Reference Writing Styles

The importance of references in a research cannot be neglected. Academic writing requires the author to support their opinions with reference to other published work or experimental results/findings. A reference system will perform three important functions:

• Enables the author to acknowledge other authors’ ideas (avoid plagiarism).
• Enables the reader to quickly locate the source of the material referred by the author for further consultation.
• Indicate to the reader the scope and depth of the author’s research.

In some cases, researchers find it a bit tricky to mention the reference from other than research papers.

There are many referencing styles available depending on the field of research, namely, APA, ASA, ACS, MLA, etc.

The MLA i.e. Modern Language Association style may be applied in general, to the research papers if specific field reference format is not available. The MLA style list is given as below,

1. Book with one author

REFERENCE: Author last name, First name. Title. Place of Publication: Publisher, Year of publication.

Example: Gopal, Madan. Control System: Principles and Applications. New Delhi: TMH, 2001.

2. Book with two or three authors

REFERENCE: Author(s) last name, First name and last author’s First name Last name. Title. Place of Publication: Publisher, Year of publication.

Example: Gopal, Madan and Nagrath, I.J. Control System Engineering. New Delhi: New Age Publication, 2004.

3. Book with more than three authors

REFERENCE: First Author Last name, First name et al. Title. Place of Publication: Publisher, Year of publication.

Example: Maini, A.K. et al. Digital Electronics. Oxford: John Wiley and Sons Ltd, 2007.

4. Book with an editor

REFERENCE: Editors(s) last name, First name and last editors First name Last name. Ed(s). Title. Place of Publication: Publisher, Year of publication.

Example: Parrish, Julia K. and Hamner, William M. Ed(s). Animal Groups in Three Dimensions: How Species Aggregate. Cambridge, U.K.:Cambridge University Press, 1997.

5. Chapter in an edited book

REFERENCE: Author(s) last name, First name and last author’s First name Last name. "Title of chapter.” Title of Collection. Ed. Editor(s) First name last name and last editor First name Last name. Place of Publication: Publisher, Year of publication. Page range.

Example: Dietz, A. “Evolution.”  Bee Genetics and Breeding. Ed. T. E. Rinderer. New York: Academic Press, 1986. 3–22.

6. Print Journal Article

REFERENCE: Author(s) last name, First name and last author’s First name Last name. "Title of Article." Title of Journal. volume. Issue (year): pages.

Example: Ghosh, A. and Dehuri, S. “Evolutionary Algorithms for Multi-Criterion Optimization: A Survey”, International Journal of Computing and Information Sciences. 2.1 (2004): 38-57.

7. E-Journal Article

REFERENCE: Author(s) last name, First name and last author’s First name Last name. "Title of Article." Journal title Volume. Issue (Year): Page numbers. Database. Web. Day Month Year accessed.

Example: Faris, Marc. “That Chicago Sound: Playing with (Local) Identity in Underground Rock.” Popular Music & Society 27.4 (2004): 429-454. EBSCOhost. Web. 5 April 2011.

8. Print Newspaper Article

REFERENCE: Author(s) last name, First name and last author’s First name Last name. Article title. Newspaper title Day Month Year of publication, Page number.

Example: Gleeson, Jim. "Towards Holistic Approach to School Discipline." Irish Times 10 February 2006, p.16.

9. Online Newspaper Article

REFERENCE: Author(s) last name, First name and last author’s First name Last name. Article title. Newspaper title. Website title day Month Year of publication. Medium of publication. Day Month Year accessed.

Example: Keenan, Dan. "North Voters Go to Polls Today." Irish Times. The Irish Times 5 May 2010. Web. 5 May 2011.

10. Page on a Website

REFERENCE: Author(s) Last Name, First Name (if available). Name of Site. Day Month Year of resource creation (if available). Medium of publication. Day Month Year accessed.

Example: Harris, Robert. "Evaluating Internet Research Sources." VirtualSalt. 15 June 2008. Web. 27 April 2011.

11. Website

REFERENCE: Author(s) Last Name, First Name (if available). Name of Site. Name of institution/organization affiliated with the site (sponsor or publisher), Year of resource creation (if available). Medium of publication. Day Month Year of access.

Example: Perry Willett. Victorian Women’s Writers Project. Indiana University, May. 2000. Web. 10 February 2006.

12. Blog

REFERENCE: Author(s) Last Name, First Name (if available). “Posting Title.” Name of Site, Day Month Year of publication. Medium of publication. Day Month Year of access.

Example: Birla, Nidhika. “How to select a M.Tech. Thesis topic.” Nidhika’s Blog, 26 January 2016. Web. 20 May 2016.

13. E-mail Communication

REFERENCE: Sender Last name, First name. "Subject Title of Email." Message to the author. Day Month Year email sent. Email.

Example: Arora, S. "Re: Resume." Message to the author. 26 February 2010. Email.

14. Conference Paper

REFERENCE: Author(s) last name, First name and last author’s First name Last name. “Title of paper.” Title of conference proceedings. Place of publication: Publisher, Year. Pages. Format.

Example: Kazarlis, S. and Petridis, V. “Varying Fitness Functions in Genetic Algorithms: Studying the Rate of Increase in the Dynamic Penalty Terms.” Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Parallel Problem Solving from Nature, Berlin: Springer Verlag. 1998. 211-220. Print

15. Thesis

REFERENCE: Author Last name, First name. “Title.” Degree statement. Degree-awarding body, Year. Format.

Example: Allamneni, Raghuveer. “Bacterial Foraging Based Channel Equalizers.” M.Tech. Thesis. National Institute of Technology, Rourkela, 2006. Print.

16. Audio-Visual Material

REFERENCE: Title. Dir. Director’s first name last name. Film studio/distributor, year. Format.

Example: The Usual Suspects. Dir. Bryan Singer. Polygram, 1995. Film.

17. Unpublished Work

REFERENCE: Last Name of Author, First Name of Author. Title of Manuscript/Document. Date of composition (at least year; if unknown, write N.d.). Form of material (MS for manuscript or work written by hand; TS for a typescript or work prepared by machine) along with "the name and location of the library, research institution, or personal collection housing the material."

Example: Henderson, George Wylie. Baby Lou and the Angel Bud. N.d. TS. Collection of Roslyn Kirkland Allen, New York.

18. Lecture

REFERENCE: Last Name of the Lecturer, First Name of the Lecturer. “Title of the Lecture.” Name of Class or title of Meeting where lecture was given. Location of the Lecture. Day Month Year of the Lecture. Format

Indicate the format by including "Lecture" without quotation marks.

Example: Birla, N. "Preview Control for Nonlinear Applications." Short Term Training Program on Nonlinear Systems and Control. National Institute of Technology, Kurukshetra. 19 May 2016. Lecture.

If a lecture has no specific title, use "Lecture" without quotation marks in place of the title.

I hope the above information is useful for you all. Enjoy the professional writing methods for a confident presentation.

Best Wishes,

Nidhika