The Oxford (documentary-note) system

The documentary-note system consists of the following elements:

citations in the body of the paper, using a superscript (raised) number, generally at the end of a sentence a list of footnotes at the bottom (foot) of each page, for all citations on that page. These are known as endnotes if they appear at the end of a chapter, section or other division (for longer texts, for multi-author texts and for texts intended to be read as separate parts) a bibliography at the end of the paper giving the details of each source referred to and possibly other materials consulted in preparing the paper.

Part 1 of this resource deals with citing sources in the body of the paper.

Part 2 deals with setting out footnotes. It gives examples of a range of common types of sources that you are likely to use in your assignments.

Part 3 deals with how to present the related bibliography entries for some of the footnotes/endnotes presented in Part 2.

Citing sources

Superscript numbers with corresponding footnotes should be used whenever information or ideas from sources are discussed. Sources such as books, journals, reports, newspapers, interviews, radio, television and information from the Internet must be acknowledged in text and detailed in footnotes. Information from Deakin study guides and readers must also be referenced.

Superscript numbers are generally placed at the end of a sentence or clause rather than immediately after the words to which they refer. However, where possible, they should be placed immediately after direct quotes.

Summarising and paraphrasing

Writers can discuss ideas and findings from sources by using their own words in summaries and paraphrases. Summarising is condensing a text; paraphrasing is conveying all the information in a short stretch of text.

When summarising or paraphrasing material from a source, a superscript number should be used as follows:

Spiro Kostof notes that Ggantija, on the Maltese island of Gozo, is the earliest true building type discovered.1

or

Ggantija, on the Maltese island of Gozo, is the earliest true building type discovered.1

Quoting

This is how a direct quote would appear:

Spiro Kostof notes, ‘Ggantija is a wholly manmade form, which is to say it is thought out and reproduceable. As such, it is the first true building type…’1

or

In terms of manmade buildings, ‘Ggantija is a wholly manmade form, which is to say it is thought out and reproduceable. As such, it is the first true building type…’ 1

If a quote is more than about 30 words long, omit the quotation marks, start the quote on a new line and indent the quote about 1 cm from the left-hand margin of the page. As for a short quote, a superscript number is used and a footnote is necessary to indicate the source of the quote.

Part 2: Footnotes/endnotes

At the bottom of the page you would have a short line separating the body of the text from the footnotes relating to the superscript numbers. (Many word processing programs have an automatic footnoting facility.)

The first time a source is cited, the footnote must provide full bibliographic details. The footnotes for subsequent references to the same source do not repeat all the details again but use a shortened form. See the section that follows on repeat citations.

Examples of first citations of common footnote types are shown below. (Endnotes have the same format as footnotes.) The examples are provided in a table format here for explanatory purposes. In assignments footnotes should be listed consecutively and not in a table format.

	line separating text from footnotes
S Kostof, A history of architecture: settings and rituals, 2nd edn, Oxford University Press, New York, 1995, p. 35.	book, 1 author
H Fraser & R Joyce, The Federation house: Australia’s own style, Lansdowne Press, Sydney, 1986.	book, 2 authors
FS Kleiner, CJ Mamiya & RG Tansey, Gardner’s art through the ages, 11th edn, Harcourt College Publishers, Fort Worth, 2001.	book, 3 authors
EH Gombrich, ‘The early Medici as patrons of art’ in EF Jacob (ed.), Italian Renaissance studies, Faber and Faber, London, 1960, pp. 279–311.	chapter in edited book
Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works, Proposed common use infrastructure on Christmas Island, Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra, 2002.	report, group author
RA Goldthwaite, ‘The Florentine palace as domestic architecture’, American Historical Review, vol. 77, no. 4, 1972, pp. 977–1012.	journal article
P Lawther, ‘Cost planning: is it sustainable income?’, The Building Economist , June 2003, pp. 4-12.	journal article
‘Federation Square: A tribute to the skill of the construction industry’, Construct in Steel, vol. 15, no. 2, June 2002, pp. 12-14.	journal article, no author
P Edwards, ‘Mud, glorious mud’, The Age, 20 October 2004, pp. 6-7s.	newspaper article, authored

Repeat citations

When a particular source is cited more than once in a paper, the full bibliographic details need not be provided each time in a footnote. It is becoming more common now to use the author’s family name and the page number, if appropriate, rather than the Latin abbreviations ibid., op. cit. and loc. cit. for repeat citations.

