How to Reference an Ebook with the Oxford Referencing Style
  • 2-minute read
  • 8th January 2014

How to Reference an Ebook with the Oxford Referencing Style

When you reference an ebook using the Oxford referencing style, you must cite your source clearly so your reader can access it.

Oxford referencing uses a note and bibliography system, so make sure to include full information in both footnotes and at the end of your document.

Footnotes

When citing a source in Oxford style referencing, indicate this using superscript numbers in the main body of your text (e.g., 1, 2, 3). Each number corresponds to a citation in a footnote.

In the first citation of a source, you should provide full publication information. For an ebook, this will include where and when you accessed the source:

n. Author Initial(s). Surname, Title, Publisher, City of Publication, Year, Page(s), Name of Database/URL, accessed date.

For example:

1. R. Kelsall, I. Hamley and M. Geoghegan, Nanoscale Science and Technology, John Wiley & Sons Ltd., Chichester, 2005, p. 26, The E-Book Library [online database, accessed 16 February 2013.

If you cite the same source again, the footnote can be shortened to either just the author name and page numbers (for consecutive citations) or the author, a shortened title and page numbers for non-consecutive citations:

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1. R. Kelsall, I. Hamley and M. Geoghegan, Nanoscale Science and Technology, John Wiley & Sons Ltd., Chichester, 2005, p. 26, The E-Book Library [online database], accessed 16 February 2013.
2. Kelsall, Hamley and Geoghegan, pp. 32-34.
3. A. Nonymous, Another Book, Penguin, New York, 2002, p. 12.
4. Kelsall, Hamley & Geoghegan, Nanoscale Science, p. 2.

Bibliography

In an Oxford referencing bibliography, the entry for an ebook requires the same information as in the first footnote, but without the page number(s). The other important difference is that the first-listed author’s surname and initial are inverted so that you can order entries alphabetically by author surname:

Author Surname, Initial(s)., Title, Publisher, City of Publication, Year, Name of Database/URL, accessed date.

As such, the example given above would appear in the reference list as:

Kelsall, R., I. Hamley and M. Geoghegan, Nanoscale Science and Technology, John Wiley & Sons Ltd., Chichester, 2005, The E-Book Library [online database], accessed 16 February 2013.

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