Saturday 20 March 2010

ACADEMIC REFERENCING

HERE IS MY THREE STEP EASY FOLLOW GUIDE TO ACADEMIC REFERENCING:

THREE STEPS TO REFERENCING

STEP ONE :
DIRECT QUOTES: WORD FOR WORD TEXT TAKEN FROM SOURCES

If you take a direct quote from some text then you reference after the quote like this:

research from UNICEF revealing; “90% of the world’s wealth [is] owned by 10% of the world’s population” (Prout, 2005 p18)

The reference is the authors surname, a comma, followed by the year of publish, followed by the page number.

If the direct quote is sourced online then you reference like this:

there are key differences that give modern globalisation a “peculiar force” (Smith and Doyle, 2002, cited online).

If there is a page number (for example in a government report...then you should include this too as before.

GOOD PRACTICE TIP: Don’t lift huge quotes – better to put they key ideas in your own words...then attribute to whose ideas they are in reference.

STEP TWO:
NON QUOTE REFERENCING: INFORMATION FROM SOURCES WHERE YOU’VE USED THE IDEAS IN YOUR OWN WORDS:

This should be used much more than the direct quote. When you read information about a subject then use that info in your essay, you must say where you got the info from. You reference this like this:

This western transformation into what is seen as the modern view of childhood long preceded the process of globalisation (Stearns, 2005).

In the original text, Stearns is discussing the concept that the way we perceive children and childhood today is a notion that came long before any notions of globalisation. Notice that words have been completely changed; but they still mean the same and therefore are still Stearns ideas....so we must attribute this to him with the reference. This is done as before: the Surname is used, followed by the date of publication. Same rules as above apply if it’s sourced online.

STEP THREE :
THE REFERENCE PAGE


The reference page is a list of all the references that you have actually cited in your essay. It is listed in alphabetical order and can be in different styles, however - Warwick Uni use the style of Harvard referencing.


Using the examples above to start: this is how they would appear in a reference page:

Stearnes, P.N. (2005) conclusion from: “Change, Globalisation and Childhood” Journal of Social History 2005; 38; 4: 1041- 1046 accessed online on 3rd January 2010 from: http://0muse.jhu.edu.pugwash.lib.warwick.ac.uk/journals/journal_of_social_history/v038/38.4 stearns02.pdf

Smith, M. K. and Doyle M. (2002) 'Globalization' accessed online on 12th December 2009 from the encyclopaedia of informal education; www.infed.org/biblio/globalization.htm.

Prout, A. (2005) The Future of Childhood; Towards the interdisciplinary study of children, Oxon: RoutledgeFalmer.

REMENBER THERE ARE PROBABLY THREE SOURCES YOU ARE MOST LIKELY TO REFERENCE – YOU MUST LEARN HOW TO DISTINGUISH THEM SO YOU GET THEM RIGHT ON YOUR REFERENCE PAGE:

1. A JOURNAL: (LOOK AT THE EXAMPLE REFERENCE LIST above)

Stearnes (2005) is a journal. You always begin with the Surname, a comma and the initials (if there are more than two authors just put the first surname and the words “et al”.
This is followed by the name of the journal article, in inverted commas. Followed by the name of the journal, (Journal of Social History )the date of publish, (2005) the volume number (4) and the pages of the article you are citing: (1041-1046). All this info is available on the article and you can usually just copy and paste it. This bit is presented in bold and italics. Then you write the words :accessed online on [the date you accessed it] from: then put the web link to the journal. If you have accessed the journal from the library, you can miss the last bit off.

2. A TEXT BOOK

Again, the surname of the author comes first, followed by a comma and the initials (if there are more than two authors just put the first surname and the words “et al”.
Date of publish, in brackets next, followed by the title of the book – in bold and italics The Future of Childhood; Towards the interdisciplinary study of children,. Followed by place it was published Oxon: and publishing company RoutledgeFalmer.

3. A GENERAL (BUT ALWAYS CREDIBLE) INTERNET WEB SITE

Usually, you can find who the page is written by and when it was written (as in the example above) – so you just reference the Surname etc as before. However, if it’s a report from (for example: UNICEF – then you use this as the ‘name’ and follow it by the date of the report. Then you just put the title of the report or article and state the words: accessed online on [date you found it] from: web address.

2 comments:

PinkladyC said...

Brilliant help for us first years, as always fantastic help, thanks Jen x

Liz Foster said...

Jen, this is really useful. Very succinctly put! You should write the reference guidelines on the Warwick Toolkit :)