University of Canberra
Skip to Main Content

UC Referencing Guide

In-Text Citations

General Guidelines

Citations are numbered in the order in which they appear.  Once a source has been cited, the same number is used in all subsequent references in the report.

Each reference number should be enclosed in square brackets on the same line as the text, before any punctuation, with a space before the first bracket.

Format - no direct quote

[number]

Author [number]

Example

The conclusion reached in a recent study [1] was that...

The conclusion reached by Jones [1] in a recent study was that...

Format - direct quote, less than 100 words

"..." [number, p. xx]

Author [number, p.xx] "..."

Note

The quote is entered in double quotation marks.

Examples - direct quote, less than 100 words

An interesting view was expressed that "the connection of high profile developments to their surrounding environment has increasingly been questioned" [1, p. 15].

An interesting view was expressed by Cochrane [1, p 15] that "the connection of high profile developments to their surrounding environment has increasingly been questioned".

Format - direct quote, more than 100 words

Text ... Author [number, p. xx]

Quote

Text

or

Text

Quote [number, p. xx]

Text

Note

Quotation marks are not used in this format.  The quoted text is indented.

Example - direct quote, more than 100 words

Much has been written about acute care.  Finkelman [2, p. 64], for example, points out that:

there are many changes in acute care services occurring almost daily, and due to the increasing use of outpatient surgery, surgical services have experienced major changes.  Hospitals are increasing the size of their outpatient or ambulatory surgery departments and adjusting to the need of moving patients into and out of surgical service in 1 day or even a few hours.

Recently, this trend has been seen in some Australian hospitals and research here...

Two or More Works Cited Together

The preferred method to cite more than one source at a time is to list each reference in its own brackets, then separate with a comma or dash.

[1], [3], [5]

[1] - [5]