Skip to main content

All of your sources must be cited in a reference list, and you may also want to provide a bibliography. (Publications cited within your work go into a reference list; external resources not cited in your work go into a bibliography). CIBSE publications use the Harvard referencing style, as in the examples below.

Book

McIntyre DA (1980) Indoor Climate (London: Applied Science)

Chapter in a book

Rosenthal NE, Sack DA, James SP, Parry BL, Mendelson WB, Tamarkin L and Wehr TA (1985) ‘Seasonal affective disorder and phototherapy’ in Wurtman RJ, Baum MJ and Potts JT Jr (eds) The Medical and Biological Effects of Light (New York NY: New York Academy of Sciences)

Journal article

Nikolopoulou M and Lykoudis S (2006) ‘Thermal comfort in outdoor urban spaces: Analysis across different European countries’ Building and Environment 41 (11) 1455–1470

Online publication

NHS (2016) Health A–Z, Asthma [online] (Redditch: NHS England) (https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/asthma)

Conference proceedings

Godefroy J (2017) 'Procurement routes and building performance' (Session 1) Proc. Conf. Professional Practices in the Built Environment, University of Reading, 27–28 April 2017 (available at https://www.reading.ac.uk/web/files/architecture/Conference_proceedings.pdf)

Referencing the organisation rather than the author

If the author is named in the publication to be referenced, your reference should begin with the author’s name, not the organisation publishing the document. There are a few prominent exceptions:

  • the British Standards Institution
  • the World Health Organisation
  • the Official Journal of the European Union
  • the NHS
  • government departments
  • TSO (the Stationery Office)
  • CIBSE and its divisions (SLL, ILEVE, SoPHE, SDE, etc.)

These should be referenced as follows:

CIBSE (2020) Health and wellbeing in building services CIBSE TM40 (London: Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers)

With so many different types of publication being referenced, formatting can become complex; it can also add time to the editing and production phase, which can delay publication. Several referencing programs are available – Endnote, Mandalay, etc. – and using one of these from the earliest stages of the authoring process could save a great deal of time later. If you are not familiar with any of these, Microsoft Word also provides a helpful referencing function; there is more detail about this in the next section.

Share this page