Recording Sources

Recording your sources

You must always say where you got your information from, otherwise you will be guilty of cheating, or plagiarism (using someone else's work as your own without acknowledging it). Whether this is done deliberately or unintentionally, you will lose valuable marks and when you are in university or further education regulations are very strict and your work could be disqualified. Many universities and colleges put your work through an electronic checking system called turn it in, which checks your work against other published work.

At the bottom you will see an example of an entry in a bibliography (list of items you have read, used or referenced). While we are talking about losing points, missing commas or having your author name in the wrong place in a bibliography entry can lose you points. It's that strict!

Referencing direct quotes - Footnotes.

Whether quoting directly from a book or online source it is important to acknowledge who you are quoting and where you got the information. You do this by adding a footnote. Modern software packages make this quite straightforward to do. An example is Microsoft word. When using the referencing tool it adds the footnote number next to the quote and then directs you to add the reference to your source in the footer section of that page of the document.

Footnotes vs. Bibliography

EVERY report, essay or dissertation should have a bibliography which is a list of sources used. It is rare, but possible, not to have footnotes in every report, essay or dissertation if you have not directly quoted from something or someone.

Referencing ALL sources - Bibliography

When writing a report, essay, dissertation you will end up reading through lots of sources. You may not think you will use them all but something you have read may stick in your mind and you will want to use it. The worst thing would then be having to search through all the sources you have read to find the information you want to use.

Make lots of notes as you go along when you are reading about the subject. Make a note of the book or article where you have read something useful. Make use of the favourites button within your internet browser when you find possible useful online sources. That way you don't have to go back through your browsing history to find the source.

Examples entries in a Bibliography

Depending on the format of each source (book, journal, web-site, etc.), these details would include:

Book/Article

Author(s) or editor(s)

Year of publication

Title

Edition number, if it is a 2nd or later edition

Place of publication

Publisher

Example

NEVILLE, C. (2010) The Complete Guide to Referencing and Avoiding Plagiarism. 2nd edition. Maidenhead: Open University Press.

Online Source

Author(s) of the document.

Document title.

Type of medium in square brackets, e.g. [online].

Publisher may be omitted if the same as the author.

Available from: URL (www)

Date of access in square brackets, e.g. [Accessed 4 April 2014].

Example

BBC NEWS. (2008) Factory gloom worst since 1980. [Online] Available from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7681569.stm. [Accessed: 10th June 2012]

Have a look at the images below for a quick reminder of when and what you need to reference.