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Author-date (Harvard) Referencing Guide
School of Nursing & Midwifery Flinders University

Electronic Sources

Electronic Sources

Electronic sources include:

  • electronic books
  • electronic journal articles
  • CD-ROMs
  • World Wide Web site or page/s
  • document on World Wide Web
  • electronic databases, either on CD-ROM or accessed through the internet;
  • software
  • email
  • bulletin boards, discussion groups, listservers.
  • theses
  • email.

General rules for referencing electronic sources

  • The statement of availability
    Instead of publisher and place of publication details (which can be meaningless in an electronic context) provide your reader with information on how to access the electronic information. For a webpage this would mean providing a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) for the page.

    Dept of Health Studies, The University of York 2000, Centre for evidence based nursing, viewed 10 November 2004,< http://www.york.ac.uk/depts/hstd/centres/evidence/cebn.htm>.

  • Date of access
    Information on the World Wide Web can be described as dynamic. A document found today may tomorrow move to another address tomorrow, be substantially changed in content, or disappear altogether. Therefore, when referencing any source accessed through the web, always include the exact date of access. This covers you in case the information subsequently disappears.

  • Page numbers
    Unlike print sources, electronic sources often have no clearly defined page sequence. Hypertext links in a starting page can be explored in any order you like and a book that has 100 pages in print can be made to fit on one screen of a webpage (with a lot of scrolling involved). Therefore, the idea of page numbers to indicate both the point at which your piece of information occurs and the length of a document is meaningless in an electronic environment. Do not include them in your reference even if they appear on the page after printing the document. These are only printer-assigned page numbers.

    The only instance where you should include page numbers in a reference to an electronic source is when you are referencing an Acrobat document. You will recognise Acrobat documents by the fact that you can only read them by opening a piece of software called the Adobe Acrobat Reader. Acrobat documents (or PDF files) are photographic replicas of original print sources and come complete with page numbers. Many electronic journal articles and government documents are available in this format.

    Adobe Acrobat Reader software can be freely downloaded over the internet. (For more information see the Library's Adobe Acrobat link.)

  • The web page title
    The web page title is displayed at the very top of the screen in your browser's title bar. Always give what you see here as the title when referencing general websites (not electronic journal articles). Only use a title displaying on the screen if the title on the title bar is not descriptive enough, or reads as "untitled document" (which is what you see when the author has forgotten to name the page).

  • Determining the web page author
    This can be difficult, especially if you are referencing a page other than the front page or home page of a website which is where this information is usually found. To avoid making inferences that may be incorrect, you should only reference what you can actually see on the page in question. In other words, do not track backwards to find the starting point for the entire site.

    If you can't see the author's name, give the website title in the textual reference and set out your full reference following the instructions on Textual referencing.

  • Publication dates on web pages
    More often than not you will find a publication date on a print source. Websites can be more complicated as you may be given a copyright date, a statement telling you when the page was last updated, or there may be no date at all. Always give a last update date, if one is available, in preference to a copyright date as this tells your reader which version of the page you were looking at. If no date is given, use the abbreviation n.d. (for no date).

Electronic books

When referencing an electronic book include:

  • author(s)
  • year of publication
  • book title, in italics
  • edition statement
  • date of last update
  • page numbers
  • date viewed - viewed 6 June 2005
  • URL, or if from an electronic collection of books, include producer and collection name in brackets preceded by the word online e.g. (online OVID/Books@Ovid)
  • A book from the OVID Books@Ovid collection

    Wachter, RM, Goldman, L & Hollander, H (ed.) 2005, Hospital medicine, 2nd edn, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Philadelphia, viewed 8 December 2005, (online OVID/Books@Ovid).

  • A book on the World Wide Web

    Van Sell, S & Kalofissudis, IA 2001, The evolving essence of the science of nursing: a complexity integration nursing theory, viewed 8 December 2005, <http://www.nursing.gr/Complexitytheory.pdf>.

