Academic Skills Human Geography and Spatial Planning

Structure of a Reference

The standard structure of a reference in the bibliography:

<surname author>, <author’s initials>. (<year of publication>). <title of the publication>. <place of publication>.

Gallant, N. (2006). The rural-urban fringe: A new priority for planning policy? Planning Practice and Research, 21(3), 383-393. Kaplinsky, R. (2005).

Globalization, poverty and inequality. Cambridge: Polity Press.


A reference in the bibliography consists of four elements:

The author’s name comes first, followed by their initials separated by full stops.

If there are two authors, the two names are separated by an ampersand (&).

Example Two Authors

Isin, E.F. & Turner, B.S. (2007). Investigating citizenship: An agenda for citizenship studies. Citizenship Studies, 11(1), 5-17.

 

If there are more than two authors, their names are separated by commas and the last author is preceded by an ampersand (&).

  • Note: In English bibliographies, a comma comes before the ampersand.
Example More Than two Authors

Lobao, L., Martin, R., & Rodríguez-Pose, A. (2009). Editorial: Rescaling the state: New modes of institutional-territorial organization. Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, 2(1), 3-12.

 

No more than seven authors may be stated for a single reference. If the original publication has more than seven authors, you should only mention the first six and the last author. The names of the seventh author (and any other authors) are replaced by a series of dots between brackets, the ellipsis (…), followed by the last author (without an ampersand).

Example more than seven autors

Phipps, M.S., Jia, H., Chumbler, N.R., Li, X., Castro, J.G., Myers, J., … Bravata, D.M. (2014). Rural-urban differences in inpatient quality of care in US veterans with Ischemic stroke. The Journal of Rural Health, 30(1), 1-6.

 

No author: use organization or the title of the publication.

The publication year is written in brackets after the author’s name, followed by a full stop.

  • When there is no publication year or date: (n.d.) (no date).
  • When referencing articles that have been accepted for publication but have not yet been published, you must state (in press).

The title listed in the bibliography must be exactly the same as the title as stated on the publication. That means you need to use exactly the same words and punctuation. The first word of the title and the first word of the sub-title must be written with a capital letter, as must proper nouns. The title is followed by a full stop.

When referencing an article, the title must be written normally (in non-italics).

Example

García, M. (2006). Citizenship practices and urban governance in European cities. Urban Studies, 43(4), 745-765.

 

When referencing a book or report, titles must be written in italics.

Example

Isin, E.F. & Turner, B.S. (Eds.) (2002). Handbook of citizenship studies. London: Sage.

After the title, you indicate where you found the source.

Possible places of publication are a journal When referencing a journal, you state the name of the journal, the volume and the specific pages on which you found the information. The title of a journal and the volume must be written in italics, and they should be separated by commas. The issue (in non-italics) comes in brackets after the publication date. Page numbers should be followed by a full stop.
Example
Van Gorp, N. (2009). Backwardness of border regions. Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, 100(3), 358-364.
a book When referencing a book, state the place of publication and the publisher, separated by a colon and followed by a full stop.
Example
Kolsto, P. (ed.). (2005). Myths and boundaries in South-Eastern Europe. London: Hurst & Company.
, or a digital source or website When referencing digital sources or websites, the webpage should be included when referencing the source, preceded by ‘retrieved from...’. If the webpage is undated, it should be followed by ‘n.d.’ (no date).
Examples
Human Geography (2010). In Wikipedia. Queried on 20 January, 2014, retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_geography Al3xxei (2007, 2 April 2007).

 

More and more online sources have a DOI, a digital object identifier. This is a unique identification number for digital files. DOIs can be used to create a permanent link to the location of a digital file. Many academic articles now have a DOI. The DOI is usually mentioned on the webpage that appears when you click on the title of a publication. If an article has a DOI, this should be mentioned last (no full stop after).

Example

Newman, D. (2006). The lines that continue to separate us: Borders in our ‘borderless’ world. Progress in Human Geography, 30(2), 143-161. DOI: 10.1191/0309132506ph599xx


Click here for more information about alphabetisation and layout of the bibliography.

Click here for examples of different source types.