Referencing and Bibliography

Although there is usually no expectation to include references and a bibliography in your regular essays or exam responses, it will be an essential part of your NEA (and EPQ, if you are doing that) The purpose of including references is to acknowledge and give credit to the writer you are quoting – essentially to avoid any claim of plagiarism – and to enable the marker to look up any references you make.

There are several different styles that academics use for referencing. Your school may specify the style you need to use but, if they don’t, just choose one and be consistent. For the sake of clarity, I will be using the Harvard system which is commonly used by universities.

Referencing goes in the body of your essay, immediately following a quotation or an idea you have taken from another writer, whereas a bibliography goes at the end and is a list of all the works you referenced.

Referencing

You must reference the author and year of publication (and page number if you are quoting directly)- in this order – when you quote or paraphrase another person’s ideas.

Look carefully at the examples as there are some small changes in each:

a) Fiona Sampson describes how “Awe creates transcendent understanding through its lurch into the exceptional,” (2018, p135).

• This shows that it’s from page135 of Sampson’s book – abbreviate page to p. The author’s name has already been used in the sentence.

 

b) When we encounter the creature and see how “Awe creates transcendent understanding through its lurch into the exceptional,” (Sampson, 2018, p135)…

• If it has not been referenced in the sentence, start with the writer’s surname.

 

c) If there are 2 or 3 authors credited in your text, present it exactly as you would have done above e.g. (Coxon and Clark, 2024 p56) or (Bradridge, Willcox and Barnard, 2025, pp98-99)

• pp is used instead of p when it’s quoted from more than one page.

 

d) If there are 4 or more authors credited, reference as follows: (Foley et al, 2024)

• Make sure you use italics for et al

 

e) If there is no date available, indicate this: (Harvie, no date)

 

f) If you are referring to a source that you haven’t personally read but is quoted by another author, do it this way: Foley et al say “Blanche is not mad ” (2024, quoted in Jackson, 2025, p77) If it isn’t quoted from another source but simply summarised, say cited instead of quoted: The suggestion that Blanche is not mad (Foley et al, 2024, cited in Jackson, 2025, pp77-79)… 

Bibliography

You should end your essay with a complete list of all the sources you have used. This should include books, articles, webpages, journals, newspapers – any published material. It should be presented in alphabetical order by the author’s surname.

Use these formats:

Books:

Author’s surname, author’s initials. (Year of publication) Title of the Book. Place of publication: Publisher.

e.g. Owen, D. (2018) Where the Crawdads Sing. London: Corsair.

Chapters in Edited Books

Chapter Author’s surname, author’s initials. (Year of publication) ‘Chapter Title’, in Editor’s surname, initial (ed./eds) Book Title. Place of publication: Publisher, pp pages

e.g. Owusu, D. (2022) ‘on The Great Gatsby’, in Sykes, P (ed) What Writers Read. London: Bloomsbury pp67-71

Websites:

Author’s surname name, author’s initials. (Year of publication) Title of the Webpage. Available at: URL (Accessed: date).

e.g. Eroglu, B.D. (2023) Monstrosity and Humanity in Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” Available at: https://medium.com/@den1z9eroglu/exploring-monstrosity-and-humanity-in-mary-shelleys-frankenstein-6218b9a3d047 (Accessed: 3 February 2026)

Journals:

Author’s surname, author’s initials. (Year of publication): ‘Article title’, Journal Name, Volume (issue), pp pages. Available at: URL

e.g. Attardi, L.D. and Brady, C.A. (2010) ‘p53 at a glance’, Journal of Cell Science, 123(15), pp. 2527-2532. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1242/jcs.064501