Referencing in Essays: do’s and dont’s
Sunday, August 1st, 2010
How to reference in an essay
Referencing in essays is fundamental for achieving a great essay marking. As a student, you should learn how to reference essays properly. Unfortunately, not all teachers are willing to show you how to do it, since finding out on your own is part of your task. Don’t worry: here we will show you how to (and how not to) reference your essay.
Do’s
– Quote plenty of documents: When referencing in essays, you should always quote some bibliography. The best thing you can do is include as many texts, documents and testimonies, as you can, in order to show the examiner your commitment to your investigation.
– Copy every quote literally: You must copy literally every single quote, always mentioning the author, their work, the publisher and the year, as well as the page where they took the quote from. The idea is that the reader should be able to find the same quote as you, on their own, in case they wish to read a little further on the referenced text.
– Add a reference section: At the end of your essay, you should include a reference section: that is, a list of all the sources quoted or referenced in the essay. The proper way of referencing an essay is to arrange the list alphabetically by author’s surnames.
– Follow the rules: Referencing in essays should be done by following the rules for documenting sources used in a research paper given by the American Psychological Association. APA citation style requires both in-text citations and a reference list.
Don’ts
– Don’t avoid bibliography: Many students, in order to avoid referencing in essays, try to do without bibliography. The problem is not every essay type can skip it: a research essay, a critical essay or a persuasive essay, to name a few, should always be supported with some kind of quotations.
– Don’t constraint to one author: If you just quote one author, your essay will seem a copy of their ideas, instead of your own work.
– Don’t commit plagiarism: Referencing in essays is vital for avoiding plagiarism accusations. Quotation marks are mandatory: otherwise, you are just copying someone else’s thoughts.
– Don’t reference every document the same way: The way to reference is different if you are quoting from a book, a journal article or an electronic source. For example, if you quote a web site, you should always provide first, the title of the page and date of publication, followed by the organization responsible for the page, the date when you looked at the page and finally the web address.
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