In my last blog post, we looked at how you would use the Harvard referencing system to cite a book. In this week’s blog post, we will be considering a different sort of source – journal articles. These are a very common source, so it is worth brushing up on the referencing method! We will start by considering why referencing is so important in your writing, then look at the format a journal article should take in your reference list and within the text itself. Finally, we will look at some ways to analyse sources before you include them in your work.
The main purpose of referencing is to allow you to link back to the original creators of the work you are using to explain a point or expand your argument. This means that you avoid plagiarism, provided you take care not to just copy out their ideas without adding any of your own. Accurate referencing also means that your readers can look up any sources that you have used, either to check an explanation or to continue their research.
The basic format for a journal article in a reference list is:
Surname, Initials., Year published. Title of article. Full title of journal, Volume number(Issue number/Part number), Page number(s)
For example:
Monti, G., 1997. The future of reservation of title clauses in the European community. International and Comparative Law Quarterly, 46, p.866
We will now look at each of these parts in turn.
Surname
For this, simply write the author’s surname, followed by a comma. If they have multiple surnames, include all of these as they are written.
Initials
Write each initial followed by a full stop. If there are multiple first names, list them and place a full stop after each one, for example:
King, J.V.
Multiple Authors
If there are multiple authors, list them all in the order they appear in the document, separated by commas and joining the last two with an “and”. If there are so many authors that it would detract from your reference list, ask for advice from your organisation or faculty.
For example:
Hare, B., King, J.V. and Gibson, F.
Year Published
This should be the year the journal was published in a four-digit format, i.e. 1997 instead of 97, followed by a full stop.
Title of article
Write the title of the article out in full, followed by a full stop. Capitalise the first letter and any proper nouns; otherwise, remove all capitals. For example, “A Study of the Flora and Fauna of New Zealand” would become “A study of the flora and fauna of New Zealand”. The “A” keeps its capitalisation as it is the first word and “New Zealand” does too as it is a proper noun.
Full Title of Journal
This should be the journal name exactly as it is given, retaining any capitalisation. Write it in italics followed by a comma.
Volume number(Issue/Part number)
Include as much of this information as you know after the comma to help your readers accurately pinpoint your sources, placing issue and part numbers inside brackets.
Page number(s)
Pinpoint the particular pages that you have used. Use the abbreviation “p.”, followed by the page numbers you used. For a range of numbers, give them all; for example, p.237–265.
In-Text Citation
For a citation within the body of your text, you only need the author’s name and the year of the reference. There are two ways to deal with this. Firstly, you can mention the author directly in the text, followed by the year in brackets, for example:
Monti (1997) explains that…
Alternatively, you can give the information, then include the author’s name and the year of publication in brackets with a comma between them:
(Monti, 1997)
If you are referring directly to a particular part of the journal article, include page numbers:
As stated in Monti (1997, p.3)…
If there are two or three authors of an article, include all of their names:
(Hare, King and Gibson, 2016)
Or if the authors are mentioned in the text:
Hare, King and Gibson (2016) found that…
However, if there are four or more authors, instead list them as “et al.”, meaning “and others”:
(Hare, at al., 2016)
Or if the authors are mentioned in the text:
This is supported by Hare, et al. (2016).
Evaluating Journal Articles for Reliability
Before you use a journal article, it is important that you check how reliable it is as a source. There are a few points to consider here. Firstly, how recently was it written? A source written in the last few years will be more relevant than one from twenty years ago. Look at who the author is and what their credentials are. In addition, check the referencing of the journal article. Does it seem to cite everything it has used? Are these sources reliable?
Wrapping Up
I hope that this helps you reference journal articles in your work. Next time, we will be looking at how to reference newspaper articles, so come back in two weeks for that!
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