Making a good reference list for your thesis is a lot of work, with every point and comma in the right place. Below we provide some tips for creating a completing a correct reference list.
Create your reference list with a Citation Manager
Citation Managers are software programs to process citation information and notes. Here you can save all your chosen quotes and quickly find them again. You can also add the quotations to your article automatically. Well-known Citation Managers are EndNote, RefWorks and Zotero. They operate like plug-ins together with your word processor.
Choose an appropriate reference form
There are different ways to process your sources. Below you find a brief overview of the most common styles for processing your source list:
APA style
The APA style was developed by the American Psychological Association and is mainly used in social and physical science. There are guidelines for processing a quote in the text, using a person’s idea and noting a source in the source list. If you want to incorporate a literal quotation from, for example, a scientific article in the style of APA sources into your text, do so as follows:
Example of APA in the text:
Social media plays an important role in the identity formation of young people (Verkerk and B. Bosch, 2009).
Read more about the APA source entry
Chicago style
The Chicago style is mainly used in economic sciences and makes use of footnotes. The Chicago style has two versions; Chicago A and Chicago B. Chicago A is a nut system. The complete data of a source is noted in the footnotes or endnotes. There is a bibliography at the end of the text. Chicago B is an author date system. In the text the surname of the author and the publication year is mentioned.
Example of Chicago B in the text:
Social media plays an important role in the identity formation of young people (Verkerk and Bosch 2009).
Read more about the Chicago source entry
Harvard style
The Harvard style is an author-date system and is widely used in economics. If you want to include a Harvard-style source in the text, enter the name of the (principal) author and the publication year in brackets in the text. In a separate source entry section, you place the full source entry. This is done in alphabetical order.
Example of a Harvard reference in the text:
Social media plays an important role in the identity formation of young people (Verkerk, 2009).
Read more about the Harvard references.
Wrong quotation of source
A wrong quotation of source or not referring to the source in the correct way can lead to plagiarism. Of course you do not want this. So always proceed carefully. We can advise you to use a plagiarism scan. The Scribbr Plagiaatcheck is a good suggestion!
Looking for more advice on writing your dissertation? In the Info Book of Gildeprint you can read tips for writing and editing your thesis. The booklet is free to request in PDF or we send it to you by mail!