Electronic journal articles in fulltext databases & journal collections

When referencing an electronic journal article include:

  • author(s)
  • year of publication
  • article title, in single quotation marks
  • journal title, in italics
  • volume and issue number
  • page numbers (for pdf articles only)
  • the date viewed - viewed 1 February 2005
  • URL

See Capitalisation of titles for the rules on entering title names.

Please note that you do not give a URL (or web address) for electronic journals that you access through a commercial database or electronic journals collection. The name of the supplier and database or collection is sufficient.

Some of the more common electronic journal collections and full text databases accessible through the Flinders University Library are set out here with the name of their supplier (in brackets).

  • CINAHL (OVID)
  • Expanded Academic ASAP (Gale Group)
  • Journals@OVID (OVID)
  • Blackwell Science Collection (EBSCO Online or Synergy)
  • ProQuest (Bell & Howell)
  • AustHealth (Informit)
  • Cochrane Library (Wiley Interscience)
  • Science Direct (Elsevier)
  • A journal article from Expanded Academic ASAP

    Hines, SC, Moss, AH & Badzek, L 1997, 'Being involved or just being informed: communication preferences of seriously ill, older adults', Communication Quarterly, vol. 45, no. 3, viewed 4 February 2005, (online Gale Group/Expanded Academic ASAP).

  • A journal article from the Journals@OVID collection

    Mackenzie, D 1998, 'What's wrong with this patient?', RN, vol. 61, no. 9, viewed 20 January 2005, (online OVID/Journals@OVID).

  • A journal article available on the CINAHL database

    Ackley, N 1999, 'Is there a serious nurse shortage coming?', Texas Nursing, vol. 73, no. 3, viewed 4 February 2005, (online OVID/CINAHL).

    • If you accessed a database through the web (via the library) use online as the medium.
    • Include the date you viewed the item.
    • If you access it through a CD-ROM workstation use CD-ROM.
    • Use electronic as the medium if you are uncertain how you accessed the database.

  • A journal article abstract on the PubMed database

    Ray, MA 1994, 'Transcultural nursing ethics: a framework and model for transcultural ethical analysis', Journal of Holistic Nursing, abstract, vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 251-64, viewed 21 December 2004, (electronic National Library of Medicine/PubMed).

  • A journal article from the Blackwell Science collection

    Elliott, R & Wright, L 1999, 'Verbal communication: what do critical care nurses say to their unconscious or sedated patients?', Journal of Advanced Nursing, vol. 29, no. 6, pp. 1412-1420, viewed 9 February 2005, (online EBSCO Online/Blackwell Science Collection ).

    NB Page numbers are included in this example as the article was in PDF format (see Page numbers).

  • A Cochrane Review in the Cochrane Library via Wiley Interscience

    Hodnett ED 2005 'Support during pregnancy for women at increased risk' (Cochrane Review), (online Wiley Interscience/Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews).

  • An in press journal article available on the Elsevier/Science Direct database

    Zamudio, S, Baumann, MU & Illsley, NP (in press), Effects of chronic hypoxia in vivo on the expression of human placental glucose tranporters, Placenta, viewed 17 October 2005, (online Elsevier/Science Direct).

Electronic journals available on the World Wide Web

Some journals are available free over the web and do not need to be accessed through a commercial database (e.g. CINAHL) or electronic journal collection (e.g. Blackwell Science). All you need to access articles from these journals is the URL of the particular electronic journal. Set out a reference to such a journal article as follows:

Hall, W D & Wodak, A 1999, 'Is naltrexone a cure for heroin dependence?', eMJA, vol. 171, viewed 26 July 2000, <http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/171_1_050799/hall/hall.html>.

A World Wide Web page

Include in your reference:

  • author- the person or organisation responsible for the site
  • site date- either a 'last update', copyright date or n.d. if no date available
  • name and place of the sponser of the website
  • date of viewing the site
  • URL- found in the address bar of your browser

  • A web page with an author

    Florence Nightingale Museum Trust 2003, Florence Nightingale Museum website, London, viewed 10 November 2004, <http://www.florence-nightingale.co.uk/>.

  • A web page with no author

    When you can't determine the author(s) of a website, set out your reference as follows:

    Page Title, Last update or copyright date, name and place of the sponser of the source, date viewed, URL in angle brackets (<>).

