this as follows:
There have been many in-depth comparisons (Kazmer and Xie, 2008 cited in Robson, 2011)…
In the reference list, you would provide the full reference for Robson’s (2011) work, not Kazmer and Xie’s (2008) work.
Note: if you are using EndNote to manage your references, see the guide on Editing citations for information about how to create a secondary reference.
Cite the full short title of the act including the year. Note that there is no need to repeat the year:
Key legislation provides for ... (Human Rights Act 1998)
Cite the full title of the SI. Again, there is no need to repeat the year:
Consumer legislation requires...(The Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000)
The first time you mention a case, cite the title of the case, ie the parties involved, and the year:
In a recent case (Tillman v Egon Zehnder Ltd, 2020), it was noted that...
The judgment in the case of McCausland v Duncan Lawrie (1997) showed...