Why we reference and a way to get it right.

There are a number of reasons why referencing is so important.

Referencing signifies to the reader that something (e.g. a quote or an idea) came from, or originally belonged to someone or somewhere ‘else’, other than you. In other words, references and referencing prevents plagiarism, which is really just a form of taking (or even stealing) someone else’s works, words, research, ideas or concepts and presenting them as your own.

References demonstrate and validate your research. They enable you to support, prove or strengthen your opinion, thoughts or arguments by showing how these are based on, formed by or related to other published works.

These aspects are important and there are specific conventions around referencing, especially within academic writing. However, there is another reason why reliable referencing is critical in all types of writing. That reason is to provide your readers with ‘a map’ or a way of tracking back to find original sources.

Putting aside the conventions of academic writing for a moment, let’s think about the workplace.

If you saw in a report or policy, words to the effect of “according to the law ….”, you quite rightly, might want to know which law, or what part of that law and where to find the original source.

Referencing and references serve to show the reader where things come from and how they can go back and find them or it for themselves.

It is helpful to think of referencing in this light because it then makes you consider;

“Could a reader of my work identify who said what about what or whom and can my reader go and find out where that was stated, based on my references (or map) in my bibliography?”

If they could not, your references need work.

Remember, you should have the author’s name immediately followed by (date of publication) within the body of your work, where relevant.

One idea to help you double check your referencing system is to highlight every author’s name in your document.

Then search for that name in your document and it should appear in your bibliography. If it doesn’t, then you are signalling to your reader that you are drawing on someone else’s work, but you are not letting the reader know where or how to find the original source. (You have not given them the map!)

I like to use a 2 colour highlighting system. I first highlight every name in yellow, often while I am still in the drafting stage. Then, I go back and change the yellow highlights to green when I know my bibliography clearly shows a reader exactly where to go to see the original source or find out more information.

It is true that secondary references can seem a bit more complex.

Let’s look at this example.

John Smith published a book called ‘A Good Thing’ in 2014. In his article John quotes Mary Carr’s previous work, called ‘My Story’ that was published in 1999. The quote is “Always do one thing at a time.” and it is on page 29 of John’s book.

You want to reference Mary’s quote, showing you read it in John’s book.

Here is an example of what you could write and how you could reference it.

Planning your tasks is important. As cited by Smith (2014, p29), Carr (1999) suggests in ‘My Story’, “Always do one thing at a time.”

Then in your bibliography you have an entry for Smith as it is his work you read, with a secondary reference for Carr, showing that while the quote comes from Mary Carr, it was quoted in John Smith’s book. The entries would look like this.

Smith, J. (2014). ‘A Good Thing’. Publisher or <website address> and date accessed (as relevant)

The above shows the book you read directly and even without a secondary source, your reader can tell by the way you wrote the quote, that John Smith was quoting Mary Carr, and John used Mary’s quote on page 29 of his book called ‘A Good thing’. But to really help your reader have a complete map, do a secondary source like this.

Secondary Sources

Carr, M. (1999). ‘My Story’. Publisher or <website address> and date accessed BY JOHN SMITH (if known or as relevant)

The above shows that while you did not read Mary’s original source work, based on hopefully good references by John Smith, your reader could track back and find Mary’s original quote in her own publication.

Another thing that is interesting and important about good references is it helps you and your reader check if quotes have been used appropriately and within context.

What if, what Mary actually said was “Always do one thing at a time, except for 24 hours before a deadline when you will have to multitask.”

Now, Mary’s quote is not so definitive, and the meaning has slightly changed. This may in fact better support your argument if your point was, sometimes you do have multi-task!

I hope the above explanation, examples and highlighting idea is helpful and has shown how important referencing is, not just because it is a requirement of our academic writing, but more importantly because your readers need the map. Your attention to detail within the referencing process will give them that map and enable them to track back and find out who actually said what, about whom and where.