Instructions for Internal Referencing


When you quote from an author in an essay, or refer to something you have read, or express an author's ideas in your own words, you should let the teacher know which author or article you are referring to. You do this in the body of your essay. For example:

"In the United States today there are 260,000 billboards, 11,520 newspapers, 27,000 video outlets, 500 million radios and more than 150 million computers." (Postman, 1992)

The mention of the author's name in brackets is known as "internal referencing". It saves you time, because you don't have to quote the author's name in full, or all the details of the book. This is done in the bibliography at the end. For this author the bibliographic entry would be:

Postman, Neil. Technopoly. New York, Vintage Books, 1992.

Test your skill

You have been asked to write an essay on " Consumers and the Law". You have used the following materials:

1. An article in Choice magazine called "Consumers in law: your restaurant rights". It appeared in the March 1999 issue.
2. A video called "Contract law" produced by TV Ontario, Canada in 1996.
3. An article from the journal of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC for short) in the issue of December, 1997, no.12. The article is called "Consumer protection".