Referencing: What, Why and How
Referencing is one of the most common academic practices that students and researchers need to be familiar with.
Referencing is a basic skill required by everyone in academia.
When writing a research paper or an assignment your referencing skills shows your lecturers that you’ve understood the topic, used secondary research sources, and have academic integrity.
What is Referencing?
Referencing is a way to acknowledge the secondary research sources you have used in your assignment.
Referencing is used to describe the distinct sub-categories of citations and references.
Although the terms “citations” and “references” are related and are sometimes used interchangeably, they have distinct functions.
Citations are embedded within your document where you’ve used information sourced from other people and acknowledged it.
References describe the list at the end of your text that lists the full bibliographic detail of a source and allows the reader to locate the original source material.
Why is Referencing important?
The main purpose of referencing is to acknowledge the secondary research sources you have used in your assignment or coursework.
Referencing shows the contribution of other researchers and writers to your argument.
When you include consistent and detailed referencing in your coursework submissions it:
· Demonstrates good academic conduct
· Helps to avoid plagiarism
· Serves as a fact-checking mechanism
· Increased the quality of your work
· Allows other researchers to build on your work
· Provides a balanced argument and viewpoint
1. Good Academic Conduct
Referencing is mandatory for nearly all university assignments, whether it’s a literature review, poster presentation, essay, or research paper.
When you add references to your paper, you’re giving context to your work.
An academic paper with a lot of references will showcase how far and deep you went to gather your data.
Not only that but as previously mentioned, it lets you acknowledge other people’s efforts on similar topics, especially when you’re using some of their findings and ideas in your work.
2. To Avoid Plagiarism
It’s okay to include other people’s work in your paper, whether it’s a thought, idea, expression, or any original findings if you give them credit as a reference and cite them in your work.
However, if you were to take someone else’s work and include them in your assignment without referencing this is considered plagiarism.
Plagiarism is never taken lightly and is considered a form of academic theft.
Many universities will take disciplinary against students who use others’ work and declare it as their own without acknowledging the original author in the references.
3. Serves as a Fact-Checking Tool
In addition to acknowledging other people’s contributions to your work, citations also serve as a major fact-checking tool for anyone reading or assessing your work.
Whether you’re using data from sheets, findings from research, or any form of evidence or facts, referencing the sources of your obtained data will help in adding credibility to your paper.
It will support your arguments, since they’re based on other peer-reviewed papers and findings.
4. Increases the Quality of Your Text
When you cite several sources of your work, it shows the breadth of your research and studies in whatever field you’re writing about.
In other words, it shows that you have “done your homework”.
Showing you have researched the information related to your research question, whether you’re supporting other people’s claims, comparing them to other works, or even contradicting them.
5. Help Fellow Researchers Build on Your Work
While working on your paper or research, you might have gone through many sources to fully understand, compare, and assess the information that you’ve used to base your findings.
However, after you publish your work, some researchers might use your own work as a source themselves.
By citing your sources and listing them in the references and bibliography section, you’ll help fellow researchers to follow your research.
If they want to expand, they can put an emphasis on a certain part of your work or consult the source directly.
6. To Showcase a Different Point of View
Just because you’re including a quote in your work, doesn’t necessarily mean that you agree with it.
In fact, a lot of people will cite and reference certain elements from other people’s work to showcase why they have a different point of view from the one presented in such a paper.
How to Reference
A complete reference includes both an in-text citation and a reference to the full bibliographic information on each secondary research source mentioned in your assignment.
There is a huge range of referencing formats and styles that you could use.
Your lecturer will advise you on which referencing style to use when preparing your assignment.
However, there are general rules which apply to most referencing styles.
You should reference when:
You quote, summarise, or paraphrase someone’s work
You use any charts, pictures, or diagrams that are owned by someone else
When you include any of these points in your assignment or writing you must include a citation directly next to the mention.
In most cases, the citation will include the author's surname and year of publication. There must also be a corresponding entry in the reference list.
The entry in the reference list contains the full bibliographic information on the source mentioned in your assignment writing.
Together the citation and entry in the reference list complete the referencing activity.
Summary
How you incorporate the ideas, information, and data from other authors in your assignment has a direct impact on your grades and performance.
Failure to cite and reference your sources appropriately will have a negative impact on your outcomes.
Whereas complete referencing will enhance your assignment.
It is good academic practice to support your writing by referencing facts from statistical reports, studies, or research that agree with your views.
To further improve your assignment it’s interesting to include views that disagree with your position and create a balanced view of the published research on your subject area.
Through referencing you can create this balanced overview of the competing arguments relating to your research question and position your argument accordingly.
Referencing the other research in the field shows the foundations you are building on giving your assignment credibility and showing the scope of your research.
