Personal Communication is information that you have received personally, and most importantly, will not be accessible to the readers of your work to access for themselves.
Personal Communication includes:
- Emails and text messages
- Online chats and telephone conversations
- Letters and memos
- Personal interviews
- Live speeches and unrecorded classroom lectures
- Messages from non-archived discussion groups & online bulletin boards
Basic information about referencing unpublished material:
- The two most common types of unpublished references are private communications and papers still in preparation.
- Private Communications include private letters, memos, emails, personal interviews, telephone conversations, and similar resources.
- As the private communication may not provide recoverable data, the private communication may be cited in-text only.
- If citing your private communication in-text only, provide the initials as well as the surname of the communicator, along with as exact date of communication as possible.
- Private Communication with recoverable, accessible data is recommended to be provided in the Reference List.
- Use your judgment in citing other electronic forms, like Twitter or SMS Texts, as Private Communications. Remember that what you cite should have scholarly relevance.
