Title: Referencing Basics (BASED ON SAVONIA'S STANDARD)
Course: Study PrepProg - Improve Your English from B1 to B2 Level > Section: Reading and writing academic texts

Find out about marking sources in a research paper.

The source of information must be always shown clearly (Savonia 2022, 13). Following the information provided in the text, the reader can find the exact source using the list of references.

In the text we use the name-year system, which then points to an entry in the list of references. This entry contains all the bibliographical information needed to locate the exact source used.

This is important, as the information has to be verifiable.

Note the following differences, the comments are in square brackets:

This one sentence is from a source by one author (Gates 2005). [one full stop after the brackets]

This is one sentence by the author. This is another. (Gates 2005.) [for two or more sentences two full stops are needed: one is after the sentence and one before the closing bracket]

This one sentence is from a source by two authors (Gates & Allen 2005). [one sentence = one full stop. Before the last author use an &]

This one sentence is from a source by two authors and can be found on a specific page (Gates & Allen 2005, 95). [separate year and page number(s) with a , comma]

This is one sentence is from a source. This is another one. And this is a third one by two authors and can be found on a specific range of pages. (Gates & Allen 2005, 95-105.) [two or more sentences so two full stops. Page range separated with a -]

This is one sentence from the author. This is another, but the information is from two sources by the same person, published in two different years. (Jobs 2008; 2010.) [separate sources with a semicolon ; in this case the author's name needs no repeating]

This is one sentence from one author. However, this is another sentence by another author, but we contrast their ideas. (Gates 2005; Jobs 2010.) [sources separated by a semicolon]

About "et al.", or "and others" in text:

- if you have one or two authors, use their names (Gates 2005) or (Gates & Allen 2005)
- if you have three-five authors, the first time, use all their names (Gates, Allen, Jobs, Kodolanyi & Von Neumann 2005), then later on use always the first author and add et al. (Gates et al. 2005)
- if you have six or more authors, use only the first author and et al. (Grove et al. 1986)

In the bibliography you must indicate all the authors listed in the original publication, and in the same order.