- UNSW@ADFA students need to recognise when and how to cite a source of information correctly.
- UNSW@ADFA students need to ensure they are using the correct Reference Style for their School or Faculty.
That's Style!
One of our lecturers mentioned that all students in the course must use a specific reference style for the first assignment. We first-years looked a bit lost so he showed some slides illustrating the School's preferred reference style. He said that there are a variety of referencing styles such as Harvard, Oxford, APA, etc. and each School on campus may have its own preferred style.
He said that whenever we quote, paraphrase, summarize or otherwise refer to the work of another, we are required to cite its source, either by way of a citation in parentheses or by means of a footnote. He said that we also have to assemble a bibliography - a list of works that we have cited in our papers.
Our lecturer defined 'referencing' as a system that allows you to acknowledge the sources of information you use in your writing. He said that a feature of academic writing is that it contains references to the words, information and ideas of others. Referencing encourages you to cite other writers' ideas in your assignment, he explained, and that it's important to read widely and gather support from other writers for your ideas and arguments. So, whenever you use ANY words, ideas or information from ANY source in your assignments, you must provide a reference to those sources.
Our lecturer reminded us that the reader needs to confirm that an author has been correctly quoted and must be given enough details in order to check the writer's ideas against the references for accuracy.
OK, so now that I'm a bit clearer on why, when and how to cite references in order to write an assignment. I was telling PK, and he tells me there's more! He said that organising your thoughts and presenting arguments clearly and logically also plays an important part in getting that HD mark for any assignment, and that an under-researched and incorrectly referenced essay will be marked down. PK also reminded me about the online resources on citations and referencing that are available through the Academic Language and Literature (ALL) Unit.
