Referencing Guide

On this page you will find a description of the preferred system used for referencing written work within the Discipline of English. It includes an example of a Works Cited list. You can click on the entries in the index below or scroll down through the list.

Please note that a hard-copy version of this guide is available outside the English Office.

Be sure to read our guidelines on plagiarism!

Guide to Referencing Within the Text

When referring to an author’s ideas or directly quoting their words, only the author’s name and the page number are necessary, e.g. (Silverman 143). Do not use ‘p.’ or ‘pp.’ or insert a comma. If there is more than one entry by the same author in the list of Works Cited, they should be distinguished within the text by a shortened title after the author’s name, e.g. (Silverman Fragments, 143). Otherwise, only the author and page number are required or desired. Avoid repeating the author’s name if it has already been mentioned, e.g. ‘As Silverman argues, ‘blah, blah, blah’ (143). [No need to repeat Silverman.]

If quoting from a Shakespearian play, give reference by Act, Scene, and Line, rather than by page, e.g. (III.ii.27-30). Other plays, such as contemporary works, should be referenced by page number if there are no line numbers.

Quotations longer than four lines should be indented and do not require inverted commas. Shorter quotations should not be indented and do require inverted commas.

Guide To Creating a List of Works Cited

List only those texts to which you have made direct reference in your essay. This is NOT a list of everything you have read (Bibliography). It should include all primary texts as well as secondary sources. Even if you have not used any critical works you should still have a list of ‘Works Cited’. The list of texts is NOT numbered but appears in alphabetical order, usually by the author's surname. Check the MLA Handbook in the Barr Smith Library for more details.

Please also take note of the punctuation.

* If an entry in a Works Cited list is longer than one line the second and subsequent lines should conform to a paragraph style of ‘hanging indent’ format (despite how they appear in the following examples).

A single-author book

Author’s surname comma first name or initials full stop title [in italics] full stop place of publication colon publisher [shortened form: leave out terms like ‘Books’, ‘Pty’, ‘Ltd’ and shorten University Press to UP] comma date of publication full stop

For example:
Sallis, Eva. Hiam. Sydney: Allen, 1998.

A single-author book which has been republished

Author’s surname comma first name or initials full stop title [in italics] full stop original date of publication full stop place of publication colon publisher comma date of publication full stop

For example:
Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. 1902. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973.

A chapter in a book edited by another

Author’s surname comma first name or initials full stop ‘title’ [of chapter in inverted commas] full stop title [of book in italics] full stop Ed. editor’s first name or initials followed by surname full stop place of publication colon publisher comma date of publication full stop page numbers of chapter or essay [no pp.] full stop.

For example:
Silverman, Kaja. ‘Fragments of a Fashionable Discourse’. Studies in Entertainment: Critical Approaches to Mass Culture. Ed. Tania Modleski. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1986. 139-52.

A short story

Author’s surname comma first name or initials full stop ‘title’ [of story in inverted commas] full stop title [of book in italics] author or editor’s name full stop place of publication colon publisher comma date of publication full stop pagination full stop.

For example:
Senior, Olive. ‘Bright Thursdays’. Summer Lightning. Harlow: Longman, 1986. 36-53.

A single-author journal article

Author’s surname comma first name or initials full stop ‘title’ [of article in inverted commas] full stop title [of journal in italics] volume stop number [use Arabic numerals even if journal uses Roman] (year of publication) [in brackets] colon pagination full stop.

For example:
Mulvey, Laura. ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’. Screen 16.3 (1975): 6-18.
Meyer, Rosalind S. ‘Mr Knightley’s Education: Parallels in Emma’. English Studies 79 (1998): 212–23.

More than one author, chapter in edited book and more than one author of book

Same as chapter in book except only the first author has the surname before the first name as it is just for the purpose of alphabetical order.

For example:
McRobbie, Angela, and Jenny Garber. ‘Girls and Subcultures’. Resistance Through Rituals: Youth Subcultures in Post-War Britain. Ed. Stuart Hall and Tony Jefferson. London: Hutchinson, 1976. 209-22.

A translation

Same as a book, except translator’s first name or initials followed by surname follows the title Original publication date can be added before publication details.

For example:
Bashkirtseff, Marie. The Journal of Marie Bashkirtseff. Trans. Mathilde Blind. 1890. London: Virago, 1985.

