A guide to referencing books for academic dissertations.

WHY YOU NEED A BIBLIOGRAPHY

Dissertations must include a bibliography along with the written research findings.

A bibliography contains a list of books used during the research for the particular work.

Books you quote from in your dissertation must always be included in your bibliography.

A bibliography is placed at the end of your dissertation, after the body text when it is finally bound.

A bibliography can be found at the end of most non fiction books.
Bibliographies also exist in CD ROM form.

A bibliography is arranged alphabetically by author's surname.
Every book referred to in the body text, citations or notes should have an entry in the bibliography.

Bibliographic references should include the name of the Author, the Title, the Place of Publication, the Publisher and the Date of Publication. All of this information can be found at the beginning of a book after the flyleaf. For example Graham Clarke's book The Photograph.

Author = Graham Clarke
Title = The Photograph
Place of Publication = Oxford
Publisher =Oxford University Press
Year of Publication =1997

Which can be referenced in the bibliography in the following way

Clarke G. The Photograph (Oxford; Oxford University Press, 1997)

NB. When listed in your bibliography the book title can be given emphasis using an italic font.

USING REFERENCES

When you are citing quotations in your dissertation you must include a reference to the quotation. Your reference will allow any other researcher to easily locate the passage you have referred to.

For example you quote a passage from page 23 of Robert Clarke's book The Photograph which was published in Oxford; by Oxford University Press in 1997

1. Because you have referred to this book it must be listed in your bibliography.

The format for presentation in your bibliography would be:

Clarke R. The Photograph (Oxford; Oxford University Press, 1997)

note the use of rounded brackets to include publication details.

2. There must be a reference in your body text, next to the actual quotation, which in a short hand form refers to the book which you have previously listed in your bibliography.

The reference, in its short hand form uses a consistent format for the presentation of specific details about the passage you have quoted. There a number of formats to reference citations, but the one we will all use for this module is the Harvard System of citation reference, this format also includes the page number

Using the example of your quotation of a passage on page 23 of Robert Clarke's 1997 book The Photograph

Your reference in the body of your text would be written, directly after the quotation itself as

"blah blah blah." (Clarke 1997, p.23)

This refers to page 23 of a 1997 publication by Clarke which can be found in your bibliography. There may be references to other books by Graham Clarke in your bibliography which is why including the year is important; it is unlikely that an author publishes more than one book a year.

USING FOOTNOTES

Your dissertation may also include footnotes.
A footnote allows the writer to develop an argument without digressing to explain facts, which while essential to the argument, may or may not be known by the reader.

Footnotes should be numbered sequentially and enclosed in square brackets e.g. [12] as required.
Footnotes should be listed at the end of your dissertation, but before the bibliography.

For further examples of the use of footnotes and a bibliography see my seminar notes
Gustave le Gray and Roger Fenton as models for 19th Century Practice