Referencing styles

Different organisations have developed different referencing styles. The style you have to use is prescribed by your academic department or faculty. A specific style is usually also prescribed by the publisher or the journal for which you are writing, if you intend publishing. Style manuals are published and updated by the originating organisations. They are available in printed format but also online on the Internet. Four examples of referencing styles are:

	Style name		Developed by
	APA Style		American Psychological Association
	Harvard Style		Harvard University
	Vancouver Style		"The Uniform Requirements style (the Vancouver style) is based largely on an ANSI (American National Standards Institute) standard style adapted by the US National Library of Medicine for MEDLINE and other databases. This style is referred to as the Vancouver style because it originated at a meeting of medical journal editors in Vancouver (British Columbia) in 1978." (Source: http://www.libr.port.ac.uk/support/BR_Vancouver.html, 2001)
	Chicago Style		What is different about the Chicago Style? - The Chicago style uses footnotes to provide information about where the reference came from. Full bibliographic details are given in a footnote the first time a publication is referred to, and then briefer references each subsequent time. (Source: http://www.lipa.ac.uk/LRonline/studyskills/bibsrefc.htm, 2001)

The most-used styles are the Harvard Referencing Style and the APA Referencing Style. Check with your lecturer which style you should use. Styles are never mixed - once you have decided on a style you follow that style only and you follow it to the letter. In other words you should follow it exactly.