Journals are excellent sources of research, as they are usually a professional, published piece of work that focuses on a specialised area of expertise. They are often peer-reviewed, however you should confirm this before using the source.
In-text citations
The rules for in-text citations for journals are the same as those for websites, so the ordering should be as follows:
- Surname (year of publication)
- “… (Surname, year of publication).”
Reference list
The order for the reference list does differ slightly from that used for websites. As an example, we use an article called ‘Prevalence and risk factors for carriage of multi-drug resistant Staphylococci in healthy cats and dogs,’ from The Korean Society of Veterinary Science: Journal of Veterinary Science. This article has all the information that we need to reference it, as well as multiple authors, so it is excellent practice for referencing a study. The original journal is included in the reference list at the end of this guide.
For journals sourced online, the following order should always be used:
Surname, initial, (Year of publication) Title. Journal name, vol. number, edition number, page number, date viewed, available from: <URL>.
Note that there are more than three authors for this online journal. When this occurs, you can replace all authors other than the first with the abbreviation ‘et al.’ to avoid listing multiple authors. Examples of how we could use this online journal with in-text citations are as follows:
Gandolfi-Descristophoris et al. (2012) investigated the distribution of commensal staphylococcal species and determined the prevalence of multi-drug resistance in healthy cats and dogs.
The presence of mechanisms other than methicillin resistance should be considered when identifying efficient control strategies against antibiotic resistance (Gandolfi-Descristophoris et al., 2012).
Using our example, you would reference your source as follows:
Gandolfi-Decristophoris, P., Regula, G., Petrini, O., Zinsstag, J. & Schelling, E. (2012) Prevalence and risk factors for carriage of multi-drug resistant Staphylococci in healthy cats and dogs. Journal of Veterinary Science, Seoul, Korea, 14:4, pp.449-456, date viewed: 23 December 2013, available from: http://pdf.medrang.co.kr/JVS/014/JVS014-04-11.pdf.