Your dissertations and some other pieces of work will include some primary research, which you may have conducted yourself, this may be in the form of interviews, surveys, and focus groups. Before you include such information in your work, you should consider that if you are referring to communications which are not publicly available, you must have the permission of the parties involved before you use it.
You should also check with your tutor about the most appropriate way to present the interviews, surveys and feedback in your work, for example including transcripts in appendices. For more information on how to create and use appendices please see our Appendices page.
If you are asked to provide a reference for this information within your reference list, please follow the format below:
As discussed by Participant A (2022) there is a need for...
There is a need for greater intervention managing waiting lists (Participant A, 2022).
INTERVIEWEE/OR ANONIMYSED NAME, Year [Title of interview, focus group or survey] (personal communication, day and month)
PARTICIPANT A, 2022. [Focus group on NHS waiting lists] (personal communication, 20th October)