Referencing and avoiding plagiarism

Contents

1. Referencing and avoiding plagiarism
2. What is plagiarism?
   1. How to avoid plagiarism
   2. Examples of good and bad academic practice
   3. Activity 1
   4. Plagiarism of expression
3. Why you need to reference
4. What is referencing?
5. How to provide references 1
6. In-text citations (Author/date style)
7. How to provide references 2
   1. Footnotes, reference lists and bibliographies
   2. Activity 2
8. To reference or not to reference that is the question
9. Referencing: Think - Who? When? What? and Where?
10. Referencing books
    1. Referencing book chapters
    2. Activity 3
    3. Referencing eBooks
    4. eBooks: Finding the URL
    5. Activity 4
11. Referencing journal articles (print)
    1. Activity 5
12. Referencing electronic journal articles
    1. Electronic journals and Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs)
    2. Activity 6
    3. Referencing online reports (Government department)
    4. Referencing the Internet (webpages)
    5. Activity 7
13. Managing your referencing: EndNote
14. Summary

Why you need to reference

There are many reasons why you need to reference but they fall into 3 main categories: Legal, academic and practical. As has already been discussed the legal reasons why you should acknowledge your sources by referencing them are to avoid plagiarism.

• Plagiarism is the use of another person's ideas or work without acknowledging them. If you use a quotation from someone else's work or paraphrase (put their information in your own words) without referencing the source, this is plagiarism.

• The University takes plagiarism very seriously. If you do not reference the sources of information that you use in your work it is likely that you will get a mark of zero. You may also face disciplinary action.

The Academic reasons why you should reference can be summarised as follows:

• Often you will gain marks if you have used a wide variety of different sources to justify and support your work. If you find information from sources that you have not taken from your reading list/module guide then it shows initiative and independent thought.

• If you do not include the reference details of the different sources of information that you use in your work it will not be possible for a tutor to see what you have read and judge if it is relevant or if you have discovered it yourself rather than taken it from a course or module reading list.

• If you do not include references in your work you are likely to lose marks.

And the Practical reasons:

• The number of sources that are now available are increasing at a rapid pace. It is very difficult to find a specific source without knowing who the author is or its title. Sometimes several items have the same title, therefore more information is required.

• A reference provides enough information about a source for it to be located quickly and efficiently. This helps your tutors find the sources themselves.

• Referencing can also be useful if you need to find a source that you have used in a previous assignment as all of the relevant details will be available in the reference list.