Nursing theory 2003, University of San Diego, San Diego, viewed 27 December 2004, <http://www.ualberta.ca/jmorris/nt/theory.html>.

A document within a website

Include in your reference:

  • author, editor or compiler
  • date of document (the copyright date or date it was last updated)
  • title of document (in italics)
  • version number (if applicable)
  • description of document (if applicable)
  • name of sponsor of the source (include location if relevant)
  • date of viewing
  • URL (either the full details of the URL or the main site URL if easily found from the home page.

  • A document within a website

    Sladek, RM 2005, How to construct a search strategy, Australian Centre for Evidence Based Clinical Practice, Bedford Park, South Australia, viewed 6 December 2005, <http://www.acebcp.org.au/how.htm>.

  • A pdf document on a sponsored website
Maternity Coalition Inc., Australian Society of Independent Midwives, Community Midwifery WA Inc. 2002, National maternity action plan for the introduction of community midwifery services in urban & regional Australia, UMaternity Coalition Inc., Blackburn North, Victoria, viewed 7 November 2005, <http://www.maternitycoalition.org.au/THE%20FINAL%20NMAP%20September%2024th%202002.pdf>.

Email

In-text references to emails are treated the same way as personal communications. Generally there is no need to include details in the reference list except where it may be useful to the reader. It is essential that permission of the owner of the email address be obtained before using the communication.

Jones, A 2004, email, 20 January 2005, aname@department.gov.au.

CD-ROMs

Informational CD-ROMs are referenced in the same way as books except for the insertion of the CD-ROM statement after the date.

Bodyworks: discover the world Beneath your skin 1995, CD-ROM, Softkey International, Wimbledon Common, London.


If the information you are referencing from a CD-ROM has an author:

Rosen, M 1998, 'Marx, Karl (1818-83)', in Routledge encyclopedia of philosophy, CD-ROM, ed. E Craig, Routledge, New York.


If you are referencing one CD-ROM in a set of CD-ROMs:

Interactive Physiology 1999, CD-ROM, vol. 2, Muscular system, instructor's edn, ADAM Software, Atlanta, Georgia.

NB This is similar to referencing one volume in a multi-volume work (see One volume in a multi-volume work).

Electronic theses (Australian Digital Theses Program)

Follow the same rules for theses as detailed under Unpublished works.

Armstrong, KJ 2004 'Effectiveness of a pram walking intervention for women experiencing post natal depression', PhD thesis, Queensland University of Technology, viewed 6 December 2005, Australian Digital Theses Program, <http://adt.library.qut.edu.au/adt-qut/public/adt-QUT20040716.150516/>.

 

EMedia release on World Wide Web

Fahy, K 2005, Midwife-led birth centres are safe, media release, Australian College of Midwives Incorporated, Canberra, 26 August, viewed 13 December 2005, <http://www.acmi.org.au/text/media_releases/media_releases.html>.

or

Smith, JJ 2002, West Nile virus, humans-USA (Louisiana), ProMED-mail 12 July 2002, 20020712.4737, viewed 6 April 2005, <http://www.promedmail.org>.

Discussion board, newsgroups and listservers

Permission must be obtained before citing personal communications

  • author's name
  • email address or other identifying details
  • date of posting
  • title of posting
  • description of posting, discussion posting, listserver, newsgroup
  • name of list owner - listserver or newsgroup name
  • date of viewing
  • date viewed
  • URL

    Smith, J <name@uni.edu.au>2005, Critical thiking, discussion, 10 November, NURS 1508 Fundamentals of science in a nursing and midwifery context, viewed 10 December 2005, <http://webct.flinders.edu.au/SCRIPT/NURS1607/swcripts/serve_home>.

    Sims, L <name@uni.edu.au> 2005, Order out of chaos, listserver, 30 November, Association of Chaos Theorists, viewed 10 January 2006, <http://www.libz.sa.org.au/listserv/>.
 
Please direct all comments to author,
Deb Zott,
Nursing/Health Sciences Liaison Librarian
Flinders University Library.
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  • Updated: Tuesday, 20 October 2009