Referencing

Referencing your sources

Plagiarism: the representation, intentionally or unwittingly, of the ideas, words or work of another person without proper, clear and explicit acknowledgment.

Accurate and thorough referencing is paramount to a successful History EE. Referencing is a system that allows you to acknowledge the contributions of others in your writing. Whenever you use ANY words, ideas or information from ANY source in your work, you must reference those sources. This means that if you use the exact words of an author, if you paraphrase their words or if you summarise their ideas, you must provide a reference. Not referencing your sources means you may be charged with plagiarism and your work could be failed. (Source)

Why cite? (Source)

  • To show respect for the work of others.
  • To give the reader the opportunity to follow up references.
  • To help a reader to distinguish between the work of the creator and the work of others.
  • To give the reader the opportunity to check the validity of creator’s interpretation.
  • To receive proper credit for the research process.
  • To establish credibility and authority of own knowledge and ideas.

The IB does not prescribe a specific reference system, it only specifies that you have to be consistent in whichever system you use.

You have to get in to good habits straight away. Write down page numbers and books from which you get your sources. If you don't, you will only suffer later. Use a Word document, an online citation app, software program, Evernote (online note keeping) or keep a paper notebook with all your references. It's better to 'over-cite' than 'under-cite'. Keep track of your citations as you go, because having to go back and add citations later is time-consuming, difficult and annoying..... to put it mildly.

If you are taking photo copies from a book, always copy the inside page with the copyright information too.

Before handing in your work, submit it to Turnitin. Ask your teacher about this.

Two main systems of referencing

You have two options: inline citation (Harvard, 2016) or footnoting (1)

In-text citation

The MLA and APA styles require you to use in-text citations, which are citations placed in parentheses within the body of your paper. For example (Surname, 2013). Common in-text citation formats are MLA (Modern Language Association); which is primarily used for papers in the humanities and APA (American Psychological Association), which is primary used for papers in the social sciences. These styles are similar to Harvard referencing. (Source) If you are applying for an overseas university, it can be useful to find out which system of referencing they specify and use that style, it just gives you extra practice.

Footnoting

This system uses small superscript numbers which refer to the reference at the bottom of the page. Common names are the Oxford system and Chicago style. Other footnote styles are: Turabian, Vancouver style, IEEE and MHRA. Word can insert footnotes automatically. Your teacher will provide your with the style manual for your reference system. You will also be able to find a lot of resources online. (Use university websites!)

Citation wizards

It is a good idea to use a citation wizard or software, particularly for your first few references. Once you know how to construct a reference, you can do it by yourself. The advantage of a citation wizard is that the reference will be constructed following the rules of your chosen citation system, this is a good way to keep your referencing consistent. Remember, every comma, full stop and space matters. Don't forget the page numbers either.

  • http://www.citethisforme.com/ Easy to use. Make sure to choose your preferred style (default is Harvard). This site will "auto cite" websites and books. Sign in to keep track of your citations. The best style for footnotes is Turabian or Chicago, it generates a footnote entry and a bibliography entry.
  • http://www.bibme.org/ Type in the title of a book and it will create the citation from a database. Be careful though that you have the right edition etc. Also, it only seems to work with the bigger books. Never the less, it is a very useful wizard. Don't forget to choose the preferred style on the right hand side (MLA, APA, Chicago)
  • http://citationmachine.net The Citation Machine is simple and effective. Choose between MLA, APA (in-text) or Chicago (Footnotes), fill out the required info and the citation will be created.

There are many more citation wizards and your school may have its own preferred system (like RefWorks).

Bibliography

A bibliography is not the same as footnotes or in-text citation.

​You must provide a separate bibliography. For exact specifications, look up the style guide for your chosen referencing system (i.e. Harvard, Chicago, MLA, Turabian) for advice on how to create the bibliography.

Always consult your teacher for further guidance.

When do I need to cite my sources in my work?

Sometimes it can be hard to tell when you need to cite a source and when it isn’t necessary. The five points below can serve as a guide. If you’re not sure, it’s better to provide a reference than not. You won’t get in trouble for referencing something that doesn’t need a citation, but it could be a problem if you don’t reference something that needs to be!

  1. Quotations. Any time you use words taken directly (verbatim = unchanged) from a source, you need to provide a reference. Direct quotes should be put in “quotation marks” in the text and the reference should be put at the end of the quote.
  2. Paraphrasing. Sometimes you put something you get from a source into your own words, but the information or argument or idea is still something you got from someone else’s work. This is called paraphrasing, and it needs to be referenced just as a direct quote does. There’s no need to put the paraphrased section in quotation marks, but the reference should be put at the end of the section that you’ve paraphrased to indicate where that part ends.
  3. Summarising. Sometimes you summarise – put into your own words, shorter than the original – someone else’s ideas. For instance, you might summarise Greenpeace’s goals rather than describe them in detail one by one. But you still got the information or idea that you’re summarising from somewhere else, so it needs to be referenced.
  4. Some facts, information, and data. Common, generally known and accepted information does not need to be referenced (e.g. Christmas Day is on December 25th, the government is formed from the House of Representatives). But specific information that you’ve found in one specific location (e.g. poll results, or data about the voting support for a particular policy) does need to be referenced. This can be a bit harder to tell when it’s needed, so as stated above, it would be better at this point to be overly cautious and reference when it’s not actually needed than to not be careful enough.

Remember, anything you’ve cited in your work must also appear in the bibliography – but don’t include things in your bibliography that you didn’t actually use as a reference in the work!