Academic books are also called monographs. They communicate a series of ideas around a single theme and, usually, comprise chapters. Non-fiction works summarise a field of research and communicate new and innovative contributions or insights. There may be one or many authors, who may share ownership or put their name to certain chapters.  Books are often around 50 - 80,000 words in length. They are available in print and/or online.

The reference should include the following information, though possibly in a different order and with different punctuation: 

• Author. (date) Title.  Place of publication: Publisher.
• e.g. Cottrell, S. (2013) The study skills handbook.  Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

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An edited book is a collection of chapters written by several authors and compiled and commissioned by one or more editors who have oversight to ensure that the book retains a narrative.

 

The reference for an edited book looks a bit different. Please note that you need to search for the BOOK title (in italics in this case) and not the chapter title in iDiscover.

• Author. (date) Title of chapter. In Editors, Title. Place of publication: Publisher. Pages.
• Christians, C. G. (2011). Ethics and politics in qualitative research. In Denzin, N., & Lincoln, Y. (eds.) The Sage handbook of qualitative research. Thousand Oaks: Sage. pp. 133-155. 

 

E-books (or electronic books) come in a variety of formats. Often they are more than just the full-text online, but include additional features such as full text searching, highlighting, the ability to add notes and bookmark sections. You often 'borrow' ebooks in the same way that you borrow a print work; you have access for a limited period and only a fixed number of students may consult the book at any one time. Occasionally you can download the text or a chapter. Sometimes this is yours to keep or it may disappear from desktop after a set period of time. You will get to know how different publishers and ebook platforms work throughout the course of your studies. You definitely benefit from the majority being accessible round the clock, wherever you are in the world. There are some ebooks you will come across on the Cambridge libraries catalogue, iDiscover, which can only be accessed on certain computers in certain libraries.

 

The reference for an e-book may, or may not, reveal its online nature. The text of an ebook will be identical to the print version and so the reference can look the same. However, sometimes academic staff may make it clear by writing [Online] next to the title in the list of references.

• e.g. Ball, P. (2004) The Elements: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford; Oxford University Press) [online]

Many ebook platforms will provide you with a reference to copy and paste or download. This will include standard bibliographic information but possibly also a URL, doi (a unique identifier that will link to the resource even if a URL changes) and date accessed.

• e.g. Ball, Philip, The Elements: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2004; online edn, Very Short Introductions online, Apr. 2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780192840998.001.0001, accessed 25 Jan. 2019.

Please note that this may be in a different style to the one you are used to using and you may need to edit it so that matches the rest of your references.

These are shorter works that communicate new research findings. A researcher submits an article on a particular topic to a journal which often publishes on a sub-discipline of a subject area, though there are some overarching journal titles. The article is peer reviewed by other researchers who work on similar topics. If they and the journal editors feel it is of high enough quality and relevance to the journal, they will publish it in an issue. Each issue will have a limited number of articles in it, up to about 20. Each article is distinct from the others, unless it appears in a 'special issue' with articles grouped around a theme. Typically around 8-12 000 words, articles are more specific than books and so are useful in attending to a particular question, but less relevant if you want an overview or in depth exploration of a subject. Generally you'll find that these are available only online, although the university still subscribes to some print versions.

Search by article title to get straight to the resource. A search for the journal title will return everything ever published under that name. iDiscover contains lots of journal articles but not everything, so you should also consult our databases to find out more.

• Author(s). (Date). Article title. Journal Title, Volume (Issue), Pages.
• Häfner, A., Oberst, V., & Stock. (2014). Avoiding procrastination through time management: An experimental intervention study. Educational Studies, 40(3), 352-360.

You'll also be encouraged to consult primary sources, conference papers, legal cases, reports, news items and other forms of literature, depending on your subject area.