Referencing   Tags: apa, harvard, referencing  

When you use the words, thoughts or ideas of others in your own writing, you must acknowledge that person’s work by providing details of the source you used, otherwise you could be accused of plagiarism, cheating or stealing.

If you have been asked to provide a reference list or bibliography of items you have used or referred to in your research, you need to record these details at the time you use the resource.  Write the details of the books you use on any photocopies you make.  If you are making notes, write down where the notes were compiled from. If you have jotted down a statistic from a web page, make sure you make note of the web address and the date you viewed it. This will make it much easier to write your references when you are completing your work later on. 

You will need to become familiar with where to look for the information you need to provide in a reference or citation.  For example, with a book you would look on the Title and verso or imprint pages.  For more information on this, please have a look at the following tutorial from the University of Sydney Library.

There are many referencing styles that can be used.  These include Harvard, APA (American Psychological Association) and Footnote/Endnote styles (also known as Vancouver style). 

Wodonga TAFE uses the Harvard and APA referencing styles.  Referencing Guides give examples of how a citation should appear in-text and end-text (in a bibliography / reference list).  Below is a list of guides that may be useful...

A citation is an item in a reference list or bibliography. A referencing style sets out the format in which particular types of material should be cited.  As long as you are consistent with the format you use for each type of material, it is easy for other people who are familiar with the style used to know whether you are referring to a book or an article or a web page.   This means that others can identify the source and look at it themselves.

For example, the same citation will look different in the Harvard and APA Referencing styles:

Harvard:

Berkman, R 1994, Find it fast: How to uncover expert information on any subject, Harper Perennial, New York.

APA:

Berkman, R. (1994). Find it fast: How to uncover expert information on any subject. New York: Harper Perennial.

In-text referencing is "acknowledging the original author(s) at the exact point in your work where the ideas or words are used". (Wodonga TAFE, 2007, p.1).  For example,

The theory was first proposed in 1992 (Berkman, 1994, p. 58)…
OR
Cengel and Boles (1994, p. 76) first developed the theory…

• Direct quote: when you quote directly from the source, i.e. use the author's words.
• Indirect quote: when you paraphase the author's words by using your own words.

Wodonga TAFE 2007, Guide for referencing, Wodonga Institute of TAFE, Wodonga, Vic.

End-text referencing is "acknowledging the original author(s) at the end of your work, in your reference list." (Wodonga TAFE, 2007, p.1). 

• Reference list: a list of all the resources that you have referred to in your work.
• Bibliography: a list of resources that you did not refer to but were relevant to your research.

Both a reference list and a bibliography should be in alpahabetical order by the author's surname.  For example...

Berkman, R. 1994, Find it fast: How to uncover expert information on any subject, Harper Perennial, New York.
Cengel, YA & Boles, MA 1994, Thermodynamics: An engineering apporach, McGraw Hill, London.

Wodonga TAFE 2007, Guide for referencing, Wodonga Institute of TAFE, Wodonga, Vic.

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