Harvard or Vancouver – getting it right all the time Alan Glasper and Colin Rees How to Write Your Nursing Dissertation, First Edition. Alan Glasper and Colin Rees. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2013 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

What’s the fuss? The ability to reference correctly is taken by Universities as one of the hallmarks of a good scholar. It also presents an opportunity for students to lose easy marks. In this presentation some of the basic principles on referencing will be identified.

Why reference? Dissertations are not essays built on only a student’s ideas or opinions. They demonstrate the achievement of high quality scholarly skills that build on the thoughts, ideas, and publications of key figures in the topic of your dissertation. The problem is how do you demonstrate you have read, understood and have now reached a point where you can summarise (précis) this work and demonstrate where you gathered this knowledge.

Referencing to support your work The solution is the correct use of a referencing system that indicates the source of material and provides accurate information that will allow others to find that source. There are two common systems: Vancouver and Harvard. In many UK Universities and nursing publications, Harvard is the most popular option.

The two systems The difference between the systems is evident in the body of a dissertation Vancouver uses the numbers above words such as ‘ In this study 7 pain was found to be lower.’ Harvard uses the author’s surname and year of publication in combination with brackets, e.g. ‘ In this study (Coe 2012), pain was found to be lower.’

Reference sections In the reference sections at the end of the main body, Vancouver presents the references in numerical order, that is in order of appearance in the work; Harvard presents them in alphabetical order. Check the system required by your University and follow that.

Summary: Where do references appear? There are two places where referencing is important: 1. In the main part of your dissertation where you show the source of the material you are ‘referring to’ using only the name and year of publication (no initials). 2. The list of references that give all the details needed to find the reference indicated in the main part of the dissertation.

Aim of this presentation Each referencing system has been presented clearly in chapter 8. Here we will consider some tips and common problems encountered so that you can achieve a high standard in your referencing.

Managing your references Do not leave organising your references until the end of your dissertation; you need to manage these as you build up the literature you will use in your dissertation. If your university provides training and software to manage references electronically, e.g. Endnote © do take advantage of it as it simplifies things. Check it has an option suitable to the referencing system used in your university.

Managing your references Start writing the draft sections of your dissertation as early as possible, right at the beginning of making any notes, or draft file. At the end of the file (that’s best) or in a separate file, start your ‘References’ section. Each time you use an author/study in your draft dissertation immediately add the full accurate details in the reference section. When you finish your draft, your reference section is complete and just needs to be checked. No lost references!

Problems A photocopy article/pdf that lacks all the details you need to reference. Check the database for information that may not be on the article (e.g. Edition number) Confusion over publications in the same year produced by the same author(s). Indicate them ‘a’, ‘b’, etc. after the year The year of a publication in the body is different from that shown in the References section. Check each one carefully when adding them to the list.

Missing references from the list At the checking stage, print a copy of the references (or split the screen on the computer) and go from the start of each chapter and check each reference is correctly included. You can reverse that where you may have deleted authors from the body but not from the reference list. Use ‘find’ on the computer for author names and delete any ‘not found’.

Problems One author name in the body but several names given in the references section. This should have been shown as ‘et al’ (where three or more authors) Edition number of a book left out of the references. Make sure this is indicated after the title. Details missing from list: place of publication, for journals the volume or edition numbers missing or page numbers left out. Check carefully.

Problems Confusion in the main body over placing the name in or out of the brackets. When using the name as the subject of the sentence or clause, or want the reader to ‘speak’ the name, it is outside (always at the start of a sentence, and often at the middle) e.g. ‘Evans (2013) suggests that...’. When used to indicate the source of information, the name is in brackets e.g. ‘... although some authors warn against this (Evans 2013).’

Finally: Solving problems Where you are unsure how to reference or use a reference in the main body look for examples in other works that have used it. Use a search engine to answer your question. Ask your supervisor Use the referencing guide provided by your university; study it carefully. DON’T LOSE EASY MARKS THROUGH POOR REFERENCING