How do I reference… interviews, surveys and questionnaires?
Many theses and internship reports will include some primary research, in the form of interviews, surveys or questionnaires. You may have carried these out yourself in the process of your research – or you may be referring to previous research done by someone else.
No matter who the author is, this kind of research has its own format for citations and references within your work.
Also, before you include such information, bear in mind that if you are referring to communications which are not publicly available, you must have the permission of the parties involved before you use them in your work.
All set? Read on to find out more…
So what do you need to include in your reference?
- Interviewee / recipient name (Surname, Initials)
- (Year of interview)
- Title of interview / survey / questionnaire if available
- Interviewed by: Full name of interviewer
- Day / month of communication.
Any what might the finished product look like?
- Bloggs, J. (2017) Management of absenteeism in manufacturing. Interviewed by: Fred Smith. 15 March.
When you cite from this item in your text…
Do as you would for any other item. Either incorporate the author and date into your text or add them within brackets afterwards – so (Bloggs, 2017) or any variation thereon.
If you have any questions about this or any area of referencing, please contact Kings Norton Library or MIRC.
Public domain image by Pixabay. Available at: https://pixabay.com/en/survey-opinion-research-voting-fill-1594962/
Thanks for this but how do you reference questionnaires with your chosen theories.
Hi Vera.
Thanks for your question. We would take the same template and simply apply it to the questionnaire. So it would become:
Respondent’s name (the person providing the answers) (Surname, Initials)
(Year of questionnaire – when it was carried out)
Title of questionnaire
Questions posed by (if you do not like ‘Interviewed by’): Full name of person who asked the questions
Day / month of communication (when the questionnaire was carried out).
I hope this helps. Please do contact your Library service if you have any further questions.
Thanks!
hi,
is this Harvard referencing?
Hi Sidath,
This is what we refer to as the Harvard-Cranfield style. It is based on the Harvard style but with some tweaks.
Kind regards.