Guidance for Students How to cite works in your essays - School of ...

Social Anthropology: Guidance for Students
How to cite works in your essays
In an essay, it is vital to cite your sources properly and list them fully at the end of
the essay, under “References Cited”. This is necessary:
• so that your reader can see where your information comes from and, if s/he
wants to, find that source
• to avoid plagiarism (the unacknowledged use or close paraphrase of another
person’s published words – which is strictly forbidden. See the guidelines on
plagiarism on the Social Anthropology Intranet and in the Programme
Handbook)
• to conform to ethical standards about acknowledging the work of others.
You may consider that it is not necessary for undergraduate essays to conform to
what are, more or less, professional academic standards. However, this is simply a
matter of learning to use a basic tool of the trade of academic writing.
In general, when you read academic (and other) sources, you should pay some
attention to how authors write: their writing style, how they use words and
punctuation, how they cite other works and sources, etc. When you come to write
yourself, critically examine your own writing with these standards in mind.
Citing sources in the main text of your essay
There are many different ways of citing sources, but there is a broad division
between footnote styles and author/date styles. The social sciences, including
anthropology, generally use the author/date system (a particular version of which is
the so-called Harvard system). The precise details of commas, colons and spaces
varies from one house style to another. Take a look at how a key anthropological
journal, such as The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute or Ethnos, does it.
The key thing is to choose one method and stick to it. One fairly common method is
shown here.
The author/date system works by citing the author and date of a source publication
in parentheses in the text of the essay:
• Bloggs (1989) argues that...
• It has been argued (Bloggs 1989) that…
• Bloggs (1989: 112) says that “everyone else but me is wrong”
• According to Bloggs, “there is no such thing as daft question” (Bloggs 1989:
114).

Note that when a direct quotation is given, a page number must be supplied. It is
also often appropriate to supply a page number when you are making reference to a
specific idea of piece of information from a book or article, rather than a general
argument.
All the sources cited in the text of the essay are then listed at the end.
How to cite authors who are cited by other authors
If you are citing an author whose work you have not read first hand but have found
in another text, the usual way of dealing with this is:
• Bloggs argues that life is an illusion (cited in Smith 1990)
• According to Bloggs, “life is nothing but pain and misery” (cited in Smith
1990: 113).
• A different view is that life is all skittles and beer (Jones, cited in Smith 1990)
In this case, it is usual to only list Smith under “References Cited”. The reader can go
to Smith (1990) and find the details for Bloggs and Jones. It is, however, acceptable
to give more detail:
• According to Bloggs, “life is nothing but pain and misery” (1985, cited in
Smith 1990: 113).
In this case, Bloggs (1985) would also be listed at the end.
In general you should avoid citing and listing authors as if you’d actually read them
first hand when you’ve only encountered them through other texts. This is a
common tactic to make it look as if you’ve read more than your actually have, but it
is poor practice.
How to list texts in “References Cited”
The best way to show this is with examples:
Barkan, Elazar. 1995. Victorian promiscuity: Greek ethics and primitive exemplars. In
Prehistories of the future: the primitivist project and the culture of
modernism. Edited by Elazar Barkan and Ronald Bush, pp. 56-92. Stanford:
Stanford University Press.
Barkan, Elazar and Ronald Bush. 1995. Introduction. In Prehistories of the future: the
primitivist project and the culture of modernism. Edited by Elazar Barkan and
Ronald Bush, pp. 1-22. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Bastide, Roger. 1961. Dusky Venus, black Apollo. Race 3: 10-19.
Béhague, Gerard (ed.). 1994. Music and black ethnicity: the Caribbean and South
America. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.
Bushnell, David. 1993. The making of modern Colombia: a nation in spite of itself.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
Butler, Judith P. 1993. Bodies that matter: on the discursive limits of 'sex'. London:
Routledge.
CIIR (Catholic Institute of International Relations). 1992. Colombia: image and reality.
London: CIIR.
Hanson, Allan. 1989. The making of the Maori: culture invention and its logic.
American Anthropologist 91(4): 890-902.
You will note that the list is in alphabetical order. The details of exactly how to set
out the information, particularly punctuation conventions, vary from one house style
to another. Nearly all italicise the title of books and the names of journals. Some
styles do not require page numbers for chapters in edited books, all require page
numbers for journal articles. Again, the important thing is to choose one style and
stick to it. Look at an anthropological journal or book for examples of how to list
references.
How to list Internet sources
References to electronic sources in the text of your essay should normally include
the author’s last name and date. If no author’s name is available, list the web
address. (If the URL is very long and complex, it may be appropriate to put it in a
footnote.)
Under references cited, an authored Internet source can be listed thus:
Burka, Luis P. 1993. A hypertext history of multi-user dimensions. MUD history.
http://www.utopia.com/talent/lpb/muddex/essay (2 Aug. 1996).
The date at the end is the date you accessed the document.
When to use footnotes
In social science styles, footnotes or endnotes are mainly used for additional
information that may be of interest to some readers, but is not necessary to the flow
of the main text. They may give the reader guidance on related literature and
sources. They may also be used to give very long lists of simple citations that would

otherwise break up the main text too much. Long and ugly-looking URLs are often
better located in a footnote than in the main text.
Further information
A good clear overall text is:
Pears, Richard and Graham Shields. 2005. Cite them right: the essential guide to
referencing and plagiarism. Newcastle Upon Tyne: Pear Tree Books.
For information on how to cite online sources, see Walker, Janice R. and Todd Taylor.
1998. The Columbia guide to online style. New York: Columbia University Press.
Look at the style guide for The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1467-
9655/homepage/ForAuthors.html
Or the following website has details of how to reference different kinds of works
and media using the Harvard system
http://community.ucreative.ac.uk/article/25881/Referencing-specific-sources-usingthe-Harvard-style
Inserting an Automated Word Count
1. Click the Insert tab on the Ribbon.
2. In the Text group, click the QuickParts icon.
3. Click the Fields menu item.
4. Scroll down to and click on NumWords.
5. Click OK.