APA 6th Referencing: Why Reference?

Why Reference?

By acknowledging the work of others, you avoid plagiarism. Plagiarism is where you either intentionally, or unintentionally, fail to acknowledge other writers’ words, ideas, or concepts, and/or claim the words, ideas, and concepts as your own and is a form of academic misconduct. When you are using common knowledge in your writing, e.g. the sky is blue, or the chemical formula for water is H20, this is not considered to be plagiarism.
 

How to Avoid Plagiarism

Following are some tips for avoiding plagiarism:

• Take careful notes of where you find your information and always acknowledge the work of others, whether it be be:
  • selections of text; quotations; graphics; tables; figures; graphs or diagrams; 
• Note down the details of any materials that you photocopy, print, scan, download or otherwise use for your research. These details should include:
  • Who produced the work, i.e. the author, designer (who)
  • When it was produced, i.e. the publishing date (when)
  • The name of the work, i.e. the title (what)
  • Where you accessed the information, i.e. the url for material from the web, or publisher details for print (where)

Plagiarism Checklist

• Have you enclosed all direct quotes in quotation marks and supplied the in-text reference? 
• Have you supplied in-text references for all ideas that you’ve paraphrased?
• Have you supplied in-text references for sources you have consulted to support your ideas?
• Have you included all sources you’ve cited in your reference list?
• Have you correctly formatted all your references?

Academic Integrity

All students need to show academic honesty by referencing correctly and avoiding plagiarism. For more information, see the handout and Academic Integrity site linked below.

Academic Writer: How to Avoid Plagiarism and Self-Plagiarism

Academic Writer