LibAnswers: Referencing

A personal communication can be a letter, memo, email, fax, interview, informal conversation, telephone call. (Some faculties do not permit lecture notes to be included as references.) They should be included within the text but not in the reference list as the reference is not traceable.

When referencing a personal communication, you should always ask permission of the person before quoting them.

In-text citation

Provide the communicator’s surname and year in the text.

Example

This was disputed by Walters (2018).

Reference list

Include the following:

Communicator’s name (Year) Medium of communication Receiver of communication, Day/month of communication

Example

Walters, F. (2018) Conversation with John Stephens, 13 August.

More examples (you will need to login with your single sign-on)

lecture presentations

In-text citation

Provide the lecturer/speaker’s name and year in the text

Example

Points of interest from the lectures (Brown, 2018) ...

Reference list

Include the following:

Lecturer/speaker name (Year) ‘Title of lecture’ [Medium] Module code: module title. Institution or venue. Day/month.

Example

Brown, T. (2018) ‘Contemporary furniture’ [Lecture]. DE816: Interior Design. Northumbria University. 21 April.

Further information (you will need to login with your single sign-on)