Within the text
As we've said before, 'within-text' attribution tends to be used for key authors in your argument. Do you recall this quotation?:
"According to Henderson (1969: 25) 'Universities are the guardians of intellectual freedom and the search for truth'"

We can paraphrase this either closely, as follows:
"Henderson argued that the main role of the university in society was to preserve the freedom of the intellect and the quest for truth". (1969: 25)
or more loosely to:
"Henderson (1969) was among those who saw the role of the university as being very much a bastion of free speech and the free pursuit of the truth, wherever that might lead".

Outside the text in brackets
This style is used for authors who are less important to your argument. Also, if you don't want to give them principal credit for the idea in question, you can add 'e.g.' before the author's name.

So,
"Henderson (1969: 25) argued that ..."
becomes
"It was argued that ... (e.g. Henderson, 1969)"

Here you imply that Henderson is simply one of the people who held this view. This may have been the only citation you found, but you want to indicate that the position was quite widely held.

Last updated 03 March 2003