A short poem

Author’s surname comma first name or initials full stop ‘title’ [inverted commas] title [of collection of poems in italics] full stop Ed. editor’s first name or initials followed by surname full stop place of publication colon publisher comma date of publication full stop pagination full stop.

For example:
Plath, Sylvia. ‘The Colossus’. The Norton Anthology of Poetry. Ed. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter and Jon Stallworthy. New York: Norton, 1996. 1728.

A long poem

As for short poem except title [in italics].

For example:
Milton, John. 'Paradise Lost'. Paradise Lost and Selected Poetry and Prose. Ed. Northrop Frye New York: Holt, 1951.

A film

Title (in italics) full stop director’s name full stop (writer, performers and producer may be included here) the distributor comma date full stop.

For example:
The Silence of the Lambs. Dir. Jonathan Demme. Columbia Tristar, 1991.

OR

The Silence of the Lambs. Dir. Jonathan Demme. With Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins and Scott Glenn. Columbia Tristar, 1991.

A television episode

‘Title of the episode’ [in inverted commas and only if relevant] full stop title of series [in italics and if relevant] full stop the local station comma the city full stop the date of broadcast full stop.

For example:
‘Loose Ends’. Blue Heelers. Channel 7, Adelaide. 9 February 2000.

A play

Author’s surname comma first name or initials full stop title [in italics] full stop [insert editor’s name if there is one] place of publication colon publisher comma date of publication full stop.

For example:
Shakespeare, William. The Tempest. Ed. Frank Kermode. London: Methuen, 1962.

A magazine

Title [in italics] full stop date full stop.

For example:
Cleo. March 2000.

An article in a newspaper

Author’s surname comma first name or initials full stop ‘title’ [in inverted commas] title [of paper in italics] date colon pagination full stop.

For example:
Holgate, Ben. ‘Cannes Nominee is Danced to Her Seat’. The Weekend Australian 16-17 May 1998: 10.

An unpublished thesis/dissertation

Author’s surname comma first name or initials full stop ‘title’ [in inverted commas] full stop Diss full stop name of conferring institution comma year of completion full stop.

For example:
Boyle, Anthony T. ‘The Epistemological Evolution of Renaissance Utopian Literature: 1516-1657.’ Diss. New York U, 1983.

A recorded song

Performer’s name full stop ‘title of song’ [in inverted commas] full stop album title [in italics] recording label comma date full stop.

For example:
Spice Girls. ‘Wannabe’. SPICE. Virgin Records, 1996.

A recorded album

Performer’s name full stop title [in italics] producer [if significant] full stop recording company comma date full stop.

For example:
Smashing Pumpkins. Melloncollie and the Infinite Sadness. Prod. Flood, Alan Mulder and Billy Corgan. Hut Recordings, 1995.

Internet site

Author’s last name comma first name or initials full stop ‘title’ [in inverted commas] full stop name of site full stop [if relevant] web address full stop date accessed full stop.

For example:
Limb, Peter. ‘Alliance Strengthened or Diminished? Relationships between Labour and African Nationalist/Liberation Movements in Southern Africa’. <http://neal.ctstateu.edu/history/world_history/archives/limb-1.html>. May 1992.

Example of a Works Cited list:

Works Cited

Gonzalez, Paul. ‘The Original Counterculture Flick, Easy Rider, Returns.’ The Tech. <http://www-tech.mit.edu/V115/N25/rider.25a.html>. 17/10/01.

Green, Jonathon. All Dressed Up: The Sixties and the Counter Culture. London: Pimlico, 1999.

Klinger, Barbara. ‘The Road to Dystopia: Landscaping the Nation in Easy Rider.’ The Road Movie Book. Ed. Steven Cohen and Ina Rae Hark. London: Routledge, 1997. 179-203.

Marwick, Arthur. The Sixties. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1998.

Monaco, James. How to Read a Film. New York: Oxford UP, 1981.

Mulvey, Laura. ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’. Screen 16.3 (1975): 6-18.

Smashing Pumpkins. Melloncollie and the Infinite Sadness. Prod. Flood, Alan Mulder and Billy Corgan. Hut Recordings, 1995.

Please Note: If an entry in a Works Cited list is longer than one line the second and subsequent lines should conform to a paragraph style of ‘hanging indent’ format (despite how they appear in the above examples).