Academic Skills Online

Referencing

Why do I need to reference?

You need to reference when you are: 

• directly quoting from the text of another work
• paraphrasing someone else’s work, theories or ideas
• using someone else’s work when you are developing your own ideas and arguments
• indirectly referring to the text of other works
• using film, images, illustrations, diagrams, tables or figures from other sources

See if you can work out whether you would need to reference in these common scenarios. 

How do I reference?

The basic components of referencing are: 

• In text citations: This is the way of indicating in your text that you are referring to someone else’s work.  The way you do this varies depending on the style you are using.  It may be the author’s name and the date in brackets, for example (Jones, 2012), or a number like this 1  or like this [1], linking to a footnote at the bottom of the page.

• Bibliography: This is a list at the end of a piece of work which list all the sources you used for your work and can include background reading that may not have been directly referred to in the text.

OR: 

• Reference List: This is slightly different from a bibliography in that it only includes references that have been directly cited in the main text of the work. Check your departmental guidelines if unsure whether to use a reference list or a bibliography.