History citation styles

Introduction
Examples
EndNote
New Zealand Journal of History
Further help
Footnotes are our Friends

Introduction

This guide to citation and reference styles for the University of Auckland History Department is adapted from the History Department's handbooks and history essay guide.

Footnotes/Endnotes

You must be consistent in your footnote/endnote style, and your references must be accurate. They can be placed at the end of the essay, or preferably at the foot of each page. They should be numbered consecutively through the essay, and correspond exactly to the following format.

You may use either footnotes or endnotes. If you use endnotes, place them at the end of each chapter. Place the footnote/endnote number immediately after the closing punctuation, except in the case of a dash, where the number precedes the dash. Footnotes/endnotes should be single spaced.

Bibliography

Each essay must include a reading list of all the books and articles consulted in writing the essay, even if they are not actually cited in footnotes. The bibliography enables your tutor to assess the range and depth of your reading. Ill-chosen or inadequate reading may be the reason for a poor essay, so it is of no help to anyone to make up a bibliography of books you meant to read but in fact did not. Your bibliography describes fully and precisely the various manuscripts and books which you have referred to in the course of your research.

You should begin your bibliography the first day you read or consult a source for your work, and keep it up to date as your work proceeds.

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Examples

FOOTNOTES/ENDNOTES

Published Books

First reference:

1. Susan J. Douglas, Where the Girls Are: Growing up Female with the Mass Media, New York, 1994, p.203.

Thereafter either:

2. ibid., p.199. (if it is the next reference) or

3. Douglas, p.8 (if Susan J. Douglas is the only author with that surname you are using) or

4. Douglas, Where the Girls Are, p.8 (if you have more than one author named Douglas, are using more than one publication by Susan J. Douglas, or prefer to always give a short title).

5. J. C. Beaglehole, The Exploration of the Pacific, 3rd edn, London, 1966, pp.164–72.

If the place and date of publication are not supplied, use ‘np’ and ‘nd’.

6. Raewyn Dalziel, ‘Railways and Relief Centres (1870–1890)’, in Keith Sinclair, ed., The Oxford Illustrated History of New Zealand, Auckland, 1990, pp.99–124.

7. Jock Phillips, ‘War and National Identity’, in David Novitz and Bill Willmott, eds, Culture and Identity in New Zealand, Wellington, 1989, pp.91–109.

Articles in Periodicals

8. Henry Abelove, ‘The Queering of Lesbian/Gay History’, Radical History Review, LXII, 1994, pp.44–57.

9. Dean Wilson, ‘Community and Gender in Victorian Auckland’, New Zealand Journal of History, 30, 1, 1996, pp.24–42.

First Reference:

10. Evening Post (EP), 21 May 1952, p.8.

Thereafter:

11. EP, 25 May 1952, p.7.

First reference:

12. Smith to Jones, 8 May 1939, Jones Papers, MSS 213, Vol. 6, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington.

13. Smith to Brown, 8 November 1890, CO 273/188, Public Records Office, London.

14. Smith to Brown, 8 October 1890, MA 23/8, National Archives, Wellington.

Thereafter:

15. Smith to Jones, 8 May 1939, Jones Papers, MSS 213, Vol. 6.

First reference:

16. Labour Party Papers, MSS 270/23, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington.

17. 11 January 1872, William Williams Diary 1871–2, MS 54, Auckland Institute and Museum.

18. Southbrook-Pemberton Correspondence, Bodleian MSS Eng Lett d 453, folios 1–2, Oxford.

Thereafter:

19. Labour Party Papers, MSS 270/23.

First Reference:

20. Appendices to the Journals of the House of Representatives (AJHR), 1937, H-31A, p.48.

21. New Zealand Parliamentary Debates (NZPD), 1921, 190, p.401.

Thereafter:

22. AJHR, 1937, H-31A, pp.9–10.

23. NZPD, 1921, 190, pp.201–2.

Theses

24. J.D. Salmond, ‘New Zealand Labour’s Pioneering Days’, PhD thesis, University of Auckland, 1950, pp.16–18.

25. Margaret Tennant, ‘Matrons with a Mission: Women’s Organizations in New Zealand, 1893 to 1915’, MA thesis, Massey University, 1976, p.105.

