Humanities Style Sheet: Referencing Guide 14-15

You should adopt the following practice in referencing for literature, drama and creative
writing assignments. (In the case of creative writing modules, you will typically require
this guide when writing reflective commentaries.)
General
Titles of complete published works should be in italics. Hamlet distinguishes the play
from the character, whose name is simply written Hamlet.
Single inverted commas are used for titles of poems, short stories and essays within a
published collection. Araby in Joyces Dubliners. (Araby is the title of the short story
referred to in the collection called Dubliners. Never use inverted commas for the names of
characters.)
Quotations
Short quotations of no more than four printed lines (about forty words) should be
enclosed within quotation marks and incorporated within the text of your essay: I was
travelling post from Tiflis. The only luggage I had on my cart was a small portmanteau
half-filled with travel notes on Georgia. Luckily for you most of them have been lost, but
luckily for me the portmanteau and the rest of my things survived.1
In the example above, there is a footnote which gives the full reference, including the
page reference to the quotation (see the bottom of this page). Subsequent references or
quotations from the same text are given as short titles in the text of your essay, like this:
(Lermontov, Hero, p. 27).
If the quotation is longer than four printed lines, it should be set off by indenting the
entire quotation and put in single spacing:
Caleb Williams could scarcely be more different. The narrator is unable to stabilize
his memories, his experiences, his determination to compose a history of himself.
In dramatic terms, his insatiable curiosity about Falkland is to blame. But in lexical
terms, the intervention of ascendancy signifies the destabilization of power together
with its simultaneous redeployment and intensification in rapidly alternating
patterns. Marxists would say that in this respect, the novel treats the succession of
order by class.2
Note the line of white space before and after this long quotation. Subsequent quotations
would employ the short title: (MacCormack, Ascendancy pp. 23-26).

Mikhail Lermontov, A Hero of Our Time, trans. Paul Foote (Harmondsworth: Penguin,
2001), p. 5
2
William J. MacCormack, Ascendancy and Tradition in Anglo-Irish Literary History from
1789-1939 (Oxford: OUP, 1985), p. 106
1

Quoting poetry
Single lines or part-lines of verse should be put in quotation marks and incorporated into
your essay: Seal up the book, all visions at an end. If you quote two to three lines of
verse, indicate the ends of lines with / , as follows: Thou, to whom the world unknown
/ With all its shadowy shapes is shown; / Who seest appalled the unreal scene / While
fancy lifts the veil between
If you quote more than three lines then set out the poem exactly as it appears in the
original (or as near as possible to this) for example (this is e.e. cummings):
its
spring
and
the
goat-footed
balloonMan
far
and
wee

whistles

Drama
If you quote dialogue, set off the quotation in your text. Names of characters (if included
in the quotation) are written in capitals. As with poetry follow the spacing and
punctuation of the original as far as possible. It is helpful to indicate act, scene and lines
referred to in the case of a play: King Lear II.4.254-58.
Ellipsis
Indicate omitted material within a sentence by three spaced full-stops: Medical thinking
stressed air as the communication of disease, ignoring sanitation or visible carriers.
Remember that the quotation should still make grammatical sense, in the context of its
use. Always take care to introduce quotations properly and preserve the logic of your
own sentence. It is preferable to avoid breaking your sentences by long quotations;
instead, introduce the quotation by a complete sentence.
Referencing
In humanities style you document your sources by giving a footnote or endnote for the
first reference, then subsequent short title references (see above).
Finally, there should be an alphabetical list of works (a bibliography) at the end of your
paper.
Jonathan Bate examines the ecological thinking of the philosopher Martin
Heidegger in the final chapter of Song of the Earth (Bate, Song, pp. 243 - 283) [Using
short-title]
2

This reference indicates pages 243-283 by Jonathan Bate. At the end of the paper, the
bibliography lists the work cited:
Bate, Jonathan, Song of the Earth (London: Picador, 2000)
[Authors surname, first name, Title of Work (Place of Publication: Publisher, date of
publication of edition used]
You may encounter Latin abbreviations in scholarly material:

ibid., short for ibidem, in the same place (e.g. the page just cited)
op. cit., short for opera citato, in the work cited
et al meaning and others (usually meaning and other authors).

Modern practice, however, is to avoid these abbreviations. Instead of ibid or op. cit., use
the short title and page number and write 'and others' for et al.
Works by two or three authors
Reverse only the name of the first author, add a comma, and give the other name(s) in
normal form.
Jakobson, Roman, and Linda R. Waugh,The Sound Shape of Language (Bloomington:
Indiana UP, 1979)
[Notice that Indiana University Press is abbreviated to UP]
Works by more than three authors
You may name only the first author as given on the title page and add and others:
Gilman, Sander, and others, Hysteria beyond Freud (Berkeley: U. of California Press,
1993)
Work in an Anthology; edited works
If you are citing an essay, short story, or poem that appears within an anthology then
you need to give the title of the anthology and any other relevant information as well:
Allende, Isabel, Toads Mouth, trans. Margaret Sayers Peden, A Hammock beneath the
Mangoes: Stories from Latin America, ed. Thomas Colchie (New York: Plume, 1992), pp.
83-88
[The story Toads Mouth was written by Isabel Allende and can be found in the
collection A Hammock beneath the Mangoes which was published by Plume in New York.
The translator and editor of the collection are given. To find this book in a library you
would search for Thomas Colchie, not Allende. Notice the first and last page numbers of
the story are given after the date (pages 83-88).]
An article in a Journal
Baum, Rosalie Murphy. Alcholism and Family Abuse in Maggie and The Bluest Eye,
Mosaic 19.3 (1986), pp. 91-105
[The journal is called Mosaic and the reference is to pages 91-105 in volume 19, issue 3.]
3

The page numbers provided in the bibliography should cover the entire article not just
the portion you have used.
Internet reference
The Literature Encyclopedia [Online]
Available from http://www.litencyc.com/
[Accessed 8 September 2007]
You may find that web addresses are sometimes very long; in that case you could use
TinyURL.com this free site compresses long URLs or web addresses into short
versions.
Bibliography
It is usual to separate primary sources, such as literary works from secondary sources,
such as criticism. For example:
Primary Sources
Joyce, James, Dubliners, ed. Jeri Johnson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000)
Joyce, James, Occasional, Critical, and Political Writing, ed. Kevin Barry (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2000)
Joyce, James, Ulysses: a Critical and Synoptic Edition, ed. Hans Walter Gabler, 3 vols
(Garland: New York & London, 1984)
Secondary Sources
Attridge, Derek, Joyce Effects: on Language, Theory, and History (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2000)
Maddox, Brenda, Nora: a biography of Nora Joyce (London: Minerva, 1988)
Seidel, Michael, James Joyce: A Short Introduction (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002)
Slote, Sam, No Symbols where none Intended: Derridas war at Finnegans Wake in
James Joyce and the Difference of Language, ed. Laurent Milesi (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2003), pp. 195-207