Guidelines on Referencing Literature in Academic Writing
Guidelines on referencing literature in academic writing
Please read the following document very carefully. Students often come across problems when referencing literature in their coursework. Bad or inaccurate referencing affects the quality of presentation of the work at the very least, and at worst leads to accusations of plagiarism and possible failure of coursework.
Referencing well is important for the following reasons:
• acknowledging the academic sources you have used to inform your arguments
• demonstrating wide and relevant reading
• demonstrating how your thoughts contribute to the field and link to other research/ writing
• avoiding plagarism – inadvertent or otherwise
• contributing to a high standard of presentation.
These are all criteria on which academic writing is assessed.
Remember also that your references need to tally with the books / articles etc quoted in the bibliography and that your references serve as a route for the reader to follow up your arguments. The following rules are therefore designed to make that as easy as possible.
There are few basic and simple rules / principles to guide you in referencing in your text which are outlined below, with examples, all in a different font. (NB: the examples are not all real so do not quote them!!)
1. When do I reference?
When you are using ideas or information / data from the literature you must refer to the relevant authors. You need to do this EACH TIME you are using an idea from the literature you are reading. It does not matter whether you have referred to the author before, elsewhere in the text – each time the reference must be complete in line with the following guidelines. Otherwise you may be guilty, inadvertently, of appropriating someone else’s ideas, which counts as plagarism.
2. Referring to a work without directly quoting from it.
When you use an idea from an author, without using their own words, you need to acknowledge that author by
Please read the following document very carefully. Students often come across problems when referencing literature in their coursework. Bad or inaccurate referencing affects the quality of presentation of the work at the very least, and at worst leads to accusations of plagiarism and possible failure of coursework.
Referencing well is important for the following reasons:
• acknowledging the academic sources you have used to inform your arguments
• demonstrating wide and relevant reading
• demonstrating how your thoughts contribute to the field and link to other research/ writing
• avoiding plagarism – inadvertent or otherwise
• contributing to a high standard of presentation.
These are all criteria on which academic writing is assessed.
Remember also that your references need to tally with the books / articles etc quoted in the bibliography and that your references serve as a route for the reader to follow up your arguments. The following rules are therefore designed to make that as easy as possible.
There are few basic and simple rules / principles to guide you in referencing in your text which are outlined below, with examples, all in a different font. (NB: the examples are not all real so do not quote them!!)
1. When do I reference?
When you are using ideas or information / data from the literature you must refer to the relevant authors. You need to do this EACH TIME you are using an idea from the literature you are reading. It does not matter whether you have referred to the author before, elsewhere in the text – each time the reference must be complete in line with the following guidelines. Otherwise you may be guilty, inadvertently, of appropriating someone else’s ideas, which counts as plagarism.
2. Referring to a work without directly quoting from it.
When you use an idea from an author, without using their own words, you need to acknowledge that author by