Electronic Sources

First reference:

26. Thomas J. Pritzker, An Early Fragment from Central Nepal, online, nd, available at: http://www.asianart.com/pritzker/pritzker.html (8 June 1995)

Thereafter either:

27. ibid., p.2. (if it is the next reference) or

28. Pritzker, p.2.

29. Pritzker, An Early Fragment, p.2.

First reference:

30. Richard Lobban, ‘REPLY: African Muslim Slaves in America’, H-Africa, 4 Aug. 1995, available at: http://h-net.msu.edu/~africa/archives/august95

Thereafter either:

31. ibid., p.10. (if it is the next reference) or

32. Lobban, p.10.

33. Lobban, ‘REPLY’, p.10.

Other Abbreviations

Use ibid., p.48. No other Latin derivative used.

For more than one page use pp.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Most bibliographies are divided into primary and secondary sources.

Primary Sources

Cite works using the same format for footnotes/endnotes. Within the following sub-headings list works in alphabetical order.

Under primary sources list separately:

(i) Manuscripts

• manuscript records of officials and all government papers
• manuscripts of people: letters, diaries, memoranda

(ii) Printed Material

• printed records like Appendices to the Journal of the House of Representatives
• printed letters, diaries, pamphlets
• contemporary newspapers

(iii) Oral Sources/Personal Communication

• list any interviews you conducted or consulted in oral history archives: the standard form is:

  Name of Interviewee, interviewed by Interviewer, Date, Name of Collection (if one), Library collection it is held in, Library call mark.
  e.g. Doreen McLeod, interviewed by Rose Macbeth, 24 July 1993, Women in a Mining Town, Alexander Turnbull Library, MSC 5858.

• note any personal communication or correspondence you have had with sources.

The location of manuscripts, rare published items and oral tapes should be stated. Newspapers do not count as rare published items, but do indicate the years consulted.

Secondary Sources

Cite works using the same format for footnotes/endnotes. Works cited must be arranged in alphabetical sequence (by author, and, for works by the same author, by title, disregarding ‘A’, ‘An’, and ‘The’). To facilitate this arrangement, an author's surname precedes her/his forenames and initials (this is different from the footnote form) (this is different from the footnote form). Where a work has two or more authors, invert only the name of the first. It is not uncommon to separate out books from articles and from unpublished works in bibliographies. It is becoming more common to place all secondary sources together, in alphabetical sequence by author surname.

(a) Book titles in the bibliography must be set out thus:

Author's Surname, Forenames and Initials, Title, Place of Publication, Date.

Linebarger, P.M.A., Government in Republican China, Boston, 1938, reprint, Westport, 1973.

Woodside, A.B., Community and Revolution in Modern Vietnam, Boston, 1976.

Swearer, Donald K. and Sommai Premchit, ‘The Relationship Between the Religious and Political Orders in Northern Thailand (14^th–16^th Centuries)’, in Bardwell L. Smith, ed., Religion and Legitimation of Power in Thailand, Laos and Burma, Chambersburg, 1978, pp.20–33.

(c) References to theses must be set out as follows:

Gesick, L.M., ‘Kingship and Political Integration in Traditional Siam’, PhD Thesis, Cornell University, 1976.

Reid, A., ‘The Structure of Cities in Southeast Asia, Fifteenth to Seventeenth Centuries’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, XI, 2, September 1980, pp.235–50.

(e) References to electronic sources must be listed as follows:

Examples:

Oxford English Dictionary Computer File: On Compact Disc, 2nd edn, Oxford, 1992, CD-ROM.

Pritzker, Thomas J., An Early Fragment from Central Nepal, online, nd, available at: http://www.asianart.com/pritzker/pritzker.html (8 June 1995)

Articles, Chapters, Parts of Works, etc.:
Author's or editor's Surname, Forenames and Initials., ‘Part Title’, Title of Print Version of Work, or Journal Title or Discussion Group, Edition if given, Place of Publication, Date of Publication
or
Volume, Issue, Year, Paging, Medium e.g. CD-ROM, Available protocol if applicable: Site/Path/File (Access date) if applicable

Examples:

'Western music', Encyclopædia Britannica Online, 23 Sep. 2008 , available at http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/398976/Western-music.

Lobban, Richard, ‘REPLY: African Muslim Slaves in America’, H-Africa, 4 Aug. 1995, available at: http://h-net.msu.edu/~africa/archives/august95

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EndNote

You can manage your references using the EndNote program. Information about EndNote is available from the Library website > Study & Research Help > Endnote, and information about styles is on the Styles web page.

To automatically format notes and bibliographies using the History Department style you will first have to download the History Department Formal style into your EndNote styles folder. The file history_dept_2008.ens is available on the Library's EndNote Styles web page.

