Medical Sciences: Referencing

Referencing is the process of acknowledging other people's work when you have used it in your assignment or research. It allows the reader to verify the validity of your arguments. Referencing provides the link between what you write and the evidence on which it is based. 

There are two parts to referencing:

1. Citations or in-text citations in the main text of your assignment.

2. A reference list at the end of your assignment.

Online referencing tools help you manage referencing, cite references in your work and create bibliographies.  

• EndNote
• Cite This For Me
• Mendeley

You can access basic features without buying the full packages. 

Other referencing support guides: 

About - Referencing - TMC Library at The Manchester College

Printed Books

Citation order:

• Author/editor
• Year of publication (in round brackets)
• Title (in italics)
• Place of publication: Publisher
• Series and volume number (where relevant) 

Example: book with one author

According to Upson et al (2021), the most important part of the research process is...

Upson, M., Luetkenhaus, H., Hall, C. M., & Cannon, K. (2021) Information now: A graphic guide to student research and web literacy. 2nd edn. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

The most common sources you will use in your reference list will be:

• A printed book
• An eBook
• A chapter from an edited book (where a book is made up of chapters written by multiple authors and edited by a single editor)
• A journal article (online or physical)
• A website

But there are many (many) more, which is why the referencing guide for your course referencing style will be your best friend. Each reference has a different structure.