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Referencing and Writing

Citing References
Plagiarism
APA Referencing Style
Academic Writing at Renwick College
Writing Essays, Reports, Article Reviews and Annotated Bibliographies
EndNote

Citing References

Full documentation of your references is an essential part of any essay or research presentation you write. There are two reasons for this:

  • To verify your information.

    It enables the reader to follow up the source of ideas, interpretations, and information contained in your essay. Referencing enables whatever information you use to be independently checked. Basically if you say you obtained your information from page 187 of a certain text, then the reader should be able to consult the same page in the book to find the information or quote that you have used from that page.

  • To give credit where it is due.

    It is important in academic essays to give credit where it is due. Referencing makes it clear when you are drawing your own conclusions from the evidence presented, or where you are quoting or paraphrasing from another person’s work. There are many different styles of referencing - Harvard (Author-Date or AGPS), Chicago, APA, MLA, and Vancouver to name a few. Each of these styles subscribes to various rules for the presentation of intext references and bibliographies. Your Course Outline lists the style to be used within a subject. If not, check with your lecturer. Within Renwick College APA is the style used.

Plagiarism

What is plagiarism?

Plagiarism is:

  • using someone else's ideas or words without giving credit to the author
  • changing or rearranging words from a quotation and not giving credit to the author
  • not using your own words when writing your essay
  • not providing references or citations to the works you used and consulted

Why provide in-text references, citation (reference) lists and a bibliography?

  • To give credit where it is due
  • So that your work can be independently checked
  • To allow other researchers to quickly locate your source of information

When do you need to reference?

Reference whenever you:

  • quote the exact words of another's work
  • change the word order in a quotation from another's work
  • paraphrase (closely summarise) from another's work
  • use an idea that is directly based on another's work

What is a Citation, a Reference List, and a Bibliography?

  • A Citation or reference is where, written within your essay, you refer to a quotation taken from another source, or you paraphrase another person's ideas.
  • A Reference List is an alphabetical list of the sources you have quoted from (cited) in your essay
  • A Bibliography is an alphabetical list of the sources you consulted or read for your essay - books, magazines, newspapers, CD-ROMs, Internet, interviews, etc.
University of Newcastle Policy on Plagiarism

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APA Referencing Style

For detailed information on how to reference your research, consult the following:

APA Referencing Overview provided by Curtin University Library and Information Service.

Referencing using the APA System Learning Guide provided by Australian Catholic UniversityLibrary.

Bibliography Styles Handbook produced by the Writers' Workshop, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

American Psychological Association Website which gives information on general referencing and referencing electronic formats There is also software available for downloading, APA Style Helper, which you can purchase to automatically format your research documents.

You may also purchase the textbook: Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (some older editions available 4th ed. 1994) and new 5th ed. 2001, from the College Secretary for a discounted price or from any good bookseller. The Library also has available 3 loan copies of the older edition and a Reference copy of the later edition.

Academic Writing at Renwick College

The following notes are written by one our lecturers to assist you in your academic writing at graduate level:

General Information: Approach-Avoidance Thoughts
Review of the Literature
Article Critiques
Book Reviews

Writing Essays, Reports, Article Reviews and Annotated Bibliographies

The following additional learning guides are provided by the University of South Australia Library and present an overview of each topic area:

Writing Essays

Writing Reports

Writing Article Reviews

Writing an Annotated Bibliography - there are also Annotated Bibliographies in the Library collection on various subject areas if you wish to borrow one to view an example. Try a keyword search in NEWCAT the online catalogue, using annotated bibliography and restricting your search to Renwick College location.

EndNote 

EndNote can assist you in organising personal databases of searchable references, and creating in-text references and bibliographies for your theses and publications. Please consult EndNote Resources for more information.

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