It is important to learn the scholarly practice of citing other people’s research, and referencing the material you have used.
Referencing:
Enables your reader to find the material you have referred to
Demonstrates your breadth of reading about the subject
Supports and/or develops your argument
Avoids plagiarism: using somebody else’s work without acknowledging the fact is plagiarism. It is important to always reference when quoting or paraphrasing another person’s work
Introduction to ReferencingLearn what referencing is, why it is important and when you need to use it.
Avoiding PlagiarismThis course will help you understand how plagiarism is defined, identified and its potential consequences. It will also provide you with clear tips on how to avoid plagiarism and build good academic practice.
Harvard is a commonly used, flexible author-date style and which is the style often adopted by your department. There is no prescribed form of Harvard used across institutions, rather different institutions and departments within institutions specify their own form. The differences between various Harvard styles relates to which parts of the reference are put into capitals, brackets, bold and italics and the punctuation used. The order in which you cite the different parts of the reference remains the same.
This means that there will be slight differences between your department's version of Harvard and those that you may find elsewhere, on the internet or in generic referencing tools.
There are some published guides to help you with referencing using the Warwick Harvard Style.
APA
The APA referencing style is sometimes adopted by Education Programmes. Check with your tutor which style you should use.
APA uses an author-date format to identify citation in the text and full bibliographical details are then given in an alphabetical list of references at the end.
Useful guidance includes the following:
Quick Guide to APA Referencing (Library) (PDF)
Cite Them Right Online is the University of Warwick Library's new interactive referencing tool. It has rules and tutorials for referencing all major resource types across 8 major referencing styles including APA, Chicago, Harvard, IEEE, MHRA, MLR, OSCOLA and Vancouver.
Watch the short video to find out how Cite Them Right Online can help you.
To access Cite Them Right Online, click on Login > Login via your Institution > University of Warwick.
Referencing software allows you to manage references, insert citations and create a bibliography, in your referencing style. It can be useful for students writing dissertations and theses, as a way of storing references as you find them. However, it does not guarantee to produce a full accurate bibliography or reference list, so you need to build in time to check what it is creating!
EndNote
EndNote is the referencing software available from Warwick IT Services, and is supported by Warwick Library. Please see our EndNote webpages for further information.
