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Referencing

Welcome to the Referencing guide

These pages bring together useful information and resources to help you understand and use referencing successfully.

Use the tabs above to find information about the importance of referencing, how to avoid plagiarism and how to correctly reference within your assignments. You will also find information about using Turnitin.

There are different referencing styles, so make sure you know which style is required for your course, and follow the guidance provided.

Mae'r dudalen hon hefyd ar gael yn Gymraeg.

Introduction to Referencing

All written work you hand in for marking must refer to all the sources of information you used when writing your assignment. This is known as referencing and acknowledges other people’s work and ideas that you used within your own assignment or research project. You must include details of all the books, web sites, images and other sources of information you used when preparing and writing your assignment.

Referencing shows that you have researched your topic and demonstrates your skill in gathering information, assessing its relevance, analysing, evaluating and understanding the work of others. Referencing gives credibility to your work and can lead to a better mark or grade. It also:

shows what you have read and allows others to identify the sources you have used
demonstrates that you have read widely and understood the topic
gives supporting evidence for your ideas, opinions and arguments
acknowledges the work of others
avoids plagiarism by making it clear which are your own ideas and which are someone else’s

By referencing the work of others correctly, you avoid accusations of plagiarism. Plagiarism is copying someone else’s work and pretending that it is your own; it can be deliberate or accidental. The only way to avoid plagiarism is to reference all sources of information used in your work. Examples of plagiarism include:

copying and pasting text or images from the internet without acknowledging (citing) the original source
passing off someone else’s work as your own
not putting a quote in quotation marks
quoting, summarising or paraphrasing other people’s work without citing the original source
changing words or phrases but copying the sentence structure without citing the original source
citing sources you did not use

Academic integrity means taking responsibility for your own work. To develop and produce your own work requires you to gather, understand and present other people’s ideas; you will form your own opinions and ideas based on the work of others. It is important to distinguish between other people’s work and your own, and correctly acknowledge other people’s work using the correct referencing conventions.

The intention of this guide is to present referencing to you in the context of understanding good academic practice and academic integrity. We want to equip you with the skills necessary to produce honest written work, and avoid plagiarism. Understanding how to use the work of others is a skill that you will learn in college and take with you into Higher Education or the workplace. With good academic habits and referencing skills, plagiarism will not be an issue for you to worry about.

Whenever you use an idea or someone else’s work, you must reference it in your assignment, e.g. books, journal articles, newspapers, web pages, videos, lecture notes, images, TV programmes, or any other medium you use in your assignment.

It is worth noting that not all ideas are considered to belong to others, and these are usually facts, dates and events that are generally known by someone studying in a particular subject. This is common knowledge and you do not need to reference it.

Plan your work so you have plenty of time to research, read and write; rushing to meet deadlines can lead to ‘short cuts’ and bad academic practice.

Keep a record of all the sources you read as you go along, (author, title, date).
If using material from the internet, note the URL and date you accessed the site.
When note taking, make sure you can identify your own thoughts and words, where you are recording direct quotations (and remember to note the page number), and where you are paraphrasing.
If in doubt, include a reference!

This guide lists the sources that you will use most frequently when writing your assignments. It does not include all possible sources that you may want to use.

Ask a Librarian for help with anything you are unsure about or contact us by emailing libraries@nptcgroup.ac.uk .

You should receive a library workshop session on referencing in your first year of college. You can also attend drop in sessions in the library or book a one-to-one session with an experienced Library Advisor. Further information is available on the Libraries Moodle page.

A referencing system or style is a set of guidelines to show you what information is needed in a reference and how you should format it, both within your text and in your reference list at the end of the document. NPTC Group mainly uses the Harvard referencing system:

Author-Date (e.g. Harvard): Author surnames and year of publication are given in the text and an alphabetical reference list/bibliography is given at the end.

Some departments use different systems:

Numerical (e.g. Vancouver for Computing and IT): A superscript number in the text refers to a numerical reference list at the end.
Footnote-Bibliography (e.g. MHRA for History ): A superscript number in the text refers to footnotes found at the bottom of each page and an alphabetised reference list/bibliography is given at the end.

Your lecturers will confirm which system you should use.