WRITING REFERENCES

SOURCES IN FOREIGN LANGUAGES

Sometimes you will want to non-English sources of information to write a paper in English. When you do so, you have to be sure to write the references so they can be understood even by someone who doesn't know the non-English language. That means that titles and names of organizations should be translated into English. If the original names and titles are in a non-alphabetic script (for example, Japanese, Chinese, Arabic) the words should be romanized (written in romaji).　

Example 1:

Ookita, Toshiichi 大喜多敏一. "Taiki osen niyoru kenkouhigai ha itsukorokara houkokusareteimasuka?" 大気汚染による健康被害はいつ頃から報告されていますか？ ('Since when have there been reports of health damage from air pollution?').　From "Taiki nitsuite no kisochiki, Kankyougakushuu 2002 nenhan 大気についての基礎知識: 環境学習2002年版 ('Basic Lecture about the Air: Environmental Study 2002 Edition' ) Japan's Ministry of the Environment 環境省 <http://www.ceis.or.jp/kankyogakushu/kankyo/kisokoza/08/> Accessed May 7, 2005.

Sometimes it can be hard to find all the information you need to write the reference for a web page. The example can be used to show some strategies for finding the necessary information. There is no author listed at the URL above. To To find the author, you need to click on 「サブインデックスへ戻る」. You'll be taken to a list of the contents where you'll see the author's name listed: 大喜多敏一先生が答えるQ&A_. Clicking here gives you more information about the author.

Example 2:

Brown, Lester R. "Sabaku ha zenshinshi, bennmei ha koutaisuru" 砂漠は前進し、文明は後退する ('The advance of the desert and the retreat of civilization)　 Japanese edition by World Watch Japan. January 2004. <http://www.ecology.or.jp/wwn/0401.html>　Accessed April 26, 2005.
In this case, the author's name was spelled in katakana on the web page, but if the actual English spelling is known, it should be used. You can search for the actual spelling by typing the katakana name into a search engine, such as Google. Some of the web pages you find will have the author's name in romaji.

I will try to put up some more Japanese examples soon, but I hope these are enough to get you started.

Back to the References in English.