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Referencing using the documentary-note (Oxford) style

About this resource

This resource explains some of the more common applications of the documentary-note (Oxford) style of referencing. It is based on the Style manual for authors, editors and printers, 6th edn, 2002, pp. 208–15; pp. 218–219; and pp. 228–32.

You should always check your unit guide and/or with academic staff (unit chair, lecturer or tutor) to make sure that this is the recommended style for your unit. Note that some units, courses and disciplines use variations of the style described here.

You must reference all material you use from all sources and acknowledge your sources in the body of your paper each time you use a fact, a conclusion, an idea or a finding from someone's work. This establishes the authority of your work and acknowledges the researchers and writers you have drawn upon in your paper.

It is necessary to cite your sources each time you:

  • reproduce an author's exact words (quote), that is, copy word for word directly from a text
  • use your own wording (summarise or paraphrase) to explain or discuss what someone has said.

If you copy an entire table, chart, diagram or graph or if you take only some of the data contained in such sources, you must provide a reference.

Sources such as journals, books, encyclopedias, computer programs and software, information from the internet, reports, newspapers, interviews, radio and television must be cited in the body of your paper and detailed in a reference list at the end. Information from Deakin study guides and readers must also be acknowledged.

The documentary-note style

The documentary-note style consists of the following elements:

  1. citations in the body of the paper, using a superscript (raised) number, generally at the end of a sentence
  2. a list of footnotes at the bottom (foot) of each page, for all citations on that page. These are known as endnotes if they appear at the end of a chapter, section or other division (for longer texts, for multi-author texts and for texts intended to be read as separate parts)
  3. possibly a bibliography. If a bibliography is required it should be provided at the end of the paper giving the details of each source referred to and possibly other materials consulted in preparing the paper.

Part 1 of this resource deals with citing sources in the body of the paper.

Part 2 deals with setting out footnotes. It gives examples of a range of common types of sources that you are likely to use in your assignments.

Part 3 deals with how to present the related bibliography entries for some of the footnotes/endnotes presented in Part 2.

Part 1: Citing sources

Superscript numbers with corresponding footnotes should be used whenever information or ideas from sources are discussed. Sources such as books, journals, reports, newspapers, interviews, radio, television and information from the Internet must be acknowledged in text and detailed in footnotes. Information from Deakin study guides and readers must also be referenced.

Superscript numbers are generally placed at the end of a sentence or clause rather than immediately after the words to which they refer. However, where possible, they should be placed immediately after direct quotes.

Summarising and paraphrasing

Writers can discuss ideas and findings from sources by using their own words in summaries and paraphrases. Summarising is condensing a text; paraphrasing is conveying all the information in a short stretch of text.

When summarising or paraphrasing material from a source, a superscript number should be used as follows:

Spiro Kostof notes that Ggantija, on the Maltese island of Gozo, is the earliest true building type discovered.1

or

Ggantija, on the Maltese island of Gozo, is the earliest true building type discovered.1

Quoting

This is how a direct quote would appear:

Spiro Kostof notes, 'Ggantija is a wholly manmade form, which is to say it is thought out and reproduceable. As such, it is the first true building type…'1

or

In terms of manmade buildings, 'Ggantija is a wholly manmade form, which is to say it is thought out and reproduceable. As such, it is the first true building type…' 1

If a quote is more than about 30 words long, omit the quotation marks, start the quote on a new line and indent the quote about 1 cm from the left-hand margin of the page. As for a short quote, a superscript number is used and a footnote is necessary to indicate the source of the quote.

Part 2: Footnotes/endnotes

At the bottom of the page you would have a short line separating the body of the text from the footnotes relating to the superscript numbers. (Many word processing programs have an automatic footnoting facility.)

The first time a source is cited, the footnote must provide full bibliographic details. The footnotes for subsequent references to the same source do not repeat all the details again but use a shortened form. See the section that follows on repeat citations.

Examples of first citations of common footnote types are shown below. (Endnotes have the same format as footnotes.) The examples are provided in a table format here for explanatory purposes. In assignments footnotes should be listed consecutively and not in a table format.

