Developing skills for the Extended Project Qualification
Activity 6: Producing a Bibliography
Teacher notes
Learning outcome: you will be able to reference sources used in your EPQ project and produce a
bibliography
In this activity you will learn how to reference the sources that you use in your research for your EPQ
project. The sources of information that you have used can be listed as a bibliography.
Student activity
To do:
Teacher Notes
For an article, a common format is:
1) Look at the list of references at the end of this article
about C4 photosynthesis http://intobiology.org.uk/c4-
Surname of author, First name or
initial/s (year of publication), Title of
article, Name of journal, volume
rice-the-science-behind-the-poster/. Examine how the
number (issue number), page
articles are listed, and produce a ‘set of rules’ for how
numbers.
an article is shown in a bibliography e.g.
N.B. this is different for a book –
which is: Surname of author, First
i Surname of author
name or initial/s (year of
publication), Title of book , Place of
ii First name or initial etc.
publication: Publisher
To read:
N.B. if referencing an article found
Information directly from a website can be referenced by giving
on a website this is not the same as
text taken from an information web
i Name of website/ author
page. Articles from the internet can
be referenced as: Surname of
ii Year of publication
author, First name or initial/s (year
of publication), Title of article, Name
iii Title of webpage
of journal or source as appropriate,
volume number (issue number),
iv Website URL
V Last accessed: <date when the website was last accessed>
Science & Plants for Schools: www.saps.org.uk
page numbers, the full URL of the
web page that the information was
taken from.
Activity 6 – teacher notes: p. 1
To do:
This is an opportunity to refer to
2) Choose an interesting passage from one of the Inspiring
plagiarism and how to avoid it.
Science articles on the IntoBiology website
http://intobiology.org.uk/. Rewrite the ideas in the
passage in your own words. Now write a reference for
e.g. Dr. Emily Trentacost from the
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
has genetically modified algae to
this (i.e. showing the web page it has come from) as if
produce higher quantities of lipids
you had included it in your project report.
that can be used for fuel. Emily and
her team did this by limiting the
action of lipases which break down
fat molecules. IntoBiology (2015)
Often, an author’s surname and the date of the publication
Trentacost, E, Fat algae fuel the
being cited are referred to directly in the text.
future, http://intobiology.org.uk/fatalgae-fuel-the-future/ Last accessed:
3)
Go to the Google Scholar website and
2nd July 2015
search for an article published in the past two years on
photosynthetic pigments. Find and copy a sentence
which includes an ‘in text’ citation of an article. Find
where the full details of the cited article are in the main
article.
A superscript number is inserted
where the article is cited (i.e. where
information from the article is used).
A list of the cited references is made
4)
Write a ‘set of rules’ for how you cite
and list references.
at the end of the main article. These
are in order of the citation numbers.
The format of the literature cited is
the same as in 1) above.
5)
In your group, compare the two sets
of rules that you have produced, for listing an article in
a bibliography and for making an in text citation.
Combine your ideas and then agree on a single pair of
protocols to guide you when writing up your project
report.
Further work
Students may read books, interview
experts, ask teachers questions,
Science & Plants for Schools: www.saps.org.uk
Activity 6 – teacher notes: p. 2
6)
List other sources of information that
you may use in your project. Find out how these can be
referenced in a report. Share your findings in your
watch videos and TV programmes
or visit museums. All of these
should be referenced.
group.
Reflecting on learning
Encourage students to compile a
Produce a table that links different types of reference sources
to the ‘rules’ for how to refer to these in an article or report.
Science & Plants for Schools: www.saps.org.uk
folder of useful guidance notes for
writing up their project report.
Activity 6 – teacher notes: p. 3