Referencing skills

November 2nd, 2009 by mcarrolo in Hints & tips, Links and Tools

Why reference?

One of the main reasons you should reference your material is to avoid plagiarism. Having the skill to correctly reference material when required will be of benefit to you when writing up academic documents

Referencing allows the reader to

• see that you  have made an effort to be familiar with and understand the data that you have used to support your document.

• see what information you have read and at what level. It also allows you to connect with the reader also allows you to participate  in the discussions among researchers in the field of your choice.

• locate the sources mentioned in your document. They may be interested in further reading themselves regarding the topic. It also allows the reader the ability to see whether the data has been interpreted in a satisfactory manner.

• to acknowledge that the ideas/thoughts belong to the person that first came up with them and that lack of acknowledgement amounts to intellectual theft

At Ultimo TAFE Library we have an interactive bibliographies page. You are able to enter the relevant data in a set of predesigned fields and it will generate a reference that you can simply cut and paste into your document. To use this inter-active guide, follow the link that best describes the item to be added to your bibliography

There are also guides that you can print out for

• Full guide to bibliographies
• Short guide to bibliographies
• How to do ‘in-text’ citations