_______________ line separating text from footnotes
1. S Kostof, A history of architecture: settings and rituals, 2nd edn, Oxford University Press, New York, 1995, p. 35 book, 1 author
2. H Fraser & R Joyce, The Federation house: Australia's own style, Lansdowne Press, Sydney, 1986. book, 2 authors
3. FS Kleiner, CJ Mamiya & RG Tansey,Gardner's art through the ages, 11th edn, Harcourt College Publishers, Fort Worth, 2001. book, 3 authors
4. EH Gombrich, 'The early Medici as patrons of art' in EF Jacob (ed.), Italian Renaissance studies, Faber and Faber, London, 1960, pp. 279-311. chapter in edited book
5. Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works, Proposed common use infrastructure on Christmas Island, Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra, 2002. report, group author
6. RA Goldthwaite, 'The Florentine palace as domestic architecture', American Historical Review, vol. 77, no. 4, 1972, pp. 977-1012. journal article
7. P Lawther, 'Cost planning: is it sustainable income?', The Building Economist, June 2003, pp. 4-12. journal article
8. 'Federation Square: A tribute to the skill of the construction industry', Construct in Steel, vol. 15, no. 2, June 2002, pp. 12-14. journal article, no author
9. Crafti, S, 'Winning design moored in Spain', The Age, 25 August 2010, Business Day, p. 16. newspaper article, authored

Repeat citations

When a particular source is cited more than once in a paper, the full bibliographic details are not provided each time in a footnote. It is becoming more common now to use the author's family name and the page number, if appropriate, rather than the Latin abbreviations ibid., op. cit. and loc. cit. for repeat citations.

In footnoting a repeat citation, use the author's family name and the page number, if the page number is different from the earlier footnote. (See 3 in the example that follows.)

If you use two or more different publications by the same author then, in a repeat citation, you also need to include part of the title to distinguish publications by the same author. (See footnote 5 in the example that follows.)

_______________ line separating text from footnotes
1. S Kostof, A history of architecture: settings and rituals, 2nd edn, Oxford University Press, New York, 1995, p. 35.  
2. M Levey, Rococo to revolution: major trends in eighteenth-century painting, Thames and Hudson, London, 1966, p.14.  
3. Kostof, p. 63. same as 1, but different page
4. M Levey, Painting in eighteenth-century Venice, 2nd edn, Phaidon, Oxford, 1980.  
5. Levey, Rococo to revolution , p. 26. part of title used to differentiate from 4; same as 2, but different page

Latin abbreviations

If you have to use the Latin forms, make sure that you use them correctly.

  • ibid. (ibidem, meaning in the same place) relates to the same work, cited immediately before.

(a) ibid can refer to the same page.

For example:

______________ line separating text from footnotes
1. S Kostof, A history of architecture: settings and rituals, 2nd edn, Oxford University Press, New York, 1995, p. 35.  
2. ibid. same as 1, including page

(b) ibid can also refer to a different page.

For example:

______________ line separating text from footnotes
1. S Kostof, A history of architecture: settings and rituals, 2nd edn, Oxford University Press, New York, 1995, p. 35.  
2. ibid., p. 45. same as 1, but different page
  • op. cit. and loc. cit. are used for works previously cited, but not immediately before.

op. cit. (opera citato, meaning in the work cited ) refers to a different page of a work cited earlier.

loc. cit. (loco citato, meaning in the place cited) refers to the same page of a work cited earlier.

For example:

______________ line separating text from footnotes
1. S Kostof, A history of architecture: settings and rituals, 2nd edn, Oxford University Press, New York, 1995, p. 35.  
2. R Tansey & F Kleiner, Gardner's art through the ages, 10th edn, Harcourt Brace College Publishers, Sydney, 1996, p. 29.  
3. Kostof, op.cit., p. 46. same as 1, but different page
4. G Daniel, The first civilizations: the archaeology of their origins, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1971, p. 67.  

5. Tansey & Kleiner, loc. cit.

 same as 2, including page

Secondary sources

Sometimes you may read one author (secondary, e.g. Brown below) who cites another author (primary, i.e. Smith), and you want to use what the primary author has said. You should cite the primary author using a superscript number in the ways already discussed. However, because you have not read the original source, in your footnote you must list both sources, as follows:

10. A Smith, Italian architecture, Penguin, Melbourne, 2000, cited in D Brown, Renaissance Italy, Faber and Faber, London, 2002, p. 45.

Electronic sources

In the body of your assignment, use superscript numbers for electronic materials in the same ways shown earlier. In your footnotes, use the following formats.

For material found on a specific web site:

11. Australian Bureau of Statistics, Building approvals, Australia, cat. no. 8731.0, ABS Ausstats, 2004, retrieved 3 November 2004, ‹http://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/abs%40.nsf/mf/8731.0? OpenDocument›.

For an electronic journal article found on a database:

12. J Lobo, 'Latin American construction at a glance', Construction Review, vol. 41, no. 1, 1995, pp. iv–vi, retrieved 5 November 2004, Expanded Academic ASAP database.

Note: To conform with agreed Deakin style principles, the word 'retrieved' is used in preference to the word 'viewed', which is favoured by the Style manual.

