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What is referencing?
Referencing is a way to demonstrate the evidence you have used in your work. You must reference material that you have paraphrased (summarized) or quoted in your work. Without referencing, you are at risk of committing plagiarism by passing off someone else's work as your own.
During your Applied Humanities degree, it is up to you to decide which type of referencing is the most appropriate for the work you are producing. Most often, you will use hypercitation.
For Psychology-related work, use APA. For Law, it is OSCOLA. You might also use Newman Harvard referencing. For a guide to these, go here.
When and why to reference?
Why reference?
Reference in order to demonstrate where your ideas come from. It shows your understanding of the topic and allows others to find the evidence you have used.
When to reference?
You must reference whenever you use evidence (ideas or material) in your work.
How to reference: hypercitation
Traditionally, evidence has been made available by referencing – either in text or in a footnote. This type of referencing originated in a time when all evidence was physical and the material produced was physical, too.
In the digital era, referencing in this way is outmoded, cluttered and often inaccurate.
It's important to match your references to the form of work you're producing. In some work, such as blog posts or anything that's online, you'll want to take a more pragmatic approach to ensure the evidence you use in your work is available. It’s called hypercitation.
Want to know more? Listen to this:
hypercitation.mp3What is hypercitation?
It is a method of referencing that makes referencing evidence in our work relevant, straightforward and digital. Hypercitation is an emerging tool. It’s also a skill that will prove valuable in your future career. You’ll use hypercitation when building a website, submit a funding bid or create a report.
How does it work?
Every time you refer to evidence in your work, you insert a hypercitation as a hyperlink in the relevant section. Hyperlinks automatically make the linked text blue and underlined, and they are easy to create.
What do hypercitations include?
Hypercitations are a way to link to the evidence you have used. If the evidence is online, most often the hypercitation will be a URL. For example this URL https://slate.com/technology/2014/02/citing-with-hyperlinks-academia-will-change-with-hypercitation.html is used in the first hypercitation example above.
If the evidence you are using is physical e.g. a book then the hypercitation will be created using the book’s ISBN. E.g. ISBN: 0335094821 OR the link from Newman's Library Search.
1. Using ISBN
Use this number to generate a URL by heading to https://isbnsearch.org/ and searching for the ISBN or book title. Once the book has been found, use that URL as the hypercitation. It should look something like this: https://isbnsearch.org/isbn/0374129290
2. Using Library Search
Once you've found the item in Newman's library search, you'll see a link to 'share' in the top right corner of the item's record. Click this link and you'll find a URL. Copy and paste this link and use it for your hypercitation. The link will look something like this: https://newman.on.worldcat.org/oclc/1084318402
Do I have to list the hypercitations at the end of the piece of work (as a bibliography or reference list)?
No: do not include items that you have hypercited in your work in this further resources. At the end of some assignments, though, you will need to include a list (show notes) if you've created an audio or video piece. This must include items you have used in your research and refered to in your podcast or video,.
When do I hypercite?
A hypercitation links your reader to a resource to prove your point. It demonstrates the basis of your conclusions and reliability of your work. There is no perfect number of hypercitations that should be in your work. Too many hypercitations and your work becomes simply a list for the reader to click through with no meaning or purpose. Too few and your work could be unreliable and uninformed.
Where in the sentence do I hypercite?
This is a decision for the writer. However, the hypercitation should be limited to a few words, not the entire sentence. It could be used on the author’s name, if you’re referring to that.
What is a good resource?
Hypercitation - like any other form of referencing, is about reassuring your reader you have produced a reliable resource. It’s about proving the information you’ve provided is of high quality. This means that the quality of your resource depends on the quality of the sources that you hypercite. What makes a ‘good’ or reliable resources is a judgement call. Some material - such as media organisations or universities or academic articles and books - have standards they are required to meet in order to be published. So you know they are reliable. Some resources are user generated - that means they are created by anybody and could contain absolute rubbish. Part of your role as a researcher is to discern the difference between a quality source and an unreliable one.
About plagiarism
What is plagiarism?
Plagiarism is basically academic cheating. It is when you've passed off ideas or words that are not your own, as your own. It can come in different forms, for different reasons:
- poor referencing. This is the most common reason for plagiarism. When you haven't referenced well enough or often enough, it seems as though you are passing off someone else's words as your own.
- copying your own work. This is self-plagiarism. Once you've submitted a piece of work for an assessment once, you can't submit it again. This is copying your own work: self-plagiarising.
- copying chunks of text from articles, books or websites. This is very rare but does happen occasionally. Deliberately passing off someone else's work as your own is the most serious type of plagiarism and can mean you fail an assignment, or in the most extreme cases you could be subject to a disciplinary panel.
- collusion. This is when you may work with another student and end up submitting work that is the same. It is fine to work together, even to read draft work and potentially to share a good journal article or book you've found. But you can't submit the same work as someone else - that is plagiarism.
Why does plagiarism happen?
There are number of reasons that you might not reference correctly. Most plagiarism is accidental. It does take some time to work out how to reference, so don't expect to get it right first time. If you're not confident in what you're writing about, this may lead to poor referencing. If you're in a hurry, and have not kept track of the information you have found and where it came from, this can lead to problems too. Lack of referencing can be because you have not researched or read about your topic enough.
Plagiarism is a serious academic offense, which makes it so important to reference effectively. To avoid plagiarism:
Understand what plagiarism is - knowing what it is will help you avoid it.
Manage the information you find in your research carefully, and keep records of where this information comes from.
Use this referencing guide - keep it open when you are working on your assignments.
Make use of the support available to understand referencing, including library workshops, learning support workshops and this guide.
What to reference?
Reference all evidence in your work that comes from another author or source. Common knowledge does not need to be referenced. You will use lots of different types of evidence in your work. This evidence should mostly include material found in the university library, including books, ebooks and journal articles.
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