Student Guide on Referencing
Student Guide on Referencing
Referencing is to acknowledge all sources used in your essay. It allows readers to locate the sources of your research materials. It also helps preventing plagiarism.
Plagiarism involves copying or paraphrasing material from a source without due acknowledgement; using other’s ideas without due acknowledgement, or; presenting works of others and call them your own.
To avoid plagiarism, one should follow the academic conventions of referencing. Harvard Convention Referencing and American Psychological Association (APA) Style are the commonly adopted standards of referencing. The Harvard Convention would be introduced in this document. When preparing your own essays, you may consult your instructors for their particular requests.
It is worth noting that it is quite unusual to have an essay without any citations. This may reflect a referencing problem.
1. In-text referencing
In-text referencing is referencing within the text of your essay. It includes:
Direct quoting:
Direct quoting (or citing) is a direct transcription of the exact words from a source, and enclose within inverted commas (“ ”). For example, from Grüne (2004):
The formal results of revealed preference theory are rigorously proven; to criticize the theory does not mean to find fault with its formal results. As
Hausman (2000, pp.100-101) points out,
“to see how one can consistently deny that choices reveal preferences without challenging the revelation theorem[s], one must distinguish carefully between the theorem and its interpretation.”
As a general rule, direct quotes should constitute no more than 10% of your essay.
Paraphrasing:
Paraphrasing is a rewriting of the original words into your own, while retaining the original meaning. Take, for instance, an extract from Png and Reitman (1994):
Lott and Roberts (1991) mention service time as one of the dimensions on which gasoline stations compete.
For in-text referencing,
Referencing is to acknowledge all sources used in your essay. It allows readers to locate the sources of your research materials. It also helps preventing plagiarism.
Plagiarism involves copying or paraphrasing material from a source without due acknowledgement; using other’s ideas without due acknowledgement, or; presenting works of others and call them your own.
To avoid plagiarism, one should follow the academic conventions of referencing. Harvard Convention Referencing and American Psychological Association (APA) Style are the commonly adopted standards of referencing. The Harvard Convention would be introduced in this document. When preparing your own essays, you may consult your instructors for their particular requests.
It is worth noting that it is quite unusual to have an essay without any citations. This may reflect a referencing problem.
1. In-text referencing
In-text referencing is referencing within the text of your essay. It includes:
Direct quoting:
Direct quoting (or citing) is a direct transcription of the exact words from a source, and enclose within inverted commas (“ ”). For example, from Grüne (2004):
The formal results of revealed preference theory are rigorously proven; to criticize the theory does not mean to find fault with its formal results. As
Hausman (2000, pp.100-101) points out,
“to see how one can consistently deny that choices reveal preferences without challenging the revelation theorem[s], one must distinguish carefully between the theorem and its interpretation.”
As a general rule, direct quotes should constitute no more than 10% of your essay.
Paraphrasing:
Paraphrasing is a rewriting of the original words into your own, while retaining the original meaning. Take, for instance, an extract from Png and Reitman (1994):
Lott and Roberts (1991) mention service time as one of the dimensions on which gasoline stations compete.
For in-text referencing,