Referencing work?

Question

I have had to write an analytical report for a photography assignment that I have recently done at university and I have to reference my sources properly(using the harvard referencing guide). I dont want to quote something someone said, but if I just mention them in my work must I give any additional information, such as their date of birth and death in brackets or anything? Im not sure and the lecturer is as much help as a wet cloth! Anyone know? thanks

Answer 1

Dear Pixie

Yes I know exactly how it's done and it is my favourite topic in teaching!!

Lets suppose you wanted to say in your assignment that Jonathan Bloggs took a wonderful photograph in 1998 that demonstrated the vibrant yellow of daffodils. He put this photograph in his book about English bulbs that was published in the same year
.
Presumeably you read about or saw Bloggs' photograph of daffodils in his book or maybe in a journal article. In your assignment you would say something like,

In my opinion, the vibrant yellow of daffodils is clearly illustrated by Bloggs, (1998) in his work on English bulbs.

or

In my opinion, the vibrant yellow of daffodils is clearly illustrated in Bloggs' photographic work on English bulbs (1998).

or

In my opinion, the vibrant yellow of daffodils is clearly illustrated in Bloggs' photographic work (1998) on English bulbs.

You can put the year, and only the year, of publication anywhere appropriate in the sentence as long as you put it. You see, the whole purpose of referencing is to tell the interested reader where you found this information so that they can then easily go on and find this information for themselves and so increase their knowledge base all because of your research; or in the case of us lecturers - check up on you - because believe it or not students cheat with their references thinking we don't know. Anyway, back to our SIMPLE example - that really is all you have to put in in the main body of the assignment - the year of publication, usually after the authors name but not necessarily - however you then have to construct a reference page at the back of your assignment to tell the reader the rest of the details, as follows:-

for a book

References.

BLOGGS, J. (1998) English Bulbs: A Photographic Journal. London: Percy Thrower Publications

please note the following - most of what I am about to write is convention - there is no apparent reason for it - apart from the fact that we are all following the same system - just do it and accept it no matter how pedantic it seems!!
1] The author is written in upper case, there is a comma after his/her surname and a comma after the initials.
2] The year of publication is written in brackets after the surname. The year of publication can be found after the copyright sign a few pages into the book - reprint years are not acceptable to make your research look more recent than it is! There is no full stop after the year of publication.
3] The name of the book is written EXACTLY as it is found on the book itself, including lower/uppercase usage. The name of the book is underlined (I don't know how to do it here on Yahoos pages). There is a full stop after the title of the book.
4] The place of publication is written before the publisher's name with a SEMI-COLON in between the two.
5] There is no full stop at the end of the citation (which is what this is actually called).

for a journal article:

it would be something like this

BLOGGS, J. (1998) A photographic study of yellow flowers in spring. Horticulture Today. pp 158-167

1] The name of the article is in sentence case and there is a full stop at the end of the name of the article.
2] The name of the journal is in Title Case and is underlined (again in this case I cannot demonstrate on Yahoo). There is a full stop after the journal name.
3] If the article spans just 1 page it is a small p with the page no., if it spans several pages it is pp then the page numbers it spans with a hyphen in between.
4] Again, there is no full stop at the end of the citation.

Please do not use italics, fancy fonts and coloured text. It may look pretty to you but after marking 20+ assignments on photography, your eyes start to bleed. Please only use the conventions I have explained if you want to do well in your assignment - simple.

There are many exceptions to these basic rules, and many variations on a theme - and of course with the internet and DVDs - you will need to know how to 'cite' these media as well.
Other students will be referencing the Vancouver way which involves a numbering system, but Harvard is the most popular.

I am appalled that you have not had extensive tutorials on referencing - it is so important in academia and you can lose (or gain) many marks by getting right or wrong.

I really don't know how this may be achieved on Yahoo but if you or anyone else reading this would like my comprehensive guide (handout) on referencing everything - with examples - then I will be only too happy to help. Maybe a department address at Uni?
- I feel it is important that we both maintain our anonimity if we wish to.

Answer 2

As your writing in you refer to another person put a little number in brackets. And then at the end of your report list all the people and their information you have referred to, ie:-

1 Pixie (19XXX - )
2 K (1974 - )