Top Referencing Tips
By Shalini from the Library Student Team
Introduction
Referencing is one important skill that you will pick up in university. It is essential for you to reference all your work accurately so that you are not plagiarising. Although plagiarism is a severe offence, you should not be too worried about it. Our Top Tips will ensure that you master this concept in no time!
Top Tip 1: Know the difference between a citation and a reference
A citation is a specific source that you mention in the body of your paper.
Based on the citation style that you use (e.g. APA) and how you reference the citation in your work, the format of the citation may differ. Even so, the foundations of the citation that should be included are: name of the author(s), year of publication and page number or range. If you extract from another work word-for-word, it is compulsory that you include the specific page number in your citation or it would be inadequate.
References, on the other hand are a list of the sources you have cited.
They should be listed at the end of your work and readers of your paper should be able to go back to the source from your reference. References act as a trail that readers can follow to head to the original paper.
Top Tip 2: A bibliography includes all the sources you consulted with
While it is similar to references, a bibliography should include any of the sources that you used to come your conclusion, even if you didn’t directly mention the source in your paper. Your background reading on the subject matter, any academic or non-academic sources like websites and news articles, should also be in your bibliography if they helped shape your thinking.
Top Tip 3: Keep your routine clean and tidy! Note down bibliographic information as you do your research
As you do your research, note down all your references so that you don’t lose them later on. This saves a huge amount of time and it also ensures that your sources are diversified and unbiased so that your argument is rational.
Top Tip 4: Use a reference management software (e.g. CiteReady) to format your in-text citations and references with a specific style.
With a tool like CiteReady, you will not have to worry about any citation mistakes. Just pick a referencing style and the software will do the job for you. From generating citations and reference lists to saving links and bibliographic data, CiteReady will ensure that everything is saved and in place.
Top Tip 5: Make sure to proofread! Not just the body of the paper but also your references.
Comprehensive proofreading will ensure that you pick out the tiniest blunder and it can change your essay results from A to A plus! Minor issures like grammar, formatting and structure are really important, in both your body text and in your references.
Conclusion
Keep these tips in your back pocket for your next essay—they’ll make referencing a breeze! If you would like to reference with ease, check out the super helpful citation tool, CiteReady.
If you’re juggling multiple assignments or working on a major research paper, CiteReady can help you automatically generate citations in your chosen style, manage large volumes of sources across multiple projects and collaborate more efficiently with consistent referencing.
With CiteReady, referencing becomes less of a chore and more of a seamless part of your writing process. Give CiteReady a try on your next paper and feel the difference!