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New Zealand Journal of History

The style prescribed for the NZJH is slightly different to the History Department style. The NZJH style sheet is available from the University of Auckland's History Department website.

There isn't a NZJH style currently available for EndNote.

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Further help

The History Department Essay Guide is available on the History Department website.

Histeria!, the University of Auckland Historical Society annual, has examples of successful student essays from 1967 to 2007. It is available in the General Library New Zealand & Pacific Collection, Call Number 908 A89.

The Library has many other books on essay writing, academic writing, research skills, and historiography.

For a list of abbreviations of journal titles, see the book Periodical Title Abbreviations available in the Library.

For more help, please contact your tutor or the History Subject Librarian. The Student Learning Centre can also help you with essay writing skills.

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Footnotes are our Friends Footnotes have long been of great importance to historians. In one example from a nineteenth century book review the author Prescott was critical of other historians who failed to provide adequate references to their sources, although recognizing that footnotes could be a source of frustration, 'The omission of notes we consider a still greater evil. It is true, they lead to great abuses, are often the vehicle of matter which should have been incorporated in the text, more frequently of irrelevant matter which should not have been admitted anywhere, and thus exhaust the reader's patience, while they spoil the effect of the work by drawing the attention from the continuous flow of the narrative, checking the heat that is raised by it in the reader's mind, and not unfrequently jarring on his feelings by some misplaced witticism, or smart attempt at one.' 1 Similar sentiments have been expressed more recently by Grafton who said, 'Sadly, the footnote's rise to the status of a standard scholarly tool has been accompanied--in many cases--by its stylistic decline to a list of highly abbreviated archival citations.' 2 Zerby, another enthusiastic champion of footnotes, wrote 'Footnotes distress publishers, who unfortunately lurk behind every book. They find notes unsightly, costly, forbidding.' 3 Reviewers in the trade journal Publishers Weekly compared Grafton’s and Zerby’s works, doubting the need for two books on the same subject: 'Even their design is similar - from twenty feet, the books are nearly indistinguishable.' 4 The literature of academic writing is extensive, and while students may not need to spend time with the more esoteric publications, they are advised to familiarise themselves with some basic guides to scholarly writing, especially the History Department's guide to essays. 5 Notes 1. William H. Prescott, 'Bancroft's United States', North American Review, LII, 1841 pp.75-103 reprinted in Biographical and Critical Miscellanies William H. Prescott, Limited edn, Philadelphia, 1875, reprint 1895, p.302. 2. Anthony Grafton, The Footnote: a Curious History, Rev. edn, Cambridge, 1997, p.228. 3. Chuck Zerby, The Devil's Details: a History of Footnotes, Montpelier, 2001, p.2. 4. Mark Rotella, Sarah F. Gold, Lynn Andriani, 'The Devil's Details: A History of the Footnote', Publishers Weekly, 248, 48, 26 November 2001, p.53. 5. Departmental Information and Essay Guide 2004, Auckland, 2004, online, available at: http://www.arts.auckland.ac.nz/FileGet.cfm?ID=bca19a34%2D807f%2D40a4%2Da1b7%2D2c436ef62557 (24 September 2008) Bibliography Primary Sources Johnson, Olive, Research Notes re History of University of Auckland Library , MSS & Archives Vault 21, University of Auckland Library. Secondary Sources Departmental Information and Essay Guide 2004, Auckland, 2004, online, available at: http://www.arts.auckland.ac.nz/FileGet.cfm?ID=bca19a34%2D807f%2D40a4%2Da1b7%2D2c436ef62557 (24 September 2008) Grafton, Anthony, The Footnote: a Curious History, Rev. edn, Cambridge, 1997. Jackson, H.J., Marginalia : Readers Writing in Books, New Haven, 2001. Johnson, Olive, The True University: a Short History of the University of Auckland Library, 1883-1986, Auckland, 1988. Prescott, William H., 'Bancroft's United States', North American Review, LII, January 1841, pp.75-103 reprinted in Prescott, William H. Biographical and Critical Miscellanies, Limited edn, Philadelphia, 1875, reprint 1895, pp.272-314. Rotella, Mark, Sarah F. Gold, Lynn Andriani, 'The Devil's Details: A History of the Footnote', Publishers Weekly, 248, 48, 26 November 2001, p.53. Zerby, Chuck, The Devil's Details: a History of Footnotes, Montpelier, 2001.

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Last updated: 8 January, 2009
Comments to: p.abela@auckland.ac.nz