• 3-minute read
• 19th November 2019

How to Cite a Conference Paper in Oxford Referencing

Conference papers can be useful when writing an essay. But to use a conference paper in your work, you need to know how to cite it. In this post, then, we look at how to cite a conference paper, whether published or unpublished, when using Oxford referencing in your work.

Footnote Citations for a Conference Paper

As with any source in Oxford referencing, regardless of the version, you will indicate citations with superscript numbers in the main text. For instance:

Usually at the end of a sentence, like this.¹

Source information then goes in a footnote at the bottom of the page. For published conference papers, the format is roughly the same as a chapter from an edited book. You would therefore provide these details:

^n. Initial(s). Surname, “Title of Paper,” Title of Conference Proceedings, Publisher, City of Publication, Year of Publication, page number(s).

If you’re citing an unpublished paper (e.g., from a conference website), though, the format is a little different. In this case, give the following information:

^n. Initial(s). Surname, “Title of Paper,” paper presented to Name of Conference, Location, Date of Conference, page number(s), database or URL, date of access.

Note that the conference name is not italicized (unlike the published proceedings). In practice, the footnotes for a published and unpublished conference paper would therefore look like this:

^1. E. James, “Coping with Shame,” Proceedings of the Canadian Shame Conference, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 2016, p. 34.
^2. J. Robins, “Regret: A Functional Analysis,” paper presented at the 23rd Conference of the Australian Psychological Society, University of Sydney, 24-25 March 2015, pp. 12-13, <https://groups.psychology.org.au/cnn/conference/2015/?ID=7857>, accessed September 29, 2017.

Repeat citations of a paper can then be shortened to prevent repetition.

Conference Papers in an Oxford Bibliography

If you cite a conference paper in your work, you should also include it in the bibliography at the end of the document. The format here is similar to the first footnote. For a published paper, you’d include:

Surname, Initial(s). “Title of Paper.” Title of Conference Proceedings, Publisher, City of Publication, Year of Publication, complete page range.

For an unpublished paper, the standard bibliography format is:

Surname, Initial(s). “Title of Paper,” paper presented to Name of Conference, Location, Date of Conference, complete page rage, database or URL, date of access.

You would thus list the papers cited in the footnotes above as follows:

James, E. “Coping with Shame,” Proceedings of the Canadian Shame Conference, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 2016, pp. 30-41.

Robins, J. “Regret: A Functional Analysis,” paper presented at the 23rd Conference of the Australian Psychological Society, University of Sydney, March 24-25, 2015, pp. 10-19, <https://groups.psychology.org.au/cnn/conference/2015/?ID=7857>, accessed September 29, 2017.

A Note on Oxford Referencing

There are many versions of Oxford referencing. All use the basic “footnotes and bibliography” format described above, but they differ on the details.

As such, you may want to check your style guide if you’re unsure about citing a source And if you need help checking the citations are clear and consistent in your academic writing, get your work proofread today.