Bibliographies

What is a bibliography?

A bibliography is a list at the end of your work that gives the details of all the sources you have used. This is to enable anyone who reads your work to be able to go to the original source for themselves if they want to.

How should I order my bibliography?

Your bibliography should be in alphabetical order by the first author’s surname. You do not need to break the list up into different types of sources, your bibliography should be one long list.

How do I know which details to include in my bibliography?

We use ‘Cite them right’ (Pears and Shields, 2019) to determine which bits of information you need to include, but all Harvard referencing follows a similar pattern:

Source type examples

Author (Year) Title of the work. [type of thing if needed]. Any further details needed to get to the specific edition or issue. (date accessed online if needed).

Book:

Author (Year of publication) Title. Edition. (for 2^nd edition onwards) Place of publication: Publisher.

Klein, N. (2000) No logo. London: Flamingo.

Journal article:

Author (Year of publication) ‘Title of article’, Title of Journal, Volume number (issue number), page numbers.

Strassmannn, W.P. (2000) ‘Mobility and affordability in US housing’, Urban Studies, 37(1), pp. 113-126.

Webpage/PDF:

Author (Year) Title. Available at: URL. (Accessed: date).

Halliday, S. (2017) February footfall falters: UK sees no let-up in declining visitor traffic trend. Available at: https://www.wgsn.com/news/february-footfall-falters-uk-sees-no-let-up-in-declining-visitor-traffic-trend/ (Accessed: 20 March 2017).

Film

Title of film (Year of distribution) Directed by [Film]. Place of distribution: Distribution company.

Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004) Directed by Michael Moore [Film]. Santa Monica, Calif: Lions Gate Films

Painting / drawing

Artist (Year) Title of the work. [Medium] Institution or collection that houses the work, city where the work is located.

Lichtenstein, R. (1963) Whaam! [Acrylic paint and oil paint on canvas] The Tate Gallery, London.

OR:

Artist (Year) Title of the work [Medium] Available at: URL (Accessed: date).

Ackling, R. (1978) Five sunsets in one hour [Burnt lines on board and transfer lettering on card]. Available at: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/ackling-five-sunsets-in-one-hour-t03562 (Accessed: 16 June 2017).

Game

Company / individual developer (Release year) Title of game [Video game]. Publisher.

Giant Squid Studios (2017) Abzu [Video game]. 505 Games.

YouTube

Name of person posting the video (Year posted) Title. Available at: URL (Accessed: date).

Tate (2014) What makes an artist? Grayson Perry and Sarah Thornton. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ude15RmhjDs (Accessed: 16 June 2017).

Where do I find all the details I need for my bibliography?

With printed sources, you may need to look in the following places for the information you need:

Front cover
Title page
The back of the title page
Contents or editorial page if a magazine
Back page

For online sources it should be a bit easier to find information – but you may need to scroll all the way to the bottom of a page to find full details such as date and author.

Author

Use surname (also known as family name), followed by initials. Where no author / artist is named, use the corporate author, i.e. the organisation responsible for the resource being published. For example Tate, or BBC.

Year

For a book, look for the most recent copyright date, this can be found in the small print, usually a few pages in from the start or end of the book (called the copyright page). If it is a book from the library, look on the library catalogue for the book’s full details, including the date.

Webpages can be particularly difficult when trying to find a publication date. Try scrolling down to the bottom of the webpage to look for the copyright date for the whole site, and use this date instead.

If you still cannot find a date, you can use ‘no date’, e.g. (Tate, no date), but use this option with caution – can you be sure that the information is up-to-date and reliable if no publication or copyright date is given?

If in doubt, ask your librarian!

Title

Try to be consistent with how you use capital letters, and ignore how the source (book/webpage etc.) has used them. Ideally, just the first word is capitalised:

e.g. How the world ended.

e.g. Art and design: a student guide. (note that the subtitle starts with a lower case “a”)

Edition

You only need to include this information for books or ebooks which are a 2^nd edition or onwards. This is usually clearly printed on the front cover or title page of the book.

Ignore mention of any reprints, these are not revised editions.

Place

Look for the Publisher’s head office address.

If multiple locations (e.g. London, New York, Paris) – include the city most local to you (i.e. London) or just use the first city on the list. You do not need to include the whole list of locations in your reference.

Page numbers

These only appear in your in-text citations, as the whole source (book, ebook, journal etc.) is then referenced in your bibliography.

What should my bibliography look like?

Here’s a sample bibliography – note that all references are listed alphabetically by surname in one long list.

Bibliography

Carter, R., Day, B. and Meggs, P. (1993) Typographic design: form and communication. 2^nd Edition. New York: Wiley.

Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004) Directed by Michael Moore [Film]. Santa Monica, Calif: Lions Gate Films.

Giant Squid Studios (2017) Abzu [Video game]. 505 Games.

Halliday, S. (2017) Britons are highest spenders on dates but Swedes keep costs down. Available at: https://www.wgsn.com/news/britons-are-highest-spenders-on-dates-but-swedes-keep-costs-down (Accessed: 20 March 2017).

Heller, S. and Pettit, E. (1998) Design dialogues. New York: Allworth Press.

Lichtenstein, R. (1963) Whaam! [Acrylic paint and oil paint on canvas] The Tate Gallery, London.

Rand, P. (2014) Thoughts on design. San Francisco: Chronicle Books.

Strassmannn, W.P. (2000) ‘Mobility and affordability in US housing’, Urban Studies, 37(1), pp. 113-126.

Tate (2014) What makes an artist? Grayson Perry and Sarah Thornton. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ude15RmhjDs (Accessed: 16 June 2017).