Referencing
Referencing – why use it?
The importance of referencing
To acknowledge the work of other writers
To demonstrate the body of knowledge on which you have based your work
To enable other readers to trace your sources and lead them on to further information
To avoid plagiarism
Tutors can tell when students have plagiarised work as the style and choice of words changes.
Plagiarism is easily avoided if you use references or quotes (see separate section).
Copyright law exists to protect people from plagiarism. This is why you cannot photocopy books, reproduce plays or music, or make identical designs to those protected by copyright without permission. Northbrook’s license allows you to photocopy pages of books and pictures for educational purposes, but you must acknowledge your sources by references within essays and a bibliography.
TIP - when you search for information in Discovery - you can find the Citation information by clicking on 'Cite' from the menu on the left - copy and paste the citation information into your assignment, or into a doc to save for later.
Every time you quote or refer to anyone else's words or ideas you must show who they are and where you found this information. This ensures that anyone reading your essay or assignment can easily find the research that you have referred to, and look directly at the source of information.
Harvard Referencing Guide 22-23.pdfThis handy guide gives detailed formats for citations, reference lists and bibliographies
Free referencing generators
You can easily generate references from a Discovery search using the Cite button and publications from our Library catalogue.
Neil's Toolbox is also a quick Harvard style reference generator.
Why not also consider using a free bibliography and citation generator like www.mybib.com to help create your references and store them for later retrieval.
Bibliography – list of sources used for research
Why use a bibliography?
If you use sources in researching an assignment or project it is important that you list them at the end of your work. This shows your tutor what kind of information you have looked at.
List all books you used; you do not have to read them all the way through!
List all sources, including magazines, websites, films, plays, TV programmes, lectures, newsgroups etc. Also include primary research such as exhibitions visited and questionnaires, e-mails and interviews done by you.
Keep a list of sources as you use them, it saves time later, especially if you have taken some books back to the library. Make a record of relevant page numbers in the margin of your notes so that you can cite them in your essay (see section on ‘referencing within the text’.)
The list should be in alphabetical order – by author’s surname.
The bibliography should go at the end of your work.
See How to Cite or for detailed information on Referencing (Citation and Bibliography) see the HE Study Skills Pack.
There is software available for generating your references automatically in the required style. For free referencing tools to collect and store your references, have a look at the links.