The Footnote / Bibliography Referencing System

How do I do it?

The Footnote/ Bibliography method requires two elements: footnotes throughout your assignment, and a bibliography or list of references at the end.

How do I do a footnote?

Footnotes (sometimes just called ‘notes’) are what they sound like—a note (or a reference to a source of information) which appears at the foot (bottom) of a page. In a footnote referencing system, you indicate a reference by:

  • Putting a small number above the line of type directly following the source material. This number is called a note identifier. It sits slightly above the line of text.

It looks like this.1

  • Putting the same number, followed by a citation of your source, at the bottom of the page. Footnoting should be numerical and chronological: the first reference is 1, the second is 2, and so on. The advantage of footnoting is that the reader can simply cast their eyes down the page to discover the source of a reference which interests them.

Second and subsequent footnotes

Second and subsequent references to the same source don’t need to be as detailed as the first note—they just need the minimum information to clearly indicate which text is being referred to.

With a single author

Provide all the necessary information in the first footnote. If you want to refer to the same source again, a simple method is to give the author’s name, the year of publication and the page number. For example:

1 K Reid, Higher Education or Education for Hire? Language and Values in Australian Universities, CQU Press, Rockhampton, 1996, p. 87.

2...

3 Reid, p. 98. 

If two or more works by the same author are referred to in the text, include the title:

1 E Gaskell, North and South, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1970, p. 228.

2 E Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Brontë, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1975, p. 53.

3 Gaskell, North and South, p. 222. 

Subsequent references to articles are done in a similar way: 

17 M Doyle, ‘Captain Mbaye Diagne’, Granta, vol. 48, August 1994, pp. 99-103.

18 ...

19 Doyle, Granta, p. 101.

Abbreviations for subsequent footnotes

Another way to shorten second or subsequent references is with Latin abbreviations. For example:

ibid = same as last entry

Use ibid when two references in a row are from the same source. 

op. cit.= as previously cited

Use op. cit. when you have already given full details of that source in an earlier note. When using op. cit. you still need to provide information such as the author’s name to make the source clear. These abbreviations should be in lowercase, even when they appear at the beginning of a note. For further information, see p. 214- 5 of the Style Manual.

Examples

11 K Reid, Higher Education or Education for Hire? Language and Values in Australian Universities, CQU Press, Rockhampton, 1996, p. 87.

12 ibid., p. 26.

13 M Doyle, ‘Captain Mbaye Diagne’, Granta, vol. 48, August 1994, p. 99.

14 Reid, op. cit., p. 147.

See next: Citing different sources