Referencing Sources
Advanced Higher English
Avoiding Plagiarism
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Your essay has to be your own work but you can
include quotes from existing materials.
Any source you refer to or quote must be correctly
referenced.
Every time you look at a source make a note of its
details, and the date you looked at it.
By doing this you know what you looked at when,
and you have a record of it for your reference list
and/or bibliography.
Your sources can then be easily found by anyone
who reads your work, so that if necessary they can
check them for evidence.
How to use your sources
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All information which is not acknowledged as a
direct quote should be written in your own words.
Rewording or summarising information from a
source and not referencing it is plagiarism.
At the end of your essay write a reference list
containing any sources you have cited in your text.
You could write a bibliography instead of a
reference list, this will contain all the sources you
have looked at during your research, whether or
not you have actually made use of information from
them.
Harvard Referencing
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For English you will be using the Harvard
referencing system.
This is the most common form of referencing
used for humanities subjects.
More information about the Harvard
System can be found at
http://libweb.anglia.ac.uk/referencing/harvar
d.htm
Citing sources in your work
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Whenever you refer to information from a source or
use a direct quote you need to acknowledge this in
the body of your work.
If you are quoting from a specific page or pages in a
source you need to include the page numbers as well
as give the author’s name and the date of
publication.
eg: Harris (2008, p.56) argued that “nursing staff…”
If you are refering to a complete work you just need
the author and date of publication
eg: In a recent study (Evans, 2008), qualifications of
school-leavers were analysed…
These citations will then link to the full details of the
source, which will be listed in the reference list or
bibliography at the end of your work.
Using quotations in your text
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Short quotations –up to 2 or 3 lines long,
should be in quotation marks in the body of
your work.
Longer quotations should be included as a
separate paragraph and indented from the
main text. For these you do not need to use
quotation marks. Just put the citation details
in brackets after the quoted passage.
What source information do you need for
your reference list/bibliography?
Referencing a book source
Find the information by using the title page and the back of the
title page – NOT the cover.
The format should be:
author/editor (year of publication) Title (series) place, publisher
Note: -if there is an editor rather than an author put (ed.) after the
editor’s name
Example of a book reference
Watt, Ian(ed.)(1986) Jane Austen: A
collection of Critical Essays
London:Prentice-Hall International (UK)
Ltd
NB – if this book had been part of a series
the series would have been included in
round brackets.
Web sources
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The most important details you need are the
web address (url), and the date you accessed
the site.
If the information is from an article within the
website you will need to try and find the
author and title of the article as well as when
it was first written.
How to find author
information from a web site
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Check the bottom and top
of the article to see if there
is an author’s name and/or
copyright details.
Click on the home page of the website and
read the “about us” section to see if you can
find a name.
Check to see if there are any references
within the article which might help.
Referencing a web source with
an author
Use the following format:
Author/editor (date written) title of internet site
Available at: URL (date accessed)
eg:
Richardson, H (14 May 2010)Universites say students
may face earlier loan payback Available at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/10115822.stm
(Accessed: 14/05/2010)
Referencing a web source
with an organisation as author
Economic and Social Research Council (2007)
Security and Terrorism in the UK Available at:
http://www.independence.co.uk/issues-online
(Accessed: 18 May 2010)
Reference List/Bibliography
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You do not need both – choose either a
bibliography or a reference list.
At the end of your work list all the
sources of information you have used in
alphabetical order by the author/editor’s
surname. Use the exact format shown.