Referencing Styles

A guide to the reference styles used at the University of St Andrews

What you need to include:

This advice related specifically to web pages, rather than all information found online.  If you need to reference a book or journal article which you have accessed online, please refer to the section within this guide for books and journal articles.

Remember to evaluate the information you find on websites to ensure they are appropriate for academic use.

  • Author or organisation
  • Title (give the title of the specific page you are referring to)
  • Place where known, Publisher or Organisation, year - where no year can be found use [n.d.]
  • URL
  • Date Accessed
  • If referring to a specific page or section, and this can be identified with a page number, paragraph number, or heading, use this.

The Basic in-text citation 

(Surname or Organisation Name Year: page or paragraph)

The BasicBibliography Reference format is:

Surname, First Name, or Organisation, Title of webpage. (Place of Publication: Publisher or Organisation, Year) <URL> [accessed DD Month YYYY]

 

In-text citation:

(Jones [n.d.])

Bibliography entry:

Jones, Chris. [n.d.] Solar system facts, (Space Facts) <http://space-facts.com> [accessed 15 July 2016]

Example of webpage reference with individual author
  • For author information look in the "About" section of a web page
  • Dates can often be found either beside the title, if it's a blog entry, etc. or at the bottom of the website.
  • Where no date is available use the abbreviation [n.d.] for no date.

 

 

 

 

In-text citation:

(NASA 2016.) 

Bibliography entry:

NASA, Journey to Mars. 2016. (Washington: NASA) <http://www.nasa.gov/topics/journeytomars/index.html> [accessed 14 June 2016]

Example web page reference with organisation as author
  • Where an organisation is commonly known by an acronym (NASA, UN, etc) there's no need to give the full name.  Where an acronym isn't in common use, or you want to avoid any uncertainly the full name of the organisation should be given.
  • The Headquarters of an organisation is given as the Location, where no location can be found miss this out
  • Date of publication can often be found alongside the page title or at the bottom of the page.
  • Where there's no date of publication is given use the abbreviation [n.d.]

 

In-text citation:

  • Author surname or organisation .  Organisation abbreviations can be used where these are commonly known
  • Year of publication
  • Page number, paragraph number if referring to a specific section of the page

Bibliography

  • Author name is given as Surname, First name, or use the Organisation Name
  • Abbreviations for organisations can be given if these are in common use, otherwise use the full name.
  • Give the year of publication, where this can't be found use the abbreviation [n.d.]
  • Give the title of the specific webpage you are referring to
  • Location, Publisher or Organisation - if no location can be found miss this out.
  • Where an organisation has multiple locations, and you are unable to identify which is responsible for a work, use the organisation's headquarters location.
  • A URL for the specific page you are referring to is given
  • Provide the date accessed.