One of the most important things you will need to know how to do when starting out at university is understanding academic references. Here’s a simple guide to help you decode book and journal (periodical) references.

How to interpret a reference for a book

Example book reference:

Olusoga, D. (2017) Black and British: a forgotten history. London: Pan Books.

1. Author(s): The first part of the reference is the author’s name. In this case, “Olusoga, D.” indicates the author is David Olusoga. If there are multiple authors, they will be listed in the order they appear on the book itself.
2. Year of Publication: The year the book was published is in brackets. Here, it’s “2017”.
3. Title of the Book: The title of the book is italicized. In this example, it’s “Black and British: a forgotten history”. Only the first word of the title and any proper nouns are capitalized.
4. Place of Publication: This is the city where the publisher is located. In this case, London.
5. Publisher: The name of the publishing company. Here, it’s “Pan Books”.

You can find this book on our library catalogue, DiscoverEd, and take a look at how the citations for it would appear in various different citation styles. DiscoverEd is helpful that way!

DiscoverEd record highlighting the citation tool.

How to interpret a reference for a journal article

Journal article references are a bit different from books but follow a similar structure. Let’s break it down.

Example journal article reference:

Kim, I. (2020) ‘A study of feminism and womanism in Korean hip hop songs by female rappers’. Journal of World Popular Music, 7(2), 228–249.

1. Author(s): Similar to book references, the authors are listed first: surname followed by initial(s). The author here is Iljung Kim.
2. Year of Publication: The year the article was published, in this case, “2020”, in round brackets.
3. Title of the Article: The title of the article is not italicised, and appears in single quotation marks. Here, it’s ‘A study of feminism and womanism in Korean hip hop songs by female rappers’.
4. Title of the Journal: The journal’s title is italicized to make it clearly different to the title of the article, and the first letter of each word in the journal title is capitalised, except for linking words such as and, of, the, for. In this example, it’s “Journal of World Popular Music”.
5. Volume and Issue Number: The volume number of the journal comes first, without brackets, followed by the issue or part number, in brackets. In this example “7(2)” means volume 7, issue 2. Sometimes instead of an issue or part number there will be a month or season listed.
6. Page Numbers: The range of pages the article appears on. “228–249” means the article starts on page 228 and ends on page 249.

Tips for new students

• Pay attention to details: small details like punctuation and italics are important in academic references.
• Use reference management tools: tools like EndNote, Zotero, or Mendeley can help you manage and format your references correctly.
• Consult your style guide: different subject disciplines use different referencing styles (e.g. Chicago, Harvard, APA, or MLA). Make sure you know which one your department, School or deanery prefers.

Want to learn more? Take a look at the excellent guidance in Cite Them Right online.

Cite Them Right Online

It includes top tips and useful videos and guidance on getting started with referencing.

We also have a useful subject guide on referencing: Referencing and Reference Management.

Referencing and Reference Management guide.

Understanding references might seem tricky at first, but with practice, it will become second nature to you

If you would like further advice, contact your Academic Support Librarian.

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