So you want to be a smart-arse? Or have an assignment due in a few hours, yet have 1 book you cited from? Well don’t despair.
1) Turn to a page in the book that relates to your area or study. In this example, the page is on the Mujahideen. Herp.
2) See that reference number by the word or sentence? Well that means the Author of this book has cited from them. And so can you!
3) Make a note of the page number and reference number, in this case you don’t need to as the references are organized by Chapter.
4) Turn to the “References” page at either the end of the chapter, or end of the book and find the corresponding page and reference number. Here we go. The chapter on “Mujihadeen” and it was reference 31 we wanted to look at.
5) If you only see something like this…
Where the writing is either “Ibid”, “Op Cit” or just the Name of the Author with no name of a book then keep the surname in mind. Remember it!
6) Turn to the Bibliography page and look up the Author’s name, and then the book. correspond that with the page numbers on the original reference/footnote, and voila! The reference in this case, when complete, is as so.
So now you can see that in the original reference, the Author had actually got their facts/whatever from a book called “The Political Fragmentation of Afghanistan“.
Now you can reference the Author’s source and look as though you’ve done even more work! You can also use it to read further on in your subject area.
But what does “Ibid” and “Op Cit” mean?
I know Academics and Lecturers like to come across as Latin-speaking fuckers…and they do, so basically, Ibid is, simply put “As above”, so is usually put if the same work is referenced twice in a row. Like so:
You can see that footnote 23 was where the Author referenced:-
| Arthur Ruppin, “Die Sozialen Verhaltnisse der Juden in Preussen und Deutschland”, Jarbrucker fur Nationalokonomie und Statistik, vol 78, part 1 (1902), 383 |
So we can deduce from this, that the source was published in 1902, and that the page number in question is 383. Not all referenced will have “p.” for pages, y’know. Also I could have chosen a
much easier one, but I’m pretty baked so whatever.
Anyway, notice the “Ibid., part 2, 762” under it? Well that means the Author is saving time and from looking a dumbass by typing out “Ibid” instead of the long-winded, Germanic title of the publication, volume number of the work etc.
Op Cit means the work has already been referenced (or if you’re a Latin freak – “The work has been cited”), but not immediately above the work like in “Ibid”. In this case, you put the Author’s name and place/date of Publication as well as page number. It’s not that common so I have not got an example of it in a book, but all you have to know (until I get said picture) is that it will be like so
| Author, A., Op Cit, Publisher:Place (2000), pp. x – x |
You then look at the Author and go back in the reference pages until you find the book..
| Author, A., This is The Book Title you Student Cunt, Publisher:Place (2000), p. y |
What about “pp.” and “p.”?
Even I was confused by this and I’m more than halfway through my University life. Basically, “p.” means a page. A singular page. “pp.” refers to either 2 pages (eg. “pp. 100 – 1” or “pp. 100 – 101”) whereas “p.” refers to just 1 page (eg. “p. 100”)
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V 1.0 (as of 12/4/2011)
