Academic referencing

In this section, you will learn about how to include materials in your research, and how to cite your sources correctly.

How to include information

There are two common methods of including other people’s ideas in your own work: direct quotation and paraphrasing.

Quoting

A quotation is a word-for-word extract, placed inside quotation marks and followed by a citation. You may want to do this if you need to discuss a particular passage of text in detail, or if the original author’s exact wording is very important to their point.

Below is an example of a quotation:

“Referencing can be part of a range of writing issues that students find problematic, including paraphrasing and summarising, secondary referencing, and integrating their own ideas into assignments” (Neville, 2016:15).

The extract from the source is placed in quotation marks. How you present the citation may depend on the referencing style you are using but generally the citation will include three parts:

You should try to use quotations sparingly. If you use them too frequently it could suggest that you are over reliant on other people’s work and that you do not fully understand the topic. You should introduce a quotation by placing it in context and follow it with an analysis or discussion.

Paraphrasing

A paraphraseinvolves adapting something you have read elsewhere into your own words with a citation at the end. You might use a paraphrase where you would like to use a point made by another author but do not want to include a direct quotation. Below is an example of paraphrasing:

Referencing is just one of a number of possible difficulties that students encounter when writing academic work (Neville, 2016).

In this example the citation includes the surname of the author and the year of publication. As it is not a direct quote, there are no quotation marks and it is not necessary to include the page number.

As with quotations you should provide analysis or commentary on the paraphrase and make sure that it informs your overall argument.

How to reference

When carrying out research it is important that you demonstrate academic integrity. This means that you should use sources correctly and fairly.

Part of this involves avoiding plagiarism (ie presenting someone else’s work as your own). Although you might intend to use materials fairly, if you do not reference their ideas or words accurately you may be unintentionally plagiarising someone’s work.

There are a number of ways to reference materials. At the University of Leeds, we use the Harvard system. There are two parts this: an in-text citation, and a reference at the end of your work.

Citation

The citation is included in the main body of your text. It includes the surname of the author and the date of publication of the work that you are using. It is generally written after the extract or idea, inside brackets. If you are quoting, you should also include the page numbers.

Here is an example of a book citation:

Teaching “mediates learning, allowing students to acquire knowledge of someone else’s way of experiencing the world” (Laurillard, 2002, p.24).

Reference

A reference is provided at the end of your work to give further details of the material used. A reference includes the full title with other important information about your source, and should appear at the end of your work. You should include a reference for every item which you have cited. Order your list alphabetically by the author’s surname.

Here is an example of a book reference. The full reference includes the surname of the author, the year of publication, the title (in italics) followed by the place and name of the publisher:

Laurillard, D. 2002. Rethinking university teaching: A conversational framework for the effective use of learning technologies. London: Routledge.

The way you reference your source material will depend on the type of material you use. Here are some common types of sources and the format of their references:

Book

Family name, INITIAL(S). Year. Title . Edition (if not first edition). Place of publication: Publisher.

Journal article

Family name, INITIAL(S). Year. Title of article. Journal Title . Volume (issue number), page numbers.

Website

Family name, INITIAL(S) (or company name). Year. Title . [Online]. [Date accessed]. Available from: URL