University of Huddersfield

General rules to remember

References need to be consistent in layout and punctuation.

When in doubt, provide more information rather than less.
Make a note of the details of the material you use at the time you are using it. It may be very difficult to find the details retrospectively.
Print and ebooks are formatted the same in the reference list, except that an ebook would have a DOI or URL at the end.
If an author has more than one first name add a space between each initial. e.g. Author, A. A.
Capitalise the first letter of title and subtitle.
Title and subtitle are always separated by a colon.
Use a colon followed by a space to separate titles and subtitles.
Include the edition number for all editions other than the first.
Use abbreviations for editors (Eds.) and edition (ed.).
Use ‘p.' for a single page, ‘pp.' for several pages.
Do not manually add line breaks into long DOIs or URLs.
If you are referencing a long URL, you are encouraged to use a URL shortening service, e.g. Bitly or TinyURL.
All links should be live if the work is to be read online. Remove the hyperlink if the work in a printed format.
Provide a retrieval date if the content is designed to change over time and is not archived. The format is: Retrieved January 12, 2020, from