Citing Saunders et al. 2009: Referencing Research Methods Sources

A methodology chapter cites its sources more densely than any other part of a dissertation, and the citations are checked more closely, because a marker reading a description of a model wants to know which version of it is being described. Getting the reference right is therefore not clerical work: it determines whether the reader can verify what you said.

This page covers the mechanics of citing a multi-author methods text, the reason the edition and year are substantive rather than cosmetic, and the two errors that cost marks most often.

The form of the citation

For a book with three or more authors, Harvard styles abbreviate in the text and list in full in the bibliography.

In text. The abbreviation et al. is used from the first citation: (Saunders et al., 2009). Note the full stop after al. and not after et, because et is a complete Latin word and al. is an abbreviation of alii. The comma before the year is required in most Harvard variants and omitted in some; the institution's own guide decides, and consistency matters more than which variant.

In the reference list. All authors are named, in the order they appear on the title page, which is not alphabetical and must not be reordered:

Surname, Initials., Surname, Initials. and Surname, Initials. (Year) Title in italics. Edition. Place of publication: Publisher.

APA differs in several details: it uses an ampersand before the final author, places the year in parentheses immediately after the authors, and applies et al. from the first citation for three or more authors. A dissertation uses one system throughout; mixing the two is visible on a single page.

Why the edition and year are substantive

A methods text is revised repeatedly, and the revisions are not confined to examples.

Models change between editions. Layers are renamed, categories are added, and diagrams are redrawn. A student who describes a model with six layers and cites an edition in which it had five has either used a different edition than they claim or copied a description from a third source without checking.

Pagination changes, so a page reference that was correct for one edition is wrong for another. Where a direct quotation is used, the page must belong to the edition in the reference list.

Author teams change. A text acquires and loses authors across editions, which means the et al. is standing for a different set of people in different years, and the reference list has to reflect the edition actually consulted.

The rule that follows is simple and is the single most useful thing on this page: cite the edition you read. Not the edition your supervisor mentioned, not the edition the module handbook lists, and not the most recent one because it looks current.

Secondary citation, and why to avoid it

The commonest failure in a methodology chapter is citing a concept through a textbook rather than from the work that introduced it.

Writing that research philosophy comprises positivism and interpretivism, cited only to a methods text, tells the reader that the primary literature was not consulted. The convention where a primary source genuinely cannot be obtained is to make the chain explicit:

(Weber, 1922, cited in Saunders et al., 2009, p. 119)

Only the source actually read goes in the reference list — here the textbook, not Weber. But the form is a confession as much as a citation, and using it repeatedly signals that the chapter rests on one book.

The practical standard: cite the textbook for its own synthesis, organisation and advice, which is what it contributes. Cite the original for any model, definition or empirical claim that the textbook is itself reporting.

What to cite where in a methodology chapter

Philosophy. Cite the primary sources for the positions themselves, and the methods text for the framework that organises them.

Approach and strategy. Cite the methodological literature specific to the strategy — the case study, ethnography or grounded theory literature — rather than a general text. This is where a chapter most visibly gains or loses credibility.

Technique. Cite the source of the specific procedure. Using a named analysis procedure means citing the paper that set it out, which is also the only way a reader can check that it was followed.

Ethics. Cite the institution's own framework and any professional code that applies, because these are the standards the work is actually held to.

Worked examples of the same source in both systems

The differences are small individually and add up to a visible inconsistency if both are used, so it is worth seeing one source rendered twice.

Harvard, in text. Research philosophy is presented as a set of nested choices (Saunders et al., 2009).

Harvard, direct quotation. The model is described as "a series of layers" (Saunders et al., 2009, p. 108).

Harvard, reference list. Saunders, M., Lewis, P. and Thornhill, A. (2009) Research Methods for Business Students. 5th edn. Harlow: Pearson Education.

APA, in text. Research philosophy is presented as a set of nested choices (Saunders et al., 2009).

APA, reference list. Saunders, M., Lewis, P., & Thornhill, A. (2009). Research methods for business students (5th ed.). Pearson Education.

Four differences are visible: the ampersand, the position of the year, the capitalisation of the title, and the treatment of the edition. None is optional within its own system.

Managing references without creating work

Reference managers handle the mechanics and introduce their own failure mode, which is worth naming because it is so common.

Imported metadata is frequently wrong. Publisher records misstate editions, capitalise titles inconsistently, and occasionally list the wrong year for a reprint. A reference manager reproduces whatever it was given, faithfully and across the whole document, so a single bad import becomes forty wrong citations.

The habit that prevents it is to check each entry against the book in hand at the point of import, when it takes fifteen seconds, and not at submission when it takes an afternoon. The fields worth checking are the ones that carry meaning: author order, edition, year and publisher.

It is also worth exporting the bibliography and reading it as text once. Errors that are invisible inside the software — a duplicated entry under two spellings of the same name, a missing edition — are obvious in a plain list.

Common errors that cost marks

Citing a year that does not match the edition. The single most frequent, and the easiest for a marker to spot, because the edition and year are both in the reference list and they either agree or they do not.

**Using et al. in the reference list.** The abbreviation belongs in the text. The list names everyone.

Alphabetising the author names within a single reference. Author order carries meaning and is fixed by the publication.

Quoting without a page number. A direct quotation needs a locator. A paraphrase generally does not, though some guides require one for a specific claim.

Inconsistent handling of the same source. Citing one work as (Saunders et al., 2009) on one page and (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2009) on another is not wrong in either instance and is wrong as a pair.

Citing a work you found only as a title. A reference to something never opened is the one error that is both undetectable in most cases and, when detected, treated as a matter of integrity, not presentation.

Listing sources that were never cited. A reference list contains what the text cites. A wider reading list, where one is wanted, is a separate section under its own heading.

Citing a model whose edition you cannot establish

A situation arises often enough to be worth a rule: the student has a description of a model from lecture slides or a summary site, does not have the book, and cannot tell which edition the description came from.

Citing it as though the book had been read is the wrong answer and is detectable, because a description taken second-hand usually reproduces the summariser's simplifications and not the source's own wording.

There are two defensible routes. The first is to obtain the book, which a library will supply, and cite it properly. The second is to cite what was actually read — the lecture, the summary, the article — as the source it is, and to say in the text that the model is being taken from that account. A lecture is citable: Surname, Initials. (Year) Module title, lecture notes, institution, date.

The second route is weaker and it is honest, and an examiner will treat a weak honest citation far more favourably than a strong false one. It also has the advantage of being checkable, which is the whole function of a reference.

A short checklist before submission

Work through the reference list against the text once, in both directions: every citation in the text appears in the list, and every entry in the list appears in the text.

Check that each edition number matches its year. Check that page numbers accompany every direct quotation and that they fall inside the edition cited. Check that the author order in each entry matches the title page. And check that any model described in detail is cited to the source that introduced it, rather than to a text reporting it.

That pass takes under an hour on a typical dissertation and recovers marks that no amount of rewriting will, because referencing is one of the few criteria on which a marker can be certain rather than persuaded.