In footnoting a repeat citation, use the author’s family name and the page number, if the page number is different from the earlier footnote. (See 3 in the example that follows.)

If you use two or more different publications by the same author then, in a repeat citation, you also need to include part of the title to distinguish publications by the same author. (See 5 in the example that follows.)

S Kostof, A history of architecture: settings and rituals, 2nd edn, Oxford University Press, New York, 1995, p. 35.
M Levey, Rococo to revolution: major trends in eighteenth-century painting, Thames and Hudson, London, 1966, p.14.
Kostof, p. 63.	same as 1 but different page
M Levey, Painting in eighteenth-century Venice, 2nd edn, Phaidon, Oxford, 1980.
Levey, Rococo to revolution , p. 26.	part of title used to differentiate from 4; same as 2, but different page

Latin abbreviations

If you have to use the Latin forms, make sure that you use them correctly.

ibid. (ibidem, meaning in the same place) relates to the same work, cited immediately before.

(a) ibid can refer to the same page:

S Kostof, A history of architecture: settings and rituals, 2nd edn, Oxford University Press, New York, 1995, p. 35.
ibid.	same as 1 including page

(b) ibid can also refer to a different page:

S Kostof, A history of architecture: settings and rituals, 2nd edn, Oxford University Press, New York, 1995, p. 35.
ibid., p. 45.	same as 1, but different page

op. cit. and loc. cit. are used for works previously cited, but not immediately before.

op. cit. (opera citato, meaning in the work cited) refers to a different page of a work cited earlier.

loc. cit. (loco citato, meaning in the place cited) refers to the same page of a work cited earlier.

S Kostof, A history of architecture: settings and rituals, 2nd edn, Oxford University Press, New York, 1995, p. 35.
R Tansey & F Kleiner, Gardner’s art through the ages, 10th edn, Harcourt Brace College Publishers, Sydney, 1996, p. 29.
Kostof, op.cit., p. 46.	same as 1 but different page
G Daniel, The first civilizations: the archaeology of their origins, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1971, p. 67.
Tansey & Kleiner, loc. cit.	same as 2 including page

Secondary sources

Sometimes you may read one author (secondary, e.g. Brown below) who cites another author (primary, i.e. Smith), and you want to use what the primary author has said. You should cite the primary author using a superscript number in the ways already discussed. However, because you have not read the original source, in your footnote you must list both sources, as follows:

A Smith, Italian architecture, Penguin, Melbourne, 2000, cited in D Brown, Renaissance Italy, Faber and Faber, London, 2002, p. 45.

In your bibliography, if you are required to list only the sources you actually consulted and then referred to in your paper, only Brown, the source you read, would be listed.

Electronic sources

In the body of your assignment, use superscript numbers for electronic materials in the same ways shown earlier. In your footnotes, use the following formats.

For material found on a specific website:

Australian Bureau of Statistics, Building approvals, Australia, cat. no. 8731.0, ABS Ausstats, 2004, retrieved 3 November 2004, <www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/abs%40.nsf/mf/8731.0? OpenDocument>. For an electronic journal article found on a database: J Lobo, ‘Latin American construction at a glance’, Construction Review, vol. 41, no. 1, 1995, pp. iv–vi, retrieved 5 November 2004, Expanded Academic ASAP database.

(Note: To conform with agreed Deakin style principles, the word ‘retrieved’ is used in preference to the word ‘viewed’, which is favoured by the Style manual.)

Bibliography

The documentary-note system generally uses a bibliography rather than a reference list, but your assignments might ask for either. Note that there is a difference. A reference list consists of only the material you actually cited in your paper, whereas a bibliography consists of all this material plus any other sources you have read and believe would be useful for other readers.