Part 3: Collating a bibliography

A bibliography consists of sources cited in text, sources consulted in preparing a paper, as well as other sources thought to be of use or interest to the reader.

A reference list consists of only the sources cited in a paper. Note, however, that the term 'bibliography' is sometimes used for what would more accurately be called a reference list.

In compiling entries for a bibliography (and for a reference list) according to the documentary-note system, note that the order of elements, the punctuation and capitalisation are the same as for footnotes/endnotes, with two exceptions:

(1) The family name of the author comes before initials (or the family name of the first-listed author, if there is more than one). However, in footnotes/endnotes, the initials of all authors come before their family names.

(2) Entries are arranged alphabetically according to the family names of authors. No numbers are used, unlike footnotes/endnotes.

Book

Author, A, B Author & C Author, Title of book, edition number other than the first, Publisher, City, year.

Example:

Kleiner, FS, CJ Mamiya & RG Tansey, Gardner's art through the ages, 11th edn, Harcourt College Publishers, Fort Worth, 2001.

Chapter or article in an edited book

Author, A & B Author, 'Title of chapter' in C Editor & D Editor (eds), Title of book, Publisher, City, year, pp. x–x.

Example:

Gombrich, EH, 'The early Medici as patrons of art' in EF Jacob (ed.), Italian Renaissance studies, Faber and Faber, London, 1960, pp. 279–311.

Translated work

Author, A & B Author, Title of work, trans. C Translator, details of the work as appropriate to its form.

Example:

Arakawa, Y, Zen painting, trans. J. Bester, Kodansha International, Tokyo, 1970.

Journal article

Author, A, & B Author, 'Title of article', Title of Journal, vol. xx, no. xx, year, pp. x–x

Example:

Goldthwaite, RA, 'The Florentine palace as domestic architecture',American Historical Review, vol. 77, no. 4, 1972, pp. 977–1012.

Newspaper article, authored

Author, A, 'Title of article', Title of Newspaper, day month year, Section of Newspaper if applicable, p. x.

Example:

Crafti, S, 'Winning design moored in Spain', The Age, 25 August 2010, Business Day, p. 16.

Group as author

Organisation name, details of the work as appropriate to its form.

Example:

Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works, Proposed common use infrastructure on Christmas Island, Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra, 2002.

Films, videos, and television and radio programs

Title, format, Publisher, place of recording, date of recording.

Example:

Art in our time, video recording, Michael Blackwood Productions, New York, 2001.

Internet article

Author, A, Title of article , Name of site sponsor, year, retrieved day month year, ‹URL›.

Example:

Australian Bureau of Statistics, Building approvals, Australia, cat. no. 8731.0, ABS Ausstats, 2004, retrieved 3 November 2004, ‹http://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/abs%40.nsf/mf/8731.0? OpenDocument›.

Electronic copy of a journal article, authored, from database

Author, A, 'Title of article', Title of Journal, vol. xx, no. xx, year, pp. x–x, retrieved day month year, database name.

Example:

Lobo, J, 'Latin American construction at a glance', Construction Review, vol. 41, no. 1, 1995, pp. iv–vi, retrieved 5 November 2004, Expanded Academic ASAP database.

Sample bibliography in documentary-note style

Bibliography

Australian Bureau of Statistics, Building approvals, Australia, cat. no. 8731.0, ABS Ausstats, 2004, retrieved 3 November 2004, ‹http://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/abs%40.nsf/mf/8731.0? OpenDocument›.

Crafti, S, 'Winning design moored in Spain', The Age, 25 August 2010, Business Day, p. 16.

Goldthwaite, RA, 'The Florentine palace as domestic architecture', American Historical Review, vol. 77, no. 4, 1972, pp. 977–1012.

Gombrich, EH, 'The early Medici as patrons of art' in EF Jacob (ed.), Italian Renaissance studies, Faber and Faber, London, 1960, pp. 279–311.

Kleiner, FS, CJ Mamiya & RG Tansey, Gardner's art through the ages, 11th edn, Harcourt College Publishers, Fort Worth, 2001.

Lobo, J, 'Latin American construction at a glance', Construction Review, vol. 41, no. 1, 1995, pp. iv-vi, retrieved 5 November 2004, Expanded Academic ASAP database.

Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works, Proposed common use infrastructure on Christmas Island, Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra, 2002.

Further reading

Details of all referencing styles used at Deakin can be accessed at www.deakin.edu.au/referencing and in printed form from the Division of Student Life.

Style manual for authors, editors and printers, 6th edn, rev. Snooks & Co., John Wiley & Sons, Milton, Qld, 2002.

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17th April 2012