What is referencing?

Referencing is the system you use in a university context to acknowledge other people’s ideas or research data. Most of the ideas on which your assignments at the undergraduate level are based, will not be your own ideas and it is an important part of university culture that you acknowledge the use of other people’s work by using an accepted referencing system. The fact that you use other people’s ideas does not mean that your work is not your own. What makes your response to a task unique is firstly, the particular ideas you select from the literature to use in your answer and secondly, how you engage with and respond to those ideas. If you do not provide references to the source of the ideas you have used then you are presenting someone else’s work as if it is your own. This is called plagiarism and is regarded by university academics as a form of cheating. Referencing can be divided into two parts which should be used in combination: in-text referencing and providing the full reference in a list of references at the end of your essay/assignment. In-text referencing should be applied to direct quotes from other people’s work, and to paraphrasing or summarising other people’s ideas. There are various different referencing systems (e.g. Harvard, APA, etc.), but for this course we want you to use ……….……. style (insert link to library referencing guides).

Read through the following pages from your set readings. Insert reading……….

Find and underline examples of direct quotes in the text.
Find and underline examples of paraphrasing and/or summarising in the text.
Underline three sentences that contain an in-text reference. Read the sentence and identify how the original ideas are introduced. What are the differences between direct quotes and paraphrases?
Turn to the list of references/bibliography in the text. How many different types of references (e.g. journal articles, books, book chapters, websites, etc.) can you identify? What are the differences between them in terms of how they are referenced in the list of references/bibliography?

Why is referencing important?

Referencing properly is one of the most important aspects of writing in a university context. This is not because universities have an obsession with process and structure, but because referencing is directly linked to the most important function of universities: to develop knowledge and understanding through research and public debate. You can only develop new knowledge about a particular topic if you know what the current knowledge is, and the only way of finding that out is to do research into other people’s writing about that topic. In short, writing at university is a process of building new knowledge or thinking of new ways of looking at problems or issues and communicating this to others. It is therefore also a continual process of discussion and debate in which all writings and opinions will be tested and subjected to scrutiny by others. This applies not only to what university lecturers do but also to what students are expected to do at university, and it makes learning at university quite different from learning at school or TAFE. In other words, you are not just learning to reproduce knowledge; you are learning to develop and build on previous knowledge. Referencing properly is vitally important in this process, because in order to critique someone else’s opinion or in order to agree with someone else’s opinion or findings, you first have to acknowledge and be clear on whose opinion it is, so that others who read your opinion can refer back to the original source. Referencing is the accepted way of doing this in a university context.

Quoting, paraphrasing and summarising

Read through the following excerpt from the course readings.

………………………..to be inserted

Write two sentences in which you incorporate a quote, followed by an in-text reference.
(Example: Kimmins argues that ‘………’ (2005, p. 20))
Write two sentences in which you paraphrase a particular argument or idea of the author, followed by an in-text reference.
Summarise the author’s main argument, followed by an in-text reference.
Provide the full reference that would go in your list of references or bibliography.

Plagiarism and collusion

Not referencing appropriately and consistently in an academic context is called plagiarism. This is a serious issue because plagiarism is considered ‘academic theft’. Acknowledging and engaging with someone else’s ideas is the fundamental basis of academic study and writing, because it leads to the continual expansion of knowledge. Passing someone else’s ideas off as your own undercuts that process. The same applies to collusion. Both plagiarism and collusion are very well explained with examples on the following USQ website:
<http://www.usq.edu.au/plagiarism/infostud/default.htm>.