In compiling entries for a bibliography (or a reference list) according to the Oxford system, take note that the order of elements, the punctuation and capitalisation are the same as for footnotes/endnotes, with two exceptions:

(1) The family name of the author comes before intitials in a bibliography entry (or the family name of the first-listed author, if there is more than one). However, in footnotes/endnotes, the initials of all authors come before their family names. (2) A bibliography (or a reference list) is arranged alphabetically according to the family name of authors. No numbers are used.

Examples of entries

Provided below are bibliography entries for texts commonly used by students in their assignments.

 

Book

Author, A, B Author & C Author, Title of book, edition number other than the first, Publisher, City, year.

Kleiner, FS, CJ Mamiya & RG Tansey, Gardner’s art through the ages, 11th edn, Harcourt College Publishers, Fort Worth, 2001.

 

Chapter or article in an edited book

Author, A & B Author, ‘Title of chapter’ in C Editor & D Editor (eds), Title of book, Publisher, City, year, pp. x-x.

Gombrich, EH, ‘The early Medici as patrons of art’ in EF Jacob (ed.), Italian Renaissance studies, Faber and Faber, London, 1960, pp. 279–311.

 

Translated work

Author, A & B Author, Title of work, trans. C Translator, details of the work as appropriate to its form.

Arakawa, Y, Zen painting, trans. J. Bester, Kodansha International, Tokyo, 1970.

 

Journal article

Author, A, & B Author, ‘Title of article’, Title of Journal, vol. xx, no. xx, year, pp. x–x

Goldthwaite, RA, ‘The Florentine palace as domestic architecture’, American Historical Review, vol. 77, no. 4, 1972, pp. 977–1012.

 

Newspaper article, authored

Author, A, ‘Title of article’, Title of Newspaper, day month year, pp. x-x followed by the letter ‘s’ when the article is from a special, independently numbered section of the newspaper.

Edwards, P, ‘Mud, glorious mud’, The Age, 20 October 2004, pp. 6-7s.

 

Group as author

Organisation name, details of the work as appropriate to its form.

Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works, Proposed common use infrastructure on Christmas Island, Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra, 2002.

 

Internet article

Author, A, Title of article, Name of site sponsor, year, retrieved day month year, <web address>.

Australian Bureau of Statistics, Building approvals, Australia, cat. no. 8731.0, ABS Ausstats, 2004, retrieved 3 November 2004, <www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/abs%40.nsf/mf/8731.0?OpenDocument>.

 

Electronic copy of a journal article, authored, from database

Author, A, ‘Title of article’, Title of Journal, vol. xx, no. xx, year, pp. x-x, retrieved day month year, database name.

Lobo, J, ‘Latin American construction at a glance’, Construction Review, vol. 41, no. 1, 1995, pp. iv–vi, retrieved 5 November 2004, Expanded Academic ASAP database.

Sample bibliography in documentary-note style

Set out below is a bibliography in the documentary-note style, listing the entries from the previous section. The list is ordered alphabetically by the family names of authors, with no numbers.

Bibliography

Australian Bureau of Statistics, Building approvals, Australia, cat. no. 8731.0, ABS Ausstats, 2004, retrieved 3 November 2004, <www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/abs%40.nsf/mf/8731.0?OpenDocument>.

Edwards, P, ‘Mud, glorious mud’, The Age, 20 October 2004, pp. 6–7s.

Goldthwaite, RA, ‘The Florentine palace as domestic architecture’, American Historical Review, vol. 77, no. 4, 1972, pp. 977–1012.

Gombrich, EH, ‘The early Medici as patrons of art’ in EF Jacob (ed.), Italian Renaissance studies, Faber and Faber, London, 1960, pp. 279–311.

Kleiner, FS, CJ Mamiya & RG Tansey, Gardner’s art through the ages, 11th edn, Harcourt College Publishers, Fort Worth, 2001.

Lobo, J, ‘Latin American construction at a glance’, Construction Review, vol. 41, no. 1, 1995, pp. iv–vi, retrieved 5 November 2004, Expanded Academic ASAP database.

Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works, Proposed common use infrastructure on Christmas Island, Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra, 2002.

Useful resources

Style manual for authors, editors and printers, 6th edn, rev. Snooks & Co., John Wiley & Sons Australia, Milton, Qld, 2002.

Back